Performing ritual substances as relational life forces in Northwestern Andean Argentina

Abstract

In the upland indigenous villages of Northwestern Andean Argentina, the ethnography of ritual offerings to the Pachamama (Mother Earth) highlights how specific substances, such as food, coca leaves, alcohol, and cigarettes, perform as material life forces, relating humans, animals, and more-than-human beings into a living environment. These relations are not necessarily harmonious and symmetrical, as they include both commensality and mutual consumption. This article focuses on an ethnographic theory of substance, connecting local praxis, Andean anthropological literature, and anthropological reflections on animism as “animacy.” It calls for a possible understanding of substances as relational performing, that is, relational actions in a middle-voice mode. Underscoring the role of food offerings, the article then links kinship-relatedness to a wider environmental relationality. Finally, by underlining the multiple interconnected aspects of the vital force associated with breathing, it contributes to the discussion on “animism revisited” in the Andes.