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Chibchan Cosmo-ecologies: Rethinking the Concepts of Unity and Diversity in the Isthmo-Colombian Area

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Im dritten Vortrag des Marburger Anthrolabs spricht der aus Kolumbien angereiste Prof. Dr. Juan Camilo Niño Vargas (Universidad de los Andes) über die Kosmo-Ökologien der Chibcha-Gruppen in der isthmo-kolumbianischen Region.

The close relationship between Chibchan societies, the most prominent of the Isthmo-Colombian region numerically, demographically, and territorially speaking, has been progressively probed by linguistics, genetics and archaeology. In light of these achievements, the time seems to have come for anthropology to move beyond the atomistic approaches of the past, and evaluate the possibility of establishing a true Chibchan comparative ethnology, like those that has been successfully carried out in neighboring areas. Is it feasible, and would be useful, to study Chibchan societies as an ensemble? How can we reconcile the linguistic and biological substratum shared by them with their overwhelming sociocultural diversity? What can the Chibchan peoples teach us about the concepts of unity and diversity in the Isthmo-Colombian region and beyond? Recent comparative and ethnographical research has begun to shed some light on these questions. We propose that the Chibchan-speaking societies could be defined, not so much by a series of essential traits, as by a family resemblance, one manifested in a general set of cosmo-ecological practices, simultaneously anthropocentric and anthropomorphic, oriented to the establishment of hierarchical and symbiotic relationships between humans and non-humans.