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7 • TO WEAVE THE WORLD Through the magic of a world of objects which is the product of the application of the same schemes to the most diverse domains, a world in which each thing speaks metaphorically of all the others, each practice comes to be invested with an objective meaning, a meaning with which practices—and particularly rites—have to reckon at all times, whether to evoke or revoke it. The construction of the world of objects is clearly not the sovereign operation of consciousness which the neo-Kantian tradition conceives of; the mental structures which construct the world of objects are constructed in thepractice of a world of objects constructed according to the same structures. The mind bom of the world of objects does not rise as a subjectivity confronting an objectivity: the objective universe is made up of objects which are the product of objectifying operations structured according to the very structures which the mind applies to it. The mind is a metaphor of the world of objects which is itself but an endless circle of mutually reflecting metaphors. — Pierre Bourdieu. Outline of a Tbeoiy of Practice When a Yekuana weaves or uses a basket, the range of meanings evoked is constellated in much more than the choice of design, the preparation of the materials, or the use to which it is put. The configuration of symbols that are elaborated draw their power from not only their own explication but, more importantly, from the larger cultural order to which they refer. In each instance, the symbols reproduce the same organization of reality that structures every other aspect of the society. Hence, just as the basketry symbols are informed by the larger cultural patterns to which they refer, so too are these larger cultural patterns informed by them. It is a process of mutual reflexivity in which meaning is continually being created from a shared context of forms. In order to 162 TO WE/WE TI IK WORLD understand how symbols actually operate, therefore, one must identify the underlying key that unites the entire system of metaphors. As already discussed, each aspect of the baskets—design, material, technique, and function—recapitulates the messages incorporated in the others. Through their own vocabulary of symbols, they explore the terrain of Yekuana consciousness, mapping a world of conflicting dualities that culture alone is empowered to resolve. Each defines an identical space, wherein visible realities must be penetrated in order to contact the unseen ones that control them. Only in this way can the forces of nature be transformed into the necessary objects of cultural use. Hence, just as the conquest of the Warishidi is memorialized in the structure of the designs, so too does the preparation of the materials convert another, unseen reality(the Yododai) into a safe, usable form. It is this same process of transformation which is acted out when the fast basket is substituted for the "painted" waja to facilitate the reintegration of a "contaminated" (amoihe) or liminal person. In each instance, a synthesis is achieved which brings the foreign and toxic into harmony with not only the other elements of the basket but also with the overarching structure of the entire culture. It is the primary act of humanization by which the chaotic and natural, whether external or subconscious , is organized into a pervasive, comprehensible pattern of reality or, as David Schneider calls it, a "culturalogic" (1976:219). While it has been shown how the various symbolicelements of the baskets reflect the ethos and values that permeate all of Yekuana society, it remains to be demonstrated how these elements conform to the actual structures by which these systems of thought are integrated elsewhere in the culture. For the ability of these symbols to evoke and organize depends on a multireferentiality which, although seldom verbalized , extends to every configuration of cultural expression. As such, meaning results from a layering of experience wherein every action recapitulates the whole yet is only explained by the accumulation of all the parts. One example of this interconnecting web of metaphors is the relation between the baskets and the house. As already noted, the roundhouse or atta is the expression par excellence of the Yekuana conceptualization of the universe. Each architectural element corresponds to a different aspect of the cosmos, creating a unified vision of the world or, as VictorTurner stated it in another context, "the symbolic template of the whole system of beliefs and values" (1967:108). It is a structure repeated...

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