Surfaces and lines: artefacts and designs as communicative manifestations of relationships in Amazonian cosmologies (original) (raw)

Starting from the concept of alterity, this article seeks to question the links between artefacts and designs among various Amazonian groups considered to have 'complex design systems'. The central hypothesis is that design among these groups is a visual rendering of social interactions with both human and nonhuman entities, and through an analysis of how artefacts are created, and the messages that design covered artefacts and bodies communicate, anthropologists can hope to understand the complex relationships governing the lived worlds of Amerindian cosmologies.