Niespecyficzne duchy, przewrotne opowieści – budowanie wyobrażeń na temat osób nie-ludzkich w narracjach ludu Arabela (Amazonia peruwiańska)
Unspecific spirits, deceitful narratives – building representations of non-human persons in the first-person narratives of the Arabela (Peruvian Amazonia)

Summary/Abstract: This article is an attempt to extend the pragmatic reflection on ritual language as a means of transmission of animic representations from ritual contexts to the context of everyday narratives. It contains an analysis of a couple of first-person Arabela narratives about being abducted by sweet water dauphin. The article shows that language and structure of those narratives are characterized by counterintuitive mode of relation between the speaker and the events represented in the tale, build on different levels of language and narrative structure. It is obtained mostly by two features: unspecificity and lacunarity. The former characterizes the terms relating to non-human persons and shamans – extraordinary experiences are referenced to by means of terms relating to the shared experience of all Arabela. The latter relates to the fact that many aspects of non-human existence and human/non-human interaction are eluded in the story, even when the speaker is explicitly questioned about them.

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