Masques des hommes, visages des dieux

Description

A fascinating study of the significance of masks in indigenous Amazonian societies The book Power games and cross-dressing, experiments with the gaze of the other, symbolic transfigurations, ancestor worship, relationships with the animal world: the use of masks is a powerful indicator of the traditions that govern the organisation of indigenous societies. Having travelled to meet the Indians of the Amazon, the anthropologists brought together in this volume question the meaning of these masquerades, which play a role in political decisions, ensure the continuity of knowledge, welcome children at birth and enable them to become adults. The mask can represent a natural force of divine origin, a healer, a spirit, or an ancestor who returns to bless or punish. The materials used to make it reveal a powerful creative imagination: bark as a doubling of skin, clay as a covering, or even as an enclosure for souls.

'Unmasking the masks': to borrow Levi-Strauss's injunction, this is the ambition of this study, which profoundly renews our knowledge of the Indians of the Amazon and, by questioning the play of appearances, interrogates humanity as a whole.

The editors of the book: Dimitri Karadimas is a researcher at the Collège de France's social anthropology laboratory; Jean-Pierre Goulard is a researcher at the Centre for Teaching and Research in Amerindian Ethnology (ERA, Villejuif).