Blows, barks and whispers: the preparation of hunting dogs among the Galibi Marworno people

Abstract

The history of the use and incorporation of dogs in contemporary Indigenous societies is marked by numerous controversies, ranging from a presumed pre-Columbian origin, attested in early navigators’ accounts that converge with Indigenous narratives, to the hypothesis that domesticated dogs were absent among Amerindian hunters prior to the establishment of exchange networks that enabled their acquisition from colonizers. In this context the present paper is grounded in a dialogue between Indigenous and non-Indigenous intellectuals, drawing upon memories and narratives concerning the origin and development of human–dog relations in the remote Amazonian region where the Galibi Marworno people reterritorialized, along the present-day Franco-Brazilian border, in the municipality of Oiapoque, in the state of Amapá. To this end, the study engages with mnemonic and pictographic practices developed by Amerindian researchers, which enable the knowledge, documentation, and translation of what may be regarded as an original account of the emergence of human–dog relations in the lower Oiapoque River region. Techniques, blows, and barks derived from Indigenous memory are superimposed onto other layers of ethnographic experience, fostering an intercultural and pluriepistemic dialogue that gives rise to an ethnically grounded version from the ecological and environmental history of the Guianese Amazon.