NATURAL ENGAGEMENTS AND ECOLOGICAL AESTHETICS ...

to provide during my field work period, in order to use the opportunity of the birth of a child as
a pretext to forge more reliable long-term bonds with fellow villagers. Compadrazgo in Ávila is
a strategy of cultivating bonds with equals; shamanism, by contrast, is used to form bonds with
more powerful beings.
Throughout history the Runa—as simultaneously “civilized” and Amazonian—have
served as mediators between lowlanders and Europeans (Hudelson 1987). This quality, above all
others, contributes to their attributed power as shamans in the eyes of other lowlanders. The
Achuar, for example, think of the Pastaza-area Runa as the most powerful shamans and even go
to apprentice with them. The power of these shamans is explicitly attributed to their proximity to
whites, particularly the fact that many of them work at the jungle military base Montalvo with its
airplanes and other signs of material power (Descola 1996a).
The Runa also see themselves as crucial mediators between Whites and local worlds. This
role has its advantages but it can often prove onerous as well. For example, a story is told in Ávila
that a patrón sent some Runa to hunt an enormous jaguar that had been killing the cattle on his
hacienda. He loaned them a shotgun—for at that time very few Runa owned guns—and provid-
ed them with ample ammunition. When they successfully killed the jaguar they were rewarded
by the patrón for this deed with a large quantity of Peruvian blowgun poison. It turned out, how-
ever, that the jaguar they had killed was the “dog” of the local game master (see Chapter Five).
Angered by the loss of his dog, the game master made this curare ineffective and the Runa were
unable to hunt with it.
As this example indicates, there is a sort of competition between the patrones of the
“above” world and those “inside” the forest (see Chapter Six); the Runa are placed in the delicate
position of mediating between these two. Both kinds of patrones can empower the Runa through
their gifts –the estate boss with his coveted curare and the game master with his meat. Yet,
although both are similar in their powers and motivations, they are also in conflict with one anoth-
er; the game master’s “dog” is a predator of the estate boss’ cattle and the estate boss’ peons are
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