Remembering by spiriting: intercultural conversations about the collective memory of the nasa people

Abstract

In the present article, I investigate the articulations between collective memory, spirituality, and myth among the Nasa people of Tierradentro (Colombia). I do this through a collaborative and intercultural approach that seeks to build interpretations and concepts based on conversations with three Nasa researchers with whom I have been working with for more than ten years. I propose that memory opens an immanent time that places into interaction humans and other beings; beings of different physical condition but similar interiority. In order to account for this interaction, my Nasa interlocutors and I constructed the category remembering by spiriting. With this, we intend to account for an action that can be undertaken through dream experiences or through the acute use of the senses at any time of the day. In the course of the article, I address three ways in which remembering by spiriting is put into practice: dreaming, feeling, and traveling the territory.

Keywords:
Ontology; Dream; Indigenous people; Colombia