Ethnology

Quantum mechanics

Ethnobotany

Philosophy

Ecology

Biology

Personhood

Indigenous

MAGIC (telescope)

Vitality

Archaeology

Amazon rainforest

Medicinal plants

Anthropology

Genetics

Physics

Environmental ethics

Astronomy

Epistemology

Sociology

Ethnography

Traditional knowledge

Shamanism

History

Anthropology Today

Recent scientific findings on plant intelligence are forcing anthropologists to reconsider indigenous theories of plant vitality. In this article, the authors compare original ethnographic and ethnobotanical research among two different peoples from opposite extremes of lowland South America – the Makushi of Guyana and the Matsigenka of southern Peru – and explore how somatic experiences and the chemosensory properties of plants permeate indigenous understandings of the aetiology of illness and medical efficacy in both the cosmological and microbiological domains. The authors synthesize emerging theory in ecosemiotics, embodiment, plant personhood and plant intelligence with the concept of ‘sensory ecology’ to recast multispecies ethnography as a phytochemical as well as a philosophical endeavour.

Magic darts and messenger molecules: Toward a phytoethnography of indigenous Amazonia