Jakon joi

Jakon joi—the good word—is not a word whose content would be edifying. Chonon Bensho, a Shipibo-Konibo artist and descendant of the Onanya sages, makes it the title of her text, calling it good as water is fresh: the word is strong, she writes, “because it drinks from the same aerial and vegetal source that nourished the ancient Onanya.” The quality of the word does not lie in what it asserts, but in what it remains steeped in.

The term assumes a world where thinking is not a solitary act. Thought—shina—is treated as a substance that can be strong (koshi shina), vast (ani shina), good (jakon shina), or beautiful (metsa shina); speech—joi—is the same (koshi joi, strong speech). All these qualities share a single condition: remaining connected—to ancestors, to the plant world, to living beings regarded as subjects. “No one is alone,” writes Chonon Bensho.

This differs from our “positive thinking,” which takes the opposite path: a technique by which, alone, I optimize an interior that is mine, and for which my well-being is the judge. Jakon shina is not a product I manufacture to feel better; a thought severed from its relations is not “negative” to be corrected—it is the thought of a ghost, of a being without ties. The similarity of the words—“good thought”—conceals two opposing gestures: straightening a private inner self, or never letting go of the root that nourishes. Compare this to akinananti, the work that, likewise, only holds value in connection.