A Decolonial Philosophy of Indigenous Colombia: Time, Beauty, and Spirit in Kamëntšá Culture
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Overview
Philosophically addressing three fundamental aspects of the Kamëntšá, an indigenous culture located in the southwest of Colombia, this book is an investigation of how a native culture creates meaning. Time, beauty and spirit are key philosophical experiences within the Kamëntšá culture which should be interpreted both as constituting and as constituted symbols because of their historicity and actuality and their potential power of transformation. The book addresses these living symbols that take hold of the past but whose significance goes beyond their antiquity through the traditions of storytelling and dance, ritual, healing and ceremony as well as the fraught political histories of colonialism and the ownership of the land.
The author, raised within Kamëntšá culture, weaves personal experience with philosophical insights and significance of the Kamentsa culture, presented through its own frameworks and narratives. The philosophical dimensions of Kamentsa culture are articulated and contextualized within a legacy of colonial domination by long-term Spanish and Catholic rule that enacts the necessary separation of Kamentsa ideas from their representations through Catholic hermeneutic approaches. However, the book also embraces intercultural philosophical engagement, as the methodological approach is formed partly through some modern and contemporary Western thinkers as well as indigenous writers and figures like Carlos Tamabioy and N. Scott Momaday.
Introduction
- Generalities of Kamëntšá Culture
- A Philosophical Approach to Kamëntšá Culture
Chapter 1 – Time in Kamëntšá Culture
- Two Conceptions of Time
- Time as History
- Sibundoy at the Time of the Early Spanish Conquistadors
- Carlos Tamabioy’s Legacy in Land Ownership
- Capuchin Missionaries and the Division of Land in the Sibundoy Valley
- Time as Primary Experience
- Storytelling as Constituted Symbol
- Scholarship on Storytelling as Constituted Symbol
- Storytelling as Constituting Symbol
- Conclusion
Chapter 2 – Beauty in Kamëntšá Culture
- Bëtskanté as Constituted Symbol
- From Bëtsknaté to Clestrinӱë
- Bëtsknaté as a Constituting Symbol: An Experience of Dancing
- The Philosophical Significance of Kamëntšá Dancing
- Conclusion
Chapter 3 – Spirit in Kamëntšá Culture
- Native Doctors and Rituals of Healing: The Constituted Nature of Rituals
- Scholarly Descriptions of Yajé
- Yajé ceremonies in Sibundoy: The Constituting Aspects of Yajé
- Conclusion
Conclusion
Bibliography
With a decidedly didactic tone and in dialogue with the American philosophical tradition, Chindoy articulates communal history and personal experience to introduce the Western reader to Time, Beauty, and Spirit as living forces in the Kamëntšá culture. It is in the transformative effects of its reading that this concise volume becomes, in the author’s words, a beautiful and meaningful conversation.
This book offers a vivid investigation into the South American symbolic representations (Time, Beauty, Spirit) as well as decolonial practices of Sibundoy tribes. The Author fruitfully applies William James’s radical empiricism in his veracious analyzes of tribal storytelling, dance and rituals of healing, fittingly illustrating them with his personal ritual experiences as a member of Kamëntšá tribe.
- Title: A Decolonial Philosophy of Indigenous Colombia: Time, Beauty, and Spirit in Kamëntšá Culture
- Author: Juan Alejandro Chindoy Chindoy
- Series: Global Critical Caribbean Thought
- Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
- Print Publication Date: 2020
- Logos Release Date: 2020
- Pages: 122
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781786616302, 9781786616296, 1786616297, 1786616300
- Resource ID: LLS:9781786616302
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2025-04-22T02:18:49Z
Juan Alejandro Chindoy Chindoy is Lecturer in Moral and Political Philosophy at Caldas University, Manizales, Colombia, and Lecturer in Philosophy of Law and Hermeneutics at Universidad Católica Luis Amigó, Manizales, Colombia.