Lost in Other-than-Human Worlds
Arctic Anthropology February 1, 2026 Nadezhda Mamontova, Thomas F. Thornton
Disorientation and displacement in the shamanic topography of the Evenki, an Indigenous Siberian people, can foster novel relationships between humans and nonhuman beings. Rather than being purely negative, spatial disruptions convey geographical and sociocultural information about nonhuman ontologies and topographies. Ethnographic research shows that disorientation can enhance human abilities by deepening connections with nonhuman worlds. Comparing this with North American Pacific Coast Indigenous traditions, the authors analyze two navigation strategies: changing bodily appearance and changing self, corresponding to covering and metamorphosis in Amerindian perspectivism. Unlike Amazonian perspectives where bodily transformations confer extraordinary abilities, in Siberian and North American contexts, transformations focus on establishing communicative relationships through strategic use of coverings.