This project will document the production, circulation and use of two sets of everyday Makushi household tools. These tools are taken here as constructed extensions of the body, where the gradual acquisition of skills associated with these objects was once said to be a way of measuring the development and maturity of young men and women. The intergenerational transmission related to managing and harvesting the required raw plant materials, processing them, crafting them into highly specific forms that display a variety of designs and graphics, and finally, their proper circulation and use by the correct categories of person is significantly hindered today.
Through film, photography, audio recording, drawings, and notes, we will document the type of plant material used, their management, harvesting, processing, plaited or woven techniques, designs, form, circulation and use. We will document the places and times relevant to their production, the sequence in which they were made and used, any classification or names, associated body parts, or narratives. Finally, we will document the point at which these objects are no longer useful and how to dispose of them properly. These processes outline a material knowledge system that draws together the environment, plant materials, human bodies, and the tools with which they are coterminous and through which they are made socially reproductive. The primary goals of this work include producing the objects themselves along with the corresponding documentation records as outlined above.
Principal Investigator:
Charlotte Hoskins
Collaborators:
Caroline Jacobs and Makushi Research Unit
Location of Research:
North Rupununi, Guyana/Brazil
Host Institution:
School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford, UK
Top Banner Image: ‘Bush wash’, seasonal storm in the North Rupununi, Guyana. Photo credit: Charlotte Hoskins.