ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the interrelations between the making of objects and the making of bodies among Kuna people in contemporary Panama. Kuna people use an idiom of birth to describe artefactual activities. Kuna people and other Amerindians understand human reproductive capacities as a form of growing that is akin to making; Cashinahua people say that bodies are 'made to grow'. For instance, in recent years scholars of Melanesia have explored the relations between persons and objects, highlighting native ideas of personhood by looking at the making, exchange and ritual use of specific objects. Strathern explores ideas of personhood in relation to objects through her cross-cultural discussion of Melanesian ethnography. Strathern shows that some Melanesians consider the role of bodily substances to be crucial for body formation and making artefacts such as canoes, Kuna people seem to concern themselves principally with form when thinking of bodies and artefacts.
