この論文は,チリ南部に居住する先住民マプーチェの社会において,口頭的
コミュニケーションの問題が,口頭伝承,夢,儀礼といった彼らの伝統的な社
会文化的実践の中心部分を縦断して,マプーチェ的な「考え方」,「生き方」そ
のものの問題と重なり合っていることを,一次データをもとに示そうとするも
のである。その中で,E・A・ハヴロックの『プラトン序説』を一つの土台に,
こうした思考と存在の様式の独自性を,プラトン主義や近代的主体性との対照
の中で浮き彫りにする試みもなされる。後者の作業は,近代国家チリの中で少
数民族として暮らすマプーチェの人々が,口頭的なものと近代的・チリ的なも
のとの問で揺れ動く今日的状況を存在論的なレベルから把握する上で有益な作
業と考えられる。
Among the Mapuche of Southern Chile, the importance of the oral
mode of communication is immediately perceptible because of their
highly developed system of ceremonial dialogue (ngutramkan) . In this
article, I survey the anthropological problems implied by Mapuche
orality on the basis of ethnographic data gathered near Lake Calafquen
in 1990-1992. Concretely, I will show how their ceremonial dialogue
intimately unites oral traditions, dreams and rituals, and thus, crossing
the central parts of their traditional sociocultural practices, means for
many of them the very practice that gives shape to their traditional mode
of thought and existence. Another intention of this article, along with
these ethnographic discussions, is to characterize their oral mode of
thought and existence by contrasting it with Platonism and modern
subjectivity, mostly inspired by E. A. Havelock's classic Preface to
Plato. This second aspect of the article will help to apprehend from an
ontological level the actual problem of the existence of contemporary
Mapuche—an ethnic minority in the Chilean state, modern and basically
Western—most of whom are obliged to fluctuate between two conflicting
cultures.