A few years ago, while surveying backyard plants in a Kuikuro village in the Upper Xingu, I came across a pequi tree (Caryocar brasiliense) with its base stripped and scorched. The homeowner explained: kuge otombalü iheke—“it took hold of someone.” The tree’s spirit had made a family member ill by abducting their soul-double. All itseke—translated as “spirit” or  “beast”—prey on humans by capturing their soul-doubles to make them kin. The same applies to the spirit-owners of cultivated plants: care can't fully protect us from their attacks. Yet their goal isn’t to harm us, but to turn us into their relatives.

Some Kuikuro terms help clarify this. Kuge means a fully human person, both physically and morally. Itseke refers to someone not kuge to humans but kuge to themselves (and to shamans). They shoot invisible arrows, causing pain and illness, and eventually abduct the person’s soul—akunga, a word that can mean “soul,” “double,” or “shadow.” Illness is described with the verb otomba-, from oto (“master-owner”), meaning “to take hold of” or “to master.” The itseke takes possession and carries the sick into its world, like a hunter bringing home the young of a preyed animal.

The homeowner whose backyard I visited had decided to kill the pequi tree to stop it from making his family ill. Drastic, but not surprising. The backyard is inhabited by various itseke, who live in the mounds formed by daily organic waste. These mounds are typical sites for the formation of Amazon Dark Earth (ADE)—a highly fertile soil created through long-term human activity and the work of microorganisms, fungi, insects, worms, and other “beasts.” It is no coincidence that shamans find portals to the itseke world at the edges of backyards—gateways through which they retrieve a patient’s soul-double. The man’s mistake was twofold: he planted the tree too close to his house and chose a species with powerful spirit-owners (oto)—the pequi. While Kuikuro grow many fruit trees in their backyards, they avoid planting pequi there.

In the Upper Xingu, agriculture and fruit growing are based on the pairing of manioc and pequi. Manioc is cultivated in swiddens cleared annually, productive for three to four years. Pequi orchards, by contrast, are planted in a garden a year before it is permanently abandoned—usually by a father or grandfather for a child or grandchild, who will inherit the grove. Traditionally, pequi seeds are first planted in a yard, within a crocodile-shaped outline. Once they sprout, the seedlings are transplanted to the swidden, where they grow into an orchard, which will start to bear fruit in about eight years and remain productive for at least half a century. Planting a pequi orchard is thus both an act of care for future generations and a bet on continued presence in a human-shaped landscape.

The pequi harvest runs from October to early December, when families routinely visit the groves. It is then that things can go awry. The pequi has many owners—beginning with the cayman, from whose body it sprouted, followed by dispersing birds like macaws, parrots, and hawks, and finally the pollinators, especially the hummingbird. The grove is a site of shared ownership: alongside humans, the itseke-owners watch over the trees, ensuring their fertility and beauty. They are as much responsible for caring for the groves as humans are.

However, at times, conflicts arise between itseke and human owners in these multispecies territories, and the latter may fall seriously ill—as happened to a woman, named Tapualu, twenty-five years ago, when she was struck by hummingbird darts while gathering fruit. The following days were filled with pain and terror. She dreamed of the itseke at her doorstep, launching arrows at her. Shamans were called to identify the cause: it was the hummingbird, owner of the pequi tree. “It is harming you,” the shamans said, “it is your wild pet.” Though it is the itseke who take possession of the sick, once healed, the relationship reverses: the patient becomes their owner, along with their ritual.

The hummingbird’s intention was to make Tapualu the owner of its ritual so she would perform it for many years. During the celebration, birds are crafted from wood and wax, especially a pair of hummingbirds. These figurines dance and eat pepper porridge, just as the invisible itseke they embody. Thus, an act of predation becomes ritual, rooted in the bond between an itseke-pet and a former patient who now hosts a festival where spirits and humans dance and eat together. Tapualu performed it over a long period, remaining healthy—protected by the hummingbird and nourished by delicious pequi fruit. Eventually, she held one last grand feast, bidding farewell to her pets with the sorrow of a longing mother.

Here one observes an intriguing dynamic of responsibility and care. The owners, ultimately the “guardians” (igati) and “care-takers” (igikasitinhü) of the pequi groves, transfer this responsibility—through predation and affliction—to humans, who care for them as parents care for their children. In so doing, a former patient and his/her family become responsible for the fertility of all village groves and for the expansive sociality generated by the performance of rituals.

The pequi is not the only dangerous plant that can prey on humans—manioc is just as perilous, its owner also shooting arrows at inattentive gardeners to forge an adoptive bond that culminates in a festival. Plant owners can be wrathful, but they predate out of care in both senses: they want to be cared for—invited to dance and feast—and they care for humans and their gardens in return.

Unfortunately, the game doesn’t always end in celebration. Human jealousy may disrupt this loving predation, and death follows close behind. In truth, one only dies by human sorcery—by the hand of a kuge who, driven by envy, fails to uphold moral ties and kills a relative for nothing. Plants, however, bear no blame.