433 Chapter Seven Cosmos For the Matsigenka of Shimaa, kameti ...

cannot escape the human dilemma of having to discipline their desires to conform to cultural
rules. From the nettles hanging on the wall, to the gentle but implacable pressure of commands
continuously issued by parents and older siblings, to the warnings and injunctions in folktales
against impulsive sex, eating, and aggression, Matsigenka children encounter an environment
that, for all its tolerance for individuality, persistently channels character development toward
culturally constructed ideals.
A system of ideals always implies positive and negative evaluations, notions of good and
bad. In the amoral sense, good and bad are attributes of the world, according to the test,
“Does it please me?” A system of ideals becomes a moral system only when the focus shifts
from the environment to the self, “Am I/Are you a good or evil person?” We begin to see this in
the Matsigenka belief that much of what is bad was not simply created at the beginning of time
but resulted from the wrong behavior of primordial humans. Had Moon’s mother-in-law not
become wrongly enraged, women today would not die in childbirth; had Spider Monkey’s
mother cooled her rage, the demon Oshetoniro would never have existed; had Wooly Monkey
shared his beans with Howler Monkey, there would be no dangerous seripigari Yaniri.
According to Baer (1984: 188), even sickness and death originated in the disrespectful behavior
of the first humans toward Tasorintsi. The clear message regarding these transgressors is, “Had
they controlled their impulses, today we would not suffer.”
We can see these morality tales as culturally constructed warning signs posted along the
way to help people make decisions that will protect their families from being torn apart, but is
there any evidence that these ideals have been internalized in the form of a conscience or
superego (Spiro 1987; D’Andrade 1992: 36; Strauss 1992: 4)? In a sense, this question asks
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