Sinan
matsés (langue pano)
The Matsés word for the vital energy of the shaman, the warrior, and the hunter—the "high" force, distinct from *<em>dayac</em>*, the ordinary energy of labor that both women and men possess. In the cosmovision reported by Luis Dunu Jiménez Dësi, this energy is part of the spirit, but it is not confined there: it is passed to another by blowing powdered tobacco through the nose or by applying the venom of the toad. Its most singular property is that it obeys no scarcity: "those who have much energy pass it to those who have less" without their own diminishing. The force is not spent in giving—it only weakens if one allows someone weaker to blow tobacco on them. *Sinan* follows the lineage of those who see (among the Matsés, in principle men; but Dunu’s shaman mother had it) more than gender.
Sinan es energía de chamán, guerrero y cazador.
Sinan would translate as “energy,” and we’d immediately muddle everything. For the Matsés don’t speak of a single, conserved force—one you spend and replenish. They distinguish two. Dayac is the energy of labor: through it, you work well, weave hammocks and adornments more skillfully, and everyone has it—women and men alike. Sinan is the energy of those who engage with the invisible and danger—the shaman, the warrior, the hunter. Where we say “energy” for both, Dunu’s language separates the vigor of work from the power of vision.
This energy belongs to the spirit, yet it moves. You pass it to another by blowing powdered tobacco into their nostril or applying toad venom; the recipient gains courage, strength, endurance. It is thus neither an innate talent nor a grace: it is a substance transfused from body to body.
What makes it untranslatable lies elsewhere. Sinan is not expended. “Those who have much energy pass it to those who have less,” says Dunu, “without their own diminishing.” The giver is not impoverished by the receiver’s gain; the only way to see one’s own force wane is to let someone weaker blow tobacco into you—and descend toward them. It is the exact opposite of our “energy,” a finite quantity depleted by sharing. Closer might be breath, qi, which one gains by unburdening; but qi is cultivated by emptying, whereas sinan is preserved by giving. And this is not the ceremonial gift, the minidewak, which a rule compels to circulate: here, nothing compels, and nothing is surrendered. A force that grows in both hands at once, so long as it flows from higher to lower.