This book offers the first theoretical and experiential translation of Napo Runa mythology in English. It presents and analyzes lowland Quichua speakers in the Napo province of Ecuador through narratives, songs, curing chants, and other oral performances, so readers may come to understand and appreciate Quichua aesthetic expression. Like many other indigenous peoples, the Napo Runa create meaning through language and other practices that do not correspond to the communicative or social assumptions of Western culture. Language itself is only a part of a communicative world that includes plants, ... More

This book offers the first theoretical and experiential translation of Napo Runa mythology in English. It presents and analyzes lowland Quichua speakers in the Napo province of Ecuador through narratives, songs, curing chants, and other oral performances, so readers may come to understand and appreciate Quichua aesthetic expression. Like many other indigenous peoples, the Napo Runa create meaning through language and other practices that do not correspond to the communicative or social assumptions of Western culture. Language itself is only a part of a communicative world that includes plants, animals, and the landscape. In the Napo Runa worldview, storytellers are shamans who use sound and form to create relationships with other people and beings from the natural and spirit worlds. Guiding readers into Quichua ways of thinking and being—in which language itself is only a part of a communicative world that includes plants, animals, and the landscape—the book weaves exacting translations into an interpretive argument with theoretical implications for understanding oral traditions, literacy, new technologies, and language.