Arctic/Amazon

Before colonization and the adoption of European languages and ideas, many Indigenous cultures did not have a particular word to designate art as a separate sphere of creative life. Everywhere there are original images, objects, shapes, sounds and body movements. These are created individually and collectively, learned and taught, exhibited, critically apprehended, and admired. Art is used by colonizers as a form of gatekeeping, to devalue the unique expressions of dynamic Indigenous peoples and to deny their creativity.   

In Amerindian languages many words can be translated into English as “art,” but their meaning broadens the idea in the strictly Western sense, which in itself is a relatively recent linguistic construct. Most of these words are descriptive terms about their abilities, their material culture, creativity, visual knowledge and aesthetic structures. Yet all of them refer to aspects of the world and life that the Western idea of art would exclude from its limited scope and domain.

The Huni Kuin, who live within the Amazonian regions of Brazil and Peru, use the word mimaxarabu to refer to collective material production, whereas kené (a word present in Shipibo Konibo language as well) can be understood as “drawing.” The word dami can be translated into English as “image.” For the Tukano people, whose lands stretch from Colombia to Brazil, “hóri” designates the visions attained through traditional shamanic rituals and refers to the imagery and ornamentation applied on basketry, pottery, weaving and special and powerful wooden stools. For the Marubo people, mev-revos-shovima-awe, one of the words that can be used in translation for “art,” means work that emerges from the tip of the fingers. Dzee’ka is a term used by the Baniwa people to characterize the knowledge and ability to create something that is exclusively human made. 

There are many ways in which Indigenous creations are evaluated, criticized, praised and valued within the logic and taste of their own cultures. The idea of beauty is present in the Amazon and conceived of using different forms, representing the unique ethnic diversity of the region. Commonly, beauty is associated with notions of “done well or properly” or “correctly made,” which emphasizes tradition and skillful ingenuity. It is also connected to the qualities acquired by the processes of making that engage the whole body and emotions. This notion is connected to the way in which something is created, which comprises the materials, who the artist is and where they are from, the forces present on them, and what the creation does, or is employed to do. 

Westerners might call this an aesthetic lifestyle. It connects human action on many levels and provides a sense of creation and the maintenance of their world. In many Latin American Indigenous traditions this sensibility is called el buen vivir, an expression that expresses a constant pursuit of a balanced, fair and harmonic collective life. Doing things “in the right way” is the constructive process of creating objects of ritual and everyday use, building farms, houses and villages, even preparing food. It applies to the process of making children, of minding one’s thoughts and behavior. Everything can and should be done in a certain way, a “beautiful” way.