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 microbes
and other
shamanic
beings

César E. Giraldo Herrera

Microbes and Other Shamanic Beings
 César E. Giraldo Herrera

Microbes and Other

Shamanic Beings
César E. Giraldo Herrera
Somerville College
Institute for Science Innovation and Society
School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography
Oxford, UK

ISBN 978-3-319-71317-5    ISBN 978-3-319-71318-2 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71318-2

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017961840

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of
illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and trans-
mission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or
dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or
the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
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claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Cover illustration: Carlos Jacanamijoy Navegación Interna (2009), oil on canvas

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 Para Enrique:
Mugre en mis ojos
manchas de tigre
 Prologue

This book revaluates familiar myths and understandings of the world

with insights developed while doing fieldwork far away from home. It is
part of a trilogy derived from my doctoral dissertation in social anthro-
pology. The dissertation dwelt on Nordic seamanship, on relating to the
environment without and within, on syncretism, perspectivism, and sha-
manism. This book is the last part, the trip back home, back into our-
selves. So, what or who are we?
My grandfather was a rural medic, in Quindio, Colombia a place infested
with venomous snakes. He was adamant that one should get to know them,
to see the world from their perspective, acknowledging their ecology, where
they lived, and what they ate. Most of their attacks were in self-defence, out
of fear. If in your interactions with them you were calm and respectful, even
the most poisonous were mostly harmless. My grandfather supported his
views on animal subjectivity with authors like Konrad Lorenz. He would
have been an avid reader of Ingold, Haraway, Bennet, and Tsing. However,
the roots of his views are more likely to be found in the adventures of the
miscreant uncle Rabbit and his victimized predator uncle Jaguar, which he
used to tell me. Although warranting care for deceiving appearances, these
were more than fables, these are far older stories.
I studied my undergrad in biology, focusing on physiology, ethology,
and theoretical biology, and so, I am an unrepentant functionalist and
would not hesitate to subscribe to a naturalistic1 understanding of reality.
vii
viii Prologue

However, my degree monograph was a theoretical exploration of biose-

miotics, suggesting that organisms and other biological systems develop
processes of interpretation, and in their own ways, and for their own sake
make sense of their world. I find it very hard to fathom how some people
assume humans are the only beings with intentions, points of view, or
emotions: the only beings to communicate, the only persons. My views,
as well as those of my parents, and grandparents, are in many ways closer
to what some authors would denominate animism. So, again, who are
we? We are the Westernized, or rather their descendants, and we are also
descendants of the indianos, the Indianized, the Africanized; the coloniz-
ers, and the colonized.2
When I was little, I was terrified of the night and fascinated by those
monsters that linger in Latin American imaginaries: the witches who
transform into jaguars; the one-legged Patasola; the Duende, a goblin
with a humongous hat and backward feet; and the Llorona, the spirit of
the woman who cries for her abandoned baby. I felt more sympathy for
the Madremonte, the mother of the forest, and for the Mohan, the mis-
chievous guardian spirits of the waters. However, their stories, when they
had them, were so diluted and abstract, that they had become caricatures,
folkloric fictions.
Years later, working with traditional Afro-Colombian fisher peoples in
the Pacific, I met with ‘the visions’, a rich oral tradition referring some of
those stories, linking them with specific ecologies, medicinal plants,
behaviours, and powers. The Tunda was a one-legged Amerindian woman
(Afro-Colombian for Amerinds), who would appear in the shape of a
close relative or a lover, and lure her victims into the wildness of the man-
grove, taking away their speech, reducing them into sexual slavery and
madness. However, there are also herbs and prayers to call Tunda; she
teaches her protégés the art of invisibility, and hides them from the
authorities. These visions could also appear and harass you in dreams. My
friends and hosts interpreted some of my own dreams in that way.
However, the visions seem to flee from modernity, disappearing together
with the ecologies with which they are associated. The visions made evi-
dent that the folkloric monsters of my childhood were translations of the
masters of game, some of the beings with which Amerindian shamans
deal. I sought to explain them as symbolic constructs, enunciating the
 Prologue
   ix

affordances and dangers of specific environments and the social relations

people established in them.3 However, these interpretations neglect the
experiences associated with these beings, how people understand them,
and the ways people seek to interact with them.
Later still, reflecting upon my experiences while on-board the indus-
trial fishing trawlers in the North Sea, I began to explore how we relate to
microbes, how we may perceive them, and came across a possible alterna-
tive translation, which would seem to account for more of the character-
istics of masters of game. This led me to explore the early records of
Amerindian shamanism and Amerindian myths associated with syphilis,
developing a biocultural ethnohistory of Amerindian shamanism and
microbiology.
Microbes and other shamanic beings explores whether and to what
degree microbiology might be commensurable with shamanism, whether
it might offer better translations than anthropology, following missionary
theology has so far. The book develops three major arguments. First, sha-
manism has been generally understood through reference to spirits and
souls. However, these terms were introduced by the missionaries, who
carried the earliest translations, to convert Amerinds into Christianism.
Rather than trying to comprehend shamanism through medieval
European concepts, we should examine it through ideas that started
developing in the West only after encountering Amerindian shamans.
Since the earliest accounts, Amerindian shamanic notions have shared
more in common with current microbial ecology than with Christian
religious beliefs. Shamans have described the beings with which they deal
in ways that correspond to contemporary understandings of microbes.
Second, various human senses allow the unaided perception of the micro-
bial world. We focus on entoptic vision, which affords the perception of
microscopic objects flowing through our retina. The techniques employed
by shamans enhance these kinds of perception, and their depictions of
shamanic beings correspond to the images produced by these forms of
vision. Third, the theory that some diseases are produced by living agents
acquired through contagion was proposed near after the Encounter by a
physician who translated and adapted Amerindian knowledge about
syphilis, an important subject of pre-Contact Amerindian medicine and
mythology. Amerindian myths of the Sun and the Moon described
x Prologue

s­hamanic beings causing syphilis and closely related diseases, their

dynamics, histories, and treatments. Western medicine took four centu-
ries before revaluating its paradigms, rediscovering germs, and turning
microbiology into a mainstream science. I argue that a deep decoloniza-
tion of thought should reclaim this knowledge back. At a time when the
war on microbes is becoming unsustainable, shamanism may afford a
refined diplomacy to interact with the highly social microbial worlds
which constitute and permeate us.

References
Descola, Philippe. 2013. Beyond nature and culture. Trans. J. Lloyd. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Giraldo Herrera, César Enrique. 2009. Ecos en el arrullo del mar: Las artes de la
marinería en el Pacífico colombiano y sy mimesis en la música y el baile, Prometeo.
Bogotá: Uniandes – Ceso – Departamento de Antropología.
Herrera Angel, Marta. 2016. El conquistador conquistado. Awás, Cuayquer y
Sindaguas en el Pacífico colombiano, siglos XVI–XVIII. Bogotá: Ediciones
Uniandes.
Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo. 1998. Cosmological deixis and Amerindian per-
spectivism. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 4 (3): 469–488.
 Acknowledgements

Being and thinking are collective processes, hence so are researching and
writing. I have been fortunate to enjoy good company, insightful interac-
tions, inspiring conversations, hospitality, and sponsorship throughout
this adventure. Thus, I am deeply indebted to innumerable persons
(human, non-human, and institutional) who have made this work pos-
sible, and although I will certainly miss many important people, I will try
to evoke some of their names.
From the moment of his conception, Enrique, my son, has been a
constant source of hope and inspiration, the most enlightening, exhila-
rating, nerving, and also frightening experience. With him I am begin-
ning to understand my parents, Marta Herrera and César Giraldo, their
caprices, their joys, and their unfaltering support. I have also counted
with the hospitality and the constructive criticism of various texts of my
aunts Leonor Herrera and Carmenza Charrier.
Through my doctoral research at the University of Aberdeen, I was
fortunate to enjoy the guidance and supervision of Tim Ingold. The gen-
erous care he puts onto reading, commenting, and discussing ideas has
allowed us, his many students, to experience the craftsmanship of knowl-
edge. It was an honour and a delighting insightful experience. With his
playful attitude, ruminated words, and gestures encompassing the world,
I could set forth to explore reality at sea, in books, in my body, and imagi-
nation. Through the first steps of this research, my ex-wife, Angélica
xi
xii Acknowledgements

Quintero, was a good listener who patiently supported me in my endeav-

ours. I also had the chance of reading and being read by many colleagues,
sharing good laughs of amazement with Caroline Gatt, Peter Loovers,
Miriam Rabelo, Cristián Simonetti, Jennifer Clarke, Rachel Harkness,
Nicolas Ellison, James Leach, Nancy Wachowich, Arnar Árnason, Robert
Wishart, Ursula Witt, and many undergraduate students. I am also grate-
ful to my examiners Kay Århem and Gísli Pálsson for their challenging
and encouraging readings of the doctoral dissertation, for pointing at
missing paths, and for suggesting alternative routes.
Later, Gísli Pálsson took me under his wing as a postdoctoral researcher
for the project Biosocial Relations and Hierarchies at the University of
Iceland, allowing me to explore the resonance of these ideas working on
biosociality, developing research with microbiologists, and lecturing the
course Body and Society. I also want to thank Guðmundur Hrafn
Guðmundsson, and other members of his lab, as well as the researchers
from Matís Prokaria, for sharing with me their insights on microbes.
During this time, I presented a paper on shamanic microscopy (largely
the Second Part) at the Spaces of Attunement Symposium; the comments of
the participants as well as those from various anonymous reviewers were
very helpful, and a version of this paper was accepted for publication at
the Journal Anthropology of Consciousness.
During the past two years, Somerville College at the University of
Oxford has nurtured me, providing an environment to grow and develop
my ideas. I want to thank all its staff and students for their friendship,
support, and perceptive conversations, in particular its former Principal
Alice Prochaska, Maan Barua, David Bowe, Siddarth Arora, Alfred
Gathorn-Hardy, and Philip Kreager. I also want to thank the staff and
students of the Department of Anthropology, specially the members of
the Institute of Science Innovation and Society, who welcomed me: Javier
Lezaun for his tutorship, Steve Rayner, Jerome Ravetz, Christopher
Goldsworthy, Louise Bezuidenhout, Sara de Wit, Rob Bellamy, Sophie,
Hainess and Lisa Dilling for their insightful readings of manuscripts of
this text. I have also enjoyed seminars, courses, and conversations with
Elisabeth Hsu, Kate Fayers-­Kerr, Maryam Aslany, Laura Rival, Ramón
Sarró, Stanley Ulijaszek, Lola Martinez, Paola Esposito, and Elizabeth
Ewart. I also want to thank Elizabeth for inviting me to the ISCA semi-
 Acknowledgements
   xiii

nars to present another ­version of the paper on shamanic microscopy,

where I received very valuable feedback. I also want to thank Erica
Charters and the other members of the Centre for the History of Science,
Medicine, and Technology for inviting me to present a paper on
Amerindian treponemal mythologies, and providing most insightful
comments. I also had the chance to present this paper at the panel ‘living
well together’ of the 2016 EASA Conference in Milan. I am very grateful
to Jamie Lorimer, Beth Greenhough, Javier Lezaun, and Cressida Jervis-
Read for organizing the Oxford Interdisciplinary Microbiome Project,
providing venues to enrich and share novel developments on microbes.
I am most grateful for many enduring friendships: bewitching per-
spectives shared with Beatriz Ángel, the support through parenthood of
Santiago Jara, the musical fabulations through mountains and forests,
with Camilo Giraldo, and with Juanita Delgado for her perceptive being
and enchanting songs. I also want to thank Juan Camilo Niño, Elisa Bale,
Santiago Paredes, Franzi Carranza, Marta Herrera, and all the members
of Taller Umbra as well as Marianne Cardale, and the participants of the
Coloquio Chibcha for their constructive criticism of the text.
As a deeper research project develops from the book, I want to thank
the hospitality and openness of Fabio and Nelson Yabur, as well as
Abadio Green of the Gunadule communities of Ibgigundiwala and
Maggilagundiwala, the interest, care and fascinating stories of the benk-
hun Alejandro Moya of the Wounaan community at el Papayo, and of
William Mozombite, Ingano taita resident in Leticia.
This research would not have been possible without the financial spon-
sorship provided for my studies by the studentships of the College of Arts
and Social Sciences of the University of Aberdeen and the Overseas
Research Scheme Scotland. I am most grateful to Victoria Maltby for the
Junior Research Fellowship from Somerville College of the University of
Oxford, which has allowed me to bring these ideas to the fore.
I also want to thank Antonia Waldorf and many other anonymous
reviewers who have contributed with their doubts, suggestions, and
references.
Last but not least, a thousand thanks to the reader—I hope you enjoy
this trip.
xiv Acknowledgements

Notes
1. For biologists, a naturalist is a researcher who after many years in the field
has come to understand the characteristics of an ecological system, the
organisms that make up its community, their behaviour, physiology,
developmental, and genetic histories. It is the sort of thing you want to be
when you grow very, very old. So, when I read how naturalism is being
portrayed in anthropology (Viveiros de Castro 1998; Descola 2013), I
cannot but feel profoundly annoyed by what seems like a strawman made
with Christian hay and humanist clothes. However, that naturalism is a
metonym, which names the whole, that is, that despair bundle of Western
ontologies, by what today is one of its most prominent strands.
2. Herrera Angel 2016.
3. Giraldo Herrera 2009.
 Contents

1 Colonized Selves, Decolonizing Ontologies   1

1.1 Decolonizing Ontologies   1
1.2 The Ontological Turn and Its Challenges   3
1.3 Commensurability, Translation, and Deep
Decolonization: Reclaiming Knowledge   9
1.4 Description of the Book  10
Bibliography  14

Part I Amerindian Shamanism   17

2 (Mis)Understanding Shamanism and Animism  19

2.1 Entrenched Notions of Shamanism and Animism  19
2.2 Reframing Animism  22
2.3 Amerindian Perspectivism  24
2.4 Soulless Animism and Body-Full Spirits  28
Bibliography  31

xv
xvi Contents

3 First Contacts with Amerindian Shamans and Their

‘Spirits’  35
3.1 The Hispano-American Encounter, from the Middle
Ages to the Renaissance  36
3.2 The French Encounter with Shamanism that Preceeded
the Enlightenment  42
3.3 Analysis: The Spirits of the Encounter  53
Bibliography  61

4 Syncretic Ontologies of the Microbial-­Shamanic Beings  65

4.1 Shamanic Beings  66
4.2 Commensurable Aspects of Microbes with Shamanic
Beings 69
4.3 Social Science and Its Recalcitrance to Microbiology  76
Bibliography  87

Part II Shamanic Microscopy, Perceiving Cellular “Souls” and

Microbial “Spirits”   99

5 Shamanic Epistemologies 103
Bibliography 108

6 Neuropsychological Naturalistic Explanations of Shamanic

Visions 111
Bibliography 115

7 The Cavern of the Eye: Seeing Through the Retina 119

7.1 Early Physiological Research on Entoptic Vision 122
7.2 Neurophysiology of Eidetic Phosphenes 124
7.3 Pharmacology of Hallucinations and Phosphenes 126
7.4 Renewed Interest for Entoptics 128
Bibliography 130
 Contents
   xvii

8 Entoptic Microscopy 135
8.1 Characteristic Features of Entoptic Images 135
8.2 What Might Be Visible to Shamans Through Entoptic
Microscopy139
8.3 Seeing Things Together 141
Bibliography 143

Part III Biocultural Ethnohistory of the Zemes of

Treponematoses 145

9 French Malaise in the Taino Myths of Origin 151

9.1 Where the Taino Came From 152
9.2 Where the Sun and the Moon Came From 153
9.3 How the Sea Was Made: The Caracaracol and “Yaya”
Master of Manioc and the Sea” 155
9.4 Guayanara, Yaya, and Caracaracol, Treponematoses
and Their Treatments 158
Bibliography 163

10 The Spotted Sun and the Blemished Moon, Nahuatl Views

on Treponematoses 167
Bibliography 176

11 The West, Syphilis, and the Other Treponematoses 179

11.1 Sixteenth Century, Syphilis, and the Theory
of Contagion181
11.2 Seventeenth- to Twentieth-Century Syphiloids,
the Ontological Theory of Disease186
11.3 Twentieth Century, the Entangled Debates
of Treponema pallidum189
11.4 Current Understandings of Treponema pallidum191
Bibliography 199
xviii Contents

12 Threading Worlds Together 205

12.1 Oúpoyem: Interpenetrating Material Subjectivities
Constituting Bodies 205
12.2 Buhities and Boyaicou: Hosts of Zemes, Zemes
Themselves207
12.3 The Zemes of the Sun and the Moon, Syphilis,
and Other Treponematoses 208
12.4 Missionary Spirituous Translations 211
12.5 Entoptic Microscopy 214
12.6 Translating Zemes into the Seminae, into Germs,
into Microbes215
12.7 Decolonizing Thought, Reclaiming Microbiology 220
12.8 Remaining Incommensurabilities 222
Bibliography 225

Bibliography 227

Index 257
 List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Perceptual and ecological relations of Amerindian

­perspectivism 26
Fig. 5.1 Navegación interna (2009), oil on canvas (0.94 × 1.02 M.) by
Carlos Jacanamijoy (Reproduced with the kind permission of
the author) 107
Fig. 7.1 Structure and organization of the retina (a) Diagram of the
eye; (b) Drawing of a micro-section of the primate retina,
after a photograph in Adams and Horton (2003);
(c) Diagram of the kinds of cells that compose the tissue 121
Fig. 7.2 Drawings of various entoptic phenomena (Purkyne 1819)
reproduced with the kind permission of the Max Planck
Institute for the History of Science. Figs. 1–4 refractive
interference patterns under bright illumination; Figs. 21, 26
blood cells; Figs. 23 and 24 ‘Purkyne’s tree’ the VESSELS of
his eye vascular network. 124
Fig. 8.1 Geometry of shadow projection and formation, a two-­
dimensional silhouette of the different illuminated regions.
The boxes portray the shadow projected at corresponding
distances137
Fig. 8.2 Analytic drawing of Jacanamijoys’s internal navigation
(2009). (a) Drawing, (b) elements extracted 138
Fig. 9.1 Symmetries between the Taino and the Callinago myths of the
Sun and the Moon 159

xix
xx List of Figures

Fig. 9.2 Map of the distribution of paleopathological evidence of

pre-contact treponematoses in the Americas and myths of the
Sun and the Moon 160
Fig. 10.1 Nanahuatl the syphilitic Sun drawn from The Book of Night
and Wind (Codex Yoalli Ehēcatl/Borgia, 45) and its facsimile
(1825–1831, 43) 168
Fig. 10.2 Xochiquetzal, Nanahuatzin, and Chalchiuhtlicue (goddess of
the waters) (Codex Yoalli Ehēcatl/Borgia, 23) and its facsmile
(1825–1831, 19) 171
Fig. 12.1 Ontological translations and purifications of knowledge,
brought by the Encounter 219
 1
Colonized Selves, Decolonizing
Ontologies

1.1 D
 ecolonizing Ontologies
We can define ontology as the knowledge or understanding of being or
reality. I prefer these terms over discourse, science, study, and many other
alternatives, because in general these alternatives imply formalized
approaches to reality. Understanding is a more inclusive, down-to-earth,
dynamic notion, which captures the implications of ontology, its capacity
to make worlds. Understanding and being are imbricated. Understanding
a reality, we articulate what is known about it, what we perceive, and
what we infer from those perceptions into something coherent, which we
can act upon. On the other hand, quite literally understanding funda-
ments being, and becomes the basis for reality.
Like the God of Christians, reality, science, and ontology used to be
employed solely in the singular and capitalized. While Christianity was
thought to convey the ‘true knowledge’ of the ‘one true God’, so Science
(singular and capitalized) was thought to be the rational, incremental
process of acquiring knowledge: the understanding of the ‘true’ and ‘uni-
versal’ nature of Reality (again singular and capitalized)—a process origi-
nating in Europe, enabling the progress of the West and, implicitly or
explicitly, justifying its colonization of the rest of the world.

1
2 C. E. Giraldo Herrera

Anthropology, as part of this enterprise, would recognize isolated

achievements of non-Westerners, such as the botanical knowledge of
some Amerindian shamans. Nevertheless, these were frequently down-
played as local or situated forms of knowledge and contrasted with the
‘universal’ character of Western Science. Moreover, the understandings of
reality of shamans were frequently dismissed, because they included enti-
ties such as ‘souls’ and ‘spirits’, which modernity had banished from
Nature or Reality. To make matters worse, shamans attributed these enti-
ties to non-humans, even to inert or inanimate things like rocks. As
remarked by Descola (1996), these entities and their characteristics still
remain ever-perplexing.
Over the past 50 years, anthropology has been conducting a profound
critique of its position, its relation to its subjects of study, and its relations
to power. Through this reflexive process, anthropology has come to rec-
ognize its own role in colonial and neo-colonial processes and to question
its methods, and scientific pretentions, as well as the scientific enterprise
and the process of development as such.
Post-colonial intellectuals have revealed that colonialism involves the
authoritative deployment of artistic, literary, academic, and scientific dis-
courses, including anthropological discourses of the Other, as forms of
epistemic violence, undermining how non-Western peoples perceive and
understand themselves and reality. This colonization of thought under-
lays the control, suppression, and exploitation of non-Westerners even
after they become politically emancipated.1 Real emancipation requires a
decolonization of thought, a re-evaluation of non-Western forms of art,
of telling stories, of thinking, and understanding the world.2
On the other hand, applying to natural scientists the methods anthro-
pology developed to understand ethnoscience, science and technology
studies (STS) have observed that the claims of natural scientists are sub-
stantiated, and they derive their strength from highly situated practices,
articulating human and non-human actors through arduous processes of
negotiated translation. These practices are possible under specific histori-
cal contingencies; they are embedded in social dynamics, such as the poli-
tics of the academy, and diverse conjunctures with finance, industry, and
religion.3 Moreover, when different disciplines address ‘the same reality’,
they define and articulate it differently, often reaching dissimilar
 Colonized Selves, Decolonizing Ontologies 3

c­ onclusions.4 Science stands for a plurality of different practices, views,

and voices, which are frequently in disagreement. Thus, the universality,
and even the unity, of Science has been an idealistic aim rather than an
actual achievement.
Examining the history of science in colonial and neocolonial settings,
postcolonial historians of science have demonstrated how Western scien-
tific models and projects of development are frequently founded on eth-
nocentric assumptions, which cannot be generalized to conditions far
removed from the working parameters in which the models were devel-
oped, leading to scientific stagnation and disastrous developmental fail-
ures. Like any other system of knowledge, Western sciences have a limited
grip on reality. Furthermore, distant allegiances frequently draw the
interests of scientists and developers, aligning them with those of the
Western metropolis, to the detriment of the ‘peripheries,’ and of knowl-
edge itself. The recognition of these inadequacies and limitations resulted
in the call for cognitive justice, for the recognition that there is a plurality
of sciences, that other forms of knowledge may lay better claims to under-
standing the true nature of reality,5 thereby opening another path for the
decolonization of thought. Western sciences cannot be the yardstick to
judge the validity of non-Western ontologies, that is, the way non-­Western
realities are understood and constituted.

1.2 The Ontological Turn and Its Challenges

In the past years, these insights have led anthropology into the ontologi-
cal turn—the realization that our interlocutors not only have different
cultures but also often dwell in radically different realities. Consequently,
there are multiple ontologies, which might not be commensurable.
Radical difference and incommensurability foster the study of ontologi-
cal claims on their own terms, seeking to approach diverse realities and
their understandings without privileging one (the Western) over the oth-
ers. This bolder version of the classical relativistic principle of anthropol-
ogy (which encourages us to understand social practices and behaviours
within their cultural context) extends relativism onto reality itself. This
should be regarded as a point of departure for an anthropology seeking to
4 C. E. Giraldo Herrera

understand: what is being, what is the world, and how do we and our
interlocutors know it?
As Holbraad6 points out, the ontological turn places the onus of proof
on the anthropologist, who has to ‘reconceptualise a whole set of notions’
to address whatever our interlocutors are dealing with. He indicates that we
ought to give precedence to their understanding of reality over our interpre-
tations of how they understand reality. If our concepts raise paradoxes, it is
these concepts that we must re-evaluate. He suggests we should re-evaluate
what things are (e.g., What is a stone? for it to have a soul or a spirit).
Following the epistemic principle of the ontological turn, Vilaça (2005)
and Holbraad et al. (2014) have supposed that to decolonize thought, it
would be sufficient to uphold current shamanic and scientific ontologies
as equivalent. They assume that by simply acknowledging their incom-
mensurabilities, ontologies that have become subaltern can be explained
and defended in their own terms. Thus, they argue that a decolonization
of thought should focus on non-biological conceptions of the body and
the environment. Following this path, anthropology has enthusiastically
assumed that non-Western realities, like those of shamanism, are necessar-
ily incommensurable with those portrayed by natural sciences.
However, as is noted by Descola, biological and ethnobiological clas-
sifications and understandings most frequently coincide in their details.7
Furthermore, as is suggested by Latour in his comments to Eduardo
Kohn’s How Forests Think, by itself, an extended relativistic principle in
anthropological epistemology does not necessarily empower non-­Western
realities or their understandings:

… how could an ethnographer, or, for that matter, a Runa scholar, equipped
with such a philosophical anthropology find ways to make his or her onto-
logical claims understood in negotiating what a forest is made of, when faced
with forestry engineers, loggers, tourists, NGOs, or state administrators?
That is where the so-called ontological turn finds its moment of truth. Not on
the epistemological scene but on the bittersweet attempts at negotiating alterna-
tive ways to occupy a territory, being thrown in the world, designating who
is friend and who is enemy.8 (Emphasis is mine)

Western and non-Western peoples increasingly coexist in the same

places, partially sharing common realities. Even if these realities are
 Colonized Selves, Decolonizing Ontologies 5

a­ rticulated into distinct worlds and ontologies, they overlap and become
subjects of dispute. Shamans and biomedical practitioners treating
Amerindian or other communities share the realities of health and disease
in these populations. Because of these common grounds, they often end
up competing or interfering with one another, potentially to the detri-
ment of their patients.
In those disputes, a powerful side might seek to settle the issue unilater-
ally. However, such resolutions are often resisted, or contested.9 Authority
and influence, also depend on the degree of specific understanding of the
incumbent realities, and the capacity to make this knowledge operational.
For example, the knowledge about particular diseases, the ability to treat
them, the availability of therapeutic means or apparatuses, and the capacity
to communicate knowledgeability and mobilize patients may ­ultimately
grant authority to either shamans or biomedical doctors. Authority also
depends on the capacity to translate operational understandings to a lan-
guage acknowledged by the counterpart. Although shamans have made
multiple contributions to Western pharmaceutics, the metaphysical or
supernatural terms in which their knowledge is translated lead biomedical
practitioners to continue to dismiss their practices as fake and superstitious.
I will argue that although questioning the reality of the stone is bold,
the stone should not be the main source of concern for the ontological
turn. After all, Amerindian shamans, anthropologists, and natural scien-
tists can normally perceive rocks and acknowledge them as real, and
therefore at least as partially commensurable. What is really troubling is:
what is a soul or a spirit, for it to be in a stone? Because, strictly speaking,
the Christian religious notions of souls and spirits are incommensurable
with naturalist understandings of both stones and humans.
Moreover, as Davi Kopenawa, a Yanomami shaman, points out, it is
anthropologists who translate the Yanomami xapiri as spirits,10 and, as
has been recognized since Lévy-Bruhl and is still quite evident,11 the
translation is not very good. The Christian religious notions of souls and
spirits are incommensurable with naturalist understandings of stones and
humans, but also with shamanic notions of ‘spirits’ and ‘souls’. What is
problematic is the continuous translation of Amerindian notions through
Christian religious terms, the subsequent reduction of Amerindian
­realities onto the realm of the supernatural, and of their ontologies onto
6 C. E. Giraldo Herrera

Christian metaphysics, to such a degree that shamanism is reduced into

the ‘belief in the existence and manipulation of spirits’, and ultimately it
is assumed to be a matter of faith not of knowledge. What is troubling are
the explanations built upon these translations and delivered by the
anthropology of shamanism, not the explicative capacities of shamanism
itself. This translation is a classic example of epistemic violence.
Anthropology needs to address critically its theological missionary roots,
how Christian categories affect its understanding of reality, and its rela-
tions with the knowledge of its interlocutors.12
Anchored in theological language, anthropology has found itself to
address the corporeal and organismic characteristics of beings like xapiri.
How could these beings have their abode in human and non-­human
bodies, in objects and in artefacts? Anthropology has also faced difficul-
ties in understanding and acknowledging their pathogenicity; how could
these beings cause diseases? Specially, how could they cause infectious–
contagious diseases? But also, how could they affect pregnancy, birth, or
development? Furthermore, so far, anthropology has lacked the appropri-
ate conceptual framework to consider seriously the causal relations sha-
manism establishes between the management of wildlife and that of
health.
Praet (2009), who also notes the dilemma of translation, offers ‘mon-
sters’ as an alternative to spirits, gods, deities, and other similar terms. He
provides an insightful etymology of the term. Nevertheless, this transla-
tion aggravates the problem. If the existence of spirits and gods is a matter
of faith, monsters are generally not believed in. On the other hand, this
translation also fails to account for the crucial characteristics of these
beings, mentioned above.
Perhaps we should leave notions like the Yanomami xapiri untrans-
lated. But do they ever remain untranslated? Evidently not. Christian
terms and their universalist interpretations continue to creep into eth-
nographies and theoretical debates. On the other hand, if we could trans-
late them, why should these notions remain untranslated while jaguars
and trees are not.
However, these notions might have been translated already. As is
pointed out by Raj (2013), the call for cognitive justice, the recognition
of the situated character of science, and I would add the ontological turn
 Colonized Selves, Decolonizing Ontologies 7

have assumed that different ontologies or forms of knowledge have devel-

oped in isolation and somehow remained hermetically refractory, neglect-
ing that a crucial locus for the development of knowledge is its
circulation—not its simple diffusion or its faithful transmission, but the
negotiated process of its multiple reinventions.
Since at least the sixteenth-century, Amerindian, African and European
cultures have undergone intensive processes of hybridization or syncre-
tism.13 At various times, Amerindian knowledge may have been influenced
by Western explorers, missionaries, and scientists, or by the policies devised
after their work.14 However, these scientists and explorers were immersed
in non-Western societies and were more likely to be influenced by their
idiosyncrasies and ontologies.15 They drew data, inspiration, and theories
from extra-European sources, which frequently remained unacknowl-
edged.16 Anthropology and history are only beginning to explore how syn-
cretism has constituted the West, to examine the global histories of
science.17 Although this research is a promising start, most of the work
exploring syncretism between the New and the Old Worlds has concen-
trated on the Baroque or Enlightenment.18 The temporal bias of the litera-
ture limits the possibility of assessing the true effects of the Encounter in
the constitution of the West. Moreover, these late dates promote the deceit-
ful impression that Europeans always ascribed to naturalism, and gave pre-
cedence to scientific thought over other forms of understanding the world.
Anthropology, history of science, and STS have largely neglected that
natural history and natural philosophy were not the dominant discourses
in Europe before the Encounter. Through the Middle Ages and the
Renaissance, natural philosophy was at best a handmaid for theology. The
early European ambassadors of knowledge were missionary friars, who
believed in the sacredness of religious icons, and credited faith above
empirical or objective knowledge. This calls into question depictions of
the encounter of West–non-West that assume a naturalist or objectivist
stance on behalf of the Europeans.19 Nevertheless, those same missionar-
ies carefully collected Amerindian natural knowledge. In this way, mis-
sionaries and colonial officials participated in processes of purification
and translation,20 whereby Amerindian knowledge was decontextualized,
differentiated into moral and natural histories, adapted, repurposed, and
appropriated.
8 C. E. Giraldo Herrera

In this light, the decolonization of thought proposed by advocates of

the ontological turn seems unsatisfactory because it assumes that natural
sciences are indeed monolithic. It neglects the appropriation and influ-
ence of non-Western knowledge in the constitution of Western sciences
and, what might be worse, subsumes Amerindian ontologies to those of
European theology and humanism. I contend that decolonizing thought
should also involve reclaiming it, recognizing how natural sciences are
also rooted beyond the West and how they can also allow us to explore
and to acknowledge the weight of non-Western ontologies, affording for
closer-fitting translations, and stronger alliances with entities that have
biopolitical leverage in the global scene.
This book argues that Amerindian shamanism might be better under-
stood through notions that arose in the West only after Contact, such as
the theory of contagion. The descriptions of shamanic beings match
closely and may be commensurable with currently developing under-
standings of microbes. While the relations shamans propose fall nearer to
the purview of ecology and medicine, microbiology might facilitate a
better translation21 than the one the anthropology of shamanism has pro-
vided so far.
Anthropology has often regarded microbes with the same critical disbe-
lief awarded to the ‘spirits’ described to ethnographers by animist hunters
and shamans. Thus, when microbiologists raise concerns about the cata-
strophic consequences of our war on germs, or the rise of emerging dis-
eases, these critical issues seem far removed from the reach and the interest
of anthropology. Only recently, have researchers in STS begun to develop
an understanding of how microbes and microbiologists mutually consti-
tute one another and crucial dimensions of our everyday reality.22
Nonetheless, STS and anthropology have largely based their insights
on the assumption that instruments forcibly mediate human perception
of microbes.23 Continuing the traditional views of the history of science,
microbiology is generally assumed to be a science without precedents and
a reality incommensurable with those from the past and with non-West-
ern medical traditions, such as shamanism. The estrangement of these
worlds forecloses the possibility of understanding how these health and
environment management traditions have contributed to the constitu-
tion of contemporary microbes and of microbiology.
 Colonized Selves, Decolonizing Ontologies 9

1.3  ommensurability, Translation, and Deep

C
Decolonization: Reclaiming Knowledge
My overall intention is to develop a better translation, a translation that
transcends Western popular knowledge of natural sciences and, as Holbraad
proposes, acknowledges the degree of expertise involved in specialized
trades like those of shamanic practitioners. Such translation should relate
each others concepts but also they should articulate relations with beings in
the world, establishing alliances that empower non-Western ontologies.
The validity and weight of a translation depend on the commensurability
of the terms involved. This commensurability should be demonstrated to
the counterpart (i.e. shamans and microbiologists). The demonstration of
commensurability must provide evidence that there are equivalent episte-
mologies, granting access to the same realities. That is, the different under-
standings of reality are derived from experiences that can substantiate similar
insights, or that there are modes of reasoning that can grant access to the
same conclusions. To ascertain whether microbiology is a suitable fit for
shamanism, we should demonstrate that microbes can be found in the cir-
cumstances where shamans locate shamanic beings and that they have simi-
lar characteristics. In the same way, to determine whether some shamanic
beings might correspond to microbes or to a construction involving
microbes, a crucial step is to examine how shamans may come to experience
the microbial world or infer its existence and workings.
Translation can be an important aspect empowering non-Western
ontologies. However, to proceed a step further in the decolonization of
thought, we must reverse the process of purification to which non-­
Western ontologies have been subject, and which contributed to the
emergence and growth of Western science. We should examine the gene-
alogies of the ideas and practices of the fields of knowledge under com-
parison. Then, we should trace and question the genealogies of their
Western counterparts, to examine whether they were in contact, whether
their histories retain traces of syncretism, and whether their histories can
illuminate our understanding of the history of non-Western ontologies.
This allows us to recognize continuities and transformations in their
modes of thought, to note the correlations in their development, but
most importantly it expands their realm of meaning and serendipitously
connects them with other realms of knowledge.
10 C. E. Giraldo Herrera

In a way, I am employing Latour’s methods to question the historiog-

raphy he proposes, indicating a deeper history of microbes that tran-
scends the narratives of the history of Western science. I am inverting the
double movement of purification and translation, re-constituting factish
from fetish and facts.24

1.4 Description of the Book

To explore the avenues through which shamanism and microbiology
might develop a productive conversation, this book develops a biocul-
tural ethnohistory of shamanism and microbiology, through three parts.
The First Part analyzes shamanism, exploring sixteenth- and seventeenth-­
century records of zemeism, shamanic knowledge, and practices from the
circum-Caribbean area, showing the parallels of these understandings
with the current understandings developed by microbiology. The Second
Part examines means of perceptual access to the microbial world that are
available to shamans and are consistent with their descriptions and depic-
tions of entities like masters of game. The Third Part traces 16th and
17th records of Amerindian medical knowledge and a widespread
Amerindian myth related to syphilis and other treponemal diseases, the
syphilis pandemic of the sixteenth century, and the reception and adapta-
tion of Amerindian knowledge by European medicine.
The First Part explores how Amerindian shamanism was framed, what
it was, and alternative translations. First, Chapter 2 examines how anthro-
pology understood, and misunderstood, shamanism and Amerindian
ontologies through a conceptual framework derived from Christian mis-
sionary activities, specifically through the classical category of animism.
Then, this chapter examines how, in the last 50 years, some anthropolo-
gists have reframed our understanding of animic thought. It explores the
further extension of animic thought involved in Amerindian perspectiv-
ism and discusses and makes some amendments to this theoretical frame-
work. Chapter 3 develops an ethnohistory of the shamanism of the Taíno
and Callinago peoples of the Caribbean in their early contacts with
Europeans. It examines European records of Amerindian understandings
of the body, the environment, and the zemes or çemijn and other entities
Other documents randomly have
different content
O N Sunday mornings, freed from hard employ,
How oft I mark the mischievous young boy
With anxious haste his pole and lines provide,
For make-shifts oft crook’d pins to thread were tied;
And delve his knife with wishes ever warm
In rotten dunghills for the grub and worm,
The harmless treachery of his hooks to bait;
Tracking the dewy grass with many a mate,
To seek the brook that down the meadows glides,
Where the grey willow shadows by its sides,
Where flag and reed in wild disorder spread,
And bending bulrush bows its taper head;
And, just above the surface of the floods,
Where water-lilies mount their snowy buds,
On whose broad swimming leaves of glossy green
The shining dragon-fly is often seen:
Where hanging thorns, with roots wash’d bare, appear,
That shield the moor-hen’s nest from year to year;
While crowding osiers mingling wild among
Prove snug asylums to her brood when young,
Who, when surpris’d by foes approaching near,
Plunge ’neath the weeping boughs and disappear.
There far from terrors that the parson brings,
Or church bell hearing when its summons rings,
Half hid in meadow-sweet and keck’s high flowers,
In lonely sport they spend the Sunday hours.
Though ill supplied for fishing seem the brook,
That breaks the mead in many a stinted crook,
Oft choak’d in weeds, and foil’d to find a road,
The choice retirement of the snake and toad,
Then lost in shallows dimpling restlessly,
In fluttering struggles murmuring to be free,—
O’er gravel stones its depth can scarcely hide
It runs remnant of its broken tide,
Till, seemly weary of each choak’d control,
It rests collected in some gulled hole
Scoop’d by the sudden floods when winter’s snow
Melts in confusion by a hasty thaw;
There bent in hopeful musings on the brink
They watch their floating corks that seldom sink,
Save when a wary roach or silver bream
Nibbles the worm as passing up the stream,
Just urging expectation’s hopes to stay
To view the dodging cork, then slink away;
Still hopes keep burning with untir’d delight,
Still wobbling curves keep wavering like a bite:
If but the breezy wind their floats should spring,
And move the water with a troubling ring,
A captive fish still fills the anxious eyes
And willow-wicks lie ready for the prize;
Till evening gales awaken damp and chill,
And nip the hopes that morning suns instil;
And resting flies have tired their gauzy wing,
Nor longer tempt the watching fish to spring,
Who at the worm no nibbles more repeat,
But lunge from night in sheltering flag-retreat.
Then disappointed in their day’s employ,
They seek amusement in a feebler joy.
Short is the sigh for fancies prov’d untrue:
With humbler hopes still pleasure they pursue
Where the rude oak-bridge scales the narrow pass
Half hid in rustling reeds and scrambling grass,
Or stepping stones stride o’er the narrow sloughs
Which maidens daily cross to milk their cows;
There they in artless glee for minnows run,
And wade and dabble past the setting sun;
Chasing the struttle o’er the shallow tide,
And flat stones turning up where gudgeons hide.
All former hopes their ill success delay’d,
In this new change they fancy well repaid.
And thus they wade, and chatter o’er their joys
Till night, unlook’d-for, young success destroys,
Drives home the sons of solitude and streams,
And stops uncloy’d hope’s ever-fresh’ning dreams.
They then, like school-boys that at truant play,
In sloomy fear lounge on their homeward way,
And inly tremble, as they gain the town,
Where chastisement awaits with many a frown,
And hazel twigs, in readiness prepar’d,
For their long absence brings a meet reward.
JUNE
N OW Summer is in flower, and Nature’s hum
Is never silent round her bounteous bloom;
Insects, as small as dust, have never done
With glitt’ring dance, and reeling in the sun;
And green wood-fly, and blossom-haunting bee,
Are never weary of their melody.
Round field and hedge, flowers in full glory twine,
Large bind-weed bells, wild hop, and streak’d woodbine,
That lift athirst their slender throated flowers,
Agape for dew-fall, and for honey showers;
These o’er each bush in sweet disorder run,
And spread their wild hues to the sultry sun.
The mottled spider, at eve’s leisure, weaves
His webs of silken lace on twigs and leaves,
Which ev’ry morning meet the poet’s eye,
Like fairies’ dew-wet dresses hung to dry.
The wheat swells into ear, and hides below
The May-month wild flowers and their gaudy show,
Leaving, a school-boy’s height, in snugger rest,
The leveret’s seat, and lark, and partridge nest.
The mowers now bend o’er the beaded grass,
Where oft the gipsy’s hungry journeying ass
Will turn his wishes from the meadow paths,
List’ning the rustle of the falling swaths.
The ploughman sweats along the fallow vales
And down the sun-crack’d furrow slowly trails;
Oft seeking, when athirst, the brook’s supply,
Where, brushing eagerly the bushes by
For coolest water, he disturbs the rest
Of ring-dove, brooding o’er its idle nest.
The shepherd’s leisure hours are over now;
No more he loiters ’neath the hedge-row bough,
On shadow-pillowed banks and lolling stile;
The wilds must lose their summer friend awhile.
With whistle, barking dogs, and chiding scold,
He drives the bleating sheep from fallow fold
To wash-pools, where the willow shadows lean,
Dashing them in, their stained coats to clean,
Then, on the sunny sward, when dry again,
He brings them homeward to the clipping pen,
Of hurdles, form’d where elm or sycamore
Shut out the sun—or to some threshing-floor.
There with the scraps of songs, and laugh, and tale,
He lightens annual toil, while merry ale
Goes round, and glads some old man’s heart to praise
The threadbare customs of his early days:
How the high bowl was in the middle set
At breakfast time, when clippers yearly met,
Fill’d full of furmety, where dainty swum
The streaking sugar and the spotting plum.
The maids could never to the table bring
The bowl, without one rising from the ring
To lend a hand; who, if ’twere ta’en amiss,
Would sell his kindness for a stolen kiss.
The large stone pitcher in its homely trim
And clouded pint-horn with its copper rim,
Were there; from which were drunk, with spirits high
Healths of the best the cellar could supply;
While sung the ancient swains, in uncouth rhymes,
Songs that were pictures of the good old times.
Thus will the old man ancient ways bewail,
Till toiling shears gain ground upon the tale,
And break it off,—for now the timid sheep,
His fleece shorn off, starts with a fearful leap,
Shaking his naked skin with wond’ring joys,
While others are brought in by sturdy boys.
Though fashion’s haughty frown hath thrown aside
Half the old forms simplicity supplied,
Yet there are some pride’s winter deigns to spare,
Left like green ivy when the trees are bare.
And now, when shearing of the flocks is done
Some ancient customs, mix’d with harmless fun,
Crown the swain’s merry toils. The timid maid,
Pleased to be praised, and yet of praise afraid,
Seeks the best flowers; not those of woods and fields,
But such as every farmer’s garden yields—
Fine cabbage-roses, painted like her face;
The shining pansy, trimm’d with golden lace;
The tall topp’d larkheels, feather’d thick with flowers;
The woodbine, climbing o’er the door in bowers;
The London tufts, of many a mottled hue;
The pale pink pea, and monkshood darkly blue;
The white and purple gilliflowers, that stay
Ling’ring, in blossom, summer half away;
The single blood-walls, of a luscious smell,
Old-fashion’d flowers which housewives love so well;
The columbine, stone-blue, or deep night-brown,
Their honeycomb-like blossoms hanging down,
Each cottage-garden’s fond adopted child,
Though heaths still claim them, where they yet grow wild;
With marjoram knots, sweet-brier, and ribbon-grass,
And lavender, the choice of ev’ry lass,
And sprigs of lad’s-love—all familiar names,
Which every garden through the village claims.
These the maid gathers with a coy delight,
And ties them up, in readiness for night;
Then gives to ev’ry swain, ’tween love and shame,
Her “clipping-posies” as his yearly claim.
He rises, to obtain the custom’d kiss:—
With stifled smiles, half hankering after bliss,
She shrinks away, and blushing, calls it rude;
Yet turns to smile, and hopes to be pursued;
While one, to whom the hint may be applied,
Follows to gain it, and is not denied.
The rest the loud laugh raise, to make it known,—
She blushes silent, and will not disown!
Thus ale, and song, and healths, and merry ways,
Keep up a shadow still of former days;
But the old beechen bowl, that once supplied
The feast of furmety, is thrown aside;
And the old freedom that was living then,
When masters made them merry with their men;
When all their coats alike were russet brown,
And his rude speech was vulgar as their own—
All this is past, and soon will pass away
The time-torn remnant of the holiday.
DECEMBER
G LAD Christmas comes, and every hearth
Makes room to give him welcome now,
E’en want will dry its tears in mirth,
And crown him with a holly bough;
Though tramping ’neath a winter sky,
O’er snowy paths and rimy stiles,
The housewife sets her spinning by
To bid him welcome with her smiles.

Each house is swept the day before,

And windows stuck with evergreens,
The snow is besom’d from the door,
And comfort crowns the cottage scenes.
Gilt holly, with its thorny pricks,
And yew and box, with berries small,
These deck the unused candlesticks,
And pictures hanging by the wall.

Neighbours resume their annual cheer,

Wishing, with smiles and spirits high,
Glad Christmas and a happy year,
To every morning passer-by;
Milkmaids their Christmas journeys go,
Accompanied with favour’d swain;
And children pace the crumping snow
To taste their granny’s cake again.

The shepherd, now no more afraid,

Since custom doth the chance bestow,
Starts up to kiss the giggling maid
Beneath the branch of mistletoe
That ’neath each cottage beam is seen,
With pearl-like berries shining gay;
The shadow still of what hath been,
Which fashion yearly fades away
 Which fashion yearly fades away.

The singing wates, a merry throng,

At early morn, with simple skill,
Yet imitate the angel’s song,
And chant their Christmas ditty still;
And ’mid the storm that dies and swells
By fits—in hummings softly steals
The music of the village bells,
Ringing round their merry peals.

When this is past, a merry crew,

Bedeck’d in masks and ribbons gay,
The “Morris-dance,” their sports renew,
And act their winter evening play.
The clown turn’d king, for penny-praise,
Storms with the actor’s strut and swell;
And Harlequin, a laugh to raise,
Wears his hunch-back and tinkling bell.

And oft for pence and spicy ale,

With winter nosegays pinn’d before,
The wassail-singer tells her tale,
And drawls her Christmas carols o’er.
While ’prentice boy, with ruddy face,
And rime-bepowder’d, dancing locks,
From door to door with happy pace,
Runs round to claim his “Christmas box.”

The block upon the fire is put,

To sanction custom’s old desires;
And many a fagot’s bands are cut,
For the old farmers’ Christmas fires;
Where loud-tongued Gladness joins the throng,
And Winter meets the warmth of May,
Till feeling soon the heat too strong,
He rubs his shins, and draws away.
While snows the window-panes bedim,
The fire curls up a sunny charm,
Where, creaming o’er the pitcher’s rim,
The flowering ale is set to warm;
Mirth, full of joy as summer bees,
Sits there, its pleasures to impart
And children, ’tween their parent’s knees,
Sing scraps of carols o’er by heart.

And some, to view the winter weathers,

Climb up the window-seat with glee.
Likening the snow to falling feathers,
In Fancy’s infant ecstasy;
Laughing, with superstitious love,
O’er visions wild that youth supplies,
Of people pulling geese above,
And keeping Christmas in the skies.

As tho’ the homestead trees were drest,

In lieu of snow, with dancing leaves;
As tho’ the sun-dried martin’s nest,
Instead of i’cles hung the eaves;
The children hail the happy day—
As if the snow were April’s grass,
And pleas’d, as ’neath the warmth of May,
Sport o’er the water froze to glass.

Thou day of happy sound and mirth,

That long with childish memory stays,
How blest around the cottage hearth
I met thee in my younger days!
Harping, with rapture’s dreaming joys,
On presents which thy coming found,
The welcome sight of little toys,
The Christmas gifts of cousins round.
The wooden horse with arching head,
Drawn upon wheels around the room;
The gilded coach of gingerbread,
And many-colour’d sugar plum;
Gilt cover’d books for pictures sought,
Or stories childhood loves to tell,
With many an urgent promise bought,
To get to-morrow’s lesson well.

And many a thing, a minute’s sport,

Left broken on the sanded floor,
When we would leave our play, and court
Our parent’s promises for more.
Tho’ manhood bids such raptures die,
And throws such toys aside as vain,
Yet memory loves to turn her eye,
And count past pleasures o’er again.

Around the glowing hearth at night,

The harmless laugh and winter tale
Go round, while parting friends delight
To toast each other o’er their ale;
The cotter oft with quiet zeal
Will musing o’er his Bible lean;
While in the dark the lovers steal
To kiss and toy behind the screen.

Old customs! Oh! I love the sound:

However simple they may be:
Whate’er with time have sanction found,
Is welcome, and is dear to me.
Pride grows above simplicity,
And spurns them from her haughty mind,
And soon the poet’s song will be
The only refuge they can find.
THE APPROACH OF SPRING
N OW once again, thou lovely Spring,
Thy sight the day beguiles;
For fresher greens the fairy ring,
The daisy brighter smiles:
The winds, that late with chiding voice
Would fain thy stay prolong,
Relent, while little birds rejoice,
And mingle into song.

Undaunted maiden, thou shalt find

Thy home in gleaming woods,
Thy mantle in the southern wind,
Thy wreath in swelling buds:
And may thy mantle wrap thee round,
And hopes still warm and thrive,
And dews with every morn be found
To keep thy wreath alive.

May coming suns, that tempt thy flowers,

Smile on as they begin;
And gentle be succeeding hours
As those that bring thee in;
Full lovely are thy dappled skies,
Pearl’d round with promised showers,
And sweet thy blossoms round thee rise
To meet the sunny hours.

The primrose bud, thy early pledge,

Sprouts ’neath each woodland tree,
And violets under every hedge
Prepare a seat for thee:
As maids just meeting woman’s bloom
Feel love’s delicious strife,
So Nature warms to find thee come,
And kindles into life
 And kindles into life.

Through hedge-row leaves, in drifted heaps

Left by the stormy blast,
The little hopeful blossom peeps,
And tells of winter past:
A few leaves flutter from the woods,
That hung the season through,
Leaving their place for swelling buds
To spread their leaves anew.

’Mong withered grass upon the plain,

That lent the blast a voice,
The tender green appears again,
And creeping things rejoice;
Each warm bank shines with early flowers,
Where oft a lonely bee
Drones, venturing on in sunny hours,
Its humming song to thee.

The birds are busy on the wing,

The fish play in the stream;
And many a hasty curdled ring
Crimps round the leaping bream;
The buds unfold to leaves apace,
Along the hedge-row bowers,
And many a child with rosy face
Is seeking after flowers.

The soft wind fans the violet blue,

Its opening sweets to share,
And infant breezes, waked anew,
Play in the maidens’ hair—
Maidens that freshen with thy flowers,
To charm the gentle swain,
And dally, in their milking hours,
With lovers’ vows again.
Bright dews illume the grassy plain,
Sweet messengers of morn,
And drops hang glistening after rain
Like gems on every thorn;
What though the grass is moist and rank
Where dews fall from the tree,
The creeping sun smiles on the bank
And warms a seat for thee.

The eager morning earlier wakes

To glad thy fond desires,
And oft its rosy bed forsakes
Ere night’s pale moon retires;
Sweet shalt thou feel the morning sun
To warm thy dewy breast,
And chase the chill mist’s purple dun
That lingers in the west.

Her dresses Nature gladly trims,

To hail thee as her queen,
And soon shall fold thy lovely limbs
In modest garb of green:
Each day shall like a lover come
Some gifts with thee to share,
And swarms of flowers shall quickly bloom
To dress thy golden hair.

All life and beauty warm and smile

Thy lovely face to see,
And many a hopeful hour beguile
In seeking joys with thee;
The sweetest hours that ever come
Are those which thou dost bring,
And sure the fairest flowers that bloom
Are partners of the Spring.
I’ve met the Winter’s biting breath
In nature’s wild retreat,
When Silence listens as in death,
And thought its wildness sweet;
And I have loved the Winter’s calm
When frost has left the plain,
When suns that morning waken’d warm
Left eve to freeze again.

I’ve heard in Autumn’s early reign

Her first, her gentlest song;
I’ve mark’d her change o’er wood and plain,
And wish’d her reign were long;
Till winds like armies, gather’d round,
And stripp’d her colour’d woods,
And storms urged on, with thunder-sound
Their desolating floods.

And Summer’s endless stretch of green,

Spread over plain and tree,
Sweet solace to my eyes has been,
As it to all must be;
Long I have stood his burning heat,
And breathed the sultry day,
And walk’d and toil’d with weary feet,
Nor wish’d his pride away.

But oft I’ve watch’d the greening buds

Brush’d by the linnet’s wing,
When, like a child, the gladden’d woods
First lisp the voice of Spring;
When flowers, like dreams, peep every day,
Reminding what they bring;
I’ve watch’d them, and am warn’d to pay
A preference to Spring.
TO THE RURAL MUSE.
M USE of the Fields! oft have I said farewell
To thee, my boon companion, loved so long,
And hung thy sweet harp in the bushy dell,
For abler hands to wake an abler song.
Much did I fear my homage did thee wrong:
Yet, loth to leave, as oft I turned again;
And to its wires mine idle hands would cling,
Torturing it into song. It may be vain;
Yet still I try, ere Fancy droops her wing,
And hopeless Silence comes to numb its ev’ry string.

Muse of the Pasture Brooks! on thy calm sea

Of poesy I’ve sailed; and though the will
To speed were greater than my prowess be,
I’ve ventur’d with much fear of usage ill,
Yet more of joy. Though timid be my skill,
As not to dare the depths of mightier streams;
Yet rocks abide in shallow ways, and I
Have much of fear to mingle with my dreams.
Yet, lovely Muse, I still believe thee by,
And think I see thee smile, and so forget I sigh.

Muse of the Cottage Hearth! oft did I tell

My hopes to thee, nor feared to plead in vain;
But felt around my heart thy witching spell,
That bade me as thy worshipper remain:
I did so, and still worship. Oh! again
Smile on my offerings, and so keep them green!
Bedeck my fancies like the clouds of even,
Mingling all hues which thou from heaven dost glean!
To me a portion of thy power be given,
If theme so mean as mine may merit aught of heaven.

For thee in youth I culled the simple flower,

That on thy bosom gained a sweeter hue
 That on thy bosom gained a sweeter hue,
And took thy hand along life’s sunny hour,
Meeting the sweetest joys that ever grew:
More friends were needless, and my foes were few.
Though freedom then be deemed as rudeness now.
And what once won thy praise now meets disdain,
Yet the last wreath I braided for thy brow,
Thy smiles did so commend, it made me vain
To weave another one, and hope for praise again.

With thee the spirit of departed years

Wakes that sweet voice which time hath rendered dumb;
And freshens, like to spring, loves, hopes, and fears,
That in my bosom found an early home,
Wooing the heart to ecstasy.—I come
To thee, when sick of care, of joy bereft,
Seeking the pleasures that are found in bloom.
O happy hopes, that Time hath only left
Around the haunts where thou didst erst sojourn!
Then smile, sweet Muse, again, and welcome my return.

With thee the raptures of life’s early day

Appear, and all that pleased me when a boy.
Though pains and cares have torn the best away,
And winter creeps between us to destroy,
Do thou commend, the recompence is joy:
The tempest of the heart shall soon be calm.
Though sterner Truth against my dreams rebel,
Hope feels success; and all my spirits warm,
To strike with happier mood thy simple shell,
And seize thy mantle’s hem—O! say not fare-thee-well.

Still, sweet Enchantress! youth’s strong feelings move,

That from thy presence their existence took:—
The innocent idolatry and love,
Paying thee worship in each secret nook,
That fancied friends in tree, and flower, and brook,
Shaped clouds to angels and beheld them smile,
And heard commending tongues in ev’ry wind.
Life’s grosser fancies did these dreams defile,
Yet not entirely root them from the mind;
I think I hear them still, and often look behind.

Aye, I have heard thee in the summer wind,

As if commending what I sung to thee;
Aye, I have seen thee on a cloud reclined,
Kindling my fancies into poesy;
I saw thee smile, and took the praise to me.
In beauties, past all beauty, thou wert drest;
I thought the very clouds around thee knelt:
I saw the sun to linger in the west,
Paying thee worship; and as eve did melt
In dews, they seemed thy tears for sorrows I had felt.

Sweeter than flowers on beauty’s bosom hung,

Sweeter than dreams of happiness above,
Sweeter than themes by lips of beauty sung,
Are the young fancies of a poet’s love.
When round his thoughts thy trancing visions move.
In floating melody no notes may sound,
The world is all forgot and past his care,
While on thy harp thy fingers lightly bound,
As winning him its melody to share;
And heaven itself, with him, where is it then but there?

E’en now my heart leaps out from grief, and all

The gloom thrown round by Care’s o’ershading wing;
E’en now those sunny visions to recall,
Like to a bird I quit dull earth and sing:
Life’s tempest swoon to calms on every string.
Ah! sweet Enchantress, if I do but dream,
If earthly visions have been only mine,
My weakness in thy service woos esteem,
And proves my truth as almost worthy thine:
 And proves my truth as almost worthy thine:
Surely true worship makes the meanest theme divine.

And still, warm courage, calming many a fear,

Heartens my hand once more thy harp to try
To join the anthem of the minstrel year:
For summer’s music in thy praise is high;
The very winds about thy mantle sigh
Love-melodies; thy minstrel bards to be,
Insects and birds, exerting all their skill,
Float in continued song for mastery,
While in thy haunts loud leaps the little rill,
To kiss thy mantle’s hem; and how can I be still?

There still I see thee fold thy mantle grey,

To trace the dewy lawn at morn and night;
And there I see thee, in the sunny day,
Withdraw thy veil and shine confest in light;
Burning my fancies with a wild delight,
To win a portion of thy blushing fame.
Though haughty Fancy treat thy power as small,
And Fashion thy simplicity disclaim,
Should but a portion of thy mantle fall
O’er him who woos thy love, ’tis recompense for all.

Not with the mighty to thy shrine I come,

In anxious sighs, or self applauding mirth,
On Mount Parnassus as thine heir to roam:
I dare not credit that immortal birth;
But mingling with the lesser ones on earth—
Like as the little lark from off its nest,
Beside the mossy hill awakes in glee,
To seek the morning’s throne a merry guest—
So do I seek thy shrine, if that may be,
To win by new attempts another smile from thee.

If without thee ’neath storms, and clouds, and wind,

I’ ’d th d d fi ld d d l
 I’ve roam’d the wood, and field, and meadow lea;
And found no flowers but what the vulgar find,
Nor met one breath of living poesy,
Among such charms where inspirations be;
The fault is mine—and I must bear the lot
Of missing praise to merit thy disdain.
To feel each idle plea though urged, forgot;
I can but sigh—though foolish to complain
O’er hopes so fair begun, to find them end so vain.

Then will it prove presumption thus to dare

To add fresh failings to each faulty song,
Urging thy blessings on an idle prayer,
To sanction silly themes: it will be wrong
For one so lowly to be heard so long.
Yet, sweet Enchantress, yet a little while
Forego impatience, and from frowns refrain;
The strong are ne’er debarr’d thy cheering smile,
Why should the weak, who need them most, complain
Alone, in solitude, soliciting in vain?

But if my efforts on thy harp prove true,

Which bashful youth at first so feared to try;
If aught of nature be in sounds I drew
From hope’s young dreams, and doubt’s uncertainty,
To these late offerings, not without their sigh;
Then on thine altar shall these themes be laid,
And past the deeds of graven brass remain,
Filling a space in time that shall not fade;
And if it be not so—avert disdain,
Till dust shall feel no sting, nor know it toil’d in vain.
SUMMER IMAGES
N OW swarthy Summer, by rude health embrowned,
Precedence takes of rosy fingered Spring;
And laughing Joy, with wild flowers prank’d, and crown’d,
A wild and giddy thing,
And Health robust, from every care unbound,
Come on the zephyr’s wing,
And cheer the toiling clown.

Happy as holiday-enjoying face,

Loud tongued, and “merry as a marriage bell,”
Thy lightsome step sheds joy in every place;
And where the troubled dwell,
Thy witching charms wean them of half their cares:
And from thy sunny spell,
They greet joy unawares.

Then with thy sultry locks all loose and rude,

And mantle laced with gems of garish light,
Come as of wont; for I would fain intrude,
And in the world’s despite,
Share the rude wealth that thy own heart beguiles;
If haply so I might
Win pleasure from thy smiles.

Me not the noise of brawling pleasure cheers,

In nightly revels or in city streets;
But joys which soothe, and not distract the ears,
That one at leisure meets
In the green woods, and meadows summer-shorn,
Or fields, where bee-fly greets
The ear with mellow horn.

The green-swathed grasshopper, on treble pipe,

Sings there, and dances, in mad-hearted pranks;
The bees go courting every flower that’s ripe,
 g g y p ,
On baulks and sunny banks;
And droning dragon-fly, on rude bassoon,
Attempts to give God thanks
In no discordant tune.

The speckled thrush, by self-delight embued,

There sings unto himself for joy’s amends,
And drinks the honey dew of solitude.
There Happiness attends
With inbred Joy until the heart o’erflow,
Of which the world’s rude friends.
Nought heeding, nothing know.

There the gay river, laughing as it goes,

Plashes with easy wave its flaggy sides,
And to the calm of heart, in calmness shows
What pleasure there abides,
To trace its sedgy banks, from trouble free:
Spots, Solitude provides
To muse, and happy be.

There ruminating ’neath some pleasant bush,

On sweet silk grass I stretch me at mine ease,
Where I can pillow on the yielding rush;
And, acting as I please,
Drop into pleasant dreams; or musing lie,
Mark the wind-shaken trees,
And cloud-betravelled sky.

There think me how some barter joy for care,

And waste life’s summer-health in riot rude,
Of nature, nor of nature’s sweets aware.
When passions vain intrude,
These, by calm musings, softened are and still;
And the heart’s better mood
Feels sick of doing ill.
There I can live, and at my leisure seek
Joys far from cold restraints—not fearing pride
Free as the winds, that breathe upon my cheek
Rude health, so long denied.
Here poor Integrity can sit at ease,
And list self-satisfied
The song of honey bees;

The green lane now I traverse, where it goes

Nought guessing, till some sudden turn espies
Rude batter’d finger post, that stooping shows
Where the snug mystery lies;
And then a mossy spire, with ivy crown,
Cheers up the short surprise,
And shows a peeping town.

I see the wild flowers, in their summer morn

Of beauty, feeding on joy’s luscious hours;
The gay convolvulus, wreathing round the thorn,
Agape for honey showers;
And slender kingcup, burnished with the dew
Of morning’s early hours,
Like gold minted new.

And mark by rustic bridge, o’er shallow stream,

Cow-tending boy, to toil unreconciled,
Absorbed as in some vagrant summer dream;
Who now, in gestures wild,
Starts dancing to his shadow on the wall,
Feeling self-gratified,
Nor fearing human thrall.

Or thread the sunny valley laced with streams,

Or forests rude, and the o’ershadow’d brims
Of simple pond, where idle shepherd dreams,
Stretching his listless limbs;
O t h t d d th d l
Or trace hay-scented meadows, smooth and long
Where joy’s wild impulse swims
In one continued song.

I love at early morn, from new mown swath,

To see the startled frog his route pursue;
To mark while, leaping o’er the dripping path,
His bright sides scatter dew,
The early lark that, from its bustle flies,
To hail his matin new;
And watch him to the skies.

To note on hedgerow baulks, in moisture sprent,

The jetty snail creep from the mossy thorn,
With earnest heed, and tremulous intent,
Frail brother of the morn,
That from the tiny bent’s dew-misted leaves
Withdraws his timid horn,
And fearful vision weaves.

Or swallow heed on smoke-tanned chimney top,

Wont to be first unsealing Morning’s eye,
Ere yet the bee hath gleaned one wayward drop
Of honey on his thigh;
To see him seek morn’s airy couch to sing,
Until the golden sky
Bepaint his russet wing.

Or sauntering boy by tanning corn to spy,

With clapping noise to startle birds away,
And hear him bawl to every passer by
To know the hour of day;
While the uncradled breezes, fresh and strong,
With waking blossoms play,
And breathe Æolian song.

I love the south-west wind, or low or loud,

 And not the less when sudden drops of rain
Moisten my glowing cheek from ebon cloud,
Threatening soft showers again,
That over lands new ploughed and meadow grounds,
Summer’s sweet breath unchain,
And wake harmonious sounds.

Rich music breathes in Summer’s every sound;

And in her harmony of varied greens,
Woods, meadows, hedge-rows, corn-fields, all around
Much beauty intervenes;
Filling with harmony the ear and eye;
While o’er the mingling scenes
Far spreads the laughing sky.

See, how the wind-enamoured aspin leaves

Turn up their silver lining to the sun!
And hark! the rustling noise, that oft deceives
And makes the sheep-boy run;
The sound so mimics fast-approaching showers,
He thinks the rain’s begun,
And hastes to sheltering bowers.

But now the evening curdles dank and grey,

Changing her watchet hue for sombre weed;
And moping owls, to close the lids of day,
On drowsy wing proceed;
While chickering crickets, tremulous and long,
Light’s farewell inly heed,
And give it parting song.

The pranking bat its flighty circlet makes;

The glow-worm burnishes its lamp anew;
O’er meadows dew-besprent, the beetle wakes
Inquiries ever new,
Teazing each passing ear with murmurs vain,
As wanting to pursue
 g p
His homeward path again.

Hark! ’tis the melody of distant bells

That on the wind with pleasing hum rebounds
By fitful starts, then musically swells
O’er the dim stilly grounds;
While on the meadow-bridge the pausing boy
Listens the mellow sounds,
And hums in vacant joy.

Now homeward-bound, the hedger bundles round

His evening faggot, and with every stride
His leathern doublet leaves a rustling sound,
Till silly sheep beside
His path start tremulous, and once again
Look back dissatisfied,
And scour the dewy plain.

How sweet the soothing calmness that distills

O’er the heart’s every sense its opiate dews,
In meek-eyed moods and ever balmy trills!
That softens and subdues,
With gentle Quiet’s bland and sober train,
Which dreamy eve renews
In many a mellow strain!

I love to walk the fields, they are to me

A legacy no evil can destroy;
They, like a spell, set every rapture free
That cheer’d me when a boy.
Play—pastime—all Time’s blotting pen conceal’d,
Comes like a new-born joy,
To greet me in the field.

For Nature’s objects ever harmonize

With emulous Taste, that vulgar deed annoys;
Which loves in pensive moods to sympathize
Which loves in pensive moods to sympathize,
And meet vibrating joys
O’er Nature’s pleasing things; nor slighting, deems
Pastimes, the Muse employs,
Vain and obtrusive themes.
AUTUMN
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