Ajútap/Arútam/Christ and the Jivaro victory over death

Abstract

The Awajún leader Santiago Manuín, interviewed by the author, witnesses the recent diffusion, among a part of his people, of the conscious overlap between Ajútap/Arútam, the god of the traditional Jivaro indigenous religions, and Jesus Christ. This observation raises a reflection on the central presence of death in human life, and the different symbolic solutions that arise to cope with it, proposed, on one side, by these religions and, on the other side, by the capitalist/consumerist culture of the globalized world.