News
Defense of the Doctoral Thesis | Adrej Kocan
22.01.2025 | 3 PM | NOVA FCSH, Colégio Almada Negreiros | Room 223 - 2nd Floor
The doctoral exams in Music Sciences - specialising in Ethnomusicology, by Master Andrej Kocan, will be held at Colégio Almada Negreiros on 22 January 2025 at 3pm, with the theme "Healing, ritual, and change in the Amazon - Ethnomusicological study of chants among Pruvian Huni Kuin".
Jury of Andrej Kocan's doctoral exams:
- Doutor Bernd de Brabeck, Associate Professor at the Institut für Musikwissenschaftl of Universität Innsbruck, Austria.
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Doutor Miroslav Horák, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Regional Development and International Studies of the University of Brno, The Czech Republic.
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Eliane Camargo, Researcher at the University of Louvain, Belgium.
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Pedro Russo Moreira, Assistant Professor at the School of Arts of the University of Évora.
- João Soeiro de Carvalho, Full Professor at the School of Social Sciences and Humanities of NOVA University Lisbon.
- Catarina Alves Costa, Associate Professor at the School of Social Sciences and Humanities of NOVA University Lisbon.
Supervisor: João Soeiro de Carvalho
Abstract:
This is an ethnographic study resulting from fieldwork carried out between 2021 and 2023 among the Huni Kuin (Cashinahua) communities living on the Peruvian side of the border between Peru and Brazil, within the Amazon region. Focusing on their ayahuasca (nixi pae) chants performed during ritualistic sessions, I delve into the integral role of these chants in the spiritual practices of the community. According to previous studies, healing, as a cure for physical ailments, has not been the primary aim of ayahuasca sessions for the Peruvian Huni Kuin. My argument centers on the notion that these rituals primarily serve the functions of fostering social cohesion and maintaining the spiritual fabric of the community. Healing, in their worldview, is conceived as a transformative process — an alignment towards wholeness and balance. This transformative journey is encapsulated in their concept of xinan, characterized as an integrative consciousness, mediated and provided through experiences during ayahuasca ceremonies, other communal rituals, and daily life. Since the 1960s, missionaries have been, in the absence of other agents of change such as the state, corporations, and tourists, the main generators of transformations in Huni Kuin society in the highly isolated Peruvian Purús area. The diminishing presence of elders possessing spiritual knowledge and the reduction in the frequency of communal rituals have led to a shift in the community's worldview from the spiritual to the secular. This transition has impacted the balance within the community, affecting its collective self-healing capabilities. Consequently, this study re-evaluates anthropological categories such as shamanism, performance, ritual, healing, and cosmological systems. It also explores how the concepts of illness and healing are conceptualized within the unique perspective of the Huni Kuin.
