Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America ISSN: 2572-3626 (online) Volume 16 Issue 2 Cosmology and Practice in Amazonia Article 5 12-15-2019 The Origin of Night and the Dance of Time: Ritual and Material Culture in Northwest Amazonia Stephen P. Hugh-Jones University of Cambridge,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.trinity.edu/tipiti Part of the Folklore Commons, Latin American Studies Commons, Nature and Society Relations Commons, and the Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Hugh-Jones, Stephen P. (2019). "The Origin of Night and the Dance of Time: Ritual and Material Culture in Northwest Amazonia," Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America: Vol. 16: Iss. 2, Article 5, 76-98. Available at: https://digitalcommons.trinity.edu/tipiti/vol16/iss2/5 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ Trinity. It has been accepted for inclusion in Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ Trinity. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. ARTICLE The Origin of Night and the Dance of Time: Ritual and Material Culture in Northwest Amazonia Stephen Hugh-Jones University of Cambridge UNITED KINGDOM Introduction This essay deals with stories about the origin of night that are told by the indigenous peoples of Northwest Amazonia.1 It examines how the experience of time is made concrete in the sounds and colors of the insects, birds, and animals of the forest; in the composition, textures, and colors of the materials used in house-building; and how these natural indices of time are recreated in the objects, songs, and dances of ritual dance festivals.