The Hot and the Cold: Ills of Humans and Maize in Native Mexico 9781442681460

Table of contents :
Contents
Figures
Acknowledgments
Introduction
CHAPTER ONE. Humoralism
CHAPTER TWO. Balance and Movement
CHAPTER THREE. Solar Life, Birth, and Diarrhea
CHAPTER FOUR. Lovesickness and Fear of the Dead
CHAPTER FIVE. Frights and Chaneques
CHAPTER SIX. Milpa Medicine and the Lunisolar Calendar
CHAPTER SEVEN. Corn, Water, and Iguana
CHAPTER EIGHT. Ants, Turtles, and Thunder
CHAPTER NINE. Diffusion and Syncretism
Notes
References
Index

Citation preview

THE HOT AND THE COLD: ILLS OF H U M A N S AND M A I Z E IN NATIVE M E X I C O

ANTROPOLOGICAL HORIZONS Editor: Michael Lambek, University of Toronto This series, begun in 1991, focuses on theoretically informed ethnographic works addressing issues of mind and body, knowledge and power, equality and inequality, the individual and the collective. Interdisciplinary in its perspective, the series makes a unique contribution in several other academic disciplines: women's studies, history, philosophy, psychology, political science, and sociology. For a list of the books published in this series see p. 303.

JACQUES M. CHEVALIER and ANDRES SANCHEZ BAIN

The Hot and the Cold: Ills of Humans and Maize in Native Mexico

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

www.utppublishing.com University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2003 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada ISBN 0-8020-3691-0

Printed on acid-free paper

National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publoication Chevalier, Jacques M., 1949The hot and the cold : ills of humans and maize in Native Mexico / Jacques M. Chevalier, Andres Sanchez Bain. (Anthropological horizons) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8020-3691-0 1. Nahuas - Medicine - Mexico - Veracruz (State) 2. Popoluca Indians - Medicine. 3. Traditional medicine - Mexico - Veracruz (State) 4. Nahuas - Ethnobotany - Mexico - Veracruz (State) 5. Popoluca Indians - Ethnobotany. 6. Corn - Mexico - Veracruz (State) - Folklore. I. Bain, Andres Sanchez II. Title. III. Series. F1221.N3C43 2003

306.4'61'08997452

C2002-904449-9

This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP).

Contents

List of Figures vii Acknowledgments ix Introduction xi 1 Humoralism 3 Classical and New World Humoralism 3 Humoralism without Humours 11 2 Balance and Movement 16 Skewed Theories of Equilibrium 16 Balance, Cycle, and Growth 22 Life and Movement under the Fifth Sun

30

3 Solar Life, Birth, and Diarrhea 41 The Human Cycle: A Heliotropic Life Force 41 Work and Rest, Hunger and Food, Sex and Reproduction Menstruation, Childbirth, and Burying the Placenta 55 Birth and Bowel Movement 70 Mixtures of Balance and Pace 78 4 Lovesickness and Fear of the Dead 82 Evil Eye and Lovesickness ,82 Heat of the Dead 99 Snakebites 104 A Moving Equilibrium 113

47

vi Contents

5 Frights and Chaneques 116 Soul Theft and Cold Fright 116 Soul-Snatching Chaneques 126 Dieting and Soul Exchange 133 Ensalmo and Tallada 148 6 Milpa Medicine and the Lunisolar Calendar 155 Sowing and Dieting 155 Milpa, Women, and the Moon 163 The Carnaval and Plant Gathering 167 7 Corn, Water, and Iguana 172 Stories of Corn and the Interpretive Method 173 Life Begins in Water: Two Eggs in a Milpa 177 Signs of Troubled Waters: Sex and Twins 185 Life Grows out of Water: The Milpa Cycle 189 Lessons of Immaturity: The Corn Boy Mocked 199 Evils of Vanity: The Iguana Caught 204 Hopes of Sacrifice: Letting the Animal Go 212 8 Ants, Turtles, and Thunder 219 The Pilgrimage of Life: Cutting Leaves and Ants 219 From Ants to Thunder 224 The Prince of Tides 230 The Colours of Sacrifice: Revisiting the Legend of the Suns 232 9 Diffusion and Syncretism 241 Diffusion Mechanisms 244 Classificatory Logic 251 Towards a Theory of Syncretism 254 Notes 261 References 277 Index 283

Figures

Map 1 The Sierra Santa Marta xvii Table 2.1 Health and equilibrium models

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Figures 2.1 Cycles and heliotropic growth 25 2.2 The Age of the Fifth Sun - Sun of movement 34 3.1 The human life cycle 44 3.2 Labouring women catching a cold ailment 57 4.1 Gaze clash 84 4.2 Lovesickness 99 4.3 Heat of the dead 105 4.4 Snakebite 107 4.5 Snake imagery 112 5.1 Fright and soul loss 122 5.2 Transactions in health 148 5.3 Fright healing 150 6.1 Sowing sun corn 159 6.2 Sacrifice and renewal 162 7.1 Life and death of the milpa 193 7.2 The milpa cycle 196 7.3 Breaking the tail and the back 213 7.4 On the way to the land where men are dry 217

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Acknowledgments

We are indebted to many people in Mexico for making this publication possible. We are particularly grateful to the campesinas and campesinos of the Sierra Santa Marta who throughout the years have shared their knowledge, stories, and culture with us and whose voices we have constantly revisited throughout the writing of this book. It was also a pleasure and privilege to work with Luisa Pare and members of the Proyecto Sierra Santa Marta (PSSM). Their friendship and collaboration during the various phases of our fieldwork were truly appreciated. Special thanks are owed to Dan Buckles, a friend and colleague whose drawing of the corn god appears on the book cover. A most important word of gratitude goes to our respective families - Michelle, Zelie, and Thierry, and Catherine, Antonio, and Cristina - for their continued patience and support.

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Introduction

The twentieth century brought radical changes to practically all aspects of life among indigenous populations of Latin America. Together with state institutions, national and global economic interests have become progressively involved in shaping people's daily lives, drawing indigenous communities into market economies driven by the logic of profit and capital accumulation in the hands of the few. Increased contact with the outside world has meant, among other things, the loss of local autonomy in matters of health. Local belief systems and practices nonetheless continue to play a central role, with the result that people now draw from native and western traditions simultaneously when coping with difficulties. Healing among native populations of the Sierra Santa Marta of southern Veracruz, Mexico, is a case in point. Beliefs and practices reflecting a pre-Hispanic perspective on illness and health coexist with systems of western origin. Indigenous health knowledge is transmitted from elders to young and through various specialists, including spiritual healers, herbalists, traditional midwives, and other health experts such as bone setters and snakebite healers. As for scientific medicine, its inroads into the Sierra began with the arrival of missionaries of the Linguistic Summer Institute in the mid-1940s. People in the Sierra were initially mistrustful of outsiders, and communications with surrounding urban centres remained limited until the construction of roads in the mid-1960s. Since then biomedicine has played an increasingly important role, gaining influence through hospitals, government and private health clinics, the sale of patent drugs in local stores, and the health curriculum taught at schools. In a typical pluralistic health setting in Latin America, such as in

xii The Hot and the Cold

Santa Marta, a given illness is often considered to be the result of various causal factors associated with both indigenous and western health concepts. Accordingly, people frequently follow parallel treatment methods. For example, it is not uncommon for a mother to take her child to the government health clinic to treat a bad cut or wound and then complement the treatment with the services of a salmera, a traditional healer empowered to retrieve the soul of the child lost at the time of the accident. Both health cultures come together in ways that defy simple categorization. All indications are that similar interactions, now blurred by the passage of time, were at play throughout Latin America during the colonial and post-colonial periods. Up until the nineteenth century, however, the western approach to illness involved not science as we know it, but rather a mixture of Roman Catholic beliefs and humoral medicine of Hippocratic inspiration, many traces of which can now be found in folk medicine as practised throughout Latin America. The resulting health culture now prevailing in the Sierra is a complex mix of indigenous knowledge, Catholicism, humoralism, and biomedicine. This syncretism of the old and the new goes well beyond the sum of its component parts. In this coexistence of variegated perspectives on health lies a continuous process of mutual accommodation, or appearances to that effect. At times the two cultures seem to complement each other, as in the case of a mother's visit to both a health clinic and a salmera. At other times the two systems appear to challenge each other or to work at cross purposes, as in the case of a medical doctor objecting to the ritual sacrifice of a chicken by a midwife or a mother giving her child a single antibiotic pill handed her by a friendly neighbour to stop a bout of diarrhea. In this book, we recognize the pervasive syncretism phenomenon and in Chapter 9 outline a theory to account for it. The views we express on these issues go beyond debates pitting naive romantic anthropology against the platitudes of modernization, acculturation, and social change theory. The material and analyses presented in this book pursue a different goal, one of showing the extent to which preHispanic influences have retained a strong position within this complex mix. The Nahuas and Popolucas of southern Veracruz still think of diarrhea as an ailment caused by envy, anger, or the smell of the earth exposed to the heat of the sun after the light rains of July and August. Mothers talk about the dangers of breastfeeding their babies when their own bodies are 'hot.' Elders describe a great ailment attack-

Introduction xiii

ing campesinos (a term denoting peasants, without pejorative implications) whose soul has been snatched by mischievous supernatural dwarfs in punishment for their neglect of corn fields. Healers abstain from sex in order to secure the powers to heal. In the minds of many who live in Sierra Santa Marta, stomach worms come from eating green mangos, or they are the result of magic spells sent by angry neighbours. People do also speak of microbes and even viruses; but these are often concomitant causes of disease, no more important than the rest. Our analysis of the indigenous underpinnings of hot-cold reasoning in the Sierra Santa Marta is in direct contradiction with the diffusionist hypothesis advanced by George M. Foster, a key figure in the anthropology of Mexican folk medicine. In his influential book entitled Hippocrates' Latin American Legacy: Humoral Medicine in the New World (1994), Foster provides a detailed synthesis of his theories with respect to the origins of hot-cold beliefs in contemporary popular medicine. According to Foster, it was the humoral medicine of sixteenth-century Spain that gave rise to the hot-cold polarity so characteristic of popular medical beliefs in Latin America today. The influence of this European medical system was profound. Pre-Hispanic medical knowledge was unable to withstand the onslaught of European culture in matters of health and eventually vanished during the colonial regime. Many beliefs and customs were absorbed one way or another into a medical humoral framework. Some survived but were marginalized. The legacy of ancient Mesoamerican thought on health and medicine was reduced to 'specific remedies, the names of a few culture-bound illnesses, and the like' (1994,187). Foster's views have not gone unchallenged. Alfredo Lopez Austin in particular has rejected the humoral diffusion theory, arguing for a pre-Hispanic framework governing native conceptions of illness and therapy. His critique of Foster and his contribution to the subject have fed a debate that has prevailed for thirty years, with both researchers attempting to synthesize each other's critiques and presenting arguments and counter-arguments in a series of publications (Foster 1978, 1986,1994; Lopez Austin 1969,1975,1980,1986). According to Lopez Austin, hot-cold thinking was central to the preHispanic Mesoamerican world views. It pervaded the ways in which people thought about their relationship with the land and all entities that surrounded them, including plants, animals, and spirits. The hotcold dualism gave priests, healers, and the common folk a tool to make

xiv The Hot and the Cold

sense of many things that occurred in the universe, be it the work of humans, forces of nature, spirits, or celestial bodies. The hot-cold dichotomy was particularly important in the area of illness and health. Foods, plants, and objects were classified according to their hot or cold nature. So were different organs of the body. Illness was generally understood as a hot or cold insult disrupting normal body condition. The imbalance or disequilibrium could affect a particular limb or organ or the whole body if the affliction was severe and of greater consequence (Viesca Trevirio 1986,103-4; Lopez Austin 1975,15-22). Several factors account for the resilience of native knowledge in healing matters. As Lopez Austin (1980, 25-6) suggests, the Spaniards initially tolerated the survival of indigenous cultures, especially in remote areas where means and resources needed to eradicate local traditions were simply not available. Many pre-Hispanic customs were accepted as long as people showed a modicum of conversion. In any case, local beliefs in matters such as medicine or agriculture did not represent a real threat of subversion or resistance to Spanish rule. Cultural disarticulation also served the Spaniards by reinforcing prevailing ideas regarding the inferiority of indigenous people, granting further legitimacy to the rhetoric of tutelage established for the 'natives' own good.' The question as to whether folk medicine in Latin America is of Mesoamerican ancestry or a product of the Hippocratic humoral doctrine brought by the Spaniards (mixed with Roman Catholic and other European beliefs) is not trivial. At stake is the recognition or denial of an indigenous mindset informing the prevention and treatment of disease. The issue is whether hot-cold reasoning points to assimilation into European culture or to the resiliency of indigenous perspectives on the world. In our view, Foster's diffusion thesis oversimplifies reality. In direct challenge to Foster's propositions, we contend that native concepts survive today and continue to shape popular notions of health affecting not only the human organism but also plants cultivated in the milpa (corn field). This does not minimize the influence of western biomedicine nor that of non-scientific belief systems of Old World origin, be they religious or humoral. Their impact on Latin American folk medicine is undeniable. Our study nonetheless draws attention to the resiliency of non-western cultural views on matters of illness and health. In Chapter 1 we present a general critique of Foster's diffusion theory, with an emphasis on inconsistencies between the classical

Introduction xv

humoral model and his own account of folk medicine in Latin America. Chapter 2 shifts the attention to another flaw prevailing in Foster's work, if not in most studies of Latin America's hot-cold syndrome: a tendency to adopt a homeostatic perspective on health equilibrium, a static balance that admits of no movement or change in normal life. Illness is a deviation from a functional equilibrium point (midway between the hot and the cold) that otherwise never moves. We present an alternative model. Healing beliefs and practices of native inspiration are constantly working at reconciling three things. The first is a sense of balance in all things, hence avoiding insults of excessive heat or cold. The second involves a recognition of the periodicity that governs regular alternations between opposite states experienced through normal activities (e.g., the body heats up when working and cools off when resting). The third involves a sense of direction through time - an overall process of growth and reproduction generally heading from wetness and birth (cold) to dryness and death in the sun (hot). The threefold logic of our model implies that people will fall ill when exposed to extreme states (of heat or cold) or to a deadly arrest in the cyclic motions and the overall movement of life. The interpretive essays we present in the remaining chapters illustrate these principles at some length. The ethnographic material we use to explore them includes not only descriptive accounts of specific illnesses and healings valid for humans and corn plants (Chapters 3 to 6) but also mythical stories pertaining to the corn god's journey through life and his encounter with animals (iguanas, ants, turtles) and other gods (spirits) such as the god of thunder (Chapters 7 and 8). Our decision to incorporate mythology and ethnoagriculture with hot-cold ills and healing practices stems from two critical observations. One is that we will not do justice to folk healing if we separate medicine from agriculture and religion, as most studies of indigenous knowledge systems do. Discipline-bound approaches that ignore dynamic connections between humans, plants, and spirits as they affect illness and well-being fail to grasp basic features of native medical systems. As we shall see, the Nahuas and Popolucas do not make clear distinctions between health, milpa production, and considerations of morality and spirituality. On this last point, our analysis of health practices in the Sierra will require probing into native ethics and the teachings of sacrifice, as illustrated by stories of the corn god and his primordial gift to humanity. The second reason for incorporating agricultural myths and rituals

xvi The Hot and the Cold

pertains to issues of narrativity and morality. A basic assumption built into this case study is that Mexican folk knowledge about the ills of humans and maize cannot be reduced to mere categories and comprehensive nomenclatures. Studies of folk medicine must eschew the temptation of placing too much stress on neatly structured taxonomies that meet the reductionist bent of western science. In the Sierra Santa Marta, health conceived as moving equilibrium is a story full of anxieties and lessons that may and must be told through the language of personal, communal, and mythical events. The Popolucas and Nahuas of the Sierra Santa Marta A few words concerning our cultural area of study are in order. The Sierra Santa Marta is part of the Sierra de los Tuxtlas located in the southern portion of the State of Veracruz. It comprises the eastern part of the Municipio of Catemaco and most of the Municipios of Soteapan, Mecayapan, and Pajapan (see map). About 60,000 people live in this highland area, most of whom (80 per cent) are of Nahua and ZoquePopoluca ancestry. The old volcanoes of los Tuxtlas stand abruptly against the gulf coast of Mexico. They are surrounded inland by a large alluvial plain formed over thousands of years with silt deposited by large rivers that descend from mountain ranges extending to the west and the south. This was the heartland of the Olmecs, 'dwellers of the land of rubber/ a civilization that flourished for more than a thousand years before the Christian era. Some 350,000 people once inhabited these vast plains, supporting themselves primarily through slash-and-burn agriculture. Olmec trade expanded greatly over the centuries, allowing the population to spread its influence over a vast area now known as Mesoamerica.1 Later populations including the Mayas, Zapotecs, Mixtecs, Huaxtecs, Toltecs, and Aztecs inherited many aspects of Olmec culture and science. Olmec influence is seen most notably in stone relief carvings, pyramids, human settlement patterns, numerical systems, glyphic scripts, and divinities of pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica, including Xipe Totec and Quetzalcoatl. Between 500 and 200 BC the Olmecs entered a long period of decline and gradually lost their hegemonic position in Mesoamerica (Villegas et al. 1975,1-19). The Popolucas came to inhabit the foothills of the Tuxtla volcanoes around 500 AD (Baez-Jorge 1973,59). Their presence to this day, as well as some tenuous linguistic links, are the only evidence that points to an

Introduction

Legend: pi! Republic of Mexico I I State of Veracruz

xvii

Municipalities: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Catemaco Soteapan Mecayapan Pajapan

F~i Lake Catemaco

State boundaries

I i Sierra Popoluca

Boundaries of special biosphere reserve Sierra Santa Marta

Map 1 The Sierra Santa Marta

Olmec ancestry. The name 'Popoluca' stems from the Nahua language spoken by the Aztecs and means extranjero (foreigner), bdrbaro (barbarian), or ininteligible (unintelligible), terms applied to those who spoke a language other than Nahuatl (Perales 1992, 23); all three connotations probably reflect the pejorative image projected on to a people who fiercely resisted Aztec rule.

xviii The Hot and the Cold

All indications are that some descendants of the Olmecs spoke languages from the Mixe-Zoque family, dialects that were already differentiated from other Maya languages by the year 1200 BC. There are seven Mixe-Zoque dialects that began to divide into two branches as early as 200 BC. The first branch comprises Zoque variants spoken in the states of Chiapas, Tabasco, Oaxaca, and Veracruz. The second consists of Mixe variants spoken in eastern Oaxaca, southern Veracruz, and the southeast coast of Chiapas. Four linguistic variants of Popoluca are currently spoken in southern Veracruz: the Sierra Popoluca, Texistepec Popoluca, Oluta Popoluca, and Sayula Popoluca. The Sierra Popoluca was the most important variant, and it is now spoken primarily in the municipality of Soteapan (Foster 1942,4).2 Their Nahua neighbours arrived several centuries later. The first Nahua migrations into Veracruz began after the fall of Teotihuacan in 650 AD; estimates of their date of first arrival in the Sierra Santa Marta range from 700 to 900 AD. Migrations also occurred throughout the centuries that followed the fall of Tula (ca. 1200 AD). The present-day descendants of these migratory movements are known as the Gulf Nahuas, and they inhabit the municipios of Pajapan and Mecayapan; they are among the last of a large group of Nahua speakers in southern Veracruz. In the years prior to Conquest, Popoluca and Nahua settlements were attached to the Senorio de Coatzacoalcos, a large geopolitical unit encompassing much of present-day southern Veracruz and parts of the neighbouring states of Tabasco, Chiapas, and Oaxaca. The Senorio was inhabited by about 50,000 people dispersed among seventy-six agricultural villages (Garcia de Leon 1976,11-16). Each village paid tribute to the Senorio's military rulers in the form of cacao, cotton cloth, maize, and an array of other products in exchange for protection against outside enemies. The political leader of the region was the cacique of Coatzacoalcos, the ruler of a large village located at the mouth of the Coatzacoalcos River. Through this system of tributes, settlements of different cultural backgrounds were able to maintain a high degree of autonomy within the Senorio, while at the same time securing political independence from the expanding Aztec empire (Cruz Martinez 1991, 48-9). Thus, Popoluca and Nahua populations have lived side by side in the Sierra for over a thousand years. Their histories are closely intertwined, and notwithstanding linguistic differences, they share many cultural elements. Similarities between both groups are so striking that

Introduction xix

Munch Galindo (1983, 10) considers them to form a single cultural area. Research Methods and Other Studies Our investigations in the Sierra span more than a decade, beginning in the municipio of Pajapan in 1984. Studies carried out by Chevalier and Buckles (1995) examine the impact of state and capital expansion on rainforest environments and Gulf Nahua society. Their work includes a detailed examination of local economics, rainforest ecology, native politics, and patterns of family life among the Nahuas living in Pajapan. They also inquired into the cultural aspects of life among the Gulf Nahuas, conducting lengthy interviews with two local healers and collecting, and later analysing, native myths and folk tales of the region. The present book draws from their work. It also rests upon subsequent field data gathered among the Sierra Popolucas of municipal Soteapan, material based on interviews conducted mostly by Andres Sanchez in 1994 and 1995. The fieldwork among the Popolucas focused on health concepts and practices and consisted mainly of forty semi-structured interviews with fourteen key informants.3 All names of informants are pseudonyms in order to ensure anonymity. Six of our Popoluca informants are men. They include a community leader, a campesino, a storyteller, a respected elder and local health worker, a yerbatero herbal healer, and a snakebite culebrero. The remaining informants are women. They include three elderly midwives (one of them also a well-respected traditional healer), a community worker and social activist, a salmera fright healer, an elderly and respected former religious worker, a campesina housewife, and a campesina leader. Of the fourteen, five professed a Protestant faith and the other nine are Catholics. All attend church regularly. Thirteen are Popolucas. The fourteenth is an elderly woman who migrated to the village as a young child more than sixty years ago; she speaks perfect Popoluca. Although half of these healers were interviewed with the help of a local translator (woman), extensive translation (Spanish-Popoluca) of questions and answers was necessary with only three of the informants (the three elderly midwives). Three of the informants were of relatively high socioeconomic status; they each owned a television, and their houses had concrete floors and

xx The Hot and the Cold

tin roofs. Eleven lived in traditional houses with dirt floors, wooden walls, and thatched roofs. Almost all informants owned a radio. Information obtained during these in-depth interviews was explored in casual conversations with other people in other villages and through a close reading of available ethnographic studies of the area. Agreement, disagreement, and further insights on particular topics were noted. Ancillary quantitative data were collected by visiting the health clinic to interview doctors and nurses and copy records on disease incidence. Our fieldwork also included direct involvement in two surveys carried out by the Sierra Santa Marta Project, a Mexican nongovernmental organization (NGO) working in this area since the early 1990s (with our direct involvement). The first survey was on the socioeconomic status of campesino households and the second on women's health. More detailed information on primary data collected for the Popolucas can be found in Sanchez Bain (1999). The interpretive strategy adopted throughout the book involves a careful examination of local healing discourse and practices and related narrative symbolism. The study is based on the premise that health beliefs, just as ethics and world views, are embedded in sign systems and practices. Our analysis of ethnographic data is an exercise in extracting patterns from this densely textured material. People's narratives about human illnesses are examined in conjunction with myths, rituals, and other manifestations of culture pertaining to matters of health. An effort has been made to pay attention to the actual language used in people's accounts of the well-being of humans and plants. Native idioms are viewed as key ingredients of the health code. Whenever possible, interviews and conversations in Popoluca were tape recorded and then transcribed word by word for analysis. In addition, possible meanings and connotations of key words (in ZoquePopoluca, Nahuat, or Spanish, as the case may be) were further explored with local campesinos and healers. Excerpts of interviews presented throughout the book have been translated into English by the authors. We also draw on historical and ethnographic studies of other Mesoamerican cultures with a view to highlighting parallels that may shed light on our own field material. References to ancient concepts of religion and medicine in Mexico were obtained mainly from the works of Gonzalez Torres (1985), Klor de Alva (1993), Leon-Portilla (1980, 1983, 1987, 1993), Lopez Austin (1975,1980), and Viesca Trevino (1986). These authors base their historical analyses largely on texts from the sixteenth and seventeenth centu-

Introduction xxi ries. Several of these texts include testimonies of indigenous elders brought up in the culture of their pre-Conquest ancestors. Principal historical sources include: Documents of fray Bernardino de Sahagun first written in Nahuatl in 1547, and known as the Primeros Memoriales, and the later works known as Codice Matritense and Codice Florentine An herbarium also in Nahuatl written by Martin de la Cruz and later translated into Latin by Juan Badiano, known as Libellus de medicinalibus indorum herbis (1552; includes information on the medicinal properties of plants, animals, and minerals) The Relaciones Geogrdficas, a survey conducted in 1577 with information obtained from priests, 'principal Indians/ or 'those who had an adequate knowledge of the region' (and also knowledge about diseases, types of treatment, and medicinal plants) Indigenous incantations, many related to health, collected by Hernando Ruiz de Alarcon in 1629 The Nahua Vocabulario of Alonso de Molina (first published in 1555 and revised by Sahagun in 1571). Contemporary ethnographic studies from the Sierra Santa Marta and Los Tuxtlas include Foster (1942) and Baez-Jorge (1973) on the Zoque-Popolucas, Chevalier and Buckles (1995) on the Gulf Nahuas, Olavarrieta Marenco (1977) and Munch Galindo (1983) on the Tuxtlas. Several works of native researchers from Culturas Populares were also consulted and are duly acknowledged. A Note on Spelling We end this introduction with a few remarks concerning the spelling conventions adopted in this book. Words in italics only are in Spanish (e.g., campesino). Terms appearing in Helvetica Light font are in Popoluca (e.g., nucuwtd'aya) and follow spelling conventions by Benjamin Elson and G. Gutierrez (1995). As for terms currently used in the Gulf Nahua language, they are both italicized and underlined (e.g., megat). By contrast, terms recorded in dictionaries of classical Nahuatl are simply underlined (mecatl). Unfortunately, the spelling of classical Nahua words appearing in the chapters to follow varies according to the sources we use. Given these variations and in order to simplify them, we exclude markers of tonal accent and vowel length (while tak-

xxii The Hot and the Cold

ing them into account when identifying the meanings intended), as in the works of Miguel Leon-Portilla and Alfredo Lopez Austin. Lastly, we do not use the convention currently found in many studies of folk medicine, which is to capitalize initial letters of hot-cold terms when their meanings are taken as metaphoric (abstract) rather than physical or caloric. We abandon this convention because of the argument we make against both the distinction and the humoral theory it comes from, to which we now turn.

THE HOT AND THE COLD: ILLS OF H U M A N S AND MAIZE IN NATIVE M E X I C O

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CHAPTER ONE

Humoralism

The widespread notion that folk medicine in Latin America rests upon concepts derived from the Hippocratic doctrine raises many questions. Is the hot-cold syndrome as portrayed by George Foster truly faithful to the Hippocratic tradition? What is humoral and what is not? Is humoralism in Latin America different from classical humoralism in important respects? By what reasoning should we consider the similarities to outweigh the differences? To compare classical humoralism with Hippocrates' New World legacy, it is important that we have a good grasp of both belief systems. We summarize the so-called original model below, and then proceed to Foster's rendering of its Latin American derivation. Classical and New World Humoralism Humoral theory in its classical form is based on tenets of the Corpus Hippocraticum attributed to or inspired by the teachings of Hippocrates (460-370 BC). This ancient humoral approach to medicine can be summed up in nine points: 1 Humoral theory starts with the four elements that constitute the world, each having a specific characteristic or primary quality mapped along the hot-cold and moist-dry axes. Fire is hot, earth is dry, water is moist, and 'aer' (air, vapour, mist) is cold. The theory rests upon the notion that all four elements are of equal importance, a key principle set by Empedocles (ca. 500-430 BC) of Agrigentum. 2 These four constituent elements are analogous to the four humours flowing in the human body, each of which is a blending of two pri-

4 The Hot and the Cold

mary qualities. Blood is hot and moist; phlegm is cold and moist; yellow bile is hot and dry; black bile is cold and dry. 3 As in Presocratic philosophy, it is assumed that both humans and the world they live in are governed by the same natural laws. The body is a microcosm of the universe. All humoral systems are 'protoscientific and philosophical views of the universe in which the dynamic forces affecting health are natural, and not "personalistic." In humoral medical systems - unlike many others - illness does not reflect the will and action of ghosts, vengeful spirits and angry deities ... Medical beliefs and practices ... are based on the concept of natural elements, each with an associated quality, which in turn provide the basis for the belief in bodily humors' (Foster 1994,4). 4 A normal healthy body requires that all four humoral fluids be in correct proportion to one another, a state of equilibrium defined in terms of strength, quantity, and physical distribution. Health hinges on a proper balancing (eucrasis) of humoral fluids. 5 Correlatively, illness occurs when the humoral balance is upset. Particular illnesses reflect the kind of humoral imbalance afflicting the sick, a disequilibrium (dyscrasis) involving a deficiency, excess, or uneven distribution of one of the four humours. This disequilibrium may or may not be caused by an excess of heat or cold. 6 Humoral balance can be restored through the principle of opposition to the cause of the disease. This is therapy by contrary medication, using foods and remedies of a state opposite to that of the illness. Each ailment must be tempered with its opposite. Thus, fever cannot be treated with a hot remedy, nor can pneumonia be countered with cold substances. A cold sickness requires a hot remedy and vice versa. 7 Qualities and therapies are subject to four degrees of intensity. Things are never simply hot or cold, dry or moist. This rule is inspired by the teachings of the Greek physician Galen (ca. 130-200 AD) and all later humoral medical authorities. 8 Not all deviations from the equilibrium point result in pathology. For one thing, a healthy human body displays a modest excess of heat and moisture over cold and dryness. Diagnosis and therapy should also take into consideration the incidence of seasons, climate, individual temperament, sex, age, customary nutrition, and the nature of daily activities as well. These circumstances in time and space represent normal variations in admixtures of humours and qualities. Treatment should adjust to these differences in humoral

Humoralism 5

adaptation. 'Good medical practice thus consisted of knowing the natural complexion of the patient, in establishing which humor or humors through excess or deficit had caused the illness, in matching these findings with the dominant humor of the season, and in deciding how the patient's normal humoral balance could best be reestablished' (Foster 1994, 7). 9 Medical treatment is typically administered 'by means of diet, internal medicine, purging, vomiting, bleeding, cupping, the application of plasters, and the like' (Foster 1994, 7). The treatment has to reflect the type of humoral imbalance afflicting the patient, its degree of severity, and the actual circumstances surrounding the illness. Foster (1994, 158) sees many striking affinities between these rules governing classical humoral theory and those found in New World native medicine. He also emphasizes 'the remarkable homogeneity of humoral medicine in all Latin America, in the Caribbean, and in the Philippines. The same equilibrium model of health, the same Hot-Cold classification system, the same names of illnesses, the same remedies and therapies are all found throughout this immense area.' A close reading of Foster (1994) yields eight basic rules governing humoralism in Latin America. Rule 1 To begin with, humoral medicine in the New World is governed by the hot-cold dichotomy. More often than not moisture and wetness are associated with things considered to be cold and dryness with things deemed to be hot (42, 183). Also, while formal degrees of intensity have disappeared, 'informal degrees [of hotness and coldness] almost always are recognized' (160). Neutral values are sometimes assigned, typically in the context of staple foods or because of uncertainty in assigning humoral values (resulting from various factors, including erosion of the traditional system) (80,120-2,126-7). Rule 2 Health is the midpoint between heat and cold, 'an ambiguous state whereas illness is unambiguous. In simplest terms illness is seen to be an excess load of one - and only one - of two qualities: heat or cold. Health, on the other hand, implies approximately equal amounts of the two elements believed to cause illness' (116). Exposure to heat or cold that raises temperature above or below normal body temperature results in illness. 'A hot insult produces a hot illness, while a cold insult produces a cold illness' (3; see 23).

6 The Hot and the Cold

Rule 3 However, not all deviations from the equilibrium point are pathological. For one thing, health is 'an optimal equilibrium point on the temperature continuum that is a little closer to the hot pole than to the cold pole' (23). Moreover, the normal equilibrium point will usually vary according to sex, age, and reproductive activity. For instance, in Tzintzuntzan all healthy human bodies are slightly warm, yet their individual 'normal temperatures' are not identical. Men are believed to have more heat than women, and the young more heat than the elderly. Newborn infants are the hottest of all. Women are thought to lose a little heat with each succeeding birth, so that by menopause the bodies of mothers of many children are thought to be colder than those of their agemates who have had few or no children. In spite of these age and sex differences, the ... hot-cold forces that govern health and illness work in the same way for everyone: it is simply that the baselines vary. Hence, everyone has what may be considered an optimal body temperature, a personal hot cold equilibrium representing health. (Foster 1994,33)

Some deviations from the equilibrium point may put the person at risk of falling ill without the person being actually sick. The likelihood of a disease occurring will then increase but can nonetheless be prevented. This at-risk state consists of a fragile equilibrium that is usually temporary and unstable (33-5). Foster considers this last point to be critical to our understanding of humoralism in Latin America. The probability of falling ill increases when a person has already been exposed to some hot or cold insult, with his or her bodily temperature rising above or falling below the normal state. For instance, all humoral systems treat pregnancy and the post partum period as at-risk states. A woman thus placed at risk (to use Foster's term) is 'more likely to be adversely affected by either additional heat or cold' compared with a woman whose body is at the ideal midpoint between heat and cold (34). In most cases sickness strikes precisely when the body is placed at risk, not when the body is in a state of equilibrium (23, 33, 39). When in stable condition a person must avoid exposure to massive insults of heat or cold. When at risk, the situation is more complex in that the person must avoid two things. On the one hand, the person must not be exposed to a massive swing from a hot to a cold at-risk point (e.g., bathing in cold water after working under a hot sun) or vice versa. Thus, 'A moderate cooling followed by a moderate heating

Humoralism 7

experience add up to a major temperature differential sufficient to cause skin eruptions' (35). On the other hand, caution must also be exercised in regards to modest insults that would add to the person's state of heat or cold, beyond the critical point that the body can tolerate without becoming sick. Unless precautions are taken, a modest increment can act like the straw that breaks the camel's back, the last source of heat or cold to cause a substantial temperature deviation from the normal state of equilibrium. 'Neither moderate exposure to the sun nor eating mole [hot] in moderation harms a person who starts out at the basic equilibrium. It is the cumulative effect of two moderately heating experiences in sequence that does the damage.' Likewise, 'The combined effects of blood loss [cooling] and cold water or Cold food, neither of which in moderate quantity threatens a woman at equilibrium, produces the critical temperature differential that leads to pain' (35). In short, when healthy, people must avoid massive insults. When at risk, they should avoid becoming hotter or colder than they already are, and they should follow the avoidance of opposite principle avoiding risky substances or experiences substantially different from their current state (133). Rule 4 If the person falls sick after all, then treatment should follow the principle of opposites, or therapy by contrary medication, namely, a heating remedy for a cold ailment and cold medicine for a hot malady (3-4,20). Rule 5 Treatment by opposition to the cause of malady holds true in theory only. Humoral theory may play a central role in diagnosing insults and illnesses, yet it does not determine the actual treatment in case of sickness. Hot-cold ideas do not provide a practical guide to treatment - as anthropological studies commonly assume. In Foster's words (xvi; cf. 97, 129-33), 'While humoral theories provide ex post facto diagnoses of illness, in fact the therapies administered are empirically determined. That is, theory validates what is being done rather than specifying what should be done.' Contrary to the prescriptive model, a remedy for a cold illness works not because it is hot. Rather, it is hot because it works for an ailment deemed to be cold. Medical practice guides theory, but the opposite is not necessarily true. In matters of therapy it is habit, experience, and custom (of diverse origins) that act as judge and jury. The humoral rationale comes only after and not always convincingly. This accounts for inconsistencies in hot-cold

8 The Hot and the Cold

attributions (cough and its flor de avrojo remedy receive both attributions) and illogical humoral prescriptions as well - that is, using hot remedies for skin eruptions, cold medicine for blood insufficiency, or treating bruises with a cold poultice to counter the heat and a hot poultice for slow recovery (134-9). In short, where healing is concerned, humoral theory often flies out the window. Inconsistencies are to be expected of a system that survives by virtue of its empirical flexibility and adaptability. Just as tribal people manipulate kin genealogies to validate existing social relations, so too Latin American humoral practitioners exercise latitude when interpreting connections between hold-cold insults and remedies (145). In the final analysis, empirical learning overrides and prevails over the dictates of strict humoral calculations. A pragmatic approach to therapy is especially needed when dealing with a passing ailment or an illness at an early stage (e.g., an upset stomach), situations where quick treatment and therapeutic probing (e.g., administering the usual chamomile tea) matter more than humoral diagnosis, prevention, and validation. Humoral reasoning usually comes into play when the illness persists or the person is thought to be seriously at risk (75-7,139). In Tzintzuntzan healing involves more than 250 vegetables and nearly a hundred animal and mineral substances. This means that empirical medicine matters more than countering an ailment with its humoral opposite, a strategy that would require no more than a handful of hot and cold remedies. Precise remedies are tied to specific illness episodes and cannot be derived from general theoretical principles. People freely experiment with new remedies and drugs, irrespective of their humoral fit (aspirin is tagged as hot because it is good for arthritis and rheumatism) (139, 142-3). The frequent use of compound (or mixed) remedies is another indication of the empirical spirit of New World folk medicine. Although predominantly hot or cold, remedies that contain a combination of hot and cold ingredients are further evidence that treatment is grounded in empirical reflex and pragmatic reflection (133), not in fixed theory. These mixed remedies (remedies compuestos) are particularly useful in dealing with undiagnosed ailments that may be attributed to one of several causes, such as diarrhea (82). As with other medicine, the practical virtues of a compound remedy are what counts. Other studies also stress the inconsistencies of folk healing. In Hueyapan (Morelos) treatment based on principles of allopathy (e.g., cold to fight heat) is thus combined with rules of contrary-avoidance (e.g., cold avoided when in heat) that can be couched in a language of

Humoralism 9

homeopathy (e.g., heat to fight heat) or a middle-ground medicine involving mild thermal differences between illness and remedy (e.g., warmth to counter heat). In some circumstances one opposite must be used to fight another, whereas in other cases opposites must not be mixed (Alvarez Heydenreich 1987, 170-3, 191-3). Inconsistency turns into a central feature of the logic of experimentation. In her study of magic in the Tuxtlas, Olavarrieta Marenco describes similar incongruities: Everything seems logical when, once the organism is treated as an equilibrium between heat and cold, two tactical corollaries are derived: firstly, a healthy diet will be the one that includes both categories of food in adequate proportion so that equilibrium is maintained; secondly, when the body happens to be sick, it must take in food and remedies possessing qualities opposite to those of the illness or to the polar characteristic which, because in excess, causes it... In some cases, however, it is believed that an illness of a given quality should not be treated with a substance of the opposite quality, a remedy that will cause a shock within the organism of the sick person ... People then resort to two new categories which function as intermediate levels of the system: the warm and the fresh ... These do not function in a simple mode in that, in some cases, warmth is recommended for the treatment of hot ailments ..., but in other cases freshness is prescribed for the same illness ... The situation becomes really complex when the remedy prescribed is of the same quality as the illness ... This situation seems to mark a contradiction of principles in the logic of the system. (1977, 67-9; our translation)

According to Olavarrieta Marenco, confusion in the model is not symptomatic of the virtues of knowledge acquired by trial and error; inconsistency points instead to the fact that the system is fragmented and removed from its origins (1977, 69). Rule 6 The Latin American version of humoral medicine may be viewed as empirical in another important respect: the systematic distinction it makes between thermal temperatures and the metaphoric attributions of humoral quality (calidad). This observation has led many authors to capitalize the initial letters of words that denote metaphoric values and to use lower-case letters for thermal values. Thermal temperatures are based on straightforward caloric observations, fluctuating quantities of heat that are physically sensed and measured

10 The Hot and the Cold

along a bipolar continuum. The human body is the primary domain of thermal fluctuations moving between health, at-risk conditions, and states of illness subject to variable intensities. By contrast, metaphoric temperatures are cultural attributions fixed by convention, not raw facts of nature. Values labelled hot or cold constitute abstract qualities that do not change and are assigned to material items only, such as foods, herbs, remedies, and other substances (e.g., iron or pottery glaze; ambient forms such as air and sun are excluded). These metaphoric values do not apply to the human body which moves between different thermal states and has no intrinsic humoral quality (3,22-33). Metaphoric qualities play an important role in Latin American humoralism, yet the system is driven essentially by empirical considerations. When diagnosis and prevention are concerned, abstract qualities are often ignored. Thus, 'thermal heating and cooling factors are cited by informants far more frequently than are metaphoric values as explanations for specific illness episodes' (25). That ice is thermally cold usually matters more than its metaphoric quality which is 'very hot.' As for treatment, humoral qualities matter only in the sense of providing ex post facto validations of medical acts otherwise based on empirical learning. Although many authors accept these views, few actually explore the interaction between thermal and metaphoric temperatures. In his attempt to fill this gap, Foster proposes a general principle: exposure to thermal and/or metaphoric insults of heat or cold can push body temperature above or below the normal equilibrium state, thereby creating a situation of health weakness (at-risk condition) or sickness if the insult is pronounced (3-4,22-3,30,37). Rule 7 But what is the logic behind hot-cold temperatures and in what sense are these intrinsic qualities metaphoric? Foster's answer points to empirical knowledge systems that have little to do with the language of metaphor. By and large, humoral quality is practical and anthropocentric. It denotes the cooling or heating effect that a substance is expected to have on the human organism. Water may be thermally hot, yet it is humorally cold because of the coolness it brings to the body (25,99). The same logic applies to all remedies. Their humoral properties are statements about their perceptible impact on body temperature and human health condition. Therapeutic use determines humoral value. Things are therefore classified according to the sicknesses they cure. Given this practical function, humoral attributions do not have to be

Humoralism 11

consistent. Remedies can be used to treat more than one ailment, which means that the quality assigned to the remedy will depend on what illness the informant is thinking about (e.g., is mint used to treat hot bills or a cold cough?). Also the same ailment (e.g., diarrhea or stomach ache) may be ascribed to more than one source, be it a cold or a hot insult. This means that a poultice made with leaves of the castor bean plant (hlguerilla) will be '"Hot" if the informant is thinking of cold as a cause, or "Cold" if she is thinking of heat as the cause' (104). Information other than therapeutic use may be encoded into metaphoric hot-cold values. The information, however, is mostly of the sensorial and empirical sort. As in classical humoral medicine, body sensation is the most commonly cited explanation for assigning hot and cold values. Included here are sensory perceptions such as odour, taste, or stomach feeling. Environmental information may also be factored in, as when substances are deemed cold because they are exposed to water (e.g., fish) or grow underground but not in the sun (e.g., potatoes). The distinction between the raw and the cooked and cooking procedures may determine humoral temperatures and their degrees of intensity as well (e.g., something is hot if cooked over a brazier but cold if coming out of an earth oven). Other studies report ascription criteria such as domestication, sex, and colour (e.g., darks foods are cold). Rule 8 The last characterization of New World humoralism pertains to its naturalistic inclinations. As with classical theory, humoral practices in Latin America show no concern for social or supernatural dimensions of etiology. Interpersonal stresses and strains are not central considerations when dealing with illness, save perhaps for bills (caused by anger or fright) and evil eye (caused by envy). The individual's concern to stay healthy is not to keep his social relationships in good order; it is to maintain his relationships with his natural environment in good order' (77, see 69-70). Nor is the intervention of professional healers and diviners necessary. The system requires selfdiagnosis based on natural explanations, an approach that precludes ritual performances involving therapeutic knowledge accessible to specialists only (84-5). Humoralism without Humours Foster's characterization of humoralism in Latin America is appealing in many important respects. No study of folk medicine involving tern-

12 The Hot and the Cold

peratures and the principle of opposition to the cause of illness can ignore Foster's subtle discussion of at-risk conditions affecting healing strategies in general, the frequent use of the avoidance of opposite principle, and the inconsistencies and flexibility inherent to humoral pragmatics. Notwithstanding these important insights, it is difficult to understand why Foster insists on emphasizing parallels between his own fieldwork findings and Old World humoral theory. A close reading of his account of both approaches to medicine reveals a number of striking differences, points of divergence that far outweigh surface similarities between the two systems. First, Latin American humoralism is without humours. There is no systematic evidence to suggest'that the fourfold distinction between blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile has been preserved in the New World, let alone the quadripartition consisting of earth, water, air, and fire. Second, the distinction between wetness and dryness is no longer operative. Everything is reduced to matters of heat and cold, which was not the case in ancient humoral theory. Third, formal degrees of intensity propounded by Galen and implemented by his followers have not survived the journey across the Atlantic. Fourth, Hippocratic-Galenic-Arab humoralism was an exhaustive and coherent system that tried to cover all things found in reality. This is no longer the case with its New World version, a muddled approach that shows little propensity to organize and categorize all imaginable things, with a strong commitment to logic and consistency. Fifth, the distinction between sickly and at-risk conditions may be a central feature of folk healing in Latin America, yet it cannot be found in classical humoral medicine. Nor do we find in the Old World a constant interaction between the two principles discussed by Foster - therapy by contrary medication and the avoidance of opposite principle. The concepts of at risk condition and prevention by the avoidance of opposite seem to be functional in Latin America only. Last but not least, some humorally derived treatments used obsessively in the Old World, bleeding and leeching, for instance (87, 175), seem to play a minor role in the New World context. Given these differences, one is left to wonder what it is that the two systems have in common? Not much, really. Common denominators consist in applying the hot-cold distinction to some (but not all) matters of illness and health and also striking some balance between the two qualities in ways that show responsiveness to context. In our view, the parallel is too sketchy to do justice to either system.

Humoralism 13

There are other serious problems with Foster's characterization of the New World system. One is his rather loose and even contradictory understanding of empirical knowledge. Normally the term denotes knowledge obtained solely on the basis of experience, a principle that precludes learning derived from mere memory or the filtering action of theory and/or culture. Foster is adamant about the empirical nature of medical practices and beliefs observed in Latin America, be they captured in a humoral framework or not. Yet he also emphasizes the key roles of rote learning and cultural filtering in the diffusion and adaptation of humoral medicine in Latin America. Foster's theory ends up confusing experience ('we've tried this poultice and it works') with mechanical remembering ('we've been told this poultice works') and cultural filtering ('this poultice works because we believe that ...'). Although glaring, these contradictions are never addressed. The theory is also backed up with insufficient empirical evidence regarding mechanisms of experimentation or rote learning. Empiricism usually implies learning by trial and testing. In his Epilogue, Foster (201) goes so far as to suggest that although most humoral practices are essentially harmless to people, some may jeopardize their health (e.g., dietary prohibitions imposed on sick children and pregnant, post partum, and lactating women). If empirical learning is the rule, why is it that these weaknesses or failures have never been observed, let alone corrected? Why should empirically minded people hold on to beliefs and practices that can be shown by experience to be useless or even dangerous to their health? The issue of empirical learning is central to Foster's distinction between thermal values (concrete and physical, variable and fluctuating) and metaphoric temperatures (abstract and cultural, constant and bipolar). The notion that people make this distinction when assigning hot or cold values, be it implicitly or explicitly, is far from obvious and is never actually shown. The constant interaction that goes on between the two sets of values makes the argument even more problematical. Let us say a person is subjected to an insult deemed to be metaphorically hot, exposure to heat from the dead, for instance. Will the person's temperature rise above the normal state in ways that are empirically observable and that can be measured with a thermometer? Or does the resulting state require interpretation informed by cultural views about signs and qualities of the illness striking the victim? Without answers to these questions, arguments regarding the empirical pragmatics of folk healing are gratuitous and vague.

14 The Hot and the Cold

There is another problem with the notion that human body temperature is essentially thermal as opposed to metaphoric. The rule is contradicted by the fact that blood and human bodies in good health are generally deemed a little 'closer to the hot pole/ Likewise, Foster reports that a person's normal state of equilibrium varies according to age or sex, a rule that constitutes another deviation from the so-called thermal laws of the human body. Why should men and the young generate more heat compared with women and the old, if not because of properties inherent in their condition and reflecting particular cultural views regarding differences in sex and generation? Are men always metaphorically hotter compared with women? If so, should we not conclude that human body temperature is a metaphorical invariant in some respects? Illness itself tends to be generally hot and is therefore a (non-empirical) thermal invariant in that respect. According to Foster, all ailments, even those classified as cold, raise body temperatures above the equilibrium point (48). Also, there are many physical states that appear to be inherently hot or cold, in keeping with culturally established conventions. Thus, in Tzintzuntzan sleeping and food digestion (45-6, 70) are hot (regardless of what people eat); in our case study they are cold. Should we not conclude from these observations that hot and cold attributions assigned to the human organism are metaphoric rather than factual and thermal? The same reasoning applies to menstruation, childbirth (especially if repeated), and the post-partum period, states that are cold in Tzintzuntzan (23, 72) but hot in the Sierra Santa Marta. Is the cold state of the new mother thermal or metaphoric? Is the attribution factual or cultural? The reasoning in Tzintzuntzan is that these women are becoming colder because they are losing blood. Is this explanation a cultural interpretation of physical reality or a statement based on physical sensation and empirical observation alone? We are told by Foster (24-5,39, 71) that pregnancy heats up the woman's body because of blood retention and a fetal accumulation of heat originating from the father's semen. Should we consider this explanation to be based on mere sensation and empirical observation? Surely not. Metaphoric qualities are supposed to be fixed, which means they cannot be changed or vary according to circumstance. This preserves a basic rule, that of simplicity. If multiple hot-cold values were assigned to remedies according to the task performed or the state under which they are used, the system would become quite complex and not at all practical (133). Foster's model of New World humoralism nonetheless

Humoralism 15

permits metaphoric qualities to be altered in two significant ways, both of which undermine the distinction between thermal and metaphoric attributions. One way stems from the fact that many substances deemed to be metaphorically cold or hot contain several elements, all of which contribute to the humoral quality assigned to the item in question (118). Things added or removed from these compounds would presumably alter their quality (e.g., turkey served without mole is no longer hot). The other source of metaphoric fluctuation resides in acts of processing: for instance, whether or not a food item is cooked and the particular way in which it is cooked (e.g., food from an earth oven is cold). Foster recognizes this problem and tries to salvage his thermal-metaphoric dualism by claiming that 'once the humoral value of an item has been transformed, it can never revert to its original value' (27). No systematic evidence is provided to confirm this, nor is there any logical necessity for his claim. Given our critique of the thermal-metaphoric (or empirical-cultural) distinction proposed by Foster, we have chosen to abandon the capital letter convention commonly used to distinguish one set of values from the other. We see no reason to single out the hot and cold from all other terms that need semantic qualification reflecting a particular cultural setting. Even simple words such as 'food' mean something quite distinct when used in the Nahua or Popoluca languages, at least when compared with our own use of the word (Stuart 1978, 234). The capital letter convention creates the illusion that some utterances of language are culturally bound, while others can be taken at face value. Our case study and the general model we propose show the opposite to be true.

CHAPTER TWO

Balance and Movement

Skewed Theories of Equilibrium Before we present our case study, comments should be made regarding concepts of equilibrium prevailing in the hot-cold literature and the alternative model we propose. Researchers generally agree that since pre-colonial times health has been associated with a condition of equilibrium between heat and cold within the body and disease with its rupture. This is as far as the consensus goes. The literature shows many variations regarding the meaning of the equilibrium concept and related debates over the interpretation of historical and ethnographic data. Arguments about what constitutes a healthy equilibrium state and what is meant by a harmful disruption can nonetheless be classified into a few recognizable models. Table 2.1 gives an overview of four different views on the bodily equilibrium complex. Three of these illustrate common conceptual constructions reported in the literature. They are well represented by the works of George Foster, Helen Neuenswander and Shirley D. Souder, and Alfredo Lopez Austin, respectively. The fourth is based on our own ethnographic work in the Sierra Santa Marta and observations concerning notions of cyclic movement and growth in ancient Mesoamerican thought. Foster and other researchers who ascribe a humoral logic to folk healing view a healthy body as a homeostatic system kept in balance through admixtures of hot and cold opposites. According to this model, health entails a relatively stable equilibrium marked by an optimum body temperature, a thermal condition that can be disrupted by external or internal influxes, be they real (caloric, physical, concrete) or metaphoric (fixed abstract values). When disruption occurs, the body's

Balance and Movement 17

thermal equilibrium is lost and the person becomes weak, vulnerable to illness, or plainly sick if the variation is too pronounced. Equilibrium can be restored through measures governed by the principle of opposition to the cause of illness. Foster adds that the healthy body is marked by 'an evenly distributed thermal warmth, an equilibrium state somewhat closer to the hot pole than the cold pole' (Foster 1994, 30). Moreover, this normal or optimal body warmth is known to vary according to age, sex, and stages in reproductive activity. Any deviation from the resulting norms brings about illness or puts the person at risk. Most routine activities such as work, sleep, and digestion fall into the category of risky conditions, to the point that a stable health condition becomes painfully rare (1994, 33-5). The same can be said of organic changes or transitory phases in the reproductive cycle, such as menstruation, pregnancy, and childbirth; they too jeopardize a woman's health. For instance, menstruation is a cooling condition caused by the loss of warm blood: As a woman begins to menstruate, her body temperature is believed to fall, because of loss of warm blood. She remains in this cool state, 'at risk' but not ill, until she ceases to menstruate. If, while menstruating, she drinks cold water or eats Very Cold food, such as broad bean soup, she is believed likely to suffer menstrual cramps known as dolor de ijada. The combined effects of blood loss and cold water or Cold food, neither of which in moderate quantity threatens a woman at equilibrium, produces the critical temperature differential that leads to pain.

Neuenswander and Souder's (1980) ethnographic study of the Quiches of Joyabaj in Guatemala starts with a different set of assumptions. Their approach, which we will discuss in some detail now, is premised on a distinction between two models of body equilibrium and health: the ideal and the real. Both have a cognitive function and operate simultaneously in people's lives. The ideal model is used to justify actions, whereas the real one guides actual behaviour. According to Model I [the ideal modell, the normal and healthy body of a Quiche should be in a state of equilibrium between man 'hot' and hron 'cold' ... This balance or equilibrium is lost in case of disease and during transitory states such as menstruation, pregnancy, and drunkenness (which are classified as 'hot'). In all these cases, the body assumes the quality of the state or the disease and transfers this quality to the blood

Table 2.1

Health and equilibrium models

Basic concepts

Foster (1994)

Neuenswander and Souder(1980)

Lopez Austin (1980)

Chevalier and Sanchez (2002)

Two hot-cold models: real-thermalfluctuating and cultural-metaphoricfixed.

Two hot-cold models: ideal model justifies people's actions, real model guides behaviour.

Excess energy is accumulated through certain organic states of the body, provoking disruption of equilibrium and emanations possibly harmful to others.

Body goes through normal healthy cycles (Rule 1), alternating on a daily basis between hot and cold equilibrium states (Rule 2), and generally moving through life from cold to hot (Rule 3).

Single optimum equilibrium state for each person, with variations according to age, sex, reproductive phase.

Ideal model: single (absolute) equilibrium state for all people is temperate (neither hot nor cold).

Implicit state of equilibrium, but hot-cold reference state not specified.

Optimum body (thermal) temperature nonetheless generally closer to hot pole.

Real model: normal healthy body is hot.

Multiple hot and cold equilibrium states vary according to organic (body) condition or activity (e.g., aging, working, sleeping, eating, bathing, copulating, menstruating, childbearing).

Hot and cold insults (metaphoric and thermal) affect real body temperature. Normal healthy state

Table 2.1 (concluded)

Foster (1994)

Neuenswander and Souder(1980)

Lopez Austin (1980)

Changes in organic state (work, rest, etc.)

Create nonequilibrium conditions. Body at risk, vulnerable to disease.

Create non-equilibrium conditions. Hot working body nonetheless healthy.

Create nonequilibrium conditions. Body weakened and vulnerable to disease.

Cause of Illness

Onset of disease due to cumulative or large single deviations from optimum state.

Ideal equilibrium state lost during illness. Normal healthy state of heat maintained through hot diet.

Onset of disease due to disruption of organic equilibrium state.

Chevalier and Sanchez (2002) Moving equilibrium conditions necessary to grow, reproduce, and maintain health.

Vulnerability and disease result from disruption of hot-cold cycles or general maturation process.

20 The Hot and the Cold (and to lactating mothers' milk) (Neuenswander and Souder 1980, 146; our translation).

When viewed as an ideal condition, health is a state of temperate equilibrium. It is achieved by carefully balancing the ingestion of hot and cold foods in people's normal diet and avoiding sudden encounters with extreme hot or cold influxes stemming from the environment. When illness strikes, balance may be re-established by ingesting foods or exposing the body to conditions that are opposite to the disease deemed to be either hot or cold (162). The real model works differently: The alternative point of view (Model II) is based on the concept that the normal state of the healthy body in a worker is hot (not cold, nor temperate) .... The Quiche man who enjoys good health spends most of his life working in a hot environment. Exercise and the sun, as well as activities carried out close to a fire (such as burning lime or making bricks), all generate heat. And the woman, apart from all the chores she carries out, using fire to roast corn and coffee, making tortillas, cooking and ironing, finds herself in a hot state during most of her adult life because of menstruation, pregnancy, and breast-feeding. Rest, shade, and the cold of the night refresh the body to a certain point, but do not make it cold. (147; our translation)

In reality, the diet of working people consists mainly of hot foods 'which provide strength.' Cold foods are carefully combined with hot foods or herbs to attenuate their impact on the body. Diseases are not fought through the principle of opposition to the cause of illness, as in the ideal model. Instead, people avoid shocks between hot and cold extremes (162-3). Neuenswander and Souder try to account for the conflict between the ideal state of balance (temperate and healthy) and the real working body (hot and healthy) by assigning them different roles. One serves to explain, the other is designed to guide actual behaviour. Their analysis, however, does not examine how a person copes with this ever-present contradiction. Nor does it make clear whether people consider a hot and healthy working body to be in a state of perfect balance or equilibrium. Their analysis implies that this is not the case. Lopez Austin's (1980) approach is different. His work is based on historical records from the colonial period and a review of a number of

Balance and Movement 21

contemporary ethnographies. In direct opposition to Foster, Lopez Austin considers the hot or cold states attributed to human and nonhuman beings never to be strictly thermal. Rather, hot and cold values are assigned according to a complex set of criteria. A person's level of maturation is one such criterion. Human beings undergo significant changes in their hot or cold condition throughout their lives. For example, heat accumulates in the body as a person grows older or holds a position of public office or political authority. The ancient Nahuas also believed that organic changes (e.g., menstruation, work, hunger, pregnancy) caused states of disequilibrium that did not lead automatically to pathology. Instead of causing illness, they increased a person's vulnerability to disease and generated an excess of heat that could in some cases bring harm to others (285-301). Lopez Austin does not provide an explicit definition of the reference state, nor does he indicate whether this hypothetical state is an ideal (unattainable) or optimal (attainable) condition of the human body. The reader must assume the existence of a reference level, given that recurrent changes in the organism are said to cause a loss of equilibrium and heat building up in the body. His treatment of hot and cold shifts in body condition implies also that the reference state will vary in response to such factors as age and social position. Beaucage (1987, 1990), Troche (1993), and Aramoni Burguete (1980) also consider prescriptions of hot-cold equilibrium to govern healing beliefs and practices observed among the Puebla Nahuas of Cuetzalan. Beaucage (1987) reports that ill-being among the Nahuas is caused by excessive thermal conditions that can be remedied through allopathic means. Thus, cold fruit such as lemon and orange can be used to lower someone's fever. Conversely, red corn is hot and good for curing a stomach gone cold and suffering of diarrhea. In regards to assignment criteria, Beaucage suggests that consistency (hard = hot, dry; soft = cold, fresh), environmental location (earth = cold), and maturation process (grasses dry up as they ripen, whereas fruit and mushrooms become increasingly juicy) are combined in variable fashions according to context (see also Troche 1993, 361-2; Alvarez Heydenreich 1987,112-14). All three models reviewed above consider changing organic states (such as physical exertion, pregnancy, menstruation) to be deviations from a state of equilibrium representing a fixed point of reference, deviations that make people more vulnerable to illnesses of all kinds. Notions of fixed equilibrium are nonetheless contradicted by several recurring observations. They include:

22 The Hot and the Cold

The idea that the baseline equilibrium varies according to age or social position The gap between real and ideal conceptions of health The realization that people can never be in a state of equilibrium given all those recurring life situations and activities (such as work, sleep, digestion, pregnancy, eating hot food) that make them weak and put them at risk of losing their health The notion that blood, the human organism, and a majority of human activities are predominantly hot The fact that most ailments are hot and that most risky conditions generate heat without causing illness The exclusion of staple foods from hot-cold nomenclatures The possibility that health, suffering, and death may be compatible in some important regards. This book proposes a different model that speaks to these anomalies, an indigenous perspective founded on cycles of heliotropic equilibrium. Life brings three principles together. The first consists of equilibrium, that is, balance and moderation in all things deemed either hot or cold (things clearly hot do not mix well with things clearly cold). The second principle involves cycles of cooling and heating activities, alternations that form an integral part of normal life (e.g., blood and the body must circulate, work, and heat up during the daytime and then rest and cool off while sleeping at night). The third principle is heliotropic movement, by which we mean the general path of life that begins in water and then warms up as it grows, reproduces, and dies under the sun. It follows that body warmth is synonymous with vigour and health. As we shall see, this threefold reasoning does not address issues of physical well-being alone. It also speaks to spiritual matters and the role of suffering and sacrifice in the moral economy of life. Balance, Cycle, and Growth Health lies at the intersection of these three axes. By virtue of the first principle, a man who works hard, sweats a lot, and becomes hot should not drink cold water or eat cold food lest he should be struck with pasmo, an illness that lingers on and leads to neither death nor effective healing (Alvarez Heydenreich 1987, 117-18; Olavarrieta Marenco 1977, 103-4). But the second principle dictates that a man

Balance and Movement 23

should not work so hard as to never rest or sleep. If he does, he will become ill or die sooner than expected. This is equilibrium spread over time. A body that remains in one state for too long (idleness, too much work, overeating, sexual frustration) is exposing itself to a measure of cold or heat in excess of what any living organism can tolerate. An equilibrium gone static is no more ideal or desirable than tides and lunar or solar cycles ceasing to exist. The heliotropic rule comes next and adds an important caveat to considerations of health viewed as a moving equilibrium. The rule stipulates that death is both inevitable and a requirement of life. Man and woman must grow up and gather the strength and heat needed to reproduce the seed (corn, food, children) that will sustain them throughout their lives and in their old age. In doing so they gradually wear themselves out, drying up, and dying for the sake of future generations of corn plants and human beings alike. The heat of aging and death is food to the cycle of life. A point of equilibrium that never moves smacks of immobility and stagnation, a denial of the dynamics of life that grows and is constantly being renewed. As already suggested, this heliotropic law accounts for the fact that humans and healthy bodies (that thrive and grow) are generally thought to be closer to the hot pole. Foster considers this normal warmth to be essentially thermal. His informants state that this healthy warmth comes from the heat of the blood, but they are not sure if they can call this heat metaphoric or thermal. While half of them say one thing, the other half opt for the opposite answer (Foster 1994, 323). One wonders if this split could be because informants do not understand the constructs that are being forced on them. We suggest that heat generated by the blood is neither thermal (caloric measurement fluctuating between heath, weakness, and illness) nor metaphoric (a fixed value inherent to blood). Warm blood is rather a feature of life movement and growth in the sun. This is so true that blood that moves slowly may lose some of its inherent warmth. In the Sierra Santa Marta blood is warm and thick when it 'circulates' and 'works well'; however, it turns 'watery' and cold when acting lazy (see also Troche 1993, 309). All indications are that this principle of healthy blood thickness and heat is of pre-Hispanic origin (Lopez Austin 1980,179-80, 255). The rule of heliotropic movement or growth in the sun accounts for another important anomaly commonly reported in studies and models of fixed equilibrium. Illnesses, be they hot or cold, are often said to generate a state of heat that goes well above the normal level. 'All ill-

24 The Hot and the Cold

nesses - even those classified as "cold," such as colds, asthma and other bronchial problems - raise body temperatures above the equilibrium point/ probably because of the fever they generate (Foster 1994, 48; cf. 44, 61-2). Given this rule, the sick are generally cautioned not to bathe when sick (or to wear clothes that are freshly washed). In Tzintzuntzan the expression 'I had a bath' (ya me bane) means that one has recovered from an illness. A corollary of this is that the sick are more often than not advised to avoid cold strikes, which are the principal source of illness, thus following the non-humoral principle of the avoidance of opposites ('keep the injury warm until it heals') (35,37-8, 69,139). Why this preponderance of heat (caused or aggravated by exposure to coldness) in definitions of illness and health risk? The imagery is no longer anomalous when seen from a heliotropic perspective. An excess of water or cold can cause unexpected illness or the loss of life, yet death is always the terminal point of a gradual heating process that ends in life burning up and drying out. Because death is inevitable and always hot, illnesses, be they cold or hot, will cause sufferers to take a step closer to the final emanation of heat. In the Sierra Santa Marta the agricultural and botanical concept of water-burning captures this paradoxical heat effect that can result from cold insults. Humans resemble plants in that too much water (or cold such as ice) can literally burn the living organism. In the end, all life forms succumb to the heat of death. The model explained and illustrated in the chapters that follow revolves around the cycles and motions of life born in water and growing in the sun. It incorporates various dimensions that are often missed in discussions of folk medicine in Latin America, including recurrent shifts in daily activities, normal processes of aging and reproduction, and also the quintessential matter of life renewed through gestures of sacrifice and death (of which more later). The resulting perspective precludes a single reference or ideal equilibrium condition in the way people think about health and disease. It allows us to conceptualize the health equilibrium as a dynamic process in which different cycles (calendrical, reproductive, metabolic, organic, generational) and motions of growth constantly interact (see Figure 2.1). Illness occurs in the event that a particular cycle or growth process (mapped along the hotcold axis) is broken or disrupted. Individuals who bring a cycle to a standstill are seriously at risk; for instance, someone who works too little loses strength and is likely to become anemic. In this perspective, what may be considered risky and potentially

Balance and Movement 25

Wet - Cold - Water Figure 2.1 Cycles and heliotropic growth

harmful are deviations from hotter or colder equilibrium conditions that are normal at particular points in time and space, not deviations from a fixed reference point that is neither possible nor desirable. To use another Sierra Santa Marta example, a campesino who works in the milpa all day under a hot sun expects to experience physical heat. This is the normal healthy body temperature under the circumstances. While in this state the man will be more susceptible to cold foods such as pineapple. The risk he is faced with is not the result of a loss of equilibrium or balance. It is rather the threat of cold that a body experiences when going through a necessary phase of heat. A man who is

26 The Hot and the Cold

overcooled because of a bath or a period of inactivity should follow the same strategy, but in reverse. As in the island of Chira, Costa Rica, he 'should take something cold (or Cold) internally or externally ... to neutralize any possible contact with Hot (or hot) while the body is automatically returning to a normal state' (Orso, in Foster 1994,38). For the Popolucas and the Nahuas of southern Veracruz, and probably for most Mesoamerican cultures past and present, life is associated with cyclic movement. The literature provides ample evidence of beliefs that see the human body heating up or cooling off at different times in a person's life. Typically, we are in a colder state when young and grow hotter with age. Menstruation and pregnancy cycles generate hotter and colder states as well, all of which are considered normal and healthy. Ideas about a day temperature cycle also seem to have existed in pre-colonial times and persisted over the centuries. We work during the day, become hot, and then freshen up through meals and a good night's rest. In this Age of the Fifth Sun (as conceived by the ancient Nahuas), life is synonymous with cyclic movement, a dynamic harmony that governs motions of the sea, celestial bodies, and plant growth as well. Periodicity regulates not only the motions of life but also its regeneration through death, to be fully assumed through offerings and sacrifices of all sorts. Death itself is a most natural event that feeds into the chain of life. We should emphasize that this theory does not assume uniformity in details or key thermal attributions pertaining to normal activities moving in a cycle. When basic differences occur, however, it is important to assess their significance and interpretive accuracy. Take for instance Foster's remarks regarding the cold nature of menstruation and the post-partum period in Tzintzuntzan (Foster 1994, 23, 35, 72,105). This attribution differs from the historical data reported for the ancient Nahuas (Lopez Austin 1980, 297-8), rural communities in Morelos (Castaneda et al. 1996,137), the Quiches of Guatemala (Neuenswander and Souder 1980, 147), and the Popolucas and Nahuas of southern Veracruz. Foster gives no indication if the cold menstruation and postpartum attribution in Tzintzuntzan was near unanimous or if it differed within the community or between various categories of people interviewed. He also contradicts himself, having stated elsewhere that in Tzintzuntzan 'the menstrual period, pregnancy, birth and the period following childbirth are also times of Heat above the normal [level]' (Foster 1986, 68). This last characterization is more in keeping with our own field study and other ethnographic contributions (with the nota-

Balance and Movement 27 ble exception of Madsen I960, 166-7). We also have doubts about observations suggesting that rest is thought to generate heat (Foster 1994, 46). A more likely scenario is that rest permits the body to stop moving and cool off after a hard day's work. Concepts of balance, cyclic movement, and heliotropic growth inform a wide range of beliefs concerning illnesses of the human body and related healing practices. They also apply to other life forms and play a major role in such areas as agriculture and the cultivation of staple foods. This brings us to a central thesis advanced in this book. The Gulf Nahuas and Popolucas perceive fundamental similarities between humans and the plants they care for as they would their own children, plants that grow and go through repeated cycles of life and death in order to feed those who reproduce them. It is perhaps in this context that one final anomaly reported by Foster and others should be understood: the idea that staple foods, like humans, are neither hot nor cold. In the Sierra Santa Marta things that are sown and harvested in the milpa are said not to have fixed temperatures. This makes sense given all the transformations that food plants go through, from seed planting and sprouting in the field to foliage growth and drying in the sun or from plucking and dehusking to various methods of food preparation and cooking. Sheila Cosminsky (1975, 184, cited in Foster 1994, 103) reports that in the eyes of the Guatemalan Quiches dried corn is hot, whereas corn that is green or fresh is cold 'since it contains the rain water.' What is more, staple plants have in common with humans that they can suffer illnesses of all kinds, thereby requiring healing attention and care. As opposed to being hot or cold, staple foods are affected by hot and cold influences stemming from natural elements (e.g., too much sun, too much rain), agricultural phases (e.g., planting, doubling, harvesting), and cycles of growth (e.g., plant 'juices' are thought to rise at night and then fall or dry up in the daytime). As we shall see, the Nahuas and the Popolucas are as much preoccupied with insults and illnesses affecting their maize plants as they are with their own wellbeing. Hot and cold things that may sustain or attack the life of maize matter far more than the inherent qualities of corn (highly variable in any case). Humans and maize plants are subject to normal variations in cyclic activities and phases of growth and reproduction that can be mapped along the hot-cold axis. Health is therefore a moving equilibrium that constantly adjusts to the coordinates of time and space. This means that hot or cold influxes cannot be inherently harmful or beneficial. Both influxes are needed to secure the health of plant and human

28 The Hot and the Cold organism, depending on where the organism is situated in time. Something hot or cold (e.g., water) can behave at times as an aggressive agent and at other times as a source of sustenance or an element of therapy. The actual impact rests on a multiplicity of factors. In the case of humans much depends on the person who is being affected (e.g., child or adult), his or her physical state (e.g., fatigue), and the natural or spiritual force the person happens to interact with. Concepts of periodicity and growth and related coordinates of time and space (e.g., an old man bathing in a brook after a day's work harvesting mature corn plants in autumn) play a central role in considerations of the hot and the cold affecting humans and plants. The body is the primary space where hot and cold interactions occur, producing disease or its cure, as the case may be. Time manifests itself in human and staple-plant bodies in the form of naturally changing physiological conditions (e.g., from night-time rest to daytime exertion, from youth to old age), shifts that will in some cases predispose and in others protect the organism from potential threats of heat or cold. Given these determinations of time and space, people 'classify using different criteria each time, depending on the context, through diverse selections of the mentioned traits. This causes a situation where the same plant can be classified at the same time as hot and cold, depending on one or another of its traits' (Olavarrieta Marenco 1977, 70, our translation). Olavarrieta Marenco's remark suggests that people have an array of environmental characteristics and physical traits to choose from when ascribing either a hot or cold value. The argument is in keeping with our own views, save perhaps for the emphasis the author places on contextual factors that are so specific as to vary ad infinitum. Taking the contextual and circumstantial aspects of time and space into account is no excuse for disregarding the ways in which healing beliefs and practices are generally framed, receiving a flexible structure consisting of balance, alternation, and growth. The ethnographic material explored in the chapters that follow addresses the coordinates of space and time as they affect the health of humans and maize in native Mexico. It also addresses another key aspect of the hot-cold syndrome, a critical dimension that tends to be forgotten: the extent to which other life forms, particularly the animals and spirits dwelling in nature, are involved in matters of health and illness and related influxes of heat or cold. To this issue should be added the question of fluctuations in the heat and cold experienced by spirits and animals themselves, fluctuations that point to their movement through

Balance and Movement 29

time and space. The significance that is given to these changing activities and conditions of animal-spirit life finds a telling illustration in the way indigenous people speak of their gods and narrate events marking their lives. Our analysis of corn mythology in the Sierra Santa Marta thus shows how the requirements of balance, cyclic movement, and growth in the sun apply to the god of corn and the many animals, spirits, and forces of nature that the corn god encounters in his journey through life. Similar comments apply to the way the ancient Nahuas portrayed their gods. Different names and images were used depending on the particular actions that the deities were performing or in order to emphasize a divine characteristic that became relevant at a particular point in time and space. It is not surprising to find that things, just as gods, acquire attributions in response to the particular circumstances surrounding an act or event. This leads Soustelle (1940, 85, in LeonPortilla 1983, 122, our translation) to suggest that in ancient Mesoamerican thought 'natural phenomena and human acts submerge themselves and become impregnated with qualities peculiar to each place and each instant. Each "place-instant," a complex of location and time, determines in an irresistible and foreseeable way (through the Tonalamatl). everything that happens to exist within it.' A disease, an accident, or a crop failure could not be understood outside the spatial and temporal circumstances surrounding the event. It was through this place-instant complex that the divine expressed itself in the lives of people, through the book of destiny known as Tonalamatl.1 A conclusion that can be drawn from these observations is that simple listings of items classified into hot and cold categories are of limited usefulness. These lists isolate the items from the contextual elements that determine the category in which they are assigned. They give the erroneous impression that a hot or cold value is a static, objective property of the item itself. Listings of attribution criteria provide useful information only if presented along with the context in which the attributions are made. The implication is that a value can lose its validity outside the circumstances in which it is defined. To sum up, the approach presented in this book emphasizes indigenous views on the interactions among the hot-cold equilibrium, cycles of reproduction, and the solar-driven process of growth and death. This threefold frame of reference will be shown to introduce order and dynamics into the circumstances of both space (e.g., the forest, the milpa, the underworld, water sites, and parts of the body) and time

30 The Hot and the Cold

(e.g., birth, aging, dying, the alternation of night and day), circumstances that constantly affect humans, maize, and other life forms as well. Life and Movement under the Fifth Sun Native Mexican conceptions of hot-cold attributions are not merely physical. Nor are they geared to considerations of organic well-being alone. They also implicate issues of morality and spirituality and gestures of sacrificial offerings and death. This contradicts another basic argument of Foster's humoral model: the secular nature of hot-cold medicine in Latin America. Foster is well aware of the presence of religious elements in folk medicine, especially those of Christian origins; however, he views them as relatively peripheral to health and illness understood in a humoral perspective. 'Humoral medicine was even versatile enough to cope with Christianity's teaching that disease was sent as punishment, by a wrathful God, a personalistic view of causality diametrically opposed to the naturalistic basis of humoral pathology. God, savants argued, obviously sent disease, but he did it through natural means, thus leaving unscathed the primary Greek premise of naturalistic causality' (Foster 1994,186). Christian spirituality may account for the occurrence of disease. It does not, however, explain how illness actually affects the body or how it should be treated, questions that humoral theory alone can address. Humoralism is profoundly secular, with the implication that any folk medicine displaying a spiritual orientation deviates from the norm: The many straightforward ethnographic accounts of humoral medicine in the New World (the basis for any comparative and historical analysis) deal with food and diet, maintenance of health, causes of illness and therapies. But we do not read about heavenly bodies, days of the week, months, supernatural beings, and the like in this context. The remarkable thing about contemporary humoral medicine, whatever the ethnic affiliation of its practitioners, is - as was true of classical humoral medicine - its naturalistic base and its focus on health and illness, to the near exclusion of other matters. Humoral medicine is as secular as contemporary biomedicine. (Foster 1994,176)

Our analysis of connections between native concepts of health, morality, and cosmology challenges these views and shows how one folk hot-

Balance and Movement 31

cold system can be profoundly spiritual. In the Sierra Santa Marta the illnesses of plants and humans are directly tied to the teachings of sacrifice, a logic of self-mastery and abnegation partly rooted in beliefs and practices dating back to pre-Hispanic times. Spiritual elements predating the Conquest are often made explicit in the ways people perceive or experience symptoms of an illness, the meanings they attribute to its cause, or the practices they deploy to prevent illnesses or treat them when they do occur. In some instances, these spiritual elements seem absent in people's accounts, yet sacrificial ethics (distinct from Christian ascetic values) continue to govern the healing system at hand. Our case study points to complex interrelations between the hotcold pair and the solar, cyclic, and sacrificial exigencies of life as seen by the Nahuas and Popolucas of southern Veracruz. In keeping with studies of ancient Mesoamerican thought, it shows how hot-cold reasoning applies not only to human and plant bodies but also to different parts of the world and to spiritual entities as well. Lopez Austin (1975, 16-31; 1980, 58-61) traces this classification principle to an ancient division of the universe into pairs of opposites (or poles), a bipolar perspective designed to explain diversity, order, and movement in the cosmos. He attributes this bipolar vision to the Chichimecas who worshiped the heavens and the earth, conceiving them as the Great Father and Great Mother, respectively.2 The Heavens or sky of the blue fire were ruled by the Great Father and were considered inherently hot. In opposition to it was the Earth, our Great Mother whose mountains and caves gave origin to rivers, streams, winds, and clouds. The maleheaven-hot and female-earth-cold binary could even date back to cultures that preceded the great agricultural societies of Mesoamerica in the Classic Period (200 BC to 800 AD). Based on this ancient division of the universe, Lopez Austin considers the amount of solar heat (or humidity) each thing acquires by exposure to be a central principle of Mesoamerican thinking, a principle encompassing both medical and spiritual considerations (Foster recognizes this solar-exposure criterion but considers it to be just one among others and circumscribed, as the rest, to medical practices). One farreaching concept that links solar energy to heat used as a healing category lies in the notion of tonalli. This is the life-giving energy that was granted by the supreme dual god Ometeotl and was considered by the ancient Nahuas to be hot, irradiating its warmth from the head of the person to the rest of the body. Linguistically, the word tonalli is derived from the verb tona. 'to be warm, for the sun to shine.' Metaphorically,

32 The Hot and the Cold it took many meanings, including to radiate, irradiate, solar heat, day, soul, spirit, or destiny determined by the day of birth (Klor de Alva 1993,184; Lopez Austin 1980, 224-5). This solar heat could accumulate in the body during ritual observances, to the point of becoming potentially harmful to others. Similar concepts are echoed in the present-day Sierra Santa Marta. Thus, the spirit of man is thought to have 'a direct relationship with the sun, the moon, maize, and the thunderbolt, which are hot and give him life.' By contrast 'it is clear that cold elements like the earth, water, and the wind are the cause of illnesses of the spirit of man given that it is considered hot' (Munch Galindo 1983, 191,193, our translation). Lopez Austin (1980, 67) reports two iconographic imageries used in ancient times to represent the hot and the cold. The hot was as a gush of blood and the cold a gush of water, shells, or water drops. Associations between redness, heat, soul, and blood are commonly found throughout Mesoamerica (1980, 234-6). Likewise, association between coldness and water or humidity is evident in many iconographic representations. It is also at the heart of the ancient Nahua notion of illness caused by the god of rain, Tlaloc. and his subordinate gods, the tlaloques. These deities were responsible for producing contagious diseases involving the accumulation of bodily fluids, ailments deemed to be cold (Viesca Trevino 1986, 80,104). Coldness is also a requirement of life. Rain, for instance, constitutes the sacred liquid that impregnates the soil and allows the corn god to grow. As a Popoluca myth relates, the god of thunder once asked the corn god Homshuk to spare his life with a promise to wet his head 'when the sun is hot.' We shall return to this imagery of life that begins in water (as expressed in medicine, agriculture, rituals, and mythology) at some length. The dynamic opposition between things either sunny and hot or watery and cold is inseparable from the ancient Nahuatl concept of tlamacehua. a divine-human covenant founded on principles of sacrifice and constituting the origin of lunisolar time, movement, and human existence itself. Human beings were named and granted existence by virtue of this primeval pact. The concept of tlamacehua embodies two distinct and interrelated meanings: to do penance and to be deserving or worthy of something. Both elements evoke the primordial relationship between human beings and their gods. Humans must emulate the gods who, through their own penance and sacrifice, came to deserve the power to grant life to humans (Leon-Portilla 1993,42). The ancient Nahuas believed the world had existed for four previ-

Balance and Movement 33

ous ages or consecutive cycles known as suns. Each of these ages had been dominated by one of the four primeval forces, namely, water, earth, fire, and wind. Each was thought to have ended with a cataclysm. When the Spaniards landed the Nahuas were living under the Fifth Sun, an age of equilibrium between all forces. A process of evolution was believed to have occurred from age to age, with better forms of humans, plants, and foods appearing each time, culminating in the fifth age with the re-creation of humans as we know them now. At the outset of this age, the sun and moon were created and began to move, marking the beginning of time and human life sustaining itself through recurrent cycles of milpa cultivation (Leon-Portilla 1980,15-22; 1983, 98-112; Lopez Austin 1980,173). The Age of the Fifth Sun was called Ollintonatiuh, the sun of movement. Tonatiuh is translated by Leon-Portilla as the one that produces heat and light; ollin is movement. A derivation of this word is yollotl. the human heart, literally its mobility or that which gives life and movement to someone. Yoliliztli is life, the result of inside movement (Leon-Portilla 1983, 386). Space and time under the Fifth Sun were governed by cyclic motions involving constant alternations between endings and new beginnings affecting all forms of life. Sacrificial offerings and gestures were essential to maintaining these motions of life ruled by Sun and Moon. Divinities required offerings of all sorts, including human blood and hearts. Yet they also set the example: new beginnings were not possible without the penance and sacrifice of the gods. Was it not Nanahuatzin and Tecuciztecatl who jumped into the teotexcalli. the divine fire or hearth, causing the sun and moon to appear? The other gods gathered in the sacred city of Teotihuacan and gave their blood and life in sacrifice so that the two celestial bodies could begin to move. From this point onward, the blood and hearts of human sacrifices were needed to maintain the movement of the sun and moon across the heavens (see Figure 2.2). According to the Nahua legend of the suns, recorded in 1558 (LeonPortilla 1980, 167; 1993, 43), the Feathered Serpent god went to the Place of the Dead and recovered the bones of human beings that had existed in the four earlier ages or suns. The bones were ground and mixed with blood from his penis. Then he and the other gods did penance and sought to be worthy of (tlamacehuayarO of what they desired. Thanks to the sacrifice and penance of the gods, new human beings were born from the dough made of blood and crushed bones, the sun and moon began to move, and a great darkness came to an

34 The Hot and the Cold

Figure 2.2 The Age of the Fifth Sun - Sun of movement

end. The gods were rewarded with a new age governed by time measured through motions of the heavenly spheres. The reward also included human beings destined to worship the gods and provide for their needs through tlamacehualiztli gestures of their own, sacrificial practices ranging from acts of fasting to the offering of human lives. Leon-Portilla adds that the word macehualtin. that which is deserved by the gods, became synonymous with human being (in Nahuatl and other Mesoamerican languages as well). Exchanges between gods and humans were founded on the principle of reciprocity between unequals. The gods were entities that lacked

Balance and Movement 35

and desired things that humans possessed. Yet humans feared and envied their gods and were not in a position to opt out of the covenant. People were obliged to deserve and be worthy of their own existence by worshipping and satisfying the gods. Life, marriage, children, property in land, the fruit of labour, worthy leaders, a victory in war, all had to be earned through sacrifice (Leon-Portilla 1993,44-8). People had to give offerings of all sorts (e.g., an assortment of foods, incense burning, the killing of small animals such as quails) and perform acts of mortification of all kinds, including fasting, sexual abstinence, prolonged periods of vigil, abstention from pulque, or the piercing of different parts of the body to produce bleeding.3 To each ritual corresponded the pursuit of particular favours, such as preventing disease, improving personal abilities (e.g, artistic talent, warrior skills), or purifying individuals of their sins. Failure to follow these rules provoked the anger and punishment of the gods (Lopez Austin 1980,438-9). The offering of human beings in sacrifice was the exclusive privilege of the ruling class. According to Gonzalez Torres (1985, 79, 82, 301), no other culture in the world performed so many human sacrifices and with such frequency as the Mexicas.4 Estimates range from an average of 15,000 human sacrifices per year to over ten times this number. In spite of the large discrepancy between estimates, it is generally accepted that in any given year during the century preceding the arrival of the Spaniards thousands of people were sacrificed. Gonzalez Torres describes how the evolution of this practice paralleled the transformation of the Mexica state. He distinguishes between two main traditions of human sacrifice that coexisted in Mesoamerica since ancient times: one consisted in sacrifices for the community, and the other in sacrifices for individuals. Each developed differently as the state became more despotic and expansionist.5 The purpose of communal sacrifices was to seek the well-being of the entire community by maintaining harmony with the gods and the universe. This entailed human sacrifices that had a prophylactic character and were closely tied to situations of crisis, the agricultural cycle, fertility rites, the changing of seasons, or motions of the stars. Times associated with renewal were consecrated with offerings and sacrifices that made people worthy of new beginnings. For instance, the celebration of the New Fire marked the beginning of a new fifty-two-year cycle. This event known as toxiuhmolpilli was a fragile time that required special ceremonies to prevent the end of the fifth age. All the fires of the Aztec kingdom were extinguished with water on the last

36 The Hot and the Cold

night of the cycle, and people looked at the sky for the tianquiztli or Pleiades. The movement of this cluster of stars at midnight brought the divine message, promising fifty-two more years of life and solar motion. At this moment, the new fire was kindled on the chest of the most valiant prisoner. He was then sacrificed. His heart was removed and thrown into the fire, followed by his entire body. This new fire was used to kindle all fires in all temples and households of the kingdom. Other offerings included copal and quails (Leon-Portilla 1983, 115; Gonzalez Torres 1985,123). Other examples of community sacrifices include women offered by healers to Tod6 in the month of Ochpaniztli.7 or the offering of children to the gods associated with corn (Cinteotl. Xilonen).8 Many children were sacrificed at different times of the year, children whose ages varied according to phases of corn growth (Gonzalez Torres 1985,194-5). By contrast human sacrifices made on behalf of individuals were designed to obtain personal benefits such as prestige, status, or power. These sacrifices were closely regulated and managed by the state. In Mexica society, the offering of human beings by individuals was restricted to warriors and merchants (Gonzalez Torres 1985, 211). The ruling ideology exalted prowess in war, acts of military courage that became synonymous with the capturing of enemies destined to serve as offerings to the gods. The importance of human sacrifices reached its peak in Mesoamerica during the century that preceded the Conquest. It was justified as the fulfilment of a divine-human covenant, the sacrifice of human beings for the sustenance of life on earth. People followed in the footstep of the god Ouetzalcoatl. who died in his quest to restore humanity, and of Nanahuatzin and Tecuciztecatl, the deities who cast themselves into fire to restore the sun and the moon (Gonzalez Torres 1985, 191; Fernandez 1992, 77). Gods gave their lives to restore humanity. In so doing, they regenerated themselves and reigned as gods throughout the Age of the Fifth Sun. Human beings were expected to offer lives in return. Prisoners of war thus became a divine tribute for the mutual sustenance of gods and humans and a proof of loyalty and submission to the state, to be rewarded through greater prestige, wealth, and power (Gonzalez Torres 1985,306). Merchants made both community and individual offerings of human lives. Sacrifices on behalf of the community were offered to their god Yacatecuhtli in the month of Xocotl Huetzy. Individual offerings were made in the temple of Huitzilopochtli in the month of Panquetzaliztli

Balance and Movement

37

(Gonzalez Torres 1985, 228).9 Slaves were bought specifically for both types of offerings. They were sold by merchants specialized in the trade of sacrificial slaves. The actual killing of humans for sacrificial purposes was restricted to priests and kings. They were the only ones who could withstand emanations of energy generated by the event. In return, priests enjoyed several privileges. They had the right to eat specific body parts of the victims, and they received different forms of remuneration from merchants and warriors as payment for the services rendered on their behalf. They were also paid in tribute, with the fruit of the land that belonged to the temple in which they served (Gonzalez Torres 1985, 181). In spite of its religious essence, sacrifice in pre-colonial times was viewed as an economic transaction, an exchange involving the transfer of things of great value. The transaction was carried out by an individual or an entire community, to the benefit of a particular god whose favours were sought. Tangible benefits to individuals or communities were expected in return. Rain, good crops, prestige, or the ridding of pests and illness could be obtained in exchange for human blood, hearts, animals, fire, different products such as copal incense or quails, or the simple renunciation of food and pleasure. Notions of trade were embedded in the language of sacrifice. For example, a sacrifice to the gods was called nextlahualiztli. literally the act of payment, and the offering of fire was tlenamaca. to sell the fire. Similarly, the offering of blood and people to obtain rain or health were payments (nextlahualtin). The earth thus became the marketplace of the greater and lesser gods, the place where converged 'all types of [cosmic] energy in the body of human beings' (Lopez Austin 1980, 82-3, 372,434, 438). The idea of sacrifice understood as an economic transaction between humans and gods applies to our own case study. Concepts of sacrifice are particularly well rooted in the language of agriculture, as used to be the case in pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica (cf. Olavarrieta Marenco 1977, 243). The corresponding world view differs from the religious doctrine introduced by the Spaniards in many important respects. The ultimate end of the Christian concepts of sacrifice lies and continues to reside in eternal salvation. Missionaries conceived the self as an entity composed of two antagonistic parts, the body and the soul. The soul, through ascetic discipline, had to fight against sinful dispositions of the body with a view to deserving salvation in the afterlife. An individual could choose to reject the Christian way of life but was then con-

38 The Hot and the Cold

demned to certain damnation of the soul. Sharply at odds were preHispanic conceptions of self, body, and soul. For the Nahuas, spirituality took multiple facets, all of which resided inside the body and the realm of Nature. The self was subject to influences and forces over which it had little control, save perhaps through transactions involving acts of reciprocity between humans and the gods. Humans were expected to behave ascetically, yet sacrifice and self-control were designed to achieve worldly ends and maintain orderly movement in the universe. People sought to make themselves worthy of the good life through the performance of public and private acts of penance and sacrifice. The ultimate goal was to secure from the gods the best possible life, not salvation of the soul in a distant future (Klor de Alva 1993, 173-97). The following excerpt, recorded in 1564 by Sahagiin and his Nahua assistants, captures the essence of this Mesoamerican version of what might be called worldly asceticism, a moral outlook that values life above everything but with a sense of suffering and sacrifice and the virtues of moderation (Lopez Austin 1980, 282-3). The excerpt, worth quoting at length, is a response to Franciscan missionaries from Nahua elders whose ancestral beliefs were under challenge: You tell [us] that our gods are not real gods. It is a new word, this one you tell [us], and because of it we are bewildered, we are extremely frightened. Our makers [ancestors], those who came to live on the earth, did not speak this way. They gave us their law. They believed, served, honored the gods. They taught us all the [ways] of serving them, of honoring them. Thus, before them we eat earth10 [humble ourselves], we bleed ourselves, we discharge the debt ourselves, we burn copal, and, thus, we make sacrifices ['cause something to be killed']. They used to say that, truly, they, the gods, through whom living goes on, they merited us. When? Where? While it was still night [in the mythical past]. And they used to say they give us our supper, our breakfast [our sustenance], and all that is drinkable, edible, our meat, the corn, the bean, the wild amaranth, the lime-leaved sage. They are those from whom we request the water, the rain, by which things are made on the earth. Furthermore, they themselves are rich, happy, possessors of goods, owners of goods, by which always, forever, it germinates, it grows green, there in their house. Where? What kind of place is the place of Tlaloc? Hunger never occurs there, no disease, no poverty. And also they give to the people manly prowess, courage, the chase, the lip plug, the ornament

Balance and Movement 39 by which [the hair] is bound, the loincloth, the mantle, flowers, tobacco, precious green stones, fine plumes, gold ... Everywhere in the world, in various places they spread out their mat, their seat [their dominion]. They gave to the people lordship, dominion, fame, glory. And now, perhaps, are we the ones who will destroy the ancient law? ... Already our heart is this way: in [the law] people live, one is given birth, one is made to grow, one is made to mature, by calling them, by praying to them. (Cited in Klor de Alva 1993,181; authors' translation)

These words pronounced by elders confirm the mythical teachings of their own ancestors, lessons founded on sacrificial exchanges between gods and humans. The gods merited humans into existence through their own sacrifice performed at the beginning of a new age. People had to discharge the debt through sacrificial gestures, thereby securing food, health, power, wealth, and all other blessings of life on earth. Sacrifices were performed with material aims in view, but they were by no means deprived of spiritual value. Asceticism was nonetheless of the worldly sort, grounded in a relationship of reciprocity between people and their gods. This was a transactional cosmology that differed radically from monotheistic faith in an almighty Creator living for all eternity in heaven, a god whose life is made to last without offerings and sacrifices from his mortal creation. To sum up, native health-seeking behaviour based on the hot-cold syndrome goes beyond a quest for homeostatic balance between thermal opposites. Many anomalies that contradict the homeostatic model (and keep reappearing in the literature) converge on a dynamic logic founded on principles of balance, cyclic movement, and solar-driven growth. These principles point in turn to a sacrificial morality of indigenous inspiration, a code of health based on the sacredness of commercial exchanges prevailing between all forms of life dwelling in Nature, be they human beings, plants, animals, or the heavenly spheres. Having challenged misconceptions regarding the nature and origins of Latin America's hot-cold syndrome, we now proceed to an exploration of health beliefs and practices observed among the Nahuas and Popolucas of southern Veracruz. This will be followed by a close reading of native corn mythology shared by both indigenous groups, narrative accounts of the birth and life of the corn god. Details of this mythology and related semantics will be shown to illustrate basic health challenges faced by humans and food plants and narrative

40 The Hot and the Cold

responses couched in symbolic language. Stories of the corn god also exemplify the moral teachings of self-sacrifice and the obligations of reciprocity that govern relations between people and their gods forever dwelling in Nature.

CHAPTER THREE

Solar Life, Birth, and Diarrhea

The Human Cycle: A Heliotropic Life Force For the Popolucas and the Nahuas, life is essentially a matter of balance, cyclic equilibrium, and heliotropic growth. The first two principles involve an equal distribution of temperatures balancing out in organic space and over time. The body is constantly combining and alternating between hotter and colder conditions and activities, mixtures and motions that are considered healthy and provide points of reference for normal behaviour and for healing practices as well. Heavenly bodies, plant growth, soil fertility, and life itself are all governed by cyclic motions, bodily states constantly evolving in the midst of their surroundings and moments hot and cold. Recurring moments of coolness and warmth point to a well-balanced distribution of temperature spread over time. The daily cycle is a good example of this cyclic aspect of thermal equilibrium deployed over time. Ideas about daily cycles or tides seem to have existed in pre-Hispanic times and have persisted through the centuries. During daytime we work under the sun and become hot as our body fluids are in a state of low tide; meals and rest at night cool the body and bring our fluids back to high tide. Our body is thus in dynamic balance, like water in a pot. If left exposed to the outdoors, the sun will slowly warm the water over the course of the day. The coolness of the night will eventually restore the water's coolness. Changes in water temperature from daytime to night-time correspond to different equilibrium conditions of the pot and water responding to changing surroundings (ambient temperatures, cloud cover, solar energy reaching the pot). Colder water at dawn and warmer water at mid-

42 The Hot and the Cold

day are normal phenomena; maintaining the pot at a constant temperature is not. Thermal cycles are dynamic processes that maintain exchanges and harmony between forces of the universe, a large-scale commerce that requires continual sacrifices, mortifications, and offerings to the gods performed at proper times of the day and the year. To these guiding principles should be added a counterbalancing rule, that of heliotropic growth. Life thrives on mixtures and cycles of the hot and the cold, and at the same time life generally moves in a solar direction, towards a state of reproductive maturity characterized by increasing dryness and warmth. In the Sierra Santa Marta the human body is thought to become progressively drier (or hotter) as it gathers in age. All bodies that are alive are in a colder state when young and grow hotter with ageCycles occur from within one's life, as between night-time and daytime. Cycles also govern movements from one period of life to another. The life of every human being evolves from the freshness of youth bathing in water to a state of maturity and dryness, a solar climax required to reproduce and bring new generations to life. As with plants, the life of human beings begins in water. In classical Nahuatl, water can be used figuratively to stand for both a child (oc atl in Simeon 1977) and the food of life (atl tlaqualli). Accordingly, the Gulf Nahuas and Popolucas believe that newborn children are generally immersed in a state of softness, wetness, and freshness. Their blood, heart, and brain are watery, weak, and slow (see Troche 1993, 389; Lopez Austin 1980,230). Water also stands for the first era of humanity (atonatiuh. sun of water), which means that cosmogony reflects ontogeny. By contrast, life under the Fifth Sun introduces cyclic movement in a world otherwise watery and static: this is the age where humans use maize to 'feed their heart' (Rodriguez Hernandez n.d. b, 3) and move faster and become drier and stronger as they grow in age. The same logic applies to spirits such as the corn god Homshuk or Sintiopiltsin. When he reached the age of seven, the corn god acquired the ability to walk, move around, and fetch water (as opposed to bathing in water). At seven he was also more intelligent than ever. Growth and maturation entail a quickening of our blood pulse tomaayoolojmej. from ollin and vol. words signifying not only movement but also the heart, the interior, the eye, the seed of fruit or corn (as in ixictayol) (Leon-Portilla 1983,122,191,396; Lopez Austin 1980,178). To move faster, however, our blood must circulate and get thicker and

Solar Life, Birth, and Diarrhea 43

drier, which is what it does under the influence of the sun. Accordingly, contemporary Popolucas and Nahuas of the Sierra Santa Marta view the process of aging as a gradual change in temperature, a general movement from coldness to hotness. Young children are considered colder than adults and elders. As a child grows (custam), he or she becomes ripe or mature (tsam or camama), eventually turning old (tsamim), wrinkled (xuchne, arrugado), hard (camam), and dry (cucaay) like corn in the milpa. As one campesino puts it, 'Xuchne ... is when a person is older, it has now an age of sixty-seventy years, well... in Popoluca you don't call it "dry," you say ... xuchne. ... it means since they are old, they are now dry ... they have turned very thin ... wrinkled.'1 According to Elson and Gutierrez (1995: 10, 14,16, 26, 44, 101), camama tsam means to ripen (madurar), from camam for hard (Sp. duro, macizo), and tsamim, an old person. Camama. is to become hard and ripe and is said of maize. Cucaay is to become dry, to die (from ca, to die). Xuchne. is to wrinkle. Plants and humans need both heat and humidity to survive and thrive. These are key ingredients that interact in a balanced and cyclic movement of growth and reproduction, an overall trajectory marked by a cold-humid beginning and a hot-dry end. Although constantly alternating between daytime activity and night-time tranquillity, the overall journey of life and the body is from idleness to movement, youth to maturity, wetness to dryness, coldness to hotness. Humans are born in freshness, yet they are fated to die sooner or later. Death that comes after maturity and old age is an outburst of heat. This is to say that humans and their blood are 'mostly hot' (Interview: Jose 10/ 06/94). Human beings are heliotropic creatures destined to grow in the sun until the source of life in them dries out (see Figure 3.1). Human souls (tonal) are made in the image of the sun (tonati). Life is torn between the blessings of life under the sun and death caused by the heat of the sun. On the one hand, ancient Nahua and current Gulf Nahua derivations of the root verb tona are evocative of not only food and the sustenance of life (tonacayotl) in general but also dry-season corn (tonalmil) and everything else that grows under the sun (tonauan). in the heat (tonalli) °f the summer season (tonallan).2 Accordingly, in Pajapan, the tonal denotes one's portion or lot in life, hence the soul, shadow, spirit or life force of the human body. This tonal sun-soul imagery finds a telling echo in the Mazatec asean motif denoting the east where the sun rises and the human soul as well.3 On the other hand, the drying process (tonaluagui) is a requirement

44 The Hot and the Cold

Figure 3.1 The human life cycle

of plant reproduction, a sacrificial offering (tonaltia^ built into the cycle of life and death on earth. Corn ears must be dried, shelled (taoya). and cleansed of all impurities to produce edible food and seed for planting, that is, dry iayol grain.4 Thus, to dry under the sun is to move closer to the moment of death and to gather the strength needed to reproduce. The rule applies to humans, soils, and plants alike. Just as a plant or a field that dies under the action of sun or fire has gained in maturity (yoksik) and may serve to reproduce life, so too a man advancing in age is growing thin and strong (chigoe, pipiktik}. To live a long life is therefore to 'grow a lot' (Interview: Jose 02/12/94; see Alvarez Heydenreich 1987, 98,101). The more powerful the man is (e.g., elderly leaders), the hotter he is and the more dangerous the heat emanating from his body.

Solar Life, Birth, and Diarrhea 45

Our solar father (totahtsin) that feeds all plant life is subject to the same fate. To grow and rise out of water to the east, he must ascend to the dry southern sky and then die in arid western mountains at the end of each day. The sun going to rest at night joins the corn-child's father buried in tagatauatzalouan. the land where men are dry. The father of life must disappear at the end of each day and temporarily cease 'to be' (ag, ac) if he is to accede to a new dawn. In classical Nahuatl, the sun at night enters darkness and surrenders (calaqui, house-enter) to its rule, all in the hope of ascending once again to the sky through the red house (tlauizcalli) at dawn. In the same vein, the fall of the solar body at dusk is but a petite mart impregnating a new moon rising to the west (Culturas Populares 1982a, 29). Giving light and life, the sun is subject to the dual imagery of 'being.' Like other life forms, the sun too is ruled by the complementary nature of life and death. The sun is governed by a cyclic regime where signs of absence or non-presence (ayag) are never a pure waste; being thrives on non-being. The dialogue of being and non-being is embedded in the Nahua word agui (to enter) and derivations thereof, hence in the sun that is no longer - the solar father that hides and falls into a house at night (galagui tonati) as he disappears to the west (aquian). In the latter expression, the verb agui implies that the male sun is penetrating, entering, planting, or deceiving (agui, tahaguilia) the earth, just like a man arriving (agui) into a house and seducing a woman or making love to her while she sleeps (tetlan aqui).5 The evening sun bears all the vitality of a man planting a seed in arable land (aquiloni). Without the sun suffering this small death, trees would never be filled with fruit (tahaguilo, tlaaquillotl). and fruit would stop hanging from trees like children falling from the vulva (taguihlo. chayote). Likewise the male sun must cover itself up at night and in rainy season if the earth is to be properly watered and refreshed and then give birth to her new maize son. The corn god will in turn spread his array over the land, replacing the original cover lost through cutting and burning (Boege 1988,127,149-50). Man (tagat, tlacatl) and sun can enjoy the light of life as long as they hide themselves in darkness, the earth, and the womb. Even when absent, the sun continues to regenerate (tlacati) the fruit of things that are human (tlacayotl) and all human beings (tlacatl) born from their mother's tlacatcayotl or womb (tlacatitilia is to be born; in Pajapan, tagatilia is to be made a man; see Lopez Austin 1980,203, 206). Pre-Hispanic terms denoting the self confirm this heliotropic view of

46 The Hot and the Cold

life driven by the warmth and cyclic motions of the sun and the moon (Olavarrieta Marenco 1977, 248). The self consisted of three life-giving forces, all of which were relatively hot compared with other parts of the body such as the stomach (Viesca Trevifio 1986, 103). They were known as the tonalli. the teyolia. and the ihiyotl. The tonalli was the key link between the individual and the gods. It was sent from the Omeyocan (Place of Duality) and was granted to the child at birth during a name-giving ceremony. The tonalli was situated in the head, probably in the brain, and was responsible for each person's vital power and light energy transmitted through eyes and sight. Being of solar origin, it was considered hot. From the head, the tonalli irradiated its sunlike energy to the rest of the body and could leave the body for short periods of time, such as during coitus or periods of unconsciousness resulting from fright, drunkenness, or sleep.6 The second vital force, teyolia. was located in the heart. To the Aztec the heart and the blood it contained was nourishment needed to keep the gods alive (Viesca Trevifio 1986, 66). Although turning cold after death, the teyolia was of celestial origin and hot in nature. Conquistadors in the sixteenth century equated it with the Christian soul (Klor de Alva 1993,185). As with the tonalli. a person's teyolia was thought to increase in strength with the passing of years. Building up excess energy in the body produced heat that was potentially harmful to others, especially children (Lopez Austin 1980,288-9). The third force was called ihiyotl. It was centred in the liver, the site of passion, sentiment, and vigour. When the liver was malfunctioning, the ihiyotl could escape the body and cause harm to people that came in contact with it (Viesca Trevifio 1986, 66). Klor de Alva (1993, 186) states that during the colonial period, the ihiyotl was thought of as a luminous gas emanating from living and dead bodies. It was considered dangerous as it could exercise excessive attraction and excite the body. The author cites Alonso de Molina's (1571) definition of nitlaihioan. to attract something toward itself with the breath, respiration. The ihiyotl could attract strong desires such as jealousy, anger, and hatred, emotions that caused illness and that could be experienced against the person's will. To conclude, health seen from an indigenous perspective does not hinge on a constant admixture of the hot and the cold, an ideal thermal condition kept in static equipoise. A healthy life is a complex process whereby multiple activities and elements interact dynamically, on the basis of organic cycles mapped along the hot-cold continuum. Con-

Solar Life, Birth, and Diarrhea 47

trary to most anthropological views on the subject matter, hotter or colder states of the body do not constitute a rupture of bodily equilibrium, a loss of static balance that leads to illness or death. Illness is not the symptom of an ideal state undergoing deterioration. Rather, harm or disease occurs in the event that a particular cycle is broken or disrupted. In this Age of the Fifth Sun, life is synonymous with movement, which means that the preservation of harmony requires balance, rhythm, and progression all at once. Work and Rest, Hunger and Food, Sex and Reproduction Among the Nahuas and Popolucas of the Sierra Santa Marta, organic changes such as menstruation, aging, fatigue, or night rest are absolutely normal and are vital to the regeneration of life. Risks and vulnerability to disease are caused by deviations from these normal cycles involving shifts between hotter and colder equilibrium conditions. Thus, bodily heat experienced by an adult working in the milpa all day under the sun is to be expected. This is the normal body temperature under the circumstances. While in this state the campesino or campesina will be cautious not to eat foodstuffs that are too cold, pineapple, for instance. The adult is vulnerable to such food not because of a temporary loss of organic balance. Rather, it is a normal thing for someone in a state of heat (resulting from strenuous labour) to be vulnerable to cold foodstuffs. Humans who do not work or work too little run the risk of falling sick. Laziness is an illness that directly affects blood thickness and health in general. The idea is well captured in the following conversation with Jose, a Popoluca medicinal plant healer addressing the issue of people who become pale or chipujo: The person is very yellow. Let's say that a man comes now, a man who is badly off, sick, he's all yellow, discoloured, that's what is called chipujo. If you look from the other side, mine, well I'm black, I'm well, I'm healthy. This means my blood is all there, because I work in the field, my blood is circulating. If I cut myself just a little bit, my blood is no longer red, rather it's black, because my blood is solid. And there are others, the poor ones, you see them, and their blood comes out in drops ... that looks like water, and that's the person who's badly off ... chipujo ... Sometimes, ... some because they're not moving in the field, some because they're in the house, laziness, they're just spending all their time sleeping and sleeping,

48 The Hot and the Cold they don't do exercise, they have a lazy body, and if it happens that they have to do heavy work, they can't take it, they don't do it because they don't have pulse! They don't have strength. The man is discoloured! The man is unraised! So my way of working, as I work in the field, with machete, axe ... So the body is solid, now I give good answers, just like when you eat well, drink water well. (Field note 17/10/94)

The healer goes on to explain how blood in motion is the source of life. Because most of all the blood circulates well, so the machine works well... because when you're tired, the thing you have to look after is the blood, because the thing that moves is what gives you life... If I sleep too much, I start catching all sorts of illnesses, soon the glass inside [the belly] starts swelling and I can no longer do things, nothing ... because my body is accustomed to just sitting and lying. I should not do this. I must be working, I must be walking, I must be carrying heavy loads, I must take care of my body, well quenched with water, well fed, so that I may be solid. For anything they tell me get up, and I immediately get up, prasl I put it on my back and I carry it to wherever I want to go. But now, a poor chipujo, not much, because he can't, he doesn't have courage, he doesn't have strength ... And if he eats, he eats just a little bit, and if he drinks, he drinks just a little bit, he doesn't want to drink, he wants to lie down and nothing else, he wants to sit and nothing else. He doesn't do any kind of movement. These are the people that can't take hard work.

As with the Quiches of Joyabaj in Guatemala, a healthy body is a body that works hard, with blood that circulates vigorously through physical exertion (see Neuenswander and Souder 1980). Blood in this state is considered hot, just as the body. This is a healthy condition and the result of hard work carried out in the field, cultivating corn under the sun. When working, all the blood 'is there'; it is so visible and thick as to be coloured black. By contrast, the lazy become chipujo (weak and pale), causing an illness where blood ceases to circulate and becomes thin as water (possibly caused by the spleen getting too humid or cold; Interview: Pedro 27/11/94; see Troche 1993, 342; Alvarez Heydenreich 1987, 134). The lazy are like the dead, with no pulse. Their bodies become cold and without strength. They are cut'in, so lazy as to be literally 'covered in excrement' (Elson and Gutierrez 1995,18,93). Although humans are fated to work all their lives, they must rest on a regular basis so as not to be ill from overwork and die an untimely

Solar Life, Birth, and Diarrhea 49

death. Thus, at night 'the blood freshens up and rests through the heart; it rests and the blood is no longer at work. That's why one stays completely dead, because the whole body stopped working. It's not working, and that's when one takes the opportunity to rest. One rests until when one wakes up. As soon as one wakes up, everything wakes up, everything starts working.' When we are awake, blood circulates very rapidly, but when we sleep, 'the blood does not circulate so much' (Interview: Jose 10/06/94). Like the milpa, the body must cool off at night, enjoying a good night's rest, at a time when the sun brings light to the world of the dead (Interview: Jose 03/04/94; Rodriguez Hernandez 1994, 4). This must be done in preparation for another day involving motions of the blood, the brain, and the limbs, hi the absence of rest, overexposure to solar heat can provoke a premature death, as several usages of the solar imagery suggest. The sorcerer emulating the powers of the sun was once known to cast spells (tonalitlacoa^ by shooting arrows and rays of light (tonalmitl) that are destructive of life. Closer to the Gulf Nahuas and Popolucas and their corn mythology, there is the action of the sun or the hot wind (tonalehegat) rising to the south or the east (tonayan). causing men to sweat (itonil, Pop. cupiji, that which comes out when hot), and ears of corn to die prematurely through drying (tonalmigui} (Interview: Juan 11/06/94). Health thrives on regular movements between activity and rest (Munch Galindo 1983, 192). These shifts have been thought to affect body temperature and health since pre-colonial times. Among the ancient Nahuas, work was believed to produce fatigue and an increase in one's tonalli and overall heat in the body. Rest or recreation was a cooling experience.7 Lopez Austin cites several Nahua words in support of this thermal-health imagery, including tonalcehuia which means to cool one's tonalli, or rest for the one who walks. Cehuia is to rest and to cool what is hot, and moceltiqui is the one who is cooling off or enjoying and relaxing himself or herself. To be healthy one must sleep and renew the freshness of blood. Although resembling a state of death marked by a loss of tonalli warmth, sleep regenerates the body (Lopez Austin 1980, 210, 243,291-3). Regular shifts between daytime warmth and night-time coolness keep the blood and body healthy. Breaking this cycle brings weakness and shame to the lazy and illness to the overworked person. In both cases blood turns to water. The person suffering from laziness or fatigue loses his or her colour and becomes unraised (descriado), revert-

50 The Hot and the Cold

ing to an infantile condition of excess water, feebleness, and physical inactivity. The body must not only rest, it must also eat. Like the earth, the stomach requires freshness to sustain life (see Troche 1993, 358). Labour and physical movement can be sustained provided that the body drinks and eats every day, especially maize that fills, cools off, and counters heat and fatigue accumulating in the body (Interview: Jose 03/04/94). 'When your blood works well and you are well fed, well everything, then you have the courage to work, you want to walk and everything.' Thus, blood will 'run' normally only if properly fed. 'When one eats, that's when the heart is receiving food ... blood starts running normally, because it's taking sacred food. It maintains itself... all parts of the body are working normally. What it [the heart) asks for it [the body] gives slowly' (Interview: Jose 10/06/94). If well nourished the body maintains its strength. 'Of course the body will be hard [tnacizo], it responds well, because one eats well, drinks well... the blood circulates well, thus the apparatus [body] also works well, because one is tired. But what you have to take care of the most is the blood ... because it is the one that circulates, the one that gives you life' (Interview: Jose 17/10/94; see also Alvarez Heydenreich 1987,89-90). Eating and drinking are times of leisure and refreshment. The Popoluca word ntc means to drink water (nt is water) but also to celebrate and eat tamale. Food and water give strength to blood and semen.8 They give people the courage (valor) to work9 and play a vital role in maintaining the work-rest cycle. One campesino recalls the death of his aunt. She was a widow and therefore had to work in the milpa. Her family helped her with the harvest. They found her one day at home with her face and feet badly swollen. They asked her, 'What's wrong?' She replied, T feel very tired, I have not eaten tortilla again. I eat very little.' The nephew explains, "Then she went to the milpa, she hurt herself with a stick; instead of blood coming out, only water came out. Yes, only water. So my aunt died, she died of anemia.' When questioned as to why the body would swell, the nephew's answer was that 'it is swollen because she has no more blood, it is only water' (Interview: 08/06/94). When asked in a subsequent visit what would happen if one stopped eating tortilla, the man responded without hesitation: 'One would die, one would die.' But not any tortilla can sustain the body. The industrial corn flour known as mazeca does not provide adequate

Solar Life, Birth, and Diarrhea

51

nourishment. 'It leaves them hungry for more; they need to eat three or four times more. With this kind of food they cannot stand hard work and will not stay long in the field' (Interview: Pedro 27/11/94). Real home-made tortilla from milpa corn is essential to sustain the health of body and blood. Some hold the view that a tortilla is from the milpa and is therefore neither hot nor cold; one healer, however, maintains that maize is fresh food (fresco), for when eaten it 'refreshes, fills [the stomach] and the body rests' (Interview: Jose 10/06/94). The importance of food is illustrated in the following conversation with Juan, a middle-aged campesino, son of the village health worker. In this passage he is discussing one of three types of anemia prevalent in the area. JUAN: There are people [women] that eat soil, the heart asks for it, they begin to turn chipujo, white, because blood is disappearing, they are turning white, pale. They turn thin as bones [huesudo]. ANDRES: What happens to the blood? JUAN: Because they do not eat tortilla, their blood is running out [la sangre se le estd acabando]. ANDRES: Because they eat soil? JUAN: Because they have a lot of worms or bichos [bugs]. The heart asks for it [soil]. When the blood runs out, their feet become swollen. The quality of the blood changes, it turns into water. (Field note 04/04/94).

People must not only work hard to maintain their blood and body healthy, they must also eat tortilla, the product of their labour. Without this staple food, blood loses its strength, a condition undermining the work-rest cycle and the provisioning of food needed to keep the working body alive. A person in this situation becomes chipujo, i.e., weak, pale, and drowsy. Gums become white and blood turns to water. The person vomits a lot and refuses to eat. Worms invade the stomach and cause the heart to 'crave and ask for' soil. According to an elderly midwife, if the person happens to be a pregnant woman, her child will be born with whitish patches covering its skin and grow into a weakling covered with thin hair (Interview: Ines 03/12/94). This asking of the heart and craving for soil syndrome is closely tied to a common illness known as heartache, dolor de corazon in Spanish. People give slightly different explanations of this illness. But they all associate it with a pain in the upper part of the stomach that results from a lack of food and a failure to eat at proper times. The illness

52 The Hot and the Cold

echoes an old belief according to which the heart resides in the mouth of the stomach (boca del estomago; see also Alvarez Heydenreich 1987, 92; Lopez Austin 1980,122). The following excerpt from a conversation with a poor and old villager indicates that this asking of the heart may cause the body to become hot from hunger. ANDRES: Do you get diarrhea with heartache? MIGUEL: No, not diarrhea but heat [calor] yes. ANDRES: Why do you get a heartache? MIGUEL: Because of thinking [pensamiento], because I have no money. What thing can I buy to eat? It was not enough. (Field note 25/03/94)

The old man is unable to buy enough food for himself and his family. His worrying a lot causes pain in his stomach, hunger that puts his body in a state of heat. Hunger that goes unfulfilled brings about anxiety and abnormal heat (Interview: Jose 10/06/94). Contemporary and historical records referring to the ingestion of food and pulque as means of fighting fatigue suggest that while hunger is considered a hot state, eating and drinking alcoholic beverages have cooling effects on the body (Interview: Pedro 08/06/94). Pulque is a traditional fermented drink made from the sap of the maguey. Records from the early seventeenth century describe the Nahua practice of cooling the body by resting and drinking pulque prior to the performance of hard work. The term necehuiliztli. meaning rest or cooling off, was used to describe such a practice (Lopez Austin 1980, 292).10 Likewise the cooling power of grains of corn was evoked in the following incantation: 'From you I will take my breath, from you I will refresh myself ('Motech nihiyocuiz. motech niceceyaz'). To feed someone was to refresh that person. In short, drinking and eating assuaged the body experiencing great heat or becoming faint from hunger (tlehualam). thus cooling off the person literally burning in fire (xiuhtlatia). an expression synonymous with being hungry. To strengthen this point, Lopez Austin cites a text describing the good omen of women born under the refreshing influence of ce_ cipactli:11 'And if a woman is born in this thirteen day period, she will also be prosperous, she will become rich, there will be what she needs to drink, what she needs to eat. She will feed people, she will make people rich; in her there will be access to home; she will wait on people with drink, with food; in her you will find your breath; because of her

Solar Life, Birth, and Diarrhea 53

you will refresh your heart, your body, the one who lives off the land he toils.'12 Although individual food items vary in coldness and hotness, appeasing one's hunger was generally considered a cooling experience. Moderation in this regard was nonetheless a requirement of life. Too much food is like too much rest: it too will make blood and body turn weak, as if reverting to a state of infantile freshness and fluidity that undermines the vigour and strength of adult life. As we shall see later, adults must abstain from overeating and follow sacrificial regimes if they are to maintain human health and milpa productivity. Sex is like food and rest. It cools off the body. Yet sexual reproduction is essentially a drying process. Readers should recall that from the moment of conception and birth, a growth and drying process must follow. This is essential to attaining maturity and the power to reproduce. Life that grows and procreates is a movement away from water. The solar force developed by humans as they grow older means that too much wetness will spell trouble for the cycle of life; waterlike immaturity entails an incapacity to generate the seed of a new generation. This simple rule applies to all the seed that men sow - the semen that goes into women's bodies, but also corn seed planted in the milpa. To beget new life, men must be dry enough to generate the fluids and seeds of another generation. Too much sex is like too much food and rest; it can weaken and suck the life out of man and woman.13 An excessive consumption of pleasures of the flesh leads to ruin and destruction. Men who scatter their seed without restraint are bound to lose their reproductive strength. When men succumb to these temptations, their seed turns weak. A man who indulges in sex, taking 'the woman like a meal/ expels all of his semen (fresh), loses blood through ejaculation, dries himself out, falls ill, and is struck with fever. 'When he turns dry, he doesn't have strength anymore, he can't walk, like his knee becomes numb, and he walks slowly' (Interview: Juan 20/10/94). In the words of the Codice Florentino, 'People dry up because our blood, our colour, our fatness come to an end; because our semen comes to an end; our resin ... comes to an end' (in Lopez Austin 1980, 331; our translation). One campesino tells the story of a young man that no woman would marry and who then had repeated sex with his first concubine: 'He started to give and give and semen came out one, two, five times. He was still frustrated and unappeased, and he started giving out more, and after that no semen came out, blood came out! Blood came out and

54 The Hot and the Cold

he fell sick, it gave him fever' (Interview: Juan 11/06/94). For the ancient Nahuas, a man was thought to have a limited amount of semen and was fated to become exhausted and drained as he gave away his manly fluid through repeated intercourse (Lopez Austin 1980,334). Some abstention from food and sex is required to preserve or increase the inner energy of a person, keeping it sufficiently hot to perform the productive and reproductive activities of adult life. Dieting (dieta) behaviour is particularly important in preparing oneself for ritual performances such as the Carnaval. This is a time when great strength is needed on the part of local authorities and must be secured through vigil, fasting, and sexual abstinence. As one campesino remarks, without mortification men occupying positions of authority would be like youths, weaklings not worthy of respect (Interview: Pedro 27/11/94). This brings us to the following riddle. A man engaging in sex is thought to cool himself off. Yet a man in need of sex is in a state of heat and dries himself off through intercourse. Sex is heat. How can that be? After all, should we not say of a man who freshens up through sexual activity that he is not drying up the source of life but rather drowning himself in sin? Sex is like food in that it allows the appetite to go away and the body to revert to a state of coolness. If so, how can sex bum someone up? The answer to this riddle lies in the indigenous conception of gestation, male and female. Although filled with blood and the fluid of new life, women who are menstruating, pregnant, or in labour are thought to be hot (Olavarrieta Marenco 1977, 66). The reason for this is relatively simple. When a woman is pregnant the fetus is sucking the water of life out of her, exhausting and drying her out, as it were. In the words of Maria, "They used to say that all the foodstuffs that the woman takes in, that it's for the baby. Because I've heard that women sometimes say, "No! You are pregnant? ... Now your baby is going to suck all the blood!" Because children, that's what the mother gives them they say' (Field note 19/10/94). This blood-drainage process becomes worse when a woman has many children. In the words of an elderly village health worker, a woman 'is like a tree, if it carries a lot of fruit, then it dies' (Interview: Francisco 27/10/94). The same logic applies to men. When men keep their semen and fluid to themselves, their seed draws out strength from their body, and they become hotter than they already are. Their semen is like fresh juice amassing in ripe fruit about to go mushy and wither. Accordingly,

Solar Life, Birth, and Diarrhea 55

when semen is poured out, coolness ensues. Although a hot activity, coitus and the labour of love reduce the heat in two ways: the man bathes in fluids of the vagina, and he relieves himself of embryos that siphon the life out of him. The act of coitus 'is hot, but after [the man is] cool ... the appetite goes away' (Interview: Juan 10/06/94). Repeated or excessive sex, however, will extract all male fluids and dry up the source of life. Masturbation is particularly reproachable in this respect; it is not aimed at fertilizing the female body and is a wastage of life. The Gulf Nahuas view it as a form of abortion. Promiscuity is no less harmful. The fact that a man is bathing in female fluids is no antidote to drought; as with plants, exposure to excessive humidity can cause death through rotting and water-burning. If indulging in sexual activity (as recently married couples sometimes do), men can lose their blood, their appetite, and their strength, and they will turn pale white and sexually anemic. Semen does not maintain strength when wasted, exhausted, and poorly fed (sexual anemia can be remedied by having the weak man eat chicken broth and sit on a bowl filled with five eggs, sucking the liquid through the anus) (Interviews: Pedro 30/03/94; Juan 04/04/94 and 10/06/94). Menstruation, Childbirth, and Burying the Placenta Women with the adult strength to reproduce are hot. In rural communities of Morelos a girl becomes a woman when she is seasoned, ready to bear children. The girl's early or late attainment of sexual maturity is said to denote a woman's nature. Women with a strong nature have their period early (9-12 years), it will be abundant and it will last a few days, they are girls who will soon have the use of a man, they will get pregnant easily and their blood will be very red ... A woman with a hot nature has her first period between 9 and 11 years of age, it lasts more or less 8 days and smells very bad. She has her period every 28 days, suffers because when it comes if feels like she is being emptied and that makes her feel bad. She uses many rags [cloths] and her body works very fast ... Women who have a heavy period have a strong nature, are full of life and enjoy good health, so their stomach is cleaned and they will be able to become pregnant soon. (Castaneda et al. 1996,137)

While engaging in sexual activity at an earlier age, a strong-natured woman suffers greater pain as her body works hard at reproducing

56 The Hot and the Cold

other lives, emptying itself of adult strength. By contrast, women who have a weak nature 'will take longer to have their period and in general will be anaemic. Their blood is thin, as if watered down, and it will take them a while to buy [have] children ... A cold woman has her period for 3 days, every 30 or 31 days, with little blood, and they tell her she shouldn't eat acidic or cold things so the blood will not curdle. She shouldn't bathe with cold water, or the blood will stagnate and then she'll have cramps' (Castaneda et al. 1996,137). The Popoluca conception of illness and reproductive health rests upon similar assumptions (see Figure 3.2). Several illnesses (e.g., anemia, soul loss, lovesickness) cause organic imbalance and a cold state characterized by weakness, lethargy, the transformation of blood into water, and a slow wastage of the body. By contrast, good health means that one's blood is strong, red, and hot. Also, a woman in good health is believed to be hot when menstruating, pregnant, giving birth, or working hard in the kitchen or milpa. When pregnant, the woman is exercising female strength. The woman in question is nonetheless gradually emptying herself of the fluid of life that becomes the fetus she feeds. Many contemporary ethnographic studies refer to pregnant and menstruating women as being hot14 and vulnerable to cold influences which can be quite harmful. Also, the women's hot condition produces emanations that can hurt children, animals, plants, or crops.15 Heat and freshness can be mutually harmful. Similar beliefs are found among the Popolucas. Menstruation, pregnancy, and the post-partum period are considered hot conditions that warrant a number of preventive actions designed to protect the health of not only women and their children but also plants, crops, and the wounded. In their study of rural communities of Morelos, Castaneda et al. report that exposure to things deemed cold will negatively affect the ovaries, womb, and hips of a menstruating woman. These cold illnesses are the main causes of female sterility. Women may fall prey to these ailments by eating cold food and by the kind of work they do. For instance, 'While washing the laundry their clothes get wet and don't dry out, then the pores of the stomach suck in (absorb) this dampness.' The authors add that a weak-natured woman must avoid water, acidic foods, and all things cold lest her blood should curdle, stagnate and thin out, and then she'll have cramps. 'The cold rises, gets in and stops the bleeding, blood clots come out and hurt, which is why you feel cramps. These clots get stuck together like balls of coagulated

Solar Life, Birth, and Diarrhea 57

Figure 3.2 Labouring women catching a cold ailment

blood and can't get out. If women took more care in not getting wet and bathing with cold water, they could avoid these cramps' (Castaneda et al. 1996, 137-8; see also Alvarez Heydenreich 1987, 169; Foster 1994, 32, 67). Cold food such as watermelon, lime, tomatillos, plum, and unripe fruit can hurt women during menstruation. Hot food such as black beans, guajillo chili, and broth are thus prescribed. In the same vein, Viesca Trevino (1986, 172) reports ancient Nahua prescriptions re-

58 The Hot and the Cold quiring pregnant women to eat hot food only.16 Similar beliefs are encountered in the Sierra Santa Marta. Thus, when a menstruating or pregnant woman suffers from a cold-water attack, applying something cold or wet (air, water, cold foodstuffs) will make things worse. By contrast, the application of something warm and dry will help bring back the body to its normal state. The dietary precautions surrounding a woman's pregnancy reflect the same reasoning. When gestating and therefore in labour, women must eat, drink, and rest at night. They must be careful about the kind of food or fluid they ingest and the places they go to lest they should catch a cold. When exposed to excessive wetness and coldness, pregnancy is said to freeze up and stop moving, reverting to waters that are no longer in motion and alive. The pregnancy ceases to proceed forward, towards the solar warmth that presides over the process of growth and birth. The woman's uterus is said to turn cold or is blown up with air or an evil naual wind, causing a false pregnancy or black mueso birth, a child of darkness that never sees the light of day (Olavarrieta Marenco 1977, 102). Other infertility symptoms include the vagina being obstructed or rejecting the semen; too much freshness and water impedes the seed from taking root (see Alvarez Heydenreich 1987,169; Olavarrieta Marenco 1977,92). The woman ends up soaking in too much water, causing fever and a cold sweat that echoes the water-burning problems affecting plants struck with chahuistle rotting. Her brain and soul may be debilitated, and she may start acting like a fool. She may vomit, have diarrhea, and feel heaviness, fatigue, and anemia. All of these health problems converge on the body suffering from an excess of fluids and being deprived of the solar life force needed to reproduce. Women in a hot condition must generally avoid things wet and cold. Women must refrain from taking cold baths and drinking cold water for a whole month after childbirth lest they should be struck with diarrhea. Butter and pork meat or fat are contraindicated. Unless roasted, fish should not be eaten either because it 'moves in water, it is cold. The [pregnant] woman can swell.' Fish fried in butter is particularly cold and harmful. Beans and bitter things such as lemon will give gases and ventason to women who have just given birth (Interviews: Juliana 09/06/94, Felicia 15/06/94, Georgina 11/06/94, and Juan 10/ 06/94). Protection against cold ailments attacking pregnant and postpartum women involves a dose of compensating warmth, whether it

Solar Life, Birth, and Diarrhea 59

be clothing, warm water, a hot bath, a massage with alcohol (which has both cooling and burning properties), or a poultice made with tea and mamey oil. Women are advised to drink warm water and eat chicken, chicken broth, beef, meat (excluding pork), potatoes, rice, eggs, oil, or roasted fish. When served warm chamomile, rosemary, or cinnamon tea will help reduce the swelling or the labour pains. Alternatively, hot substances such as garlic, mustard, and holy palm leaves can be buried in the soil. If giving birth to a mueso child, the woman should drink herbal teas, eat garlic and onions, or massage the soles of her feet with almond oil and worms. All of these foodstuffs and preventive remedies are relatively warm or hot (Interviews: Juan 19/03/94, Jose 03/ 04/94, Juliana 09/06/94, Jose 10/06/94, Georgina 11/06/94, Felicia 15/06/94, and Juan 10/06/94). After childbirth, the midwife may heat a few stones and place them on the woman's abdomen. The stones should be wrapped in leaves of nucutsoya (castor oil plant), totso ay or pooixcuy,17 leaves that are considered to be cold and that prevent the stones from burning the skin. The stones are applied to reduce the pains and dry the uterus but also to delay the next pregnancy, until the child is able to walk. Otherwise the mother cannot attend the newborn properly. As in a corn field burnt and reduced to ashes (in preparation for seed sowing), hot stones are thought to dry out the womb and prevent new seed from sticking inside the womb, at least until the uterus has cooled down and has been properly watered. Care should be taken to apply moderate heat, the kind that will not destroy all potential for uterine freshness and fertility.18 This ritual suggests that a woman in heat should not turn up the heat too high. For instance, self-absorption would be detrimental to her health. This is a hot condition afflicting those who tend to be sad and spend too much time worrying. Also she should not cut her nails or hair or even comb herself, something that people suffering of fright tend to do. These are signs of mature growth being harvested prematurely, causing the female body to dry up before giving birth. Given their state of weakness and vulnerability to evil winds (mal viento), post-partum women should also refrain from carrying heavy loads or working in the kitchen (making tortilla) and the milpa for about twenty days after giving birth. They should be visited by the midwife every third day during the first two weeks and then every five days until a full month has passed. Unless these precautions are observed, a woman's brain may suffer a fever attack and the woman may have

60 The Hot and the Cold

dizzy spells and faint (Interviews: Maria 19/10/94 and Ines 03/12/94; see also Alvarez Heydenreich 1987,177,180-1). Similarly, the water that new mothers drink must be lukewarm; otherwise they will get diarrhea. Precautions should also be taken by women in heat because at work; they should cool down and wash their breast or extract some hot milk before they breastfeed a child. Otherwise the infant might fall sick with diarrhea and vomiting. By and large milk that is too hot is simply not good for infants.19 Far from subscribing to the allopathic principle of opposites, women in the Sierra Santa Marta avoid exposure to cold things when in a state of normal heat caused by menstruation, pregnancy, or childbirth. Instead of counterbalancing heat with cold, they seek warmth homeopathic beverages and medicinal plants deemed to be moderately hot and therefore compatible with their current condition. When women experience normal heat, what matters the most is homeopathic protection against cold attacks (a healing approach that could also be viewed as a moderately allopathic shift from excessive heat to wholesome warmth). Burying the Placenta

Preventive measures must be taken to protect the newborn against excess heat. A similar strategy designed to secure the child's freshness of life is carried out immediately after birth. The measure consists in burying the placenta. When doing fieldwork among the Popolucas, Foster (1942,43) briefly noted this custom: "The placenta of a new born child is buried. If this is not done it is thought he will perspire unduly while working in the milpa, thus making more unpleasant his work.' The ritual is still practised today, as confirmed by the indigenous midwives and healers we interviewed (Interviews: Juliana 09/06/94, Jose 10/06/94, Georgina 11/06/94, Mauricio 13/06/94, Felicia 15/06/94, Field notes 26/11/94; see Olavarrieta Marenco 1977, 107, 245, 252). Their views are presented below. All midwives are of the opinion that a woman's placenta should be buried, preferably in the house. If the house has a cement floor, then the burial can be done in the kitchen (usually separate from the house) or the yard (Mak 1959, 142). Burning the placenta is never recommended. All believe that some women are in the habit of burning the placenta, yet none of these women could be identified. With the assistance of her husband (Ernesto) and a woman translator (Maria), a mid-

Solar Life, Birth, and Diarrhea 61 wife (Juliana) warns those who burn or fail to bury the placenta and the umbilical cord: their children will spend their lives sweating abundantly. ANDRES: And what do you do with the placenta? JULIANA: It is buried ... In the house is also buried the [umbilical] cord ... MARIA: She says, there are some people that have another custom. For instance, she was telling me that there are women that have another custom, they ... set fire to the placenta and when they are now dry they keep it and take it to the river [the ashes are taken to the river]. Also the navel [the cord] when it falls, they keep it. After fifteen days, she goes and sweeps where the woman is, and that [the sweepings] and the placenta and the navel, she puts it inside a hole in a rock, or under somewhere, but in the river. ANDRES: I have been told that, for example, if one did not bury the placenta of a man, he would sweat a lot in the milpa. Did the old people think that? ERNESTO: This is true. Yes you sweat a lot in the milpa when the placenta is burnt, the burning. One will sweat like in these days, one will sweat. Although this doesn't happen before [even in cooler weather], he will be sweaty. Now if that thing is buried, one will not sweat, because of the freshness of the earth [par el fresco de la tierra]. (Field note 09/06/94)

The midwife and her husband confirm Foster's observation made over half a century ago. They also offer an explanation: the placenta must be buried into the freshness of the earth so as to prevent the child from sweating without reason. There is an alternative to burying the placenta, which consists in throwing placenta ashes in the river, preferably in a hole within a rock. Yet burning remains detrimental to the children's health; they are condemned to sweat constantly as they grow. A healer (Jose) confirms the latter views. JOSE: Well, the placenta, all people here have the custom that when they cut it [comes out], they bury it. They bury it. Many burn it, but it is bad to burn it. That is why the person, sometimes, for example, talking like we are now talking, you see the man, he sweats enormously! ... He sweats a lot the man, or he is very hot [caliente]. For a little thing... he becomes irritated [se altera], he becomes angry [se encoraja}. Why? Because he is hot in the brain [estd caliente del cerebro] because of burning it. Then that [should]

62 The Hot and the Cold not [be]. That [the placenta] should be taken and be buried, because the earth is fresh [la tierra esfresca]. ANDRES: Where? In the milpa or ... JOSE: Here in the house, in the house. And this is when the man will never get ill, because he is all the time fresh, he is good, he is healthy. Of course, many of them don't take care of it. They take it and throw it there. ANDRES: What happens when they throw it? JOSE: If they throw it, well that is the child that can never be well, that is always getting sick, because the placenta is blown by the wind [lo sopla el aire]. You know that sometimes the wind is very contaminated, and sometimes the wind is well, it's normal (Field note 09/06/94).

As in the previous conversation, the healer recommends burying the placenta in the earth so as to take advantage of its freshness. The passage makes it clear that it is the burning of the placenta that produces profuse sweating later in the person's life, not the fact that it is not buried (as Foster's observation might suggest). In Popoluca the verb to sweat is cupij, and sweat is cupjji. Both words contain the root pij, to heat or shine (Elson and Gutierrez 1995, 81). A person who sweats to the point of being ill loses water and is in danger of drying up, as in cuca, to dry up (from ca, to die) and caacuy, for illness (the suffix -cuy turns the verb ca into a noun). The healer adds another symptom of excessive heat to his warning. Not only the person will sweat under the sun, he or she will also become hot in the sense of being prone to irritation and anger. In Popoluca the word iCQbacpijpa means to become upset or irritated and literally translates as the head becomes heated. CQbacpjji, to bother or annoy, is head with heat, from CQbac, head, and pjji, heat (Elson 1960, 80; Elson and Gutierrez 1995,12; see Lopez Austin 1980,296). A failure to handle the placenta properly results in the child being condemned to a life of poor health and sickness. If simply thrown unprotected on the ground, the placenta and the child will be vulnerable to ill effects of the wind. Olavarrieta Marenco (1977, 107) reported that a well-respected and elderly midwife living in San Andres Tuxtla objected to hospitals throwing the placenta and cord into the garbage, letting dogs and the Devil eat a piece of the infantile flesh. This is bound to make people become weaker. Children are condemned to have a weak spirit and are prone to illness. One midwife we interviewed related an experience where a woman under her care was taken to the hospital because of complications with the delivery. The

Solar Life, Birth, and Diarrhea 63

midwife felt it was her responsibility to go to the hospital to retrieve the placenta and take it back to the woman's home for burial (Interview: Juliana 09/06/94). As another midwife explains (Georgina), exposing the placenta to water is as harmful as exposure to fire and air. ANDRES: And what do you do with the placenta? GEORGINA: The placenta is picked up and is buried, and the navel [umbilical cord] also, inside the house. ANDRES: What do you think will happen if it is thrown in the garbage? GEORGINA: If it is thrown [in the river] ... [the person] would be ill with ahogo [suffocation or drowning], would become very ill. [He or she] would get many illnesses like fever, diarrheas, headaches, many things all the time. ANDRES: And if they burn it? GEORGINA: If it is burnt, [he or she] would sweat plenty (pijpa), in the night and in the day when old. ANDRES: Why is the placenta buried? GEORGINA: Because the earth is fresh and it [the placenta] is put there in the fresh. (Field note 11/06/94)20

The interview reinforces the notion that a child will suffer many ills if the placenta is not disposed of through proper burial. If the placenta is burnt the person will experience profuse pijpa heating or sweating day and night. Freshness of the earth is needed to secure a healthy growth process. Humans are like corn in this respect: we shall see that the corn god was given life after his crushed flesh, bones, and blood had been placed in a gourd inside an ant hole, a hill from where he eventually emerged. If freshness is what is needed, why not simply throw the placenta into water? The midwife's answer is that suffocation by drowning would ensue. A snakebite healer (Mauricio) holds the same view. ANDRES: A midwife told me that she throws the ashes of the placenta in the river. Would it be the same as putting the remains in the fresh [lo fresco]?

MAURICIO: No! The placenta must be buried in the corner of the house ... ANDRES: Why? MAURICIO: Because the navel will rot [se pudre], the child will not heal properly. (Field note 13/06/94)

64 The Hot and the Cold

The freshness and cold nature of river water is not the same as that of the earth. An unbumed placenta or cord thrown into water will cause the child's navel to rot. Rotting is not all that different from burning and sweating. It is also a term often used to describe damage to corn crops. Chahuistle can affect either the young plant or ears of corn and involves an excess of humidity resulting in water-burning or rotting. Puc is the Popoluca word for rotting or becoming infected. Cupuc is to ferment, to make pus but also to tan hides (Elson and Gutierrez 1995,17, 23, 84). According to a native healer, rotting involves heating: Tws comes from the heat of the sun. From the heat of the sun! Because sometimes one works too much' (Interviews: Jose 03/04/94 and 10/ 06/94). Thus, if the person works too many hours in the field under the sun, cuts and wounds will become infected and cause skin rotting (Interview: Jose 23/10/94). Burning and rotting are comparable effects resulting from overexposure to water or sun. Thus, it stands to reason that a woman's placenta should neither be reduced to ashes nor drowned in water lest the child should lack the right amount of freshness (neither too little nor too much) needed to grow in good health. Water from the river is a lot colder compared with the earth inside a child's house, too cold for the child to distance itself from life that begins in water. Conversely, burning the placenta is too rapid a flight from the beginnings of life. Both strategies result in illness and premature death. The relationship between the placenta burial and the process of normal growth under the sun is made explicit in an interview with a midwife addressing the exact location of the burial site. In her opinion the placenta and the umbilical cord must dry and be buried in a particular corner of the house, the corner where the sun rises 'so that the baby does not die.'21 The auroral imagery is relatively straightforward. Humans are born and grow up like the sun ascending to the east at dawn. By contrast, the dead should be buried with their head pointing to where the sun goes down, something that people going to bed should never do. Normal sleeping arrangements should not be confused with funeral rites. Humans go to sleep at night like the sun that sets to the west, with the expectation of waking and rising up the next day. Burying the placenta and the umbilical cord like seed in soil may be done with another goal in view: securing and reinforcing a person's ties to home and land. Baez-Jorge (1973, 115) remarks that dwellings among the Popolucas are not sold or traded because of the spiritual

Solar Life, Birth, and Diarrhea 65

links that the family establishes with the place of birth through the burial of bodily parts that tie them to the womb and the mother. Even when empty, houses are rented for short periods of time, if at all, until the newcomers build their own house. Measures must be taken to avoid excessive severance from one's native earth lest the child's growth potential should be jeopardized. Interestingly, earth tremors are thought to have the same detrimental effect, a failure to grow. When tremors occur, fledglings incubating in eggshells will turn upside down and have tails in lieu of beaks, making it impossible for them to crack the eggshell. Children are equally vulnerable to earth tremors, and parents will do well to grab and pull them by the head to protect them from a failure to grow; forced growth is needed to counteract tremors that make the ground slip from underneath the children's feet. All indications are that the placenta burial ritual dates back to preHispanic times (Lopez Austin 1980,179, 216). In her discussion of Xantico or Chantico. goddess of the hearth, Fernandez (1992, 47) notes that it was beneath the house fire that the placenta was buried along with objects designating the activities that children were destined to engage in later in life. Mention should also be made of ancient rituals involving the burial of skins taken from sacrificed women. In pre-Hispanic times the wearing of skins taken from the corpses of sacrificial victims took on different meanings reflecting the origin of the skin (men, women, types of prisoner), the status of the people wearing them (leaders, priests, beggars, owners of sacrificed slaves), and the final destination of the skin. The first category of skin mentioned by Gonzalez Torres (1985, 274, 276) is of particular interest to the discussion at hand. It consisted of skins taken from some sacrificed men and from all sacrificed women, to be worn by priests elevating themselves to divine ranks. These skins were handled with respect and were disposed with great care inside a special cave to prevent their contamination. They were also used in rituals involving goddesses associated with fertility and birth. The divinities included Toci. mother of all gods and heart of the earth, our divine grandmother; Xochiquetzal, goddess of flowers and love, the one who performed the first sexual act and delivered the first birth; Chicomecoatl. goddess of abundance and joy, associated with the growth of plants and flowers in spring; and Atlatonan. our mother, the one who shines in water. Skins of male corpses worn by priests were used in ceremonies involving one of two gods: Xochipilli (Xochiquetzal's husband), god of love and spring, and Xipe.

66 The Hot and the Cold our skinned lord, the god of fertility, spring, the re-birth of vegetation and war.22 The placenta of children born in the Sierra Santa Marta are like ancient skins of fertility and birth: they receive protection from the freshness of the earth. Other current beliefs regarding the cutting of the umbilical cord reinforce these connections between fertility and childbirth rituals. Midwives report that the umbilicus of the newborn should be held against an ear of corn*(or a piece of coin) when cut. Once this is done the midwife wraps it in leaves and buries it in a corner of the house. Maize sown with this ear is said to belong to the child. The gesture conveys two wishes: that the child experience good luck in life (plentiful corn, prosperity) and that he or she remain in the village when growing up. New life that grows requires cutting from the uterus and the earth, but ties to home and land must never be completely severed if life is to flourish (Gonzalez Cruz et al. 1983, 10, 62; Munch Galindo 1983,125). Childbirth rituals can also be used to mark the gendering of productive and reproductive activities. Munch Galindo (1983, 125) observes that in some villages of the Sierra the umbilical cord is either buried close to the hearth if the child is a girl or hung from a tree until it rots if a boy. This is done apparently to signify that the woman is expected to work at home while the man goes out to work. Similarly, newborn boys are given an axe or a small chahuaste or xawak machete to prepare them for work in the milpa. An arrow can also be placed in the boy's hand in the hope that he becomes a good hunter. More recently, some parents have substituted paper, book, and pencil for traditional malerole attributions. By contrast, girls are given a met ate (grinding stone) to make tortillas, a needle to sow, or a lena worm evoking women's wood-fetching chores.23 If done properly, these ritual measures will have a positive impact on prospects of sexual reproduction. The umbilical cord must be cut about one quarter of length (un cuarto de largo, equal to about one hand) in the case of boys and two quarters in the case of girls. The length of a girl's cord must be longer as this will determine the size of her uterus when she reaches sexual maturity, thereby making child delivery easier and less painful and giving the woman the strength she needs to give birth (Interviews: Maria 13/06/94, Juliana 09/06/94). As for the boy, a community health worker explains that the size of the umbilical cord is related to the size of the child's future penis. If the umbilical cord is cut longer than what is prescribed, the penis will be

Solar Life, Birth, and Diarrhea 67

too big and will cause pain to his female partner during intercourse, especially if she is young and without a long uterus (girls often marry when thirteen or even younger). Hospitals, however, tend to cut the cord too short, a practice thought to create sexual problems later in life (Interview: Maria 13/06/94). Through rituals involving placenta and umbilical cords, Nahua and Popoluca men and women aim at maintaining ties to their land and family while also securing the blessings of health and fertility, which means growth under the sun and the power to reproduce without undue pain. Once born to life, connections to one's place of birth and residence are to be nurtured, which means that good health and fertility hinges on giving the 'child-housing' placenta its proper resting place, that is, well protected at home, in the earth, on the side of the sun rising to the east. This makes sense given that the earth resembles the placenta, man+gapa in Popoluca, from manic, child, and apa, mother; imajitgap is to have as a child (Elson and Gutierrez 1995, 9, 22, 44). As with home and motherland, the placenta is 'there where the child resides,' or there where the child is born ... iapa because it was born there ... there in the stomach of the mother, it remains there, that flesh that was formed there ... like the head ... iapa, like a budding bush, where it began, it grows there' (Interviews: Pedro 27/11/94, Juan 20/10/94). Alternative ways of handling the placenta and the umbilical cord produce nothing but illness and sorrow. If exposed to the outdoors, evil ehegat winds will inflict an assortment of illnesses throughout the child's life (see Sandstrom 1991, 252). If consumed by fire the child will sweat for the rest of his or her life. If thrown into the river, the child's navel will rot and wounds will never heal. A birth ritual that brings earth, maize, uterine, and umbilical imageries together is loaded with positive evocations. Words used to denote the umbilicus already contain many of these promising implications. This brings us to the classical Nahua word for the umbilicus or the stomach (xicti. ihti in Pajapan), namely, coatL goat in Pajapan, a term also denoting a twin, a snake, or the dibble stick used for planting (Gonzalez Torres 1985,84; Lopez Austin 1980,286). This twin-serpentumbilicus-planting-stick imagery underscores all close ties that bind one twin to another, a child to its mother, people to land, and corn to milpa. It also evokes the living cord that links parent plants to all the navel-like germs or sons (ixictayol) they feed. The umbilicus is cut and the placenta buried, which is a reminder that some severance is needed for new life to emerge. From the

68 The Hot and the Cold

moment they are born children and corn must start detaching themselves from the womb and the earth if they are to grow and reproduce. Plants must be pulled out of the earth at harvest time, and the umbilicus must be cut when the child is harvested, at birth. Both the umbilicus and the corn plant express the twin requirements of the cycle of life, those of rooting and severance. In its own way the umbilical line points to the mega liana-lover-trap-string-lineage-whip-tail imagery explored in another chapter. It too acts as a main thread in life, a continuous mark that brings together forces that are radically opposite yet equally vital, those of uniting and parting, joining and severing, planting and cutting, loving and leaving. The umbilicus is a nurturing line, yet it must be cut if the child it feeds is to be nourished with maize, as it must. Water from the uterus is no sustenance for life that grows out of the womb; it is no substitute for corn. If deprived of the sacred food of corn, the belly-mouth (navel) of a growing child starts aching and jumping, the symptom of a heart asking for the sustenance it needs (Interviews: Francisco 05/04/94, Pedro 27/11/94). The notion that severance is a sine qua non of life is made clear in two other rituals observed in the Sierra Santa Marta. The first concerns the ear of corn used to cut the umbilical cord. A Popoluca midwife reports that grain obtained from this ear is to be kept and sown in the milpa by the father, to produce corn that will later be given back to the mother (Interview: Georgina 11/06/94). Using an ear of corn to cut the umbilicus and sow corn suggests that lives united by vital ties must be disjoined if they are to nourish one another over time. Seeds that generate children and plants can look after those that gave them life on condition that they are cut loose, that they part from their parents, and that they grow on their own. The second ritual consists in the newborn Nahua child being taken out of the house and left in the yard immediately after birth, as if it were unwanted. Mothers who have lost children and fear other deaths are well advised to do this. The gesture is believed to increase the child's chances of staying alive and growing in good health. The good are thought to die young when spoiled with love at home (Gonzalez Cruz et al. 1983,9; see Lopez Austin 1980, 300). By drying and burying the placenta and the umbilical cord in the earth, planting them like corn seed in a milpa, parents increase the likelihood that children will preserve healthy ties to their native home and land. Rotting, burning, sweating, and ailments of all sorts will ensue if ritual precautions are not taken. Signs and measures of severance

Solar Life, Birth, and Diarrhea 69

obtained through cutting and burial are equally vital. Children must be severed from the womb if they are to receive the sustenance of life in the form of maize. Even when the child is expelled from the uterus and the umbilical cord is cut, threats of inadequate severance persist. One such threat consists in the infant drowning in its own waters. There is a common belief among the Gulf Nahuas and Popolucas that the child's head contains water immediately above the forehead, a part of the body that should not be touched lest the waters should break, and the child should no longer be able to suck at the mother's breast and eventually drown. Water (amniotic liquid) accumulated in the mouth of the newborn may cause the infant to suffocate and die. This problem may also affect a fetus not yet born and implicate fluids of the expectant mother or father. In Soteapan a pregnant woman who worries too much may experience a difficult delivery because of the pressure exerted on her brain (Foster 1945,188). It is also believed that an expectant father who gets drunk at night, behaving as an ixtauan man whose head is filled with bachissyoh (beer or spit), can cause his child's brain-water to rise and the infant to turn blind or drown in foam coming out of its mouth (Interview: Jos£ 21/11 /94). This symbiotic relationship between the waters of new life and parental brain fluids is reinforced by the notion that a father may experience cerebral nausea during his wife's pregnancy (Gonzalez Cruz et al. 1983,11,13; Lopez Austin 1980, 293). What does this imagery mean? Readers should recall that children come alive by sucking fluids of life from their parents who dry and burn themselves up in the process of bringing new offspring into existence. By implication, excessive heat afflicting the parents may mean too much water for the infant, and vice versa. The heat generated by states of anxiety and drunkenness can produce an abnormal increase in the waters otherwise sucked out by the fetus or child, which in turn can cause parental brains to become unusually hot. Several measures can be adopted to avoid a child's death by drowning. Midwives will move the head of the newborn immediately after birth in such a way that the excess water can be expelled through the nostrils. If the child is dying, blowing on its nose or sucking the water from the nose and spitting it on the floor may help. Tapping the bottom in an upside-down position is also recommended. Sometimes the fontanel is too soft and the head fails to dry out after a year or so. When this happens, excess water (in+tsfy) can be extracted by rubbing the child's fontanel with some alcohol and then turning the child upside down, thereby decongesting the throat and calming the infant. If need

70 The Hot and the Cold

be, this can be done till the age of two or three and will help the infant suck at the mother's breast. Massaging the palate with a ringer may also save the life of a child born with an upward mouth (boca arriba), an expression denoting an iucni ifHtsfy child that drank water (iucni) and has a mouth filled with fluids falling from the mother's belly. Again it is important that moderate heat or warmth be applied to the child so that the water can fall. A corollary of this is that cold water for drinking or bathing should be avoided. The child should be given warm (jocox) water, like milk coming out of the breast, or water that is not too cold (japami pagac). If given a bath, warm water should be used but not soap, which is too hot for the child.24 Birth and Bowel Movement Fluids expelled from the body are effects of normal physiological functions such as urinating, defecating, and even vomiting which may occur as regularly as a woman's period. Actually menstruation (iixpa mipQya, from ix, to see, and p£>ya, moon) and infantile vomiting are both governed by the lunar cycle. "It's just like women. Women that "look after their custom" ... they too have their moon. There are women that "look after their custom" during the new moon, some during the full moon, some during the last quarter, some every one, two or three moons. And so it is with children as well' (Interview: Pedro 20 / 03/94). Children with lots of parasites in their bellies are more likely to vomit during days of the new moon, which is the time of the month when 'the tide rises (and) the moon is fresh.' When associated with diarrhea, however, vomiting is symptomatic of illness. When this happens people are unable to eat and become very thin, anemic, and weak. The belly swells, the stomach aches, and the navel or belly-mouth jumps with a nervous heartbeat. Some are so sick that they wish to die (Interviews: Pedro 20/03/94, Francisco 05/ 04/94, Jose 10/06/94). Not all diarrheas are the same. There are at least three kinds of diarrhea. The first kind is simple diarrhea known in Popoluca as paji, excrement (t'in) that is liquid instead of solid. The second is pun+c t'in (mucus + excrement), diarrhea with mucus or pus born like a child in the belly. The third, rwpin t'in, comes with blood sucked out by intestinal worms called t'incha/i, shit-snakes that produce fever and cause the belly to swell, ache, and become hot.25 Diarrhea dries up the sick person provoking thirst and fever. This is a hot ailment 'because you feel it, it's like it's burning inside the belly.'

Solar Life, Birth, and Diarrhea 71

Other hot ailments similar to diarrhea include the normal cold that causes a burning headache and a running nose. Mention should also be made of tumours or infections, nacidos in local Spanish, from nacer, to be born. A tumour is a nacido 'because it was born there, rising like a small knot and there it's born and becomes a ball and an abscess.' A person infected is like a pregnant woman, with a nacido child or ballshaped head sucking the fluid of life from her body in heat. Something stings the body and then the ball grows, matures, and bursts with puntc pus. The connection between diarrhea and the fetal tumour imagery is reinforced by the notion that a pregnant woman may have diarrhea on account of the fetus that 'asks something that tastes like earth ... It asks for earth that's white and dry.' Actually any person whose belly or heart asks for earth will become anemic, with blood becoming thin and turning to water and with lazy feet swelling with tumour or a mass of water. This is understandable, given that whitish earth or sand is like milk gone hot, powdered, and dry, a false sustenance that possesses no nutritive value and leaves the body hotter than ever. Dry sand is no substitute for milk, let alone corn food. Accordingly, a good remedy for foot tumour and laziness consists in rubbing the foot with a corn cob warmed up immediately before the massage.26 The fetus feeds on the mother in the same way that humans, corn seed, and worms take nourishment from the earth, drying up the source of life each in their own way.27 The resemblance, however, should not be abused. Otherwise the child asking for sandlike earth in lieu of corn will cause the mother to burn from the inside and produce watery stools instead of a healthy child. The story that follows brings out connections between excremental and reproductive functions into sharp relief. The story is about a young woman aged fifteen or sixteen who relates to her mother and sister that a man, probably her fiance, comes into her bed every night, stays for a while, and then leaves. An older man advises her to put a cotton string around the uninvited guest's waist so as to see if he is truly a man. The man comes back at night. She asks him if she can tie the string and the man consents. The following day she tells everything to her sister who then takes her to a brook. They follow a trail until they reach a tall lime tree (jonote), the kind from which bark is used to tie together the wooden structure and zacate bunches serving as thatch. Then they see a jonote worm with two feet, jumping and with a string around its waist. The sister says, 'Look, the one who comes to sleep with you, look.'

72 The Hot and the Cold The worm comes at night in the form of a man and sleeps with the woman. The woman gets pregnant and the man never comes back. She seeks a midwife who massages her belly and tells her that the child is without a head. When it is time for her to give birth, a profusion of tall jonote worms come out and start walking. The midwife tries to kill and burn them but more and more come out and invade the whole house. The story ends with the doctor and people from the village putting firewood and gasoline in the house and burning everything, including the woman (Interview: Pedro 30/03/94). Under normal circumstances, healthy children are tied to the wombhouse and come out of it so as to be housed and nourished under a jonote-tied roof, a species considered cold (Interview: Jose 03/04/94). The story converts this healthy imagery into sexual and digestive pathology. The phallus is likened to jonote worms or parasites impregnating and disembowelling the inside of a woman, sucking blood out of her body. The phallic worm not only robs the girl of her virginity (ichpochtH) symbolized by the ishcat ribbon, a thread of cotton possibly evoking the weaving of clothes used to protect female modesty. He also impregnates her with earth-eating worms that turn parturition into a bowel movement, converting children into noisome products, creepers with no head growth. The t'in chafi shit-snakes are longer than white worms (tsuuquhi). They are not venomous like forest snakes and die of suffocation when expelled. 'Being outside they die. They have to die. They die of suffocation because ... when they're inside, one's sustenance helps them' (Interview: Pedro 20/03/94). Turning children coming out of the womb into wormlike creatures that walk and live is a sickly aberration. More importantly, it is a reminder of the fierce competition that lies between eaters of corn and the possible triumph of worms and parasites over children and humans in general. But diarrhea can be brought about by other factors. Heating up the body beyond a certain point, through excessive labour or quarrelling, is one of them. Since pus comes from the heat of the sun, people can get diarrhea if they work too hard, under the hot sun. If performed without caution, labour and physical movement will provoke an unhealthy rise in body temperature. Because overworked and overheated, the person will suffer from a malfunctioning stomach (Interview: Jose 10/06/94). As they grow humans move away from the waters of life and develop stronger limbs, hearts, and brains. When he reached the age of seven, the corn god was said to be no longer a child;

Solar Life, Birth, and Diarrhea 73

instead of solacing in fresh soil, he started to carry water and acquired intelligence (Interview: Pedro 08/06/94). Humans follow a similar trajectory, but they must be careful not to let their body temperature rise too high and too quickly, be it through excessive work or bad eating. They must be careful not to eat too much hot food, including spices, liquor, or tobacco. Also they should refrain from working or walking too much. If they break the rule, their blood will decompose and produce pus because of the heat of the sun. Their blood will turn chipujo, thin and yellowish, like water (Interview: Pedro 08/06/94). People can also heat themselves up beyond measure through quarrelling, as between neighbours or parents and children. Fits of anger result in diarrhea, swelling, and vomiting. Women who are breastfeeding should be particularly cautious in this regard. If they get angry, their milk can turn watery and hot to the point of harming their child. Vomiting or watery stools may follow and even death in some extreme cases.2S Exposure to abrupt shifts in weather is another important health factor to be considered when discussing digestive problems. This usually happens in the midsummer days of July and August, days marked by shifts between scorching heat and cold chipichipi rain. Sudden changes of temperature are harmful to one's health, causing fever and diarrhea (Interviews: Juan 19/03/94,04/04/94; Alvarez Heydenreich 1987,116; Foster 1994, 58). But this a cold ailment, pagac caacuy in Popoluca, the opposite of pjji caacuy, a hot illness. It comes when 'one feels cold inside but hot outside. One gets this illness when all of a sudden it's hot and then all of a sudden it's cold. It causes headache, body ache' (Interview: Jose 10/06/94). Dust that is raised by rain and wind and is exposed to sun heat is a contributing factor. This is the kind of dust that smells like shit and will cause people to fall sick. 'Dust can make you ill. Here there are a lot of pigs, and with them you can get sick when the wind rises ... When it rains and there is sun, the smoke that comes out of the soil smells awful... When it rains and the sun comes out, the earth produces smoke and smells pig shit. But the most dangerous is when the north wind blows' (Interview: Maria 19/03/94). Eating habits must also be taken into account when diagnosing a case of diarrhea or other illnesses. For instance, eating pineapple (cold) at the end of a hard day's work under a hot sun will cause mal de orin, an ailment involving kidney pains and bad-smelling urine. This suggests again that people should avoid being exposed to a mixture of extremes; things very cold should not be absorbed when the body is

74 The Hot and the Cold

hot. When at work the body heats up a lot and accelerates the movement of blood. Drinking cold water instead of posole (made with maize dough, usually served in small clay pots) will stop blood from working properly. 'It (blood) stops with the refreshment ... While it was hot, it was giving it hard! Now put a bit of water, praul ... that's when the blood coagulates inside. Now that it is intoxicated ... you start catching the illness.' Bodies in normal heat should avoid exposure to things that are too cold. 'If the body is hot, and it gets cold, you can get all three kinds of diarrhea' (Interview: Jose 10/06/94). When experiencing heat, the person should take cool herbs or things fresh (such as corn-leaf tea). Thus, 'you must not put hot stuff again. If you put heat once more, you start doing harm inside again, and the pain comes back' (Interview: Jose 10/06/94). Someone who walks for a long period in the heat of the sun and then eats something hot will thus have diarrhea with white pus. This is a case of heat piling up in the body to the point of becoming unhealthy. All in all, the blood must be 'neither very cold, nor very hot, it must be normal' (see Interview: Maria 19/03/94; Troche 1993,321-2; Mak 1959,143). Not eating or bad eating can also cause diarrhea. This brings us to warnings against an excessive consumption of sweets and fruit, especially bananas. Pastry, sweets, and fruit such as bananas, papayas, oranges, and mangos are no different from dote, atole, chili, egg, and sugar: they are mere accompaniments or things to be eaten between meals, not real sustenance for the body. Real food consists of tortilla, quelite, beans, fish, chicken, turkey, and meat (Interviews: Pedro 20/ 03/94, Jose 03/04/94,10/06/94, Juan 11/06/94). Worms and parasites have a special liking for fruit and sweets (all the more so if covered with mud or dirt when eaten; see Troche 1993, 318; Alvarez Heydenreich 1987,119). Diarrhea is sometimes attributed to a mother giving her child unnatural milk, the commercial kind that contains no trace of the sacred corn that feeds the mother. 'Women before didn't use mamila or [unnatural] milk. They gave the child what is pure natural breast! And the child didn't eat anything else, he eats what she eats ... sacred food ... what the mother eats. But now no. Now what they do, they give mamila, milk, then they switch to some other milk, after that they give fruit, and then another and then another ... give him this little thing, and then something else, and that's when it [diarrhea] starts' (Interview: Jose 10/06/94; see also Troche 1993: 330). Commercial milk contains too much water and cannot sustain a

'El Senor del Cerro,' San Martin, Pajapan, drawing by Daniel Buckles

Lagoon fishing

A woman carrying water from the spring

The postharvest corn field

Cutting velvet bean growth for mulching

Young corn growth

Mature corn

Milpa burning

The Sierra Santa Marta

Solar Life, Birth, and Diarrhea 75

growing child. Likewise, a child should not be given a woman's small milk (colostrum), susnt in Popoluca, a liquid that is not thick enough to nourish an infant. Small milk is considered a thin, corrupt, decomposed, and coagulated liquid with no food value. It cannot fill the stomach and will give diarrhea to the child and cause it to cry a lot. Mothers should extract it before they breastfeed their children, especially the firstborn. In the same spirit, a woman who has just given birth should abstain from drinking cold water (Field notes on nutrition workshop 07/04/94; Interviews: Juliana 09/06/94, Georgina 11/06/ 94, Felicia 15/06/94, Juan 11/06/94). Instead of giving them real milk from the breast, mothers can always feed their children with honey and chamomile placed on a piece of cotton, for three hours or one day at the most (Interviews: Juliana 09/06/ 94, Georgina 11/06/94). If the child refuses breast milk, the mother can use honey, oil, and garlic on a warm cotton to rub her breast and the child's lips. Because the child's refusal to suckle is a cold ailment, the preparation should be served warm. Once born, the infant should be washed in warm water and can be given warm tea as well. When the child reaches four months atole may be served, followed by tortilla salted or softened with water (a month or two later). As with other hot foodstuffs, chicken soup will cause diarrhea if served too soon (Interview: Felicia 20/10/94). A failure to eat at the proper time is another form of bad eating affecting the digestive system. Abstaining from food when nourishment is needed is an invitation to illness (Interviews: Pedro 20/03/94, Jose 10/06/94; Troche 1993, 329; Mak 1959, 134). Eating well and drinking water strengthens the blood and the semen, but blood turns to water when inadequately nourished (Interviews: Maria 02/03/94, Juan 04/04/94, 11/06/94). Problems can be expected to arise when people see and want food but for some reason fail to eat. They may not have enough money, or the meat they buy may not suffice, falling below what the heart or belly is asking. The heart will then ache and the belly suffer diarrhea with blood, all because the time to eat has gone by (Interviews: Juan 19/03/94, Pedro 20/03/94, 30/03/94, Francisco 05/04/94, Jose 10/06/94). Jose, a medicinal plant healer, explains: One says, 'I am going to a distant place and I want to arrive fast, so I won't wait for breakfast or coffee. I don't eat anything, I am going.' I arrive there at twelve or I don't know at what time, and to be sure the

76 The Hot and the Cold stomach makes a lot of sound ... When you think of taking something, the problem is that you can't take it the same way. Yes you drink, you receive, but it doesn't work as it does normally. It's like when you're hungry, the heart is asking, and what does the drunkard do? He drinks alcohol for a while! What happens? It (the heart) dies, it wasn't functioning anymore. 'Ah, I'm not hungry anymore! See! I swallowed my drink, I'm not hungry anymore!' You already killed it, the heart. (Field note 10/06/94)

When the heart or stomach is not properly fed, the body becomes lazy, as if it were dying. But the consequence can also turn into a cause - laziness can result in diarrhea. A man who loses blood turns weak, yet this is because he doesn't work, he sits all the time and doesn't do any kind of exercise. But the man who eats well and does exercise in the morning and works well, he is perfectly free, clean. His body is functioning well... People sometime do not move ... They eat a lot of hot food and again they drink lots of liquor, and then they eat earth, then after that they eat ashes from cigarettes or tobacco, or whatever, and then the problems begin. Soon they become thin (chipujos)... yellow in the body ... swollen, and the blood doesn't run the same way. It is poisoned by the nicotine from the cigarettes ... the ashes. Or there are people who, for instance, go where the family does the cooking and where there's a bit of ashes, they take a spoonful and into the mouth ... That's the habit they have, it's like the one who eats earth. That's very bad, mister, very bad, because that's when the blood starts diluting. One starts swelling, one turns fat, and then one succumbs to laziness, and soon after one is yawning all the time and wants to sleep. He doesn't want to touch heavy things. And then prun\ [sound of diarrhea] until he wants to go to bed. The person who is in bed I say is in very bad shape. And you have to do a lot to get that man to rise! You have to put a lot of energy to cure him. But also the person ... must move a bit. Although he may not work much, but if he wants you to make him walk ... you ask him to sweat, to put out sweat... The blood turns into water ... In order for the blood to heat up, he has to move like the whole body, so that it circulates well, you have to get the man to walk so that he can become red, with colour! (Field note 10/06/94)

Diarrhea may be the end result of a lack of exercise, a laxness of body that causes the person to drag its feet and eat dirt and ashes instead of healthy food. The belly swells and the body gets fat, slug-

Solar Life, Birth, and Diarrhea 77

gish, and sleepish. The sick person becomes yellow, with blood turning to water and losing both heat and colour. When trying medicine on a patient, the healer must 'find what's going to heal him first. If the illness involves things that are purely hot in the body, then you will not put things hot, you have to put fresh things, so that his body will freshen up as well, the heat he has inside will leave.' If the person has something cold inside, however, 'then you have to find something hot, so that the cold thing will come out' (Interview: Jose 23/10/94). Given that diarrhea is a hot ailment that causes the body to dry up exceedingly and prematurely, things that are hot should be avoided, especially eggs, chili, spicy food, oily foodstuffs, and meat (see Troche 1993, 326). Chlorinated water is also to be avoided. Water will quench a person's thirst and restore freshness to the body, but it should be non-chlorinated water. Chlorine takes strength away from live water. The truth is that, since we are peasants ... chlorinated water doesn't work for us. Water cooked this way doesn't work for us. Since the body works itself hot, we want something fresh, water that's still alive. When water is alive, it quenches the thirst rapidly ... Because they throw chlorine in it, all the strength that water gives has died. It's no longer normal. The water is dead' (Interview: Jose 10/06/94). Likewise, herbal remedies should be served fresh and not be cooked. Freshness is recommended 'so that the vitamins and everything doesn't die, because if you cook it the vitamin dies' (Interview: Jose 23/10/94). Fresh remedies are generally prescribed. The medicine should not be too fresh, to the point that it becomes cold, lest they should make the diarrhea even worse: straight water, cold milk, and coconut water or flesh are not recommended. Examples of fresh medicine that can be administered to people with diarrhea include liquid extracted from guayaba bark or leaves boiled and filtered. The same beverage can be used to clean the breast of a mother suckling her child. The water captured by the maguey during a rain has cooling effects when poured on the person's head (Interviews: Maria 19/03/94, Juan 19/03/94, Felicia 29/10/94). Other fresh remedies include: Beverages made from oranges (unless boiled; Interviews: Juan 19/ 03/94, 22/03/94, Pedro 08/06/94) White oak and patololote bark (Interviews: Juan 19/03/94, Pedro 20/ 03/94) Sugarcane roasted and left outside at night so as to capture the freshness of dew (Interview: Jose 10/06/94)

78 The Hot and the Cold

e watermelon and two tecomate seed mixed with coffee but without sugar, which is hot (Interview: Pedro 20/03/94; Munch Galindo 1983,203) A poultice made of San Martin leaves, to absorb the heat emanating from the sick body Uncooked rice, dry tortilla, and atole (liquid meal based on ground maize and water) served thick and without salt (Interviews: Pedro 20/03/94, Felicia 29/10/94, Maria 19/10/94, Munch Galindo 1983, 203) The mother spitting on the child's belly (Interview: Felicia 15/06/94). To sum up, a process of drying that moves too fast can take the form of a nacido tumour or swelling, or fluids amassing in the body and then expelled through vomiting and diarrhea. Unlike menstruation and pregnancy, tumours and watery stools are hot states gone pathological, with symptoms such as pus secretion, dehydration, blood thinness, worms in the stomach, a craving for dry soil, anemia, and fever. People exhibiting these symptoms must take remedies that are fresh and avoid hot activities and foodstuffs. This is the only way that diarrhea caused by surplus heat - by overwork, quarrelling, spicy food, chlorinated water, smoking, drinking, insufficient eating - can be cured. An excess of coolness or freshness should nonetheless be avoided, for it too can cause diarrhea, be it from inactivity and laziness, eating too much fruit or sweets, or feeding colostrum or commercial milk to a child. In keeping with this reasoning, collisions between things very hot and very cold (as when a hot person eats something cold or is exposed to cold weather shifting rapidly to intense heat) are also a nuisance to the digestive system. Mixtures of Balance and Pace For the Gulf Nahuas and Popolucas, health and reproduction hinge on the observance of three principles: thermal balance, cyclic equilibrium, and heliotropic growth. The first principle involves proper measures and combinations of things deemed to be hot or cold. We have seen how thermal properties are assigned to distinct objects ranging from foodstuffs to natural elements such as winds. People must refrain from mixing or exposing themselves to thermal extremes and clashes between them. In conformity with the second principle, thermal properties are also assigned to activities and moments in cyclic time: for

Solar Life, Birth, and Diarrhea 79

instance, youth and old age, night and day, rest and work, hunger and eating, sexual build-up (sex urge, menstruation, pregnancy) and relief (having sex, giving birth). All of these objects and activities must be apportioned and mixed according to circumstance and period of time lest malady and mortality should strike. Neither work nor rest should be abused. The cycles of life demand that people eat and have sex when need be but also diet at the proper time. As stories of diarrhea go to show, failure to behave with moderation and balance in all matters and at all times is an invitation to illness and death. The third principle is equally vital. It introduces a sense of direction and overall trajectory into the passing of time, adding motion to the categorization and harmonization of things deemed hot or cold. The movement in question has been inaugurated by the Fifth Sun and is essentially heliotropic, pulling life gradually away from its aquatic beginnings, towards growth, maturation, and reproductive labour under the sun. Life spells maturation and movement from the moment of birth. In the words of Jose, a medicinal plant healer: Sometimes children are weak, they are born weak ... It's like everything else. There are times when you are well, and there are times when you're not well. Children are like that too. Some newborns are strong ... (but) there are a lot who have been born for two or three months and do not move ... They are just there, they are sort of calm. But you can see that some children start jumping and moving eight or fifteen days after they are born; they laugh and do all sorts of things. These are the children that are well born ... (Water in their brain) lasts for about six months, the child heals, and things go normally, because each day the child continues to grow, he becomes stronger and eats well, he grows better. (Field note 02/12/94)

Given the solar life force that governs bodily growth (through physical movement and gradual drying), the blood and soul of man and woman are primarily hot. Failure to abide by this solar-driven principle can take one of two forms. Life may wither because stagnating and returning to its watery beginnings. Or it can perish because of excessive exposure to solar heat. The end result of these deviations from healthy mixtures of balance and pace is always the same: be it through water-burning or immoderate heating, life burns up and consumes itself prematurely, accelerating the heliotropic fate of things growing, rotting, and dying under the sun.

80 The Hot and the Cold

The practical applications of this threefold life principle are many. For one thing, the rule of thermal balance can never operate statically. Health maintenance does not call for a constant equilibrium of things hot and cold, a stable midpoint that never adjusts to variations in situations and moments in life. On the contrary, the organism must constantly move and alternate between conditions of heat and cold, thereby responding to changing needs, phases of the day, and stages of growth. Also, when the body goes through a thermal state that is nonpathological, measures and motions are needed to counterbalance the normal heat or cold it generates. When hungry you must eat and drink; when tired you must rest; when feeling a sexual urge you must have sex. The counterbalancing ingredient or activity should never be applied in excess of what the body can tolerate, to the point of causing a deleterious clash or shock. Moderation is always in order. For instance, work heats up the body that must be refreshed through eating, yet the food absorbed must not be too cold (e.g., pineapple) lest the body at work should suffer a shock and fall sick. The same reasoning applies to work and rest; one must never overindulge in one or the other. A person that turns lazy is as vulnerable as an overworked person. Both are likely to turn weak and pale as their blood thins down and turns to water. Sex is no exception to these rules. People should not indulge in sex and dry up the source of life. They should not milk themselves of the vigour and reproductive strength needed to carry out normal tasks such as sowing seed or special activities such as healing. While sexual activity is a necessary refreshment that relieves the person of the heat building up in the organism, unbridled sex precipitates the drying process that comes with old age and reproductive travail. In short, some sexual restraint or dieting (dieta) is always good. But people should not abstain from sexual activity for too long either. If they do, they become exceedingly hot. Abnormal states of heat attained through protracted dieting can serve beneficial purposes, as when local authorities, elders, and healers gather the strength or power needed to perform special duties. But caution is still needed and strict ritual rules must be observed to avoid turning extraordinary heat into a source of ailment or death. Female reproduction is another critical area where the threefold law of balance, cyclic motion, and growth must prevail. When menstruating or pregnant, women are normally hot; a new life is extracting blood and the fluid of life from their womb. When in this condition, women

Solar Life, Birth, and Diarrhea 81

should avoid things cold and wet that would collide with their own heat and throw them in a state of shock. If suffering from some cold predicament, they should apply a dose of compensating warmth but without raising the heat too high. The same overall recommendations apply to women recuperating from labour. The newborn are in a different state, enjoying the coolness of life that begins in water. Precautions to preserve their health and secure their growth are tailored to their youthful circumstances. Things must be done to preserve fresh ties to the home-land nurturing the infant. One such measure consists in burying the infant's placenta and umbilical cord in the earth, in the corner of the house corresponding to the sun rising at dawn. Parents who fail to perform this ritual task put their children at risk. If the placenta is burnt, the child will sweat abundantly and act irritably throughout life. If the placenta and umbilical cord rot away because thrown into garbage or water, the child will grow up suffering all kinds of illnesses. Although securing freshness for the child, burying the placenta does not deny the infant the blessings of heliotropic growth. Accordingly, signs of life that must grow out of water and the earth are obtained by cutting and drying the umbilical cord. They also come with the auroral imagery of a child being raised like the solar body distancing itself from the earth as it ascends to the east. Given the heliotropic underpinnings of life, measures are also taken to prevent infants from drowning in waters flowing from their brain and being exposed to things exceedingly wet or cold. Things relatively warm (but not too hot) are usually administered to children, and fluids extracted from their mouths. Another cold threat facing the newborn consists in a surfeit of love. Mothers are advised to leave their newborn in the yard for a while, as if unwanted. This protects them from an excess of love that tends to spoil and weaken the young. Lastly, specifications regarding the actual length of the umbilical cord once cut suggest that severance measures must fit the growth and reproduction requirements of each sex. Thus, the length of the cord should be greater for girls compared with boys, allowing their uterus to become longer than the male organ, thereby reducing the pains of coitus and childbirth. Also cords should be cut neither too long nor too short lest sexual organs should not measure up to the task they are designed to perform.

CHAPTER FOUR

Lovesickness and Fear of the Dead

Evil Eye and Lovesickness The Conquistadors recorded with admiration the great respect subjects showed towards Moctezuma, always bowing in his presence, never daring to raise their sight. But what the Spaniards interpreted as respect went much further. A divine force, hot in nature, was believed to emanate from the tlatoani's eyes, a force so powerful that it could kill subjects that dared look into his eyes (Viesca Trevino 1986, 89). Gutieras-Holmes (1961,4,306) also remarks how the Tzotziles of Chiapas associate heat with physical strength, age, masculinity, and socioreligious status. For the Tuxtla area, Munch Galindo (1983, 193, our translation) writes: "The spirit of man has a direct relationship with the sun, the moon, maize, and the thunderbolt, which are hot and give him life.' Yet this solar heat can accumulate in the body, for instance, during ritual observances, to the point of becoming potentially harmful to others. Popoluca leaders preparing themselves for the Carnaval are a case in point. Through dieta, their inner energy can become so great as to contaminate unprepared common folk, killing them from an overdose of 'heat' (Munch Galindo 1983, 247). The difference between old age and youth is the same as between strength and weakness in the eyes. The older the person is, the more heat power is vested in his or her organ of sight. This may be a problem when the old meet the young, for instance, through eye contact. People with weak eyes, especially the young, must be careful to avoid being looked at by those whose eyes possess great power. Those who fail to observe this rule may suffer a sudden rise in body temperature, with symptoms such as fever, headache, eye irritation, running nose,

Lovesickness and Fear of the Dead 83

and excessive preoccupation with whatever problem they may be confronted with (Interview: Pedro 20/03/94). Children may cry a lot, have diarrhea, and vomit because of a mal de ojo (see also Mak 1959, 133). Similarly, young plants may dry prematurely if exposed to powerful eyes. The greater the heat is, the more it absorbs the freshness of life. To heal this eye sickness, fresh remedies are recommended. These include lemon, water, air blown by the healer (in Popoluca sujoy is to blow and sujcfy is to calm), a good dose of tenderness, or dirty underwear that belongs to an adult. Massaging the head with an egg to extract the heat is another common healing technique. If the egg is thrown into the river and falls to the bottom, the patient is on the way to recovery. But if the egg floats, the yoke is cooked, or nothing is found inside the shell, then the feverish head is in a state of great heat, a state partly passed on to the dried-up egg (Interview: Pedro 20/03/ 94; see Alvarez Heydenreich 1987, 147-9, 166; Olavarrieta Marenco 1977,126). The Spanish expression denoting the evil eye predicament is mal de ojo (Pop. ixcuycaacuy, from ixcuy, eye, and caacuy, disease). When heat is explicitly evoked, as in ojo caliente, the imagery evokes lovesickness, an ailment also known as mal amor. The Popoluca term for this illness is ixcuypjjly, meaning the eye is becoming hot, from ixcuy and pjji, heat (Interview: Manuel 29/11/94, Carmen 27/11/94; Elson and Gutierrez 1995, 60, 81). This is something that can happen to a girl who sees a boy she likes but is unable to embrace. The girl becomes ill with hot eye. She has fever and cries, but there is no pus coming out of her eyes. The same misfortune can befall children for reasons other than sexual angst. More often than not, however, hot-eye symptoms involve problems of adult sexuality. The Spanish name mal de ojo and its common translation as evil eye have come to encompass both ailments. Lopez Austin (1980, 296-300) notes how the expression mal de ojo was initially used by the Spaniards to lump many different ailments together. For the Tuxtla area, Olavarrieta Marenco (1977, 81-3, 106) is careful to make the distinction between unlike phenomena otherwise designated by the same term. One illness comes from an act of witchcraft where harm to one's eye is caused by someone else, with evil purpose. A different eye-related ailment is caused involuntarily by a person with a strong gaze (vista fuerte, mirada fuerte} who sees something he or she desires but is unable to touch (see Figure 4.1). This can happen, for example, when older persons, pregnant women, snakelike twins (cuates, from coatl, snake)

84 The Hot and the Cold

Figure 4.1 Gaze clash

or siblings born after them (i.e., buncos followed by culebros) look at a child (see Olavarrieta Marenco 1977, 81, 138, 145, 245-7, 253; Lopez Austin 1980, 286-7, 299). Unless physically touched by the person possessing the strong gaze, the child becomes restless, develops a fever, and cries continually. The ideal cure is for the mother to identify the culprit and have him or her caress and talk to the child. Saliva from the strong-eyed person can also be applied on the child's forehead (Munch Galindo 1983, 202, 222). If the person responsible for the illness cannot be found, the mother or father can rub and cover the child with a dirty

Lovesickness and Fear of the Dead 85

underwear or piece of garment taken from the victim's father and containing his sweat. When the disease is in its advanced stage, the child secretes yellow mucus from the mouth (Olavarietta Marenco 1977, 813). If not treated, the eye disease may result in death. Lopez Austin (1980, 298) mentions a particular case of mal de ojo reported for the ancient Nahuas, an illness involving strong feelings of covetousness or envy. When a person had an intense desire for someone or something, he or she became very sad and melancholic. This state could bring harm to others, plants and animals included. The sadness generated negative energy, a force that emanated from the body and could be transmitted through the organ of sight. People suffering from this illness were even more menacing if endowed with a strong gaze (vista fuerte). The emanation was so strong that it could kill a child or small animal coveted by the strong-eyed, forcing its soul to leave through eye sockets; a Gulf Nahua term currently used in Pajapan to denote soul strength coming out through the eyes is ixkogoyal (Garcia de Leon 1969, 284). Plants were also said to become dry. A recurrent theme found in these eye-affliction stories resides in strong feelings of desire that cannot be satisfied. They all result in a dangerous condition of illness that may lead to death. In all cases a strong heat invades the body. We shall see that the person who becomes ill from to mal amor is not necessarily the one experiencing desire but rather the one who appears to be the weaker of the two. But first we look at a much older version of lovesickness afflicting people making eyes at the other sex. This is the ancient story of Tohuenyo. the foreigner, a narrative first recorded in Nahuatl by Bernardino de Sahagun in the mid-sixteenth century and later reproduced and translated into Spanish by Leon-Portilla (1980, 377-82). Historians date its composition between the years 1430 and 1519. It is believed to be one of those ancient stories that were memorized by students of the Calmecac, the pre-Hispanic Nahua centres of higher education. The story is all the more important as it foretold the ruin of Tula in the years that followed the events described. It is nonetheless the sexual content of the story that is relevant to our analysis of mal amor. Leon-Portilla (1980, 374-6) notes that the main character in this story, Tohuenyo the foreigner, was none other than Titlacahuan-Tezcatlipoca. one of three wizards and gods of night and destiny. According to Mexica tradition, Titlacahuan was an ally of Huitzilopochtli. the solar god of war, and Tlacahuepan. a great man and a sorcerer. Together, they succeeded in destroying the Toltecs, the Nahuatl-speaking people

86 The Hot and the Cold who founded Tula and ruled Central Mexico between 900 and 1200. Titlacahuan-Tezcatlipoca appeared one day to put an end to the glory of Ouetzalcoatl, the great priest of Tula and son of Mixcoatl who led the Toltecs in their conquest of Central Mexico. In the story that concerns us, Titlacahuan disguises himself as a tohuenyo foreigner and manages to marry the beautiful maiden daughter of king Huemac,1 Lord of the Toltecs. Although a stranger and petty trader, Tohuenyo was allowed to marry the lady because of the illness that befell her on account of the sight of his sexual organ and her yearning to have his penis inside her. Below is our own translation of relevant parts of the story. And here is another thing that Titlacahuan undertook, he made something that resulted a portent: he transformed himself, took face and figure of a tohuenyo [foreigner]. Walking about naked, with the thing dangling, he started to sell chili, he went to set himself up in the market, in front of the palace. Now then, the daughter of Huemac. who was very fair [muy buena]2 many of the Toltecs desired her and were after her, they had the intention of making her their bride. But to none Huemac made any concession, to none he gave her daughter. So that the daughter of Huemac looked towards the market, and came to see Tohuenyo: he is with the thing dangling. As soon as she saw him, she immediately went into the palace. Because of this the daughter of Huemac became ill then, she became tense, she entered into a great fever \grande calentura], as if feeling poor of [missing]3 the bird - virile member - of Tohuenyo. And Huemac learned about it soon: her daughter is now ill. He then said to the women that were taking care of her:

Lovesickness and Fear of the Dead 87 'What did she do, what is she doing? How did my daughter begin going into a fever?' And the women that were caring for her answered, 'It is Tohuenyo. he who sells chili: he has put fire into her, he has put the yearning [el ansia] inside her,4 with that it is how it began, with that it is why she ended ill.'

The next few verses describe how Huemac orders all his subjects to look for Tohuenyo. But he was nowhere to be found, until he came back to the market, in front of the palace where he first appeared. The story then proceeds to an encounter between king and foreigner. And when he was brought before him [the King], immediately Huemac questioned him: 'Where is your home?' The other one answered: 'I am a tohuenyo, I am selling chilito.' And Lord Huemac said to him: 'Well, which is your life, Tohuenyo? Put the maxtle [loincloth] back on, cover yourself.' To this Tohuenyo answered: 'Well we [ourselves] are like this.' The Lord then said: 'You have awakened a yearning in my daughter, you will cure her.' Tohuenyo answered: 'Foreigner, my lord, That cannot be. Kill me, finish with me, death to me! What are you telling me? I am but a poor seller of chili.' Then the Lord told him: 'No, you will cure her, do not be afraid.' And soon after they cut his hair, they bathed him and after this,

88 The Hot and the Cold they anointed him, they put a maxtle. they tied on a cloth. And when they left him groomed like that, the Lord told him: 'Look at my daughter, there she is secluded \guardada].' And when Tohuenyo went in to see her, then he cohabited with her, and with this she was cured in an instant. At once, Tohuenyo was converted into the son-in-law of the Lord.

But the marriage is not without a price to pay. The story goes on to say that Huemac is ridiculed by his people because a foreigner has become his son-in-law. To appease his critics, the king tries to get Tohuenyo killed. He sends him into battle with an army of crippled and dwarfs. But Tohuenyo wins the battle and Huemac is forced to honour him as a war hero. These events are later blamed for the tragedies that Tula was to suffer during its decline as the hub of regional power in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. An ally of the god of war causes the downfall of Tula by seducing and marrying the daughter of Huemac. Lord of the Toltecs. Given his name, the man could have ended up being captured and sacrificed by his enemy; the name Tohuenyo can be translated as that which is our offering, alluding to the fact that foreigners were commonly used as sacrificial offerings to the gods (Leon-Portilla 1980, 384). But instead of being conquered, the 'foreigner' infiltrates the enemy's ranks by charming Huemac's daughter, getting her hand in marriage, and becoming a hero of war. This he does through treachery and seduction. Titlacahuan disguises himself as a foreigner selling hot chilis and parades his naked body before the king's daughter, causing the fair lady to feel great heat in the sense of yearning for his penis. Symptoms of her lovesick condition include a burning fever and a longing to have sex with Tohuenyo. The indecent man disappears for a while but then comes back and is persuaded to save the maiden's life by having sex with her, following proper grooming procedures (bathing, clothing, haircut). Five hundred years have passed since the story of Tohuenyo was first told by Nahua elders to the Spanish Conquistadors. In the Sierra Santa Marta of today, however, afflictions similar to the one suffered by

Lovesickness and Fear of the Dead 89

the maiden princess of long ago are still reported. Stories of lovesickness are cast on the same narrative mould, save perhaps for the politics of kingship and war events plaguing the memory of Tula. Note that native mal amor experiences are mentioned in none of the ethnographies of the area, including those dealing with the neighbouring mestizo communities of los Tuxtlas. When in the presence of outsiders, the stories are condemned as superstitious beliefs incompatible with Christian faith. They are nonetheless widespread and are treated as true accounts of lived experiences typically involving relatives or close acquaintances of the narrators. As shown below, mal amor stories told to us by native men and women from different villages, occupations, and religious affiliations are remarkably consistent. Consider first the recurring theme of eyes cast on a desired person. As with evil eye stories, lovesickness (piji caacuy, hot sickness, or mfiya caacuy, flower sickness) is an ailment where the victim suffers from weaker eyes and is confronted with someone endowed with a stronger gaze. In the Sierra an adult wishing to make love with someone of the opposite sex may lift the head or gaze at the latter in the hope of eventually cooling off and satisfying his or her desire. The problem arises when one of the two parties refuses to talk or make love with the other, or lowers the head instead of looking straight into the person's eyes. But lovesickness may also result from other causes, as when a woman is preoccupied with the fact that she is not married and 'thinks of men a lot.' She is bound to get sick (Interview: Pedro and Juan 27/11/94). The same may happen to a woman who 'likes a man and she doesn't talk to him' (Interview: Maria 25/03/94) or a man who is caught making love to a mistress and is forced to leave in the middle of the act (see Lopez Austin 1980,244, 332). There is a sickness which they call mal amor or mQya caccuy. It happens when a boy sees a girl he likes to the point of wanting to talk to her. If she raises her face and looks at you and you bow the head down, you don't look at her, it makes you hot. This heat - eye sickness (mal de ojo) - the eye turns red and the face starts to hurt as if it were bursting, with mucus (punk;) coming out of the eyes, more yellow than the one in the feces. You lose the bird, it disappears. They say that often the belly hurts and you try to feel it [the crotch] but you don't have a bird anymore. When you don't see [it], you get heat and a headache. They say my grandfather lost his bird. There in the city, there are centres of vice, here no. Here, if you're going to have a mistress, you go to the woods. He was with one, and

90 The Hot and the Cold another [person] suddenly appeared. He [the grandfather] kind of took shame and left her. He ran away. His bird disappeared. Soon after, he died. (Field note 19/03/94)5

Mai amor involves an unfulfilled desire, a yearning for sexual activity that is so strong as to cause the disease of love if left unsatisfied. Many symptoms affect the person whose desire is frustrated. The person may constantly think and talk about the loved one and grab posts as substitutes for him or her. Other symptoms include fever, headache, cough, a dry mouth, blisters in the face, redness, and mucus in the eye. The mucus is yellower than in the stools, yellower than feces with pus. This brings us back to our earlier discussion of pun+ct'in, watery and infected stools caused by a failure to satisfy one's appetite for food (puc is to rot, to become infected; Elson and Gutierrez 1995, 23, 84). While the illness is typically associated with the hot season (tiempo de calor), dolor de corazon (heartache) strikes the person who sees a meal and does not or cannot eat it. 'Or, if you bought a kilo of meat and it did not go far enough (no lo alcanzo), because the heart asked for it, you will get it [diarrhea with mucus].'6 Although generally characterized by a state of excessive heat, lovesickness is also known to interrupt blood circulation, making it freeze in the heart, so to speak. 'With mal amor blood becomes rapidly cold, it stays in the heart' (Interview: Juan 11/06/94). As with diarrhea and chahuistle rotting, reversion to watery stagnation causes great heat and physical anemia (Troche 1993, 312, 314, 360). Another dreaded symptom of mal amor consists in the disappearance of sexual organs (bird or dog in the case of the phallus). 'If the man liked the woman but she doesn't want to, he loses his beak for wanting too much. If the woman likes the man the same thing happens. The one who desires a lot loses the tutu organ (from tuts, tail). Also, if you catch the man in the act and he runs away, his tutu disappears because he didn't finish. If the man is weak and the woman looks at him and he wants her, he desires her, his tytu disappears as well' (Interview: Juan 22/03/94). Juan recalls an incident that happened when he was twelve years old. He met with two girls while going to the brook. They stopped him and gazed at him, with desire in their eyes. He lowered the head and crossed the brook but got sick when he arrived home. His head and eyes were hurting, but he didn't lose his tutu. He told what had happened to an old man who said that when this happens, you should not

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lower the head; otherwise you lose your organ. Rather, you should fix the girls into the eyes until they look elsewhere (Interview: Juan 22 / 03/94). Remedies to cool off the lovesick person and restore his or her sex usually consist in making love or drinking posole, saliva, urine from the other person, or water from the organ or from boiled underwear taken from the other party (see Alvarez Heydenreich 1987,166). Water from abandoned wells is also an effective remedy. A Mujer Rayo (Thunderbolt Woman), a powerful and respected healer in the Sierra, talks about a young boy she was treating for a constant headache, a hot condition. As part of the cure, the boy's head is refreshed with water that comes from a well, a site where lovers typically meet and make love. The water is collected very early in the morning, 'before people take from it'; she must be the first person on that day to collect water from the well (Interview: Felicia 15/05/94). All remedies described above taste very cold and are substitutes for acts of sexual refreshment (Interviews: Juan 19/03/94 and Popoluca campesino 20/03/94). Fresh fluids appease sexual yearnings of the person in heat. Thus, 'in the act [of urinating], the woman must wash her can [female genitalia] and keep the water for the man to drink; or else the urine of the woman; or if not, they steal the [woman's] dress and they boil it and give him this water from the woman. The water helps [ease] the pain of the heat (dolor de color) and brings the bird back. He drinks it and rubs the head so that the heat will go away' (Interview: Juan 19/03/94). As in the story of Tohuenyo. a lovesick person who is left without treatment may die. The illness is so serious that all precautions must be taken to save the person's life. It happened not long ago to Pablo's son-in-law. He was going to the milpa and met a woman who had recently married, also young. She told him, 'I'll accompany you.' He said, 'No, because you are married.' She caught 'heat/ she had pains all over. The girl's father-in-law came, he asked her why she was sick and she said she 'saw badly' the boy and 'that made me hot.' The father-in-law went to see the boy and told him he would kill him if the girl died. Pablo arrives, [he says] he doesn't believe in these things; the [girl's] father-in-law wanted him to sign a paper saying that if she died he would pay for the funeral wake. They fought so that he wouldn't have to pay but they eventually reached an agreement. Pablo went to see his son-in-law. He asks him, 'Are you not fond of her?' 'Father I didn't do

92 The Hot and the Cold anything.' Pablo [said], 'You are going to cure her. Piss in this bottle' (which he had washed). He filled a litre. He went to her house early in the morning where the woman was sick, her tots genitalia had disappeared. The father divided it into two. Pablo [to the girl]: 'Last chance,' he said, 'drink this half litre.' And he soaked her head a bit. She got better. (Field note 19/03/94)7

There is also the story of a boy named little toad (sapito) and a girl aged fifteen who took a liking to him and wanted to have sex but could not because of people passing by. She went back home, fell sick with a bad headache, and started making gestures and calling the boy's name. The mother pretended nothing had happened; she did not want people to bad-mouth her daughter. A healer was nonetheless asked to intervene. He then 'examined her and took off her clothes ... he looked at her from a distance, and she didn't have the organ anymore. They say she had just a hole, the illness was well advanced. The healer went to fetch the boy so that he should make love to the girl and cure her, but the boy had already left the village because he was sad. It was not possible to cure the girl and she died. When the boy came back, she was already dead. The fever is stronger with a woman than with a man.'8 A similar story tells of a lovesick girl who had lost her can (genitalia) and had lips only. Since she was on the point of dying, the boy responsible for putting her in a state of heat was asked to 'give it to her,' which he did. He had sex with her, and her genitalia came back. 'But if the man does not want to [have intercourse], his urine is given to her so that she heals' (Interview: Juan 19/03/94). Another man tells the amusing story of a boy who learns that his grandfather is sick because he has lost his dog. They say that when you see a woman and that you want to do it with her, you want to get close and make love and if you can't, they say your organ disappears. But I don't believe that, but my grandmother ... once told me this. She told me once when I was a boy, I was twelve years, there I was playing in the yard. She tells me, 'Your grandfather is sick.' I told her, 'What does my grandfather have?' She says, 'He lost his dog.' 'His dog [I said]? Which dog did he lose? All his dogs are here in the backyard, I know them all, there they are.' She says, 'Look my son, the thing is that... he lost his organ (tutu) ... it disappeared.' They say that this sickness comes from there. If you see a woman and would like to do it with her ...

Lovesickness and Fear of the Dead 93 to make love, you think a lot about her, and that's where the sickness comes from. The boy goes on to ask what cure there is for a lost penis. The mother answers: It's a bit difficult to cure this illness, because they say you have to use the woman's socks or underwear. Yes this is a bit difficult. Most of all let's say that we have to get urine from the underwear, which should be well soaked, and if it's not the underwear then they should give us a piece of her pantyhose, and with that you can do the cure. She says that you have to dissolve this into water and since with this sickness the person has fever, headache, and a cough, with this you can get rid of it. You drink the water and yiiil like water that you take from the refrigerator. 'Ay!' he says, 'where did you get this water when I am dying?'... She says there are bad women who don't give it to you. Then I asked her, 'And those who don't give?' 'Ah,' she says, 'if they don't then you have to spy on them where they go to urinate.' She says you find a man who is light on his feet, who will spy on the woman where she urinates ... He should go and dig up the earth where it's wet and they give this to drink and the man is cured. (Interview: Popoluca campesino 20/03/94) In another interview Pablo remembers the day when he was thirteen and met an old man at 6 o'clock in the morning while on his way to Soteapan for an errand. The man was crying and the boy asked him why. The old man answered that his wife had just died after losing her organ. They say that when it disappears the [person's] temperature rises and a headache, and that's why the person dies. She dies of heat, yes of heat that goes above ninety degrees' (Interview: Pablo 20/03/94). As in the story of Tohuenyo. lovesickness is an ailment that can be blamed on the person sexually desired and can be treated as an offence against rules pertaining to sex and marriage. The issue as to what exactly can be defined as a legal offence and what falls in the domain of witchcraft proper is nonetheless open to debate. Witness the following story: If you know who the person is, then let's say you ask for [the man's] underwear, to be dissolved in water, and this is what she drinks ... First, he must urinate in it and the underwear must be well soaked, and then she drinks it ... But if the woman has a husband, then it's very difficult,

94 The Hot and the Cold because the husband gets angry. Not too long ago I had a son-in-law ... I gave him my daughter and they went to live in his father's house ... they were living together, they had been together for a year I think, and then one morning I went for a walk and went to see my brother-in-law ... He says, 'Don't you know?' I said, 'No.' 'Proceedings are being brought against your son-in-law, they're going to put him in jail today in Soteapan.' 'What did he do?' I say. He says, 'I don't know exactly, but I know that a woman has taken proceedings against him. Because some time ago, about six months ago, she wanted to kiss him and now they say that the woman felt very sick ... with fever. And they say the woman lost her organ.' They accused my son-in-law of having caused her to lose her organ, because she wanted to kiss him and couldn't, but that was six months ago ... I too know the law, it says that if I talk to a woman from two or five metres ... this is not an offence... So I went to the (municipal) office. [They said], 'We're going to put your son-in-law in jail.' I told him, 'But who took the proceedings against him?' Then the woman's father-in-law spoke. 'Listen, my daughter-in-law is very sick, because of this guy, they wanted to kiss and they couldn't.' I say, 'But there is no justice for this [the justice system doesn't recognize sorcery]' ... I tell you this frankly, because I was once in Soteapan. I was standing there and someone came to say that a man had died, he came to inform that the son-in-law of Aurano had died several days ago because of witchcraft. And the sindico said, 'Look, I am very sorry, very sorry as a friend.' The man answered, 'I am only reporting the news.' [The sindico replies], 'But we cannot file the complaint. That point, the government does not... get involved in Acayucan [nearby city outside the Sierra]. In the opinion of the lawyer there, this [complaint] cannot be filed. If it were a cut, a bullet shot, or a beating ... yes, but not this.' [The man replied], 'So, you are not on my side?' 'Yes, I am on your side, I am not saying it did not [happen]. But it cannot be filed.' (Field note 20/03/94)

The man defending his son-in-law claims that local authorities cannot treat witchcraft as a cause of death in municipal records. Local authorities may perhaps investigate the incident but cannot undertake legal proceedings. The man goes on to say: 'If you put my son-in-law in jail, don't take him with his hands tied up, I will take him myself, without tying. I'll take him to Soteapan, and we'll investigate there. I know for sure the authorities will not recognize this problem, for sure!'

Lovesickness and Fear of the Dead 95 [Once in the head town, they go before the local judge.] 'Judge/ says the man, 'accuse this man too, let's tie him up.' The judge said, 'No, we can't lay a hand on him because of this.' Then I told him, 'Look, if you feel ... if you're annoyed because I'm meddling in this affair, I will leave this room, and you too you will leave ... Look, why don't we look for a way to cure [the woman].'9

The story ends in the usual manner. The man representing the accused party proposes a local remedy, to which the other party agrees. He asks his son-in-law to give him his underwear and wet it with his own urine, without asking questions. He then soaks the underwear in water, makes a tea, and goes to see the girl who drinks and then says, 'What's this that cools me so much?' She asks for more and drinks the whole bottle. 'People ask for more when they drink it, and with that she was cured.' Note that the option of sexual intercourse is not considered as both the boy and the girl are married. In some cases sex may be the preferred solution, yet the remedy is not without cost. King Huemac suffered public ridicule by having a foreigner copulate with his daughter. Although recovery is immediate, Popoluca men and women who agree to sexual intercourse as a form of healing must cope with problems of infidelity or the loss of female virginity (traditionally required for a first marriage contracted in the correct form). Interestingly, the underwear taken from the boy in the story just told echoes the ancient maxtle loincloth motif appearing in the story of Tohuenyo. This is the loincloth that was used to cover the man's nudity immediately before he was sent to see the king's lovesick daughter and satisfy her sexual urge. In both stories, the underwear marks the limits of sexual propriety. Tohuenyo is allowed to have sex with the maiden and receive her hand in marriage on condition that signs of indecency and the resulting illness be converted into proper courting and mating procedures. Similarly, a married girl's life can be saved from her lovesick condition and enjoy the cooling effects of another man's waters of life provided the two parties do not engage in adultery and consummate the full sexual act. Accordingly, water from the man's underwear is substituted for his semen. Discretion on the part of the healer is all the more important as adultery is always a possibility. This is clearly brought out in another mal amor incident involving an assertive would-be lover abandoned during foreplay by a girl who disliked the rough and rushed treatment she was receiving. This is the story of a boy and a girl who were already

96 The Hot and the Cold

married (to other parties) and fell in love with one another. One day they met at a brook. He was going to the milpa, and she was carrying a bucket to fetch water. The girl pulled him by the wayside. Since the boy was a bit rough with her, she grabbed her bucket and went away, leaving the boy lying on the ground. The boy went back home. His wife was sweeping the floor. When she saw him she asked, 'What's with you? Why are you sad?' He said there was nothing, but she insisted and touched his face an told him he was very hot. He said nothing had happened. So the woman went to fetch the healer. When questioned by the healer, the boy said he had 'a hot illness, like the illness from lightning.' The healer examined him and gave him water to drink. The boy drank lots of water. When someone is lovesick, he or she drinks lots of water and has a headache, fever, and a mouth going 'a bit inward.' Although the boy did not want to confess, the healer knew what was happening. The healer told the boy, 'Tell your wife to go on an errand to the milpa or the river.' The husband then asked his wife to go to the river to fetch water for the horse. 'Yes, I'll go/ said the woman. The healer then said to the boy, 'Now, tell me what happened to you.' The boy told him everything. The healer then went to see the girl and asked her to wash her organ and give him the juice in a pale. Later, the healer incorporated the juice and the woman's saliva into seven small posole beverages and served this to the sick boy. The girl's husband knew nothing of this and was told that the healer was simply paying a visit. 'That's why a healer is good, he did it secretly, so that there wouldn't be more problems' (Interview: Maria 13/06/94). Matters of this sort must be hidden from public gaze when and if possible. Otherwise 'people begin to whisper and make gossip instead of asking themselves how they can help' (Interview: Maria 13/06/94). Also spouses can get angry. A man who learns that his wife is lovesick may help her to heal but choose to abandon her later. Married couples will also get into quarrels over mat amor incidents. Given these problems, urine from the loved one may have to be obtained in secrecy. The healer must show sensitivity to these problems and play the role of social mediator. He intercedes in favour of the ill but in ways that prevent conflict between spouses, relatives, or neighbours. Lovesickness can act as a threat to the body social. While the healing process seeks to re-establish a state of harmony lost because of an excess of heat, both the malady and related treatment can cause new tensions to arise. More often than not the treatment involves a quasi-

Lovesickness and Fear of the Dead 97

adulterous remedy that may cool off the sick person but may cause social problems as well, be it in the shape of an angry spouse or parent or the downfall of an entire kingdom obtained through seduction and deceit. Given these potential pitfalls, great caution is needed in the treatment of mal amor. Sometimes it may be preferable not to inform the parents. Consider the story of a man who goes for a walk, sees a beautiful woman, and wants to talk to her but cannot find the courage. She takes a liking to the man but the man cannot get near her. That's when the sickness hits you soon afterwards. Soon you catch fever, and soon you get other illnesses, until eventually you lie in bed and start calling the woman's name. You start calling up the invisible, and that's when you're lost, you're already sick. So, when the person is in this sate, you have to call the girl. She has to come and talk with the boy and find how the boy [or girl] got sick, and if they felt affection for one another or not. And then, to avoid using urine, she can prepare a bit of posole which she gives him to drink. Or, if not, she can give him seven little salivas from the mouth; with that he has what is needed to get better ... or ... she can make him seven tortillas, the girl must eat a piece and the boy must eat a piece [of each]. The thing is that a lot do this so that the person will cool off, because then the man's thing [penis] is gone, it disappears. In order that he get well, it's better to call the girl, because sometimes they do this secretly, but in such a way that their father or mother will not learn about it, because sometimes it's dangerous because they can have a problem with the father or the mother. Sometimes, the girl is told, 'Look this guy is in this state, he got sick because of you. Go and talk to him to see what he wanted to say, what it is he has.' And then if she is of good will the girl will go. But if not, if the girl doesn't go, there are a lot who have died this way, there are people who can't take it, they die. This is the way it is, we have seen it. If not, another way to handle this, you have to take seven glasses of water from each well, wells that are abandoned, that have been abandoned for some time ... you have to take it to the man and make him drink the water from the side ... This is how the man heals but the girl should always be there once in a while, at the hour of the smoking (sahumacion). That's the way it should be. (Field note 10/06/94)10

The story captures all essential ingredients of mal amor: would-be lovers feeling mutual attraction and sexual yearnings that are left unsatisfied; signs of weakness (the boy lacking courage) or shame;

98 The Hot and the Cold

symptoms of intense heat or fever that may cause death if left untreated; sexual organs disappearing; a healer intervening with a show of discretion (this time vis-a-vis the parents); a refreshing remedy involving sex or equivalent fluids taken from the desired person. The story, however, adds a new remedy consisting of seven tortillas to be shared by the would-be lovers, a gesture evoking the normal union between husband and wife (we shall see later that chaneques spirits do not tolerate the sharing of food between a married man and his mistress). Another remedy consists in drinking seven cups of water from abandoned wells. These are fertile waters fresh from the earth, unpolluted by humans. The text also mentions the traditional rituals of ensalmo and sahumar, to be discussed later. To conclude, when inadequately handled sexual yearning lapses into illness. Sexual desire that becomes too hot is a threat to the equilibrium governing the life force of the human organism (see Figure 4.2). Obsessive yearnings of the flesh involve a loss of self-control and a breach of balance between the hot and the cold. As with Nahuas of the colonial period, a person's well-being must therefore be maintained through a dieta regime involving self-control and self-denial (Klor de Alva 1993, 188-9). Sexual transgressions and overexcitement produce an excess of sexual force causing serious illnesses. In ancient times this excess energy was associated with a form of contamination known as tlazolmiquiztli. meaning death or disease from refuse, from what is worn out. In the words of Klor de Alva, "This suggests that disease or death produced by a breach of sexual conduct is the product, like garbage itself, of a physical wearing down or the result of something superfluous - an excess that, again, pollutes the transgressor along with the bystander.' Native rules of self-abnegation differ nonetheless from Christian morality that pits needs of the flesh against aspirations of the spirit. The principle of thermal balance means that carnal excesses are to be avoided at all times. But it also means that long periods without sexual activity can also be harmful, leading to headaches and pain in the eyes caused by an internal build-up of heat. Olavarrieta Marenco (1977, 66) reports an incident where a healer was treating a young woman suffering from constant headaches. His diagnosis was that she suffered from accumulated sexual energy stemming from a state of sexual deprivation. The author remarks that after a certain age, the body is thought to become overloaded with heat energy if sexual impulses do not find a normal outlet. Similarly, Lopez Austin (1980, 333) notes that the

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Figure 4.2 Lovesickness

ancient Nahuas considered insufficient sexual activity to be a cause of illness. Among other things, widowers had to consume ocelot meat to cool the bodies in need of sexual relations and guard themselves against malady. Heat of the Dead Heat emanating from the body is perfectly normal provided it is associated with ordinary life experiences such as work, fatigue, aging,

100 The Hot and the Cold

hunger, sexual desire, menstruation, pregnancy, or childbirth. But the same thermal condition can turn pathological if in excess of what the body can tolerate. Overwork, prolonged abstinence from food or sex (without ritual intent), lovesickness, overexposure to sun and hot substances, all are burning factors conducive to illness and death. Another common source of immoderate heat comes from encounters with the dead, spirits deprived of the breath of life. Breath in the form of fresh air can be threatening if too cold, but too little coolness is equally dangerous (see Troche 1993, 314; Alvarez Heydenreich 1987, 128-31). This is precisely what happens when humans approach death or expire. As they grow and reach maturity humans become drier and possess greater power. Unusual heat is thought to emanate from elderly men and women and people in positions of power and authority, energy that can escape their bodies and harm weaker individuals in their vicinity (Lopez Austin 1980, 327, 390). Similarly, when humans die, their solar life force detaches itself from the flesh and the body and wanders about in the form of hot souls and shadows that can cause harm to human beings, especially the young and the sick. This contagious heat emanating from the old and the dead is diametrically opposed to the freshness of youth and represents a constant threat to children and those already ill. In the words of healer Jose: If, for example, someone died over there, and a neighbour went to see the dead, and he would then go immediately to see the sick person, that would do the sick person a lot of harm ... Therefore, when there's a sick person, it's better that they hide the sick person. Even if a visitor comes, don't take him to the sick person because that will harm him ... The strength is taken away by any person that comes because we don't know how the person behaves, if the person behaves well or badly. Because as you can see in this life many are well prepared, many go around in a 'bad condition.' (Field note 23/10/94)

When a man dies, his widowed wife falls in a state of heat and will cool off after seven years only. A man who marries or has sex with the widow before the mourning period is over is at risk. This is confirmed in a discussion with a middle-aged Popoluca campesino, son of a village health worker. PEDRO: If a woman becomes a widow, everybody is afraid of marrying her [or having sexual relations with her]... because they say that you can

Lovesickness and Fear of the Dead 101 die if you marry her. Also the woman doesn't allow herself to marry, until seven years have passed. ANDRES: Why are people afraid before then? PEDRO: Because it is said that you die. Yes, you can die from the heat [el calor]. ANDRES: The heat of the husband? PEDRO: Yes, from the heat of the husband who died. The woman kept the heat then [quedo encalorada]. She cools down [se enfria] after seven years. (Field note 08/06/94)

Two months earlier the following discussion took place with the same man: PEDRO: People believe that if you have a child in the house, let's say ... if I have my grandson or granddaughter and if I go bury a cadaver, then the old ones would pour lots of aguardiente on them [children]. You bathe them with aguardiente so they don't fall [ill] because they say that the corpse has heat, there is heat [calor]. ANDRES: Could this [heat] be the spirit? PEDRO: No, it is not the spirit, it is only heat ... people believe that when one dies and you go to the burial, if someone in your house is ill, then the sick person will worsen because they were burying the dead, so illness strikes ... Yes, they think that when they go bury the dead, when they return home, they bring back with them the heat from the dead. (Field note 30/03/94)

A woman in her late thirties evokes the same fears associated with attacks of heat from the dead. MARIA: Yes, one can become ill with fright, from being scared. Also the heat of the dead will grab you. You get a fever, or if you have a cut in your foot, it will become red. ANDRES: And how do you catch the heat? MARIA: Heat will pass on [to you] just by coming close to the corpse. Your wound will worsen. A healer will sweep it [away] with some herbs that will take away the heat of the dead, [he/she] will sweep it [away]. (Field note 25/03/94)

All interviews speak of heat emanations from the dead that can be transmitted onto the living and cause them harm. Interestingly, the

102 The Hot and the Cold

colour red plays a significant role in representing things deemed to be hot and deadly. In ancient Nahua iconography, heat was represented by a gush of blood. In keeping with this imagery, the man quoted above spoke during a subsequent visit about erysipelas, a streptococcal infection producing inflammation and a deep red colour on the skin (Interview: Mauricio 13/06/94; Olavarrieta Marenco 1977, 105). The illness confirms the close association between redness, heat, and death. The Popoluca expression for it is tsuts tsabats masan, dead red yolk. Tsuts is someone dead, a corpse, and tsabats is red. Masan can mean one of three things: erysipelas, blond or fair skin people (genie guero), or egg yolk (Elson and Gutierrez 1995,69,93,96). The word is part of the local name designating a hill close to the town of Soteapan known as Masanpspsti (pQpo is white), also known as El Espanol (the Spaniard). As should be expected, remedies for these heat attacks require a dose of counterbalancing freshness, that is, something moderately cold or fresh yet boiled and warm (but definitely not hot). For instance, sugarcane alcohol (aguardiente) can be used to rub and cool the head of someone suffering from heat of the dead or potentially exposed to it (via a person returning from the cemetery). Aguardiente is used in many healing rituals in the Sierra. It is considered fresco and can be applied to various parts of the body to protect the person against the heat of the dead or limbs swollen from a poisonous bite (Interviews: Pedro 30/03/94, 08/06/94, Juliana 09/06/94, Mauricio 13/06/94, 02/ 12/94; cf. Pedro 08/06/94). Given the heat afflicting the body, hot things are to be avoided. Thus, a widow who goes through a mourning and ritual wake period (lasting twenty-one days) should not do work in preparation for the funeral reception. Nor should she wash herself or her clothes with soap, a hot substance that would get into the eyes of the deceased and turn him blind. Other hot things to avoid include chili and onions. Rice and beans are harmful as well; rice because 'it's pure worm ... and beans are pure flies'; both will bother the deceased (Interviews: Pedro 08/06/94, 20/11/94, Estela 28/10/94, Munch Galindo 1983,136-9). If rice or beans are eaten, the deceased will suffer hell and turn into a grasshopper or a fly in the other life. Widows should nonetheless avoid things so cold that they collide with the heat emanating from the dead or themselves. They should take a bath not until the end of the mourning period, 'because of the heat left behind.' Also, the floor should not be freshened up through premature sweeping because the spirit of the dead is believed to be in

Lovesickncss and Fear of the Dead 103

the surroundings; sweeping could scare it away. Given their own accumulated heat, only old people can be given the task of sweeping the house of a deceased person on the occasion of his or her funeral. These prescriptions reinforce the general call for moderation at all times and also gradation over time. Thus, the heat shock caused by death should be attenuated by means of a twofold strategy: on the one hand, a gradual departure from the sweetness of home for the dead; on the other hand, a gradual cooling-off therapy (mediated by elderly people) meant to appease those in mourning. Once the twenty-one days are over, a velorio or wake celebration is held at midnight so that close relatives can 'remove the heat of the dead and not get ill' (Interview: Estela 28/10/94). Women sweep the house and start dancing. Then they throw away the deceased man's personal belongings, including his plates and cutlery. After dancing, women go to bathe in the river. They can use soap and throw house dirt into the forest. The deceased is buried with seven tortillas, atolito, money, and small sticks to scare away animals encountered in the other life. One of the tortillas is for the black dog that helps the deceased cross the Jordan River, an imagery echoing the pre-Hispanic Xolotl dog that used to cross the Chicunauhapan River flowing around the lowest realm of the underworld (Interview: Maria 19/10/94; Olavarrieta Marenco 1977, 248, 254; Lopez Austin 1980, 370). Baez-Jorge (1973, 135-6) observes that the velorio was held twentyone days after the death, which is when the dead begin their journey to the final resting place. Munch Galindo (1983, 137) reports that the Popolucas used to perform a celebration forty days after the death of a person so that the soul would not come back to scare the relatives. During this celebration, the dance of the Malinche was carried out to remove the spirit of the dead from the house. Two old people, a man and a woman, swept the house with a broom and collected the sweepings in a basket while dancers acted out things the person used to do when alive (e.g., hunting, sewing). The sweepings and some personal belongings of the dead were then thrown into the river or waterfall. This ritual gesture seems to have existed among the ancient Nahuas. In their readings of colonial records, Klor de Alva (1993, 186) and Viesca Trevino (1986, 98) report Nahua beliefs concerning the harmful energy emanating from dead bodies and apparently involving ihiyotl. one of the three forces essential to life. As with their modern-day descendants, they swept streets and houses at the end of elaborate sacrificial rituals and dances. This was known as ochpaniztli. the sweeping of

104 The Hot and the Cold

roads and path and was a celebration to Toci, the goddess of midwives and healers. To sum up, the heat that humans accumulate as they grow old reaches its peak when people actually die. The heat then becomes so intense that it can harm those who come into contact with it. Since they are weak, children and the ill are particularly vulnerable in this regard (Alvarez Heydenreich 1987,139). It follows that people must keep their distance from the dead and those who come into their contact, especially widows. These women are in state of heat and must go through a cooling-off period before others can approach them (let alone have hotsex with them). This means a lengthy mourning period involving the avoidance of things deemed to be hot (e.g., intercourse, soap, chili). Remedies to counter heat from the dead consist in a dose of counterbalancing freshness (e.g., rubbing the head with aguardiente alcohol), a contra designed to cool down the sufferer. They also imply a gradual healing process that precludes an exposure to things too cold for the occasion (bathing in the river, cleaning the house of all heat residues). Excessive heat or cold will harm those in mourning, but they also threaten those who have died and are in need of a gradual transition, towards the land of the dead. The hot food that mourners eat will affect the departed soul. So will a decision to throw away a person's household remains too soon after death. Once the mourning period is over and the dead have fully departed, normal life can start 'afresh/ beginning with a river bath and a good house cleaning. Figure 4.3 summarizes the main relationships associated with a hot clash from the heat of the dead. Snakebites Self-absorbed (jispa, preoccupied)11 or sad people who worry or think too much, often because of the money or spouse they lack or the obligations they have left unfulfilled, are at risk of falling sick. They cry easily, with eyes emitting hot water in the form of tears. Jose explains: 'Don't you see that tears [ixcuynt, eye-water] come from the brain, that one sometimes is thinking about a lot of things, that you are breaking your head. To be sure your blood is hot, because of the brain, you can't take it any more. And when the person is in this state and cannot find any exit, he starts to cry, that's why the tears are hot. The person cannot take it any more and starts to cry, and hot tears come out, hot. This is the way it is' (Field note 10/06/94).

Lovesickness and Fear of the Dead 105

Figure 4.3 Heat of the dead

The brain and blood of people suffering from anxiety and sorrow are subject to abnormal rises in temperature. People who worry too much are particularly vulnerable to snakebites and fright (tsantsty, from tsan, snake, and tsty, fright), which means they are prone to become hotter than they already are. They are in great danger of being bitten by snakes and also the red hotness of tsuts tsabats masan, hence erysi-

106 The Hot and the Cold

pelas, an ailment sometimes equated with heat of the dead (Interview: Pedro 27/11/94). Because this happened to me ... my foot, it was just itching a bit, I was thinking, because my husband was gone as a soldier and then left me alone, without money and without maize. The maize was barely doing well and then I went to the milpa to see it and ... I was thinking while walking. An ant just stung me, like an ant bit me. Just with that I caught it and started to scratch myself and from there I began to have fever, fever and suddenly, the next day I woke up with a huge foot, very swollen and red! It was that illness, tsuts tsabats masan. (Interview: Maria 19/10/94)

The same thing may happen to people caught thinking about their problems, 'about one's daughter, or thinking about economic problems ... that's why I take good care of myself when I work ... I have to limit my time so that I know how to accommodate it and this way, nothing has ever happened to me' (Interview: Maria 19/10/94). People who worry become all the more vulnerable to snakebites and erysipelas when they walk 'at roads where they cross' (see Viesca Trevino 1992, 82; Olavarrieta Marenco 1977, 89-90). All is as if conflicting things crossing a troubled mind were compounded by intersecting roads going in different directions. But the crossroad site can be turned to advantage in the sense of allowing the illness to be sent in another direction, away from the victim, on to another troubled soul. Thus, 'many healers take advantage of these roads where they cross, there at the cross, they put all the illness ... and the healer says [to the illness]: "I'm going to transfer you from this person here, you are going to someone who is thinking while working, with him you will go"' (Interview: Maria 19/10/94; see Interview: Mauricio 13/06/94). Snakebites and erysipelas result from unhealthy heat attracting more heat. Yet the heat that comes from a snakebite is attributable to a clash between excessive heat and something cold that comes from spirits of the earth (see Figure 4.4). 'The snake has cold blood, that's why it causes a shock. When it bites it shocks. The snake causes heat (ardor)' (Interview: Pedro 20/03/94). Unlike tears and anxious brains, the snake's blood, venom or small water coloured white or yellow is extremely cold, giving the victim a shock that makes his or her hotblooded body water-burn and lose blood and weight (Interview: Jose 10/06/94; see Beaucage 1990). While they inflict a hot ailment, snake flesh and blood are like natural ice. 'We humans are hot. And the

Lovesickness and Fear of the Dead 107

Figure 4.4 Snakebite

venom is cold, the animal is cold, because when touching you can feel it... Yes, although it's alive, this animal is ice all the time ... The blood is cold' (Interview: Pedro 08/06/94). When a person is bitten, his or her blood becomes extremely thin, like water (la sangre se cuaja), and much blood is lost. The blood coagulates ... the venom is yellow or white

108 The Hot and the Cold

and mixes with the blood' (Interview: Mauricio 13/06/94). The illness is comparable to chahuistle, the rotting or water-burning that causes plants to die (Interview: Pedro 08/06/94). Attacks of heat caused by bites and erysipelas call for fresh remedies, but things that are too fresh or cold should be avoided as they simply clash with the illness and make things worse (Olavarrieta Marenco 1977,101, 250, 256). Alcohol is good medicine in that it combines both cooling and burning properties (Interviews: Pedro 08/06/ 94, Jose 10/06/94). It is neither too hot nor too cold and will therefore help to reduce the swelling and 'extract the water [from the snake]' (Interview: Mauricio 13/06/94). Thus, when the patient has hot spasms, 'you wet the swollen leg with alcohol because it's cool.' The same healer also recommends to 'take the fang from the rattlesnake when it's alive, you put it in sugarcane alcohol and you use it to rasp the wound, to extract the water.' As with crossroads, the fang is converted into a healing instrument; instead of serving to inject venomous water into the body, it becomes a powerful tool to extract the illness. A snakebite can also be healed with a remedy consisting of a snake's liver dried and turned into powder or a plant used for self-healing purposes by a snake that has devoured and vomited another snake (Interview: Juliana 21/11/94; Olavarrieta Marenco 1977,102, 244). Boiled water is a good substitute for alcohol (Interview: Jose 10/06/ 94). By contrast, putting ice on the wound is a hospital practice that snake healers cannot fathom. Mauricio explains: A snake (bite) is hot, that's why you serve boiled water. If you were to give cold water, it would kill the one who's wounded ... The bite is very hot. The blood is not the venom. The venom is the small white water that comes out from the fangs. That's hot (the effect), that's why you don't give fresh water, only hot or sugarcane alcohol for his health. The [hospital or clinic] doctor cannot intervene, he puts ice and causes a shock because it comes directly in contact with the wound that's very hot. Sugarcane is fresh but it burns the wound, that's why you can use it. You use alcohol from pure sugarcane, or Tequila Cuervo which is also good. (Field note 13/06/94)

Given this reasoning, it is important that victims refrain from bathing or drinking fresh water lest they should die (see Olavarrieta Marenco 1977, 250). Pork fat and fried meat should also be avoided. Like alcohol, milk has mixed properties. The liquid is generally

Lovesickness and Fear of the Dead 109 deemed hot (unlike water), yet it can feed and refresh the body. Pure milk mixed with acuyo, guaco (Aristolochia anguicida), and alcohol can be served to the patient, followed by an application of thick fresh butter that will reduce the swelling and prevent burning pustules from erupting all over the body (Interviews: Jose 10/06/94, 23/10/94). Similarly, the swollen foot can be massaged and disinfected with alcohol mixed with lemon juice and orange leaves, ingredients that are normally cold and should therefore be dipped in hot water (Interview: Pedro 08/06/94). The bark from the bitter tree (polo or drbol amargo) can also be ground in water until it turns bitter, to be served warm and mixed with alcohol to cool off the illness and reduce the swelling. Medicinal plants that may be boiled to produce a healing vapour include leaves from the pongolote (putscuy) and the grapelike woman vine (bejuco de mujer). A poultice made with fresh stone leaves or cuyo simarron toso can also be effective (Interview: Mauricio 13/06/94). Uncooked black corn (ytc moc) mixed with butter is another 'fresh' poultice used in cases of snakebites and erysipelas (Interview: Jose 23/ 10/94). Eating corn is highly recommended. Red corn (tsabats moc, or pec moc cobac, ancient-maize-head) is particularly useful in treating people 'that bleed a lot from the nose ... you make like a coffee with this seed and it comes out dark. This is good to restore the blood that the sick person lost' (Interview: Maria 19/10/94). The leaves, hair, or grain taken from red corn and served in atole have healing properties as well. Maize coloured red refreshes and nourishes the body and makes it strong. This is true for reasons worth quoting at length. As blood is red, and the maize is red, then it has to let the colour of the ear go to the blood. The ear has to let go the colour ... It strengthens the blood. Instead of losing a lot of blood, the corn restores the blood ... And since maize is Homshuk, and Homshuk worked with the snake, then it's Homshuk himself who causes the pain to go away. Because the snake is from Homshuk, because of the bet they took as to who was the most powerful. The one who is the most powerful in this life, it's those who were going to stay. The ones who were not powerful did not stay in this life here. For instance, Homshuk is the king of all those who are here. That's why he exists. And the snakes were a few damned animals that did not fulfil their obligation. That's why they told them, 'Now animal, since you did not comply with the orders I gave you, you will be damned for your entire life, creeping as you walk ... ' They send them on an errand, they send

110 The Hot and the Cold them to accomplish a mission, they went and did not accomplish it, they simply went and came back. And that's why he told them, 'Damned animal, unfaithful, you will be a creeper.' That's why they creep all the time. And he told them, Tn order that you can eat, they are for you those who wander thinking about things, those who are sad, and they take advantage there ... those who wander beneath the garbage searching for food.' Yes, and those who are dutiful and fulfilled their obligations, well they will not suffer. (Interview: Jose 10/06/94)

Unlike tomatoes, which are hot and should not be eaten, corn food transfers a ruddy complexion on to the patient and gives strength to blood otherwise thin, pale, and weak. Homshuk is to be thanked for that, for it is his flesh that restores health to blood. The corn god stands as the logical opposite and the enemy of harmful snakes. In tales of Homshuk, snakes are accused of having disobeyed the corn god. Having failed in their duties, they were condemned to creep and crawl in search of food. Appropriately enough, the food they find consists of thin blood taken from self-absorbed humans who are sad and wander thinking about things they should have done but did not do, just like the snakes bent on attacking them. Had the snakes accomplished the mission that was assigned to them, they would have been granted the vigour and warm blood needed to walk on legs and strong food to sustain the power to move and walk under the sun. By implication, humans will not lose blood to these watery-blooded creepers provided they walk on the right path, with a sense of moral strength and valour in the accomplishment of their mission in life. Sorrow and self-pity are food for the weak. The weakness is compounded when humans indulging in sadness get bitten by snakes. They lose all reproductive strength, to the point that the seed they sow and the fruit they touch are condemned to dry, rot, and fall (Interview: Pedro 08/06/94; Foster 1942,43). Snakes, however, can remedy their fault by looking after the corn god, a mission they may carry out with the support of underworld spirits and owners of all the animals. 'The snake is the only animal that protects the milpa, because it is the one who destroys the rat, the mole, and the squirrel. For that reason, on various occasions the life of the reptile is respected ... despite the danger it represents for the health of human beings. Some Popolucas decide to kill animals that damage the milpa, others prefer not to do this because they say that the chaneco [spirit] punishes them through a snakebite or by losing them in the forest' (Rodriguez Hernandez n.d.b, 7). Actually, serpents may be

Lovesickness and Fear of the Dead 111

chaneques since they too are spirits of the earth (Olavarrieta Marenco 1977,138, 250). In the end, the curse inflicted upon snakes and the pain they cause to humans and animals can be turned to advantage. The danger they represent can serve to protect the corn god from predators and humans prone to worry about things other than their milpa. Remedies for snakebites and erysipelas are designed to cool off the body, yet they should not be too cold (e.g., unless roasted, fish should be avoided). Red corn and medicinal plants and foodstuffs deemed to be fresh will thus restore the patient's health provided they are boiled or mixed with alcohol. This implies that remedies should not be too hot either. Since the illness constitutes a shock of heat attacking the body, there is no point in piling the pains up with more heat. This means that patients should refrain from hot foodstuffs such as eggs, chili, and tomatoes; they produce heat and colours not compatible with the desired treatment (Interviews: Mauricio 13/06/94, Juan 11/06/94). Snake victims must also stay away from women in heat, be they menstruating or pregnant. Tf a snake gets to bite you, don't show yourself ... women or girls should not see you. Rather you should take a hidden trail that goes directly to your house. Once you get there you hide ... and nothing or no one should enter. That's the fastest way you get better. But if along the trail they see you, and a pregnant woman sees you, with that it's enough for you to die' (Interview: Jose 10/06/ 94). This is to be expected, given that extreme temperatures cause a lethal clash when in contact. 'The snake is cold and the pregnant woman is hot, with the infant. If he sees her, the woman (who is) pregnant or menstruating, the man with the bite will die' (Interview: Georgina 11/06/94). If the wounded person sees a hot woman, the wound starts swelling immediately and the pain increases.12 Note that a pregnant woman's child is also vulnerable and can be harmed by the person's wound. This clash between the hot and the cold is so intense that cold-blooded snakes also have a lot to fear from pregnant women. They are frightened by the sheer presence of a pregnant woman and are dead scared of the woman's spit (see Beaucage 1990; Olavarrieta Marenco 1977,101, 250-1; Lopez Austin 1980,193). A pregnant or menstruating woman and her spit represent a threat to the snake and the man it bites. The same can be said of snakelike twins and their banco and culebros siblings, those born immediately after (Olavarrieta Marenco 1977, 101). The snake in turn is more dangerous when pregnant and the person it bites can bring harm to a child still in the womb (Interview: Juliana 09/06/94). To complete this peck-

112 The Hot and the Cold

Figure 4.5 Snake imagery

ing order (Figure 4.5) - each life form picking on another's blood - the fetus eats away the mother's health. In the end, women and children milking men and mothers of their respective strength have much in common with snakes, nacido humours, and swellings invading the body. All of them feed on other lives (Lopez Austin 1980, 287). While they are weaklings dependent on fluids and blood other than their own, all these bloodsuckers exercise power over others. The heat emanating from various forms of venom (injected through biting, impregnation, spitting) suggests that all creatures compete for the same thing: refreshment and strength at the cost of someone else, be it a man, a child, a sick person, or a snake crawling for food. Healers recommend that pregnant women and people bitten by snakes protect themselves and others by wearing the tail of a rattlesnake tied to a ribbon coloured red, a colour known to ward off evil winds (Interview: Mauricio 13/06/94; see Olavarrieta Marenco 1977, 252). Readers are reminded that redness can strengthen a person's blood, as when fed with red corn. A person wearing a red ribbon and adorning the tail of a rattlesnake is covered with signs of great strength, a vigour that compensates dependence on blood and sustenance extracted from others, be they human or animal. The ribbonand-snake remedy, however, is potent by virtue of the power lodged in the animal's tail, an appendage empowering the snake to kill and feed

Lovesickness and Fear of the Dead 113

on its victims. If so, how can this be the source of health and protection rather than violence and fear? The answer lies perhaps in the ribbon and related imageries of string and tail. The symbolism will be discussed at length in a later chapter, with reference to the corn god and his encounter with mighty-tailed and big-bottom predators such as the iguana and the ant, both of which happen to be allies of the serpent. The imagery of a string turned against oneself will be shown to convey a superior kind of strength, the kind that stems from self-sacrifice or self-mastery and secures the powers and blessings of production and reproduction. A pregnant woman or sick person tightening herself or himself up with a red ribbon transforms signs of weakness into images of unselfishness and deserving health. Given this self-tying strategy, winds cold as the serpent are no longer a threat to women otherwise vulnerable because pregnant or menstruating. Nor should the sick have anything to fear from women in heat. A Moving Equilibrium In the preceding chapter we saw that admixtures of the hot and the cold and regular shifts between heating and cooling activities are essential to life. To these two principles was added another vital rule: a general movement towards greater warmth and growth under the sun, a heliotropic disposition ending with life that burns up and feeds into new life. Those who fail to abide by these principles expose themselves to one of two things: either excessive coldness that causes a reversion to wetness and a harmful denial of growth under the sun; or a premature exposure to excessive heat leading to premature senility and death. One deviation dries up the source of life, whereas the other causes death through blood thinning and water-burning. In both cases, life burns up, thereby confirming the heliotropic fate of life consumed by the sun. Given these parameters of normal life, the body is obliged to constantly move and alternate between conditions of heat and cold, but it must also respond to stages of growth gradually leading up to reproduction and death. Health is essentially a moving equilibrium, a dynamic midpoint evolving along a journey from freshness to heat. Deviations from this moving equilibrium call for counterbalancing measures that should never be so excessive as to cause an attack of immoderate heat or cold. To avoid sickness or death, someone in heat because overworked,

114 The Hot and the Cold

pregnant, or in need of food or sex must take measures to cool off. But this is no excuse for anyone becoming lazy, overeating (especially cold stuff), indulging in unbridled sex, and scattering the seed of new life (children, corn). In the same vein, mothers who want their children to be given a fresh start in life should not burn their placenta lest their children should sweat all their lives, as if suffering from overexposure to sun and fire. Nor should children be given food that is too hot; freshness must be secured at all times. All the same, humans are never justified in abusing the coolness of life that begins in water. Given the exigencies of development and growth, mothers should refrain from throwing the child's placenta into water; letting their children drown in water flowing from their brain; feeding them with food that is too cold (e.g., first milk); spoiling them with too much love; or cutting their umbilical cord so short as to undermine growth of their sexual organs. Life will not develop if locked into the wetness, freshness, and shortness of new growth. In this chapter, the same principles were shown to inform health beliefs and practices involving attacks of heat caused by lovesickness, contact with corpses, and snakebites. Stories of lovesickness point to the dangers of amorous desires unfulfilled and the necessity of erotic cooling-off activity. Periods of sexual deprivation can give access to special powers (healing, sowing healthy plants, holding ritual cargo office) provided that this is done in a spirit of self-denial. If not, sexual overheating may result in illness and death. Preventive measures involve a compensating dose of freshness applied to the lovesick, be it in the form of intercourse or a beverage containing urine from the loved one. Heat in excess of what a healthy body will tolerate can also be caught from exposure to the dead and their close ones, especially widows. Given their weakness, the sick are particularly vulnerable in this regard. So are the young, a reflection of the freshness of their tender age. When this malady strikes, cooling off is obtained by means of isolation (especially from hot-eyed adults) and the avoidance of hot substances such as soap and chili. A dose of counterbalancing freshness (e.g., massaging the head with aguardiente) is recommended. Yet full bathing in cold water and restoration of organic freshness through house cleaning is not permitted until the mourning period is over. While a protection for the living, measures to avoid excess heat or premature freshness also offer a salutary transition period to recently deceased souls journeying to the land of the dead.

Lovesickness and Fear of the Dead 115

Snakebites are another well-known cause of pathological heat. They too call for cooling-off remedies (red corn, aguardiente) combined with warnings against exposing snake victims to immoderate cold (e.g., fried fish) or heat (e.g., eggs, tomatoes, chili, women pregnant or menstruating). Encounters between overheated bodies are thought to be mutually harmful; snake victims can bring misfortune to fetuses and pregnant women to snake victims. Snakes, tumours, and swellings feeding on human blood are like menses and fetuses sucking fluids from the womb; they all compete for the fluid of life. Women in heat can seek protection for themselves, their fetuses and snake victims by tying themselves up with signs of self-sacrifice appropriately coloured red.

CHAPTER FIVE

Frights and Chaneques

Soul Theft and Cold Fright Although ailments can be caused by exposure to intense heat stemming from snakes, the dead, or women in swelling, attacks of excessive cold can also deprive the body of its solar strength and life energy. This brings us to the local notion of fright known in Spanish as espanto or susto (nemotil in Nahuat, tsty in Popoluca). The issue first came up during a conversation with Maria, a Popoluca community worker, while discussing local beliefs on the causes of diarrhea. An excerpt of the conversation follows. MARIA: If you get frightened, fright attacks the body! Fright is indeed true! It does make you ill. If you fall from a horse or into water, you stop eating, or else you get diarrhea at every moment, fever, headache, one becomes ill with fright. ANDRES: How do you cure it? MARIA: You go to a healer [curandero]. He takes your hand and checks your pulse. If he finds the pulse all the way up [the arm], one is very frightened. He cures people. He rubs the hand, [and then you] rest for seven days without making water. ANDRES: What do you mean 'without making water'? MARIA: No bathing, no touching any water so it does not touch the hand. Maria recalls a case where a child had fallen into a river and was imprisoned by the chaneco spirits, of which more later. The child was very thin and sick with diarrhea. This interview excerpt captures another form of illness commonly

Frights and Chaneques 117

reported in the Sierra. This predicament consists essentially of fright. It is diagnosed through a reading of the pulse and results in the loss of one's soul trapped in water, caves, or clay pots by chaneque spirits, a theft that children are particularly vulnerable to and that causes diarrhea, fever, nightmares, emaciation, great fatigue, and a loss of appetite (see Troche 1993, 332; Lopez Austin 1980, 178, 235, 249, 256). We now proceed to a close examination of details concerning causes and symptoms and also remedies to counter this disease. Consider first the causes and symptoms. Residents of the Sierra use the Spanish words miedo (fear), susto (fright), or espanto (a sudden great fear) to refer to the illness. All three words convey an exposure to danger and a pathological response attacking the body through diarrhea, fever, and a loss of appetite. Fright can be caused by practically anything, including a scene of violence (a man cutting another man's hand), a car accident, a robbery assault, the sight of a serpent, a dog or a bull attacking, the sound of lightning or a shotgun (Interviews: Pedro 20/11/94, Jose 02/12/94, Amparo 11/01/95). A woman remembers going up an elevator for the first time: 'We went to Chapultepec (museum), I went up in the elevator, that's when I felt the tremor and I shouted in the middle of the small room, I shouted and when they opened I was up there ... so surprised ... My heart was ... tuc tuc tuc tuctuc. And when I came back, about a month or two later, I felt sick. Then my aunt who cures ... asked me where I got scared, because my pulse was not coming back to its place ... Then I remembered where I got scared' (Maria, in Interview: Juliana 21/11/94). The Popoluca word for susto is ts+ganjeequi, from arjjec, to frighten, and tsly, to stay or be left behind. The word suggests a frightening event that causes something to be left behind, typically the soul of the frightened person. Note that the word tsfy is usually combined with another term that specifies the nature of the illness. For instance tsa/itsty (snake + fright) is susto produced by the sight or bite of a snake; rwtsfy (water + fright) is susto produced by falling into water or the river; cawatsfy occurs when a person falls from a horse (cawaj is the Popoluca pronunciation of the Spanish word caballo, for horse); and so on. When combined with Maria's interview these connections suggest that the strength of our sun-driven soul can be diminished by the downward pull of earth and water. In classical Nahuatl, to suffer fright is ninotonalcahualtia yuhquin atl nopan quiteca. which means literally the tonal left me as if someone had thrown water on me (Lopez Austin

118 The Hot and the Cold

1980, 237). To understand these associations readers must recall that life begins in water and starts growing out of it immediately thereafter. As soon as it is born the body starts moving away from attributes of tenderness, freshness, wetness, and unripeness, towards a condition of dryness gradually enhanced through growth and reproductive maturation. The movement away from water is accompanied by a progressive increase in a person's inner solar force, the tonalli in Nahua, the alma or espiritu in Spanish. A healthy body evolves from things young, cold, and wet to things old, hot, and dry. But the body is also obliged to move between thermal states on a daily basis. Daytime heat and work is constantly preceded and followed by coolness and rest at night. Hunger alternates with refreshment obtained through drinking and eating. Humans thus continually revert to the wetness and freshness of their original birth. This cyclic movement between dryness and freshness is essential to life. To survive and reproduce, however, humans must grow and mature. For reasons that have yet to be explored, those who fail to abide by the rules of heliotropic growth risk retribution at the hands of the chaneques who have it in their power to deprive humans of their solar life force. When this happens, a series of unhealthy reactions are unleashed inside the body. Human souls are made in the likeness and the shadow of the tonal sun. By means of heliotropic maturation and aging they gradually evolve towards a state of reproductive dryness and strength. This solar-driven movement can cause great suffering if interrupted. Danger awaits anyone whose heat-ward, upward, and sunward life journey is hindered, be it through soul theft or immersion in water. If plunged into aquatic surroundings, human shadowlike souls can suffer sickness or death, just like maize plants overexposed to rain. That is, when in water, humans can lose the solar life force (tonal] that dwells in them, souls that are reflections and shadows of tonati totahtsin. our father the sun, the supreme being who gives life (nemiltia) to all dwellers and animate creatures (nemilice) of the land, making plants sprout and humans inhabit or walk (nemi) the earth.1 With mal amor, a sexual yearning that remains unfulfilled leads to an outburst of heat and the disappearance of the reproductive organs, a malady that threatens the regeneration of life. The dehydrated body is withered and parched, deprived of its source of fertility. With susto, the opposite occurs in that the body is drained from its solar energy and reverts to a state of quasi-infantile coldness and humidity. As blood

Frights and Chaneques 119

disappears, the body is unable to mature and is destined to die by drowning, rotting, or water-burning. Healing rituals seek to retrieve the lost energy so that the body can resume its normal functioning. The soul is known to withdraw when people sleep or engage in sex (see Aramoni Burguete 1980, 55). Unlike sleep or sex, however, espanto is symptomatic of a weakness that procures no refreshment and gives no rest. Fright causes a departure of the soul or heart (anamaj) that can be observed and measured through a reading of a person's palm, hand, and arm pulse. With the onset of fear the soul begins to throb. The person suffering from espanto loses his or her pulse at the wrist level. As time goes by, the pulse becomes fainter and can only be detected higher up at the elbow or the shoulder and as far up as into the head in cases of extreme danger. The further the pulse (heart, spirit, soul) is from the hand or wrist and the higher the heartbeat goes up the arm, closer to the head, the more advanced the illness is, the weaker the victim is (pale, anemic, less blood, yellowish), and the nearer is the likelihood of the desire and threat of death.2 Maria describes the symptoms: The heart jumps a lot ... because many healers tell you that the pulse is here [touching the wrist], so they look and look for the pulse and can't find it [she touches her arm going up from the wrist to just below the elbow] and if they don't find it [above the wrist] then it's because it's serious, you are sick. If they find it there [above the elbow] then it's because you have fright; if they find it there [midway between wrist and elbow] it's because you think a lot, you think you could go but couldn't because of problems. (Field note 19/10/94)

In ancient times the Nahuas believed that the tonalli entered the body at birth and left through the crown of the head at the moment of death (Lopez Austin 1980, 32, 246). A Popoluca man holds similar views: 'when the pulse is reaching here [above the shoulder] ... one is almost certain to die, then the spirit comes out of the mouth, then one dies.'3 The spirit exiting from the mouth can take the form of a tarantula flying off on the wings of a death-smelling black wasp, tsuts weenie in Popoluca (Interviews: Pedro 20/11/94, 27/11/94, Juliana 21/11/94).4 A story recorded in a Popoluca village conveys this notion of an upward movement of the spirit coinciding with death. A few men went to catch crabs by the seaside. On their way back home, one of them suddenly felt extremely tired and asked that they stop and rest for a while. He soon fell asleep and while he lay there on the ground,

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his soul 'was forced out of his mouth and [he] never woke up again, ever!'5 Amparo, an elderly Popoluca fright healer, translates the word pulse (pulso) as taanama. This is the same word she uses to refer to the espiritu soul. If one has no pulse at the wrist, if it doesn't jump, then the soul in all likelihood is being held captive. Elson and Gutierrez (1995, 4, 19) translate anamaj as heart or spirit. The neighbouring Nahuas speak of the pulse felt in the palm of the hands and joints of the arms as hearts (tomaauoolojmef\ of the spirit. If these become faint or disappear, all indications are that the spirit is becoming sad and weak because trapped by the chaneques.6 According to Munch Galindo (1983, 200), the Popolucas believe that the chaneques will capture the person's soul from one of the five principal points of the body: the two palms, the two soles, and the nape. Ramirez Hernandez (Culturas Populares 1982d, 25) observes that Nahua healers of the Sierra first search for the pulse of their patients in the palms of their hands and arm joints (wrists, elbows, armpits). According to elderly women, it is in these parts of the body that the hearts of our spirit are located. Other Mesoamerican ethnographies mention similar beliefs. For example, Alvarez Heydenreich (1987,186) reports for the Nahuas of Hueyapan that the sombra shadow or spirit of a person harmed through fright leaves the wrists and goes up the arm until it reaches the heart. The sombra is thought to be located in the wrists, feet, and heart. If the fright is not severe, the spirit is affected in the arms and legs and the body loses some of its strength. When fright is advanced, however, the illness may affect the spirit at the heart level and result in death. The close connection between pulse and heart brings us back to matters of health and blood. If a faint or disappearing pulse is a sign of weakness, a healthy pulse is associated with strong blood. The relationship between blood and the soul is well summarized by Jose, another Popoluca fright healer: ANDRES: When people talk about the spirit [espiritu], it is the soul [alma]? JOSE: Yes, it is the soul [alma], yes. ANDRES: And it is then linked to the blood? JOSE: It is in the blood, yes, because without blood the spirit [espiritu] could not live. It must have ... a certain environment. Because the soul [alma] is contained in the blood, without blood it can't. ANDRES: And when one dies, what happens to the spirit?

Frights and Chaneques 121 JOSE: Well, it leaves [the body] because the blood did not work anymore, it stayed still, the blood does not work anymore ... It's like a car, when you add some gasoline, it runs, it escapes, it goes as far as it can. When it finishes, praul Up to there it went, and the engine works no more. It is like this, when one is well nourished, well fed, well everything, one has the courage [valor] to work. One has the desire to walk and everything. But when this is not [the case], well... you can't! One has no courage to work because one has not been nourished [no estd alimentado]. (Field note 10/06/94)

The soul gives energy to the body but needs at the same time a proper environment, healthy blood that circulates and sustains the body in motion (Alvarez Heydenreich 1987, 104, 106). Blood gathers strength from corn food and supports in turn the body working and reproducing corn in the milpa. As the soul takes its distance from the organism, the person suffers from a loss of appetite and the withering of the body. Amparo, in like manner, summarizes the consequences of soul loss as follows7: 'Yes, [you become] tired, chipujo, sleepy, you don't have the desire to walk, just tired, one frightens [easily], and when asleep, one jumps all the time as if caught by nightmares.' Readers will recall that chipujo is a pathological condition associated with the disruption of the work-rest cycle. It can be caused by the lack of physical exertion and is typically suffered by the lazy. The body becomes yellow (pale) 'because the man or woman doesn't have much blood.'8 The blood looks yellowish or whitish and turns to water; the pulse disappears and the body loses its strength. With susto or espanto, similar problems are observed, that is, a general state of weakness and the conversion of blood into water resulting from the loss of solar energy (Interviews: Pedro 30/03/94,08/06/94, Juan 04/04/94,20/10/ 94, Maria 19/10/94). Figure 5.1 sums up the main associations found in native accounts of the pathology of fright. The healthy process of maturation governing a person's life can be disrupted by an accident that frightens the person and forces the soul to flee the body. The hot-natured soul is then snatched by underworld spirits, the chaneques. causing the body to turn cold. Without a solar life force working at full strength, the body ceases to function normally. The work-rest and fasting-eating cycles are disrupted. Health gradually fails, and if the person's soul is not retrieved, death is sure to follow. At first the person has nightmares when sleeping, feels no appetite, and does not have the courage to accomplish a normal day's work. Without food and physical exertion, the body and

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Figure 5.1 Fright and soul loss

blood further weaken and the pulse fades away. As with maize plants struck by chahuistle, the process of growth and maturation stops, causing a reversion to a state of immoderate wetness and inactivity. The body swells and the blood turns to water.

Frights and Chaneques 123 The Origins of Fright

Native healers generally consider western medicine to be of no help in dealing with mal amor or soul theft. People do not seek help from the local health clinic to deal with these matters. When asked why, they typically reply that doctors do not understand or know about these ailments and cannot treat them. Many remark that 'these are not for doctors.' Diagnosis, cure, and prevention must rather follow local practices inspired by world views of indigenous origins. The belief that fright causes a person's life force to leave the body can be traced back to pre-Hispanic belief systems. Lopez Austin (1980, 246) cites the definition that Alonso de Molina gave to the ancient Nahuatl word netonalcahualiztli: espanto del que se espanta de algo, or fright of someone who is frightened by something. More insightfully, the word's literal translation is abandono del tonalli. the abandonment of the tonalli soul. It should be emphasized that not all departures of the tonalli were signs of ill health. The soul was thought to leave the body on a regular basis, as during sleep and sexual intercourse (Lopez Austin 1980, 244-6; Alvarez Heydenreich 1987, 44-5). These moments of soul withdrawal were considered times of leisure and refreshment that counterbalanced work, fatigue, and sexual heat. Native connections between fright, weakness, coldness, and water are also centuries old. According to Alonso de Molina, espanto is when 'the tonalli abandons me as if someone had thrown water over me' (Lopez Austin 1980, 237). The same idea is held today among the Nahuas of the northern Sierra of Puebla. As Aramoni Burguete (1980, 79, our translation) reports, 'Independently of the type of fright involved, the belief in Cuetzalan is that when someone becomes frightened, his or her blood will always grow cold: because it is the blood itself that becomes frightened, the one which "goes away with the fright" [se va con el SMS to], as people say. It is believed that it becomes diluted until it is converted into a liquid without consistency or properties, despoiled of its energetic qualities.' The close link between blood energy and related alterations caused by fright are also reported by Olavarrieta Marenco (1977) and Kelly et al. (1956) in communities neighbouring the Sierra Nahuas and Popolucas. It is believed that, as the subject receives the adverse impression that fright [espanto] unleashes, whatever the specific agent that caused it, 'the blood contracts and weakens' to such a degree that if a small amount was

124 The Hot and the Cold extracted it would present a pink colour, and its texture a thickness below that which is normal, even to the point of appearing 'thin' [delgadita]. Moreover, if the espanto is not taken care of on time and in an appropriate way, the bloodstream will continue to diminish in volume ('the blood is being exhausted') [dry up] until it causes death. (Olavarrieta Marenco 1977, 72; our translation)

Olavarrieta Marenco also reports beliefs concerning the relative strength or weakness of the spirit that a person is born with. Those born with a strong spirit are less vulnerable to espanto. By contrast, those with weak spirits must take precautions against strong emotions that come with fright. Twenty years earlier, Kelly et al. noted similar beliefs regarding blood. 'Blood is what "fortifies" the body. It is present since birth but becomes stronger as the person grows. "The blood ... can turn into water due to illness or vice; this is very dangerous, because the end result is death ..."' (cited in Olavarrieta Marenco 1977, 72-3; our translation). The notion that the strength of soul and body is derived from solar heat is equally ancient. Contradicting Foster's humoral-diffusion theory, studies of Lopez Austin (1980, 58-61) and Viesca Trevifio (1986, 75-111) show how important cold and hot attributions were to the preHispanic conception of order, diversity, and movement. In Chapter 2 we spoke of the Chichimecas's foundational opposition between things male-heavenly-hot and things female-earthly-cold which may date back to early Mesoamerican cultures of the pre-Classic Period. We also discussed ancient iconographic imageries that represented heat (a gush of blood) and cold (a gush of water, shells, or water drops). The association between heat, red, and blood is found among many Mesoamerican cultures and ties in with the fundamental measure of all things viewed in a pre-Hispanic perspective: the principle of exposure to the sun. The prime example of the solar heat that animates life lies in the tonalli soul. By contrast, imageries of water and cold were evocative of rain, the sacred fluid that impregnates the soil and allows corn and all life forms to grow. As the Popoluca myth relates, the god of thunderbolt promised to wet Homshuk in exchange for saving his life: 'Do not kill me and when the sun is hot, I will wet your head' (Elson 1947, 212). But water also brought about contagious diseases caused by Tlaloc (god of rain) and his subordinate tlaloque gods. These were diseases that involved the accumulation of bodily fluids and were considered cold

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(Viesca Trevino 1986, 80, 104). Water deities in the Sierra Santa Marta are now known as chaneques. underworld spirits that must be reckoned with when accounting and seeking remedies for cold frights and soul thefts. Fighting Cold with Heat

Several things can be done to repossess a soul withdrawing from the body, interventions that do not necessarily implicate chaneque spirits. One set of remedies consists in avoiding cold substances and wet places at all times, especially water sites. Water and bathing are strictly prohibited for those suffering from espanto. Most other remedies involve exposure to things relatively warm or hot. Exercise is one such possibility. To the extent that they are alive humans move and expand hot energy. If they are lazy and move little, they become vulnerable to susto or espanto (see Aramoni Bruguete 1980, 66). To overcome or avoid illness, they should walk and sweat as much as possible, thereby resuming normal tonal activity, movement at a healthy distance from life that begins in water. Substances that are moderately hot can be applied to the body so as to extract the illness. The sucking force of a normal ranch egg placed against the sinciput or forehead is strong enough to extract the hot fluids invading a person's headwaters of life, pulling out the illness or substance that is lodged in a feverish head and that saps the patient's tonal strength (Garcia de Leon 1969, 283). Moreover, susto victims should follow a diet consisting of warm or moderately hot foodstuffs such as coffee, milk, beans, meat, eggs, dry corn silk, or a mixture of basil and alcohol. These are to be preferred over cold foods such as fish, shrimps, black maize, rice, or bananas.9 Sacred objects (images of saints, holy water, ears of corn with seven kernels) are highly recommended. In keeping with these medicinal principles, warm people such as old women are in a good position to heal those sufferings of fright. Victims of cold fright are nonetheless vulnerable to things extremely hot. Heat and strength emanating from the eyes of strangers (other than healers) could make things worse for the patients, making them weaker than they already are. The sick should therefore remain at home, avoiding strangers and visitors as much as they can (Interview: Pedro 20/03/94). Olavarrieta Marenco (1977, 87-8) also reports that patients must eat atole (liquid meal based on ground maize and water)

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and refrain from eating meat and chili, both of which are hot. Otherwise, the body will swell up and the person die on account of an excess of water. Soul-Snatching Chaneques In most cases, countering cold fright symptoms with substances deemed to be moderately hot is not sufficient. Given that chaneque spirits play a direct role in pulling out soul from body through fright, the treatment must take them into consideration. Chaneques are central to the native view of relations between humans and spirits and between humans themselves. Local beliefs and healing rituals pertaining to these ancient gods illustrate a pivotal rule that pervades the indigenous world view: the notion that the good life must be obtained at some cost. Blessings of the good life are granted only to those who know when to renounce them and to give credit where proper payments are due. By contrast, illness and premature death await those who attempt to reproduce (food, children) without abnegation and the proper reimbursement of debts. Before we further explore these concepts, more should be said about spirits responsible for illnesses that deprive humans of their solar life force. To the ancient Nahuas, sacred mountains, caves, and water sites were points of communication between the world of humans and the underworld known as Tlalocan, an Edenic paradise inhabited by the god of rain known as Tlaloc. Spring was eternal in this place and fruits of the earth were plentiful. Spirits who resided there lived in a permanent state of bliss. Among them were subordinate gods or spirits of the winds and of waters, the ehecame and tlaloque. respectively. Mention should also be made of the ohuican chaneque. jealous owners of water sources and forests capable of providing assistance to humans or causing them harm (Lopez Austin 1980, 64, 74, 271-5, 383). Nowadays humans are open to attacks from forces of wetness and coldness, and the best emissaries of such attacks continue to be chthonian spirits known as chane, chanecos, or chaneques, from chan or chanti. a house. Chaneques dwell (chantia) in mountain tops, ruins, caves, water caverns (atiopan, water-god-site), springs, and waterfalls. They also hide underneath amate trees located near bodies of water, sites generally viewed as sacred in the Sierra (Ramirez 1972, 38; Munch Galindo 1983, 173). Water-chaneques (achanes. taneko) will sometimes take the form of ferocious alligators or water lizards (acuetzpalin). cousins of

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the forest lizard iguana (baguetspalin). Alternatively, the spirits are said to use alligators as boats and to live at the bottom of marshes, in houses guarded by man-eating alligators, or in rooms that equal the segments of an iguana tail.10 While not driven by a solar life force of their own, the chaneques embody the good life. To begin with these are spirits that know no shame. They are strange little creatures that wear leather loincloths (Rodriguez Hernandez 1994,1) or nothing at all. They never engage in sex, at least not between themselves, as if death and reproduction were of no concern to them. Moreover, unlike humans who are baptized and secrete salt because living by the sweat of their brow, chaneques need not be baptized and do not tolerate salt. 'We [humans] are "salted" because we eat salt. It comes out through sweat' (Interview: Juan 22/ 03/94). Given this difference, children are baptized with a pinch of salt in their mouth or on their head so as to protect them from chaneques when they go into the forest. In the olden days many children were lost because unbaptized (Interviews: Juan 04/0494, Jose 15/06/94, Pedro 20/11/94, Maria 23/03/94). That salt is alien to the chaneques has to do with characteristics of the human condition, traits unknown and unenvied by the chaneques. Salt is a substance used in preserving scarce food and is found in the tears and sweat of human sufferings and travail. Chaneques are exempt from both afflictions. Their survival does not hinge on having sex, wearing clothes, working hard, preserving food, or being christened so as to accede to the life of the eternal spirit. Chaneques are sometimes described as gringolike characters who are tall, bald, or with a bit of white hair (Interview: Pedro 20/11/94). The imagery is suggestive of wealth and growth that differs from plant, human, and animal life in that it requires no hair, let alone hair-plucking measures to reproduce (see our corn myth analysis). More often than not, however, these spirits are portrayed as funny little creatures that have holes instead of noses and are particularly attracted by children and their noses. This child-nasal and related chaneque imagery is remarkably reminiscent of key anatomical features of ancient Olmec sculptures, including baby faces, flat noses, thick lips, smiling expressions, bodily nudity, and asexuality, not to mention the emphasis on the head imagery (evoking infantile-brain-water associations built into native language and mythology) and the jaguar-mouth-door motif (see below).11 Local rumour has it that the lower world and houses inhabited by

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the chaneques are accessible through doors shaped like tiger mouths or through deep tunnels located underneath amate trees or below the seaside Campanario Rock and the San Martin volcano. Amate trees serve as a medium between humans and water spirits; they grow near rivers and are the source and the synonym of paper used in ancient times for writing (ihbilo, cuiloa). Creatures living under their wing or foliage (amatlapalli) are by definition wealthy. Sacred doors and paper trees give access to houses and riches that form part of an underworld known as Talogan. a place guarded by fearsome serpents and jaguars and full of precious stones, money, fruit, honey, flowers, food in abundance, tall chicozapote trees, beautiful women, countless animals, and souls held in captivity. All wild animals and fish are said to be owned by the chaneques. and each animal species has its tayaganga master, from yagat. for nose. A supreme Chane reigns as King of the Earth and commands all spirits and their mighty tayangaga leaders, big-nosed brothers reputed to control the chaneques and all the riches hoarded in their underworld paradise (Garcia de Leon 1969, 292, 296; Olavarrieta Marenco 1977,250; Lopez Austin 1980, 64). In Talogan nature is lavish. There one finds an enchanted herd of cattle led by a magnificent bull wearing horns of gold. This is the property of San Antonio, a saint celebrated on 13 June, a week before the ritual summer solstice visits that healers and sorcerers pay to the animal masters living beneath the volcano. The cattle are said to have been stolen a long time ago by the Spaniards who took the animals to Spain and kept them in a corral. The livestock, however, were eventually freed by four birds and brought back to the Campanario Rock where they disappeared, as if enchanted and swallowed by the earth.12 The Edenic characteristics of the chaneque world were and continue to be reinforced by floral imagery, flowery things the spirits are reputed to crave. The Nahua word for flower is xochit. a term that embodies all things beautiful and the good life on earth. To the ancient Nahuas, perfume was xochiocotzol. flower resin that smells as good as copal incense made with resin from the xochicopalquauitl pine tree. When combined with terms for water or house (xochatl. xochicalliV the term used to signify rose water and a bathhouse, respectively. Paradise on earth was xochitlalpan. a land adorned with lots of fruit-bearing trees, a place where people are well treated and have every reason to laugh, rejoice (xochimati'). and make jokes (xochuia). Other ancient derivations of the flower motif include milky or resinlike honey (xochinecutli. xochi-memeyallotl). fat (xochiotl). sweets (xochitlaqualiztli).

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and also all fruits defined as edible flowers (xochiqualli). To this floral material could be added the terms for adorning (xochiota). glowing (xochicueponi). praise (xochiyotia). good memories (xochititiuh). treating well (xochimati), and fruit-bearing trees (xochiquaquauitl). Similar tropes are found in present-day Pajapan. Joking is what tricksterlike chaneques covered with flowers (xochipontoc) are reputed to do. Some of these joyful spirits live in a water temple or sacred atiopan cave located near Pajapan, by a river known as Xochat. As they live in a world of flowers, they are described as xochtic. that is, small, young, and pretty. They are like flat-nosed infants that either do not speak or speak a funny language resembling English (Interview: Pedro 20/11/ 94). They are thought to eat meat and corn like gluttons (xochtlaquani) and to attract, charm, or seduce (xochiuia. xochixinia) human beings who wish to become like them. They are as powerful as the xochitonal flower spirit or alligator guarding their subterranean abode (cousin of the iguana who once mocked and played with the corn god in local mythology). Like most pre-Hispanic gods, they are in a position to laugh and amuse themselves at the sight of humans struggling to survive (Leon-Portilla 1983,200ff.). While enjoying the good life, however, chaneques have a taste for things warm or hot, a predilection pointing to all those things lacking in their watery world otherwise perfectly cool and Edenic. Like the pre-Hispanic tlaloque. these spirits are in the habit of feeding on human flesh and catching the solar life force vested in human souls, especially those of children (Gonzalez Torres 1985, 137; Lopez Austin 1980, 248). Accordingly, the Gulf Nahuas and Popolucas view springs, wells, fountains, and rivers as dangerous sites where human souls can be taken captive by these dwarf spirits or goblins (duendes) through fright.13 In addition to having a liking for human souls, chaneques are extremely jealous of their possessions. They are the owners and guardians of all animals and fish. They can assist human beings in satisfying their sustenance. But their trusteeship of all life forms dwelling in nature means they will castigate the greedy who take something without making the proper payment, those who kill more than what they need, or those who fail to take good care of their milpa or family. Thus, they will not let go of anything without compensation from humans or commitments on their part to never misuse or squander whatever it is they are granted. The actions of the guardian chaneques go beyond lessons of environmental wisdom or sustainable development and are

130 The Hot and the Cold

grounded in ancient precepts concerning commerce between humans and spirits dwelling in nature. Misbehaviour punishable by the chaneques can take several forms applicable to all human beings. To begin with chaneques are known to snatch the spirits or souls of children behaving mischievously. This is confirmed by an elderly Popoluca woman (conversation translated by Maria): She says that she has noticed that when one is frightened by an animal that scares, then all the energy sort of begins to throb [empieza a latir], all the heart and the head, one feels as if you have something sharp here ... [the neck] that pulsates a lot. You also feel it in the head and here in the heart. And one begins to feel strong pulsations with fright... [She says] that when she grew up with her grandmother, she was not allowed to throw a stone in the water because, if you throw a stone in the water, the chaneque will grab your soul, or if not, it will pressure you then ... it grabs your soul. And she also says that she was told 'don't be mischievous because if you are, the chaneque will steal your soul and you will not [be able to] eat! And she thinks this is true. When ... the soul is grabbed by the chaneque. one then has no more appetite, and you begin to thin down, thin down. (Field note 21/11/94)

The warning applies to adults as well. Chaneques have the power to bring accidents onto the young and the old alike. In a moment of weakness provoked by fear or fright, they cause the person to fall from a horse or into water and then grab the person's soul and hold it captive (Interview: Maria 19/03/94). More often than not accidents are a form of punishment resulting from misconduct. Of all offences that will cause chaneques to act wrathfully, greed and gluttony are perhaps the most reproachable. It is common knowledge in the Sierra that when given access to riches of the underworld, humans should not take more than one precious object lest they should be denied everything they see. The same logic applies to daily conduct: humans should never kill more fish or animals than is strictly needed. They should be careful not to hurt animals needlessly, not even those that eat maize (Rodriguez Hernandez and Ramos Vasquez 1993, 9; Interview: Pedro 20/03/94). Otherwise they will be attacked by snakes or get lost in the forest. Chaneques will inflict punishment as they are responsible for treating and healing animals that have been harmed by careless hunters. Note that the same care should be exercised in

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regards to maize. Broken ears of maize should not be kept since it would prolong the agony of the corn god. Nor should grains of corn be thrown away or wasted lest the whole harvest should be lost.14 The crime amounts to a deicide. In the words of one healer, the corn plant 'is a god and there would be no life if he did not exist.' Humans must thank gods for the food they eat and take all necessary precautions to avoid squandering the sustenance of life. Once the hunter catches a prey, all of the meat should be eaten and nothing should be wasted. Also, while eating, family members should never quarrel, nor should children cry. Otherwise they may be bitten by snakes. Fish bones are to be thrown into the river. If they are wasted on cats or dogs, people might be taken away by chaneques when bathing (Rodriguez Hernandez 1994,1; Interview: Pedro 20/03/94). Wastefulness can take another form: people squandering food beyond the immediate family. Men and women must refrain from giving food to their lovers or feeding themselves with food prepared by them. Equally reproachable are those who use the money obtained from their produce to buy the services of prostitutes or hunters and fishermen who sell their catch instead of eating it. All of these actions move the spirits to anger (Interviews: Pedro 30/03/94, 20/11/94). Chances are that transgressors will suffer an accident and lose access to the wild animals owned by the chaneques. Men chasing after wives or women on the game are condemned to never catch food and lose their own flesh.15 Many stories warn of the danger that men and women face when they fail to keep food in the family. Punishment may come from flesheating beasts sent by the chaneques. Pedro narrates: This is a story told by my grandmother. She told me there was a man who married a young maiden. She had a sister. This man made her his mistress. One day they decided to go to the river to collect molluscs. My mother told me that there was this enchanted cat (gato del encanto), Xuno'ti, which did not allow tortillas from the mistress to be taken [to the river]. The man could take his own tortillas, the one made by his wife, but not that of his mistress; otherwise the enchanted cat would appear and eat them. This is the cat that comes out, he comes out and eats us. You know how he eats us? He has a special power. If one wants to run away, all your flesh will fall from your body and only your skeleton will remain. Your flesh falls off and he comes and grabs it and eats it. So that's what the man planned. He took the tortillas from his mistress and went with her to the

132 The Hot and the Cold river. When they arrived there, they saw an old man. The man was prepared. He was carrying a shrimp trap made of palm, some thread, and a needle. When it was noon the couple began to eat the tortillas, the tortillas of the mistress! The old man asked them, 'What are you eating? Isn't that bad? Aren't you doing something bad?' The couple answered, 'No, how can we be bad?' They continued eating, and when they were ready to leave, the cat appeared. It was crying, 'Miau, miau.' The old man exclaimed, 'Look, you say that you are not doing wrong. Then why has this cat come out? You will not be able to go back, the cat is going to eat you.' The cat was following them, it was shouting and they could not go back, they could not move [they were paralyzed]. The old man said, 'You should not have brought the tortillas of your mistress. That's why the cat came out. This one will follow you, when you are bad. Now go, you go ahead' [knowing that they had learned their lesson]. Then the old man stayed there. He got the cat and put him inside the shrimp trap and sewed it with thread and needle. This is how the man and woman were able to return home. (Field note 30/03/94)

Elson and Gutierrez (1995, 101) refer to an enchanted beast called Xunujti. Munch Galindo (1983, 178) mentions another story involving this or a related creature (which he spells Shunu'ti). It is a small cat that appears to women in their house when they have lovers. While the cat is beautiful and loving, it can suddenly start to grow and turn into a tiger that attacks and eats the adulterous woman. Just as in Pedro's story, a chaneco may appear at the moment the fierce creature is about to devour its victims, granting forgiveness to transgressors in exchange for a promise to behave properly in the future. Munch Galindo's informants are also fearful of the Lupu'ti (from lupujti, lobo or wolf), a blackand-white spotted donkey which appears on the path of men who have mistresses. The creature blows a wind so cold that its victims will turn completely numb and stop moving. Through magic it takes away their pants, underwear, and shirt. Once naked, it begins to lick them, tearing off their flesh and devouring them in the end. To conclude, the chaneques appear to have inherited many of the attributes of ancient gods and continue to this day to uphold that ancient covenant of reciprocity or commerce between humans and spirits governing the world. In a world of relentless change, they are the guardians of tradition. The function of these kings of the earth is summarized by Munch Galindo: "The chaneques cause people to fall to the ground or into water so as to capture their soul and devour it. This

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happens when people fail to observe the rules of hunting, fishing, and collecting [medicinal] plants and all norms of conduct in general. Humans who do not show respect for customs are punished by the chaneques with frights from snakes, horses, wind, or water. People are very afraid of falling because the chaneques trap the souls of their victims inside a clay pot before eating them' (Munch Galindo 1983, 199; our translation). Souls that misbehave are snatched, devoured, or buried into clay pots. They are like grains of corn devoured or wasted, with no prospects of being replanted to secure new seed and the livelihood of future generations of corn and humans alike. The punishment is proportional to the sin committed: both the crime and its correction mark the end of the sacred pact that ties humans to gods. We shall see that the chaneques are nonetheless capable of forgiveness and will trade the soul back to the transgressor provided that adequate payments are made. Dieting and Soul Exchange Abstinence, Vigil, and Fasting

Under certain conditions, chaneques will allow courageous sorcerers and men of vision to enter their world and even marry a female chaneca.16 The spirits will also grant special healing powers to plants and herbs collected by healers. They can give fishermen and hunters the catch they need to feed themselves and their families. They can restore a spirit to its human body via the innocuous appearance of a butterfly, a spider, a grasshopper, a lizard, a hummingbird, a white-feathered bird, or a bat (Interviews: Pedro 20/03/94, Juliana 21/11/94). They can do all of these things provided that two essential requirements are met. Through acts of mortification people must be deserving of what they wish to achieve. Also they must make offerings to the spirits in exchange for that which they desire (see Alvarez Heydenreich 1987, 172, 189). Humans must show courage and virtue and deliver the appropriate payments and offerings. A show of virtue and self-denial applies first and foremost to the sexual domain. To obtain what they seek, the patient, the healer, the hunter, or the fisherman must fast and abstain from sexual activity or physical contact with wives or mistresses. This applies particularly to men who fall in love with chanecas and wish to avail themselves of the life of plenty found in Talogan. It follows from this sexual dieting

134 The Hot and the Cold

requirement that old persons, virgins, and youths below the age of puberty are specially suited to ritual tasks aimed at obtaining powers from the chaneques. These tasks include collecting and grinding medicinal flowers and plants, perfuming a fishing net with incense (sahumar), or marching in processions with effigies of saints. The importance of virginity (ichpochtli) is confirmed by the practice of giving young hens or chicks dshposh} in sacrifice to the underworld chaneques.17 Sex and sleep are refreshments of the bo*dy that are vital to reproduction and the maintenance of good health. The powers of healing, however, require some measure of self-denial exercised through vigils and sexual dieta, both of which are common practice among indigenous healers (see Olavarrieta Marenco 1977, 254). The following excerpt illustrates these rules and their immediate implications. The conversation is from an interview with Don Mauricio,18 a snakebite healer or culebrero, in which he talks about the collection of medicinal plants needed for treating bites from snakes and other poisonous animals. MAURICIO: To go and get them [the medicinal plants] one has to be prepared ... then you will have them ready and [they will] be effective. As I was telling you a little while ago, that night a woman came to see me. A scorpion bit her. So I had to stay without sleep all that night. That is, to have a good posture (postura). So I am without sleep, in good time this got me to go and collect [medicinal plants]. ANDRES: Do you have to go without sleep? MAURICIO: Yes, that's why ... you begin collecting from the 31st [of December] at night, once the new year has come in, and from then on, from the new year to the first of March ... You use them depending on how things come, as the animals bite and healings are made ... [the plants keep their strength] because that medicine was collected having lost sleep, and one is also in dieta [sexual abstinence]. ANDRES: For seven days? MAURICIO: No, for twenty-one ... which could be increased to thirtyseven, and even to fifty-seven, but that ... is already too strong ... It is harmful... Also within the family, one must keep a posture, if you don't keep a posture also, the woman can fall ill. (Field note 02/12/94)

The last comment regarding excessive dieting alludes to the need for man and woman to have intercourse in order to preserve their health. This statement corroborates earlier references to the belief that women who go for extended periods of time without sex are likely to get ill.

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But the interview also speaks to the notion that vigils and sexual abstinence are needed for medicinal plants to gather heat and strength. Selfdenial affects the inner energy level of the person performing the healing ceremony and also plants used in the process. When Don Mauricio is in this state of sacrificial readiness defined as good posture, he is fit enough to collect medicinal plants and secure the potency of remedies needed to cure his patients. If he does not diet enough, snakes may come back and have another bite at the snake-healer's patient (Field note 02/12/94). Dieting for healing purposes may require abstention from food as well. For instance, apprentice healers may have to abstain from all food for an entire day before presenting themselves before the chaneques to request that they be granted the power to heal (Jose 02/12/94). As with sex and rest, eating refreshes the body (Interview: Jose 03/04/94). Fasting from all such refreshments is designed to build up heat and strength in the body. Patients must also diet. At one level, sexual abstinence is necessary given the state of weakness affecting the ill. The patient's inner energy has left the body temporarily, allowing other ills to assail the convalescent during that time, which means that intercourse can further debilitate the patient. But abstinence is not merely aimed at preserving internal energy. Pedro narrates: 'This man wanted to get married, but since he had no money, he couldn't. "Listen, I want to get married now!" The woman answered: "But we have no means to do it! ... We need to wait." So he went on thinking and thinking [worrying] and one day they went to cut wood to build their house when a rabo hueso bit him!' (Field note 27/11 /94). Pedro explains that a rabo hueso is a small snake, about ten centimetres long, whose bite can be fatal. He continues: So they asked him, 'How did that happen to you?' The man answered, 'I was thinking about getting married but I cannot, so the animal stung me.' They cured him with an ampoule [anti-venom serum]. He told me that about five days later he found a woman, and then he was delighted with the woman and they went out all night partying. So, shortly after, I think two or three months later, again the snake bit him! I said to him, 'Well, well, how did this happen to you?' And he answered, 'It's because I did not diet!' He said, 'A woman came and I was half-drunk, in a little while I felt no pain in my leg and went out partying, and the snake managed to bite me again!' Yes, he said, 'He who does not diet, it will be duplicated [repeated] again!'

136 The Hot and the Cold Yes, this happens to many. Also, many say that if once you are bitten by a snake and you do the dieta, it will not bite you again, never!

Snakes are the 'dogs guarding the interests of the chaneque' (Munch Galindo 1983,179). They are akin to the mythical ahuitzotl. an aquatic animal at the service of Tlaloc. This creature used to be portrayed as a dog equipped with a hand at the end of its tail, using it to drown people bathing in lakes or rivers (Fernandez 1992,18). Nowadays snakes fulfil a similar role, carrying out orders of wrath emanating from the chaneques (Munch Galindo 1983, 204). In the story just told, the convalescent failed to be worthy of his own cure. He succumbed to pleasures of the flesh and failed to follow the proper sexual diet. As a result angry spirits sent snakes to bite him again. The tonal heat and soul energy he squandered through sexual activity made him an attractive prey for cold-blooded vipers thirsting after man's blood already turning to water. Although essential to healing and health prevention, good behaviour on the part of healers and patients will not suffice. Humans who fall sick or suffer misfortune must also 'constantly placate spirit entities with offerings in order to set things right' (Sandstrom 1991, 313). Offerings to the chaneques are required to secure good health and blessings of the good life on earth. For instance, fishermen should throw the remains of shrimps and whatever they catch into the river, giving it back to the chaneques in lieu of letting dogs eat it. Likewise, hunters will do well to bring copal with them when they go on an expedition; the chaneque owners of the animals will not let the hunters catch game if proper offerings are not made. Relevant instructions regarding these offerings may be communicated by the chaneques at night-time, through dreams. For instance, if the hunter dreams of a white-footed deer, then it means that white candles should be offered as payment to the chaneque in exchange for the hunter catching a deer. If the hunter has no dream, then it means that the chaneque recommends that there be no hunting (Interview: Francisco 11/06/94; Rodriguez Hernandez 1994, 1-2). A comparable ritual commonly practised consists in burying seven candles and copal at sites where animals are killed. In the words of a Popoluca healer,19 "The Chaneco is the owner of the fish, the shrimp, the animals, the forest ... for example, the deer, the tepesquintle, the armadillo. They are the owners. And so, he controls all animals, and that's why when hunters leave, they bring him copal, they start smoking it, and they talk to him: "Lord Chaneco I would like

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you to give me the thing I came looking for, I will pay you in this way." And then, one begins to walk, and you need not walk too far, and what you went there for ... there is the animal!' As in pre-Hispanic days, the offering is part of an economic transaction. The healer explicitly uses the word payment to characterize the offering of incense in return for the life of the hunter's prey. The same language is used in a hunting prayer to the chaneque recorded by BaezJorge (1973, 104, our translation): 'Let us burn copal with the wick of seven masses ... Grandfather Chane, give me a wild boar that you have there ... Here I give you a present. I will pay for your animals. When I come back I will bring you more copal as a present.' When copal is burnt, 'the chaneco eats/ The chaneques are fond of human souls and the solar life force they embody. Accordingly, propitiatory payments made to these forest and underworld spirits generally fall into the category of things deemed to be warm or hot. The offerings include copal incense (made from the rubberlike 'water' extracted from the ocosote), candles (sometimes lit), flowers, holy palms, aromatic water, soap, the ashes of aromatic scents, coffee, cigarettes, tortillas, dry biscuits, soft drinks, and alcohol. Leftovers and garbage put aside during the seven days that precede the ritual can serve the same function. Unlike aromatic water and copal incense, commercial perfume is cold and disliked by the chaneques. Actually, it can be used to ward off chaneques attempting to rob people of their souls. Some insist that flowers must not be offered to the chaneques in exchange for estranged souls since the gesture could be associated with a funeral service (Interview: Jose 02/12/94). Of all things that chaneques are fond of, copal incense is certainly the most effective offering. It serves as a thick tree-blood resin substituted for the savoury scent and warmth of a tonal soul and the human blood that feeds it. Mauricio, the snakebite healer, remarks, 'Because of the bite, you have to smoke the wounded person on the seventh day... You take him for a bath where there are falls, you bring sugarcane alcohol, seven pieces of copal, cigarettes, soap, and a wick - the wick is made of cotton ... and you burn the seven copales with it... The copal is a tribute to the chaneques. Yes, for the chaneque. so that it will return the spirit of the person who is ill. It's an offering ... because the chaneque likes it' (Field note 13/06/94). These ritual gestures should not be done till the seventh day of healing. Until then the patient suffering from fright is too weak to be in contact with water, soap, or perfume. Nor should the house be swept

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too soon lest the weakly soul should depart with these household remains (Interview: Maria 19/01/94). The copal offering can be used in several ways. For instance, hunting dogs can be smoked with copal to protect them from being caught by the chaneque and to clear the dogs' nostrils from mucus and improve their scent (Rodriguez Hernandez and Ramos Vasquez 1993, 4; Interview: Pedro 20/11/94). In lieu of killing the dog chasing after forest animals, spirits will find appeasement and compensation in the copal offering carried by the dog. In the case of a fright-healing ritual, the hand of the patient may be rubbed with copal (making the sign of the cross) until the pulse, soul, heart of the spirit, or spirit of the blood comes back (Interview: Pedro 20/03/94). Copal and candles are betterment (mejoramiento) offerings given to the chaneque in exchange for the spirit in its possession, thereby serving to improve the patient's health condition (Interviews: Jose 10/06/94, Francisco 11/06/94, Rodriguez Hernandez 1994,2). When thrown into a glass of water, copal can also be used by healers to predict the fate of a patient. Death awaits those whose copal sinks to the bottom of the glass, falling like a solar life force drowning in water and no longer empowered with the energy needed to grow and mature. The number of bits of copal that sink may also indicate how many (water-related) frights the individual is suffering of.20 Offerings and prayers to chaneques are often syncretized with Catholic beliefs and ritual gestures (e.g., sign of the cross) that seem never to be at odds with local traditions. One healer tells how she was taught to pray in Spanish saying, 'God, the Holy Spirit, all that... and then you begin speaking his name ... and you tell him: "Chaneco. release his pulse where you have it trapped, where you're hiding it, where you frightened him.'" The healer then shifts back to a conversation with the Catholic pantheon: 'May you be well Jesus, in the name of God, the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Virgin of the divine Verb, Saint John the Baptist, Lord Saviour of the Forest, Lord Saint Peter the Vicar ... it is time for your heart to speak out.' These words are then followed by prayers to the chaneques performed in Popoluca (Interview: Amparo 11/01/95). Health in Exchange for Souls

Chickens can be sacrificed and given to the underworld chaneques in exchange or as substitutes for the shadowlike soul (sombra) lost by a frightened child.

Frights and Chaneques 139 The black chicken is for the replacement (reemplazd). You smoke it, kill it, and eat it before going to the river on the seventh day ... It's because the person who is ill did not die, rather he got better, then you replace his death. You smoke a black chicken, that's for the replacement... they kill the black rooster and they eat it. Afterwards they use a white rooster (for men) and a white chicken (for women). You use them to do the smoking and bathing in the river on the seventh day. The white one, the healer takes it as a gift for his work. That one is not killed, but the snake healer can eat it when he wants. The feathers and bones of this rooster are thrown into the water when eaten ... Not only the feathers of the chicken, but also everything that's used during the healing, the leaves for the vapour and wound bath, what is left of the bark, you keep everything in a canoe, and later with the feathers and remains of the black chicken, all of this is thrown into the river after the (seventh-day) bath ... You throw it into the river because it's fresh. (Interview: Mauricio 13/06/94; our emphasis)

The throwing of ritual remains into the river is a common practice among the Nahuas and Popolucas of the Sierra. It is done by the snake healer during his healing ritual but also by hunters and fishermen who use remains of their catch as offerings to the chaneques. In return, spirits see to it that the species reproduce and remain plentiful. In the words of a campesino, 'They don't give them to their dogs to eat because they would never be able to catch anything again, because the chaneque does not want the dogs to eat [the remains], they want them thrown back into the water' (Interview: Francisco 11/06/94; Munch Galindo 1983, 179^80). While both are thanked, the chaneques and the healer receive different payments from the patient. Chicken souls and leftovers are offerings to the spirits, whereas the chicken's flesh goes to the healer. Chickens are good offerings because they 'eat maize, yes they eat Homshuk. Homshuk told them, "You will eat the flesh of maize. With time you will be at the service of Christians. Because if it were not this way, chickens would not be eaten." That's what they told them. And that's why now most people have their chicken' (Interview: Jose 10/06/94). Humans eat animals owned by chaneques who in turn devour human souls. Likewise chickens feed themselves with maize cultivated by humans but must return the favour by becoming food for Christians. This chain of reciprocity is looped through chicken offerings to the chaneques in exchange for human souls (see Lopez Austin 1980,390). A chick may have to die for a newborn to survive. Dona Estela

140 The Hot and the Cold

remembers the day when she gave birth to her last son.21 An elderly midwife with over forty years of experience was taking care of her during her pregnancy. When Estela started her labour the midwife gave her a massage so that the baby would be in a good position for the delivery. Dona Estela remembers this to be a painful moment. Once the massage was over, the midwife turned to her and said, 'Now my little mother, he is well placed, now make an effort, don't you go and kill this little boy!' Estela was kneeling on the ground, her husband bent over behind her, holding her and massaging her stomach. When the baby came out, it was all black and was not breathing. The midwife quickly ran to call her comadre who lived next door, telling Estela as she left, 'Don't worry madrecita, we are going to revive your child in a moment.' The midwife came back, took the baby, and sucked out what was inside the nose. 'She would suck it out and spit it on the ground/ Estela said. The comadre from next door quickly fetched a chick. The midwife turned the baby upside down and slapped its back and bum. She then took the chick and placed the beak near the infant's anus. Estela said the chick died and, at that very moment, the baby came to life and started to cry. The local clinic doctor remembers the day when she was called to a highland village to assist in the delivery of a baby. The mother was ill and the delivery was not going well. When the baby came out, the local midwife assisting the mother tried to put the beak of a baby duckling in the anus of the newborn. The doctor objected to this procedure. She removed the duckling and scolded the midwife, much to the consternation of the family present in the room at the time (Interview: Maria 15/06/94). When this story was repeated to a local snake healer and his wife, they both laughed and had doubts about the efficacy of the duckling remedy. Their scepticism and amusement resided in the fact that a duckling had been used in lieu of a chick. Don Mauricio explained that for a newborn, a chick must be used. He agreed with his wife that the family probably did not have a chick at the time, prompting the midwife to use the duckling. When Don Mauricio heals snakebites of mature men and women, he uses a hen or a rooster, depending on the sex of the person bitten. The chicken is killed, cooked, and eaten by the culebrero and the family. All remains (including feathers and bones) are thrown into a river during a midnight ceremony. The domestic bird is used as an offering to the chaneque in exchange for the soul of the injured (Interview: Mauricio 02/12/94).

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Both Estela and Don Mauricio referred to the chick as the polio del reemplazo, the replacement chicken. A well-respected salmera (fright healer, also muesa) from Soteapan used the Popoluca word tancomica to refer to this reemplazo. This can be translated as our owner (or owning) of death, from tan, our, omi, owner, boss, and ca, to die (Elson and Gutierrez 1995, 3,10, 79).22 The polio del reemplazo is an offering to our owner of death. The concept is familiar to local midwives, snake healers, and fright healers alike, from different villages of the Sierra. It is also compatible with ancient traditions that go a long way in explaining not only the sacrificial approach to medicine but also some of its detailed expressions. Connecting the chick to the child's anus is one such detail, to which we now turn. The anus-breath imagery is reminiscent of the Nahua ihiyotl. This is the breath of life granted to the newborn by the divine duality Citlalicue and Citlallatonac. It was transmitted by the ilhuicac (celestial) chaneque at the moment when the newborn received a ceremonial bath and was offered to the deities of water. It represented a second birth, a purified state allowing the child to wake up and grow (Lopez Austin 1980,258-9). More precisely, the ihiyotl was a luminous gas that gave energy to the body through respiration. Lopez Austin translates it as spirit or breath (soplo). It was also associated with the anus and the fart. The word ihiyotl denoted a fart emitting a bad smell, or the breath and vapour coming out of the mouth. Thus, the breath coming of the mouth is like a fart emanating from the anus. Ancient Nahuas thought that all body orifices (including the nasal cavities, the pharynx, the larynx, and the anus) were chimney tunnels (tlecallotl). cavities for the escape of warm gases. These runnels resembled holes in roofs designed to let smoke escape (Lopez Austin 1980, 168, 184, 186, 194, 212, 253, 258-60). A chick that dies when placed near the anus of a child about to expire suggests a simple substitution strategy: one dying breath to counter another warm breath, a replacement to satisfy the gods of life that begins in water. But the offerings made to chaneques are not always designed to restore health to a sick person. Sacrificial offerings can also be made with a view to releasing a dying soul from the hands of spirits, letting it continue its journey towards the afterlife. The following anecdote illustrates this point. It describes the death of Don Ingracio, a local healer (curandero) of renown who passed away at the age of ninety-one. The story is told by Dona Amparo, the man's daughter, a salmera who inherited her fright-healing skills from her deceased father.

142 The Hot and the Cold I learned [to cure susto] because my father left behind ... I wonder where they left that paper ... where they wrote on about it. My father was agonizing, he was ready to die, and he [the chaneque] did not let him ... Then they began to ask my father why he could not die, and finally he replied that because many had not paid him back, many were left owing him. 'Now,' he said, 'I want them to pay me, and they will allow me to be on my way.' So my sister said then, 'We have a chicken, let's kill it.' They killed the chicken, then we smoked (sahumar) my father with copal (incense). Then we took the chicken and we ate it just like that, bits of meat, and then we went to throw it into water [river], there it went with its copal, with its aguardiente [liquor], it went. Moments later my father died. He died and left the written paper. (Field note 11/01/95)

The piece of paper mentioned by Dona Amparo contains a prayer she recites to this date during her ensalmo healing rituals. In the story she describes, the old healer is on the point of dying. The chaneque is not allowing him to leave this world because of all those clients who still owe the man; the healer was not properly paid by many people he cured during his lifetime. The family decides to make an offering to the chaneque in the hope that the spirit will let his soul leave his body. A chicken is sacrificed and eaten, and leftovers of the meal are thrown into the river together with copal and liquor. The offerings are not meant to secure the life of the dying person but rather to settle old debts between the old curandero and the chaneques. These offerings are to pay the chaneques back, thus allowing the old man to die and rest in peace. Local healers of the Sierra consider payment for their services of paramount importance in the relationship between healer and client. Although sometimes expensive, the amount or type of payment may not be as critical as the exchange itself and the sacrifice it represents on the part of the convalescent. Don Mauricio, the snake healer, once remarked that if he does not get paid he does not fulfil his dieta (twenty-one days of sexual abstinence), which means that the injured is bound to suffer another snakebite. He did not mind how much he got paid as long as it meant an effort on the part of the client or his family. If a chicken is all that the family has, then that will suffice and the healer will share it with the family. If people are wealthy and a chicken would represent a pittance then it is no longer acceptable.23 Payment goes beyond a mere economic transaction between healer and client. Far from being a simple remuneration for services rendered,

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the payment forms an integral part of the triangular exchanges instituted between patients, healers, and spirits. Any breach of reciprocity threatens the entire chain of transactions and the ensuing prospects of health being restored, or souls being granted the natural death they long for. Patients must give something back in return for what they get from healers and spirits lest their sufferings should continue. Healers must also compensate the spirits for what they receive, namely, the powers of healing, a gift that must be properly deserved through selfdenial and acts of propitiation. The following story reveals another kind of sacrifice that is expected from a curandero. The pact that a healer strikes with chaneques may require no less than a living soul surrendered in exchange for the powers to heal. Dona Amparo's father was a curandero so widely respected that people would come from all over the Sierra to see him. Some say that his power came from a journey he made to the sacred cave of the monte de tierra roja, the mountain of red earth, tsabats nas in Popoluca. This is a red-soil hill with no vegetation, located a few kilometres away from Soteapan. As the story goes, every twenty-fourth of June a cave opens somewhere in that hill. Only the real curanderos can enter the hill and visit the city located inside, a dwelling place inhabited by the chaneques. A healer by the name of Jose has this to say about tsabats nas. One has to go there well prepared, having lost sleep [vigil], very complete. There, one must go with no food for a day, in fast... you go there. You leave your house knowing what you are going there for, to enter into contract, but then they ask for a replacement! ... Replacement means that you are going to propose someone you are going to surrender so you can remain a long time in the job. [You have to surrender] a soul... yes, a person. The thing there is that if you are going to surrender first your father, if you do not have compassion for him, you are then going to surrender your father. They will tell you, 'Let's see! Whom do you wish to give up? The big finger or the little finger?' There it begins for you, and then you make a choice in your mind about the person you are going to send, either your father, your mother, your son ... the oldest! He takes away your oldest son for you to become a healer. In truth, that is why some are scared to get into these matters of being a healer because ... you must now surrender something so that the chaneque can make you better, so you can work better.

The ideal replacement is a close relative the healer may not like.

144 The Hot and the Cold So you must go and speak with the real boss, to discuss what you want, what is needed, how do you want to work. For example, I am going there to enter into contract. I am going to ask how much time I am going to work [as a healer], ten years ... fifteen years ... twenty years. But who am I going to surrender? As I explain to you again, for example, if I have the will to work, have the interest ... well, if I do not like my father or my mother, I'll say that I will give you my mother or I'll give you my father, one of the two. Because there are some people here, where the mother does not like the son, or the father does not like the son, or the son does not like the mother. Those are the ones that say then, 'I'll give you my mother, take her now.' Soon after, the mother will fall ill, or the father, or the one they surrender, they fall ill and ... prramml They die! That was the pact! It was then a replacement.

Failure to surrender a soul will be held against the healer. 'Now then, that's why many ... are not complete healers because they do not want to surrender anybody. You must give someone up in order that you become a better healer. And if for a long time, you are working and working and do not surrender any replacement, the only thing you are doing is surrendering yourself! Paul ... All of a sudden you have an attack or a dizzy spell and ... paul You surrender yourself and you are dead' (Field note 02/12/94). To become a healer, the person must not only diet and be strong, just like a surgeon who is about to operate and must not faint when working with a scalpel (Interview: Jose 02/12/94). He must also secure a tancomica replacement, a human soul selected from the healer's family and surrender it to the chaneques. Without this payment there is no lasting contract between healer and spirit. First-hand information regarding these pacts is not readily available. A healer who talks about the pact he makes with the chaneques runs the risk of being blamed for the death of a close relative (Field note 10/01/95). All the same, those who do not abide by this rule and refuse to offer a soul in exchange for the powers they seek may end up losing their own lives. The same teachings are conveyed in a Popoluca tale called La muerte de Juan el brujo, the death of John the Sorcerer. Having completed his training in sorcery, John is asked by his mentor to surrender a spirit or Christian soul. His teacher warns him: 'If you cannot deliver it to me, I will keep your spirit.' John tries to deliver the payment, but the man he was after dupes him and escapes. John's spirit is devoured that same night (near the river) by his mentor and fellow sorcerers, causing

Frights and Chaneques 145 his body to die while at sleep in his own house (Lopez Arias 1983, 30-1). Don Mauricio, his wife, and Maria tell a similar story regarding the tsabats nas hill. It involves a young boy wanting to become a healer and coming face to face with the chaneques. MAURICIO: Yes, [one must go to the tsabats nas] prepared, otherwise we cannot go ... because first... they say that if you are studying [to become a healer] you have to surrender something; it might be your brother, your mother, your grandfather, your father ... you have to ... even your own son, your wife you must surrender. ADRIANA: [You must] wait for them to ask you because you don't know. MAURICIO: Yes, yes, because you have to arrive ... I'm telling you this because some time back when I was alone [not married], I was about twelve years old then and was studying that, that is, white magic and red magic, it is very delicate ... a healer had told me then ... because I had gone [to see her] to heal myself because I was feeling that they [the chaneques] were asking me [to give someone] from my family, and I was having dreams about a huge dog, one of those big ones, black! ... I was riding on it ... it meant that if I did not surrender someone from my family they were going to take me away, so I stopped ... I took that book [a book of cures] and gave it away, and so it was. I was just a kid. I was taking it as a game. Maria then goes on to speak of the sacred tsabats nas door that opens on twenty-fourth June: MARIA: And in that door one can go in ... MAURICIO: Yes, yes, there is a big house inside. ANDRES: Are there chaneques inside? MAURICIO: Yes, chaneques, many beautiful women, there is money in that hill... ANDRES: But to go in, do you need to give a replacement? MAURICIO: Yes, you have to be well studied ... that's what my uncle used to tell me, about my father ... he died about fifteen years ago ... so the red earth felt very cold ... he was taking me there that time. That time there was a trench ... all of that was very ugly. (Field note 02/12/94) Like Jose, Mauricio is a local healer, but with a different specialization. Jose is a yerbatero (medicinal plant healer), Mauricio is a culebrero

146 The Hot and the Cold

(snakebite healer). They do not speak much to each other. Jealousy may be the reason or the fact that they belong to different political parties. In any case local healers are in no need of collegial activity. Their views on the terms of exchange that bind healers to spirits are nonetheless strikingly similar. They both evoke the serious preparation required for an apprentice to become a healer. Also both acknowledge that the soul of a close relative must be surrendered so as to protect the healer from dying at the hands of the chaneques. Don Mauricio was initially trained as a healer by his uncle. He stopped the apprenticeship after realizing he had to surrender the soul of a close relative. Several years later the man resumed his apprenticeship, this time under his grandmother. When young, Don Mauricio could not bring himself to trade away someone else's life in order to acquire the powers of healing. Given the danger involved in pursuing the apprenticeship without delivering this payment in kind, he abandoned the apprenticeship for several years. He came to this realization after dreaming of a huge black dog and seeing himself riding on its back, a warning that his life would be taken away if he did not surrender a close-kindred soul. The dog imagery is based on a local belief whereby a black dog (ytc chimpa) waits on its master and helps him cross the sea or river of blood when travelling to the other world; the master is transformed into a soul-carrying insect (e.g., a grasshopper) lodging in the dog's ear.24 The ancient Nahuas also believed that the dead descended through a series of sacred places or levels of the underworld. Their journey was filled with perils and obstacles. The first level they reached was known as Itzcuintlan or place of dogs, a site known for a swift-moving river that had to be crossed on the back of a dog (Fernandez 1992, 64, 70). From a Christian perspective, the sacrifice of souls is suggestive of pacts with the devil, a view occasionally held by indigenous informants and mestizo farmers alike. Munch Galindo (1983, 210; our translation) thus reports that 'In popular tradition [of the Sierra], it is taken for certain that sorcerers make a pact with the devil. To sign the pact, sorcerers draw blood from the tip of the right finger. In addition to giving away their soul when they die, sorcerers must surrender the lives of seven people, among whom can be found loved family members. When someone dies suddenly, it is believed that some sorcerer of the family surrendered the soul of the diseased to the devil. The people offered to the devil in the pact die a sudden death some time after.' The healers we interviewed do not consider contractual exchanges

Frights and Chaneques 147

with the chaneques to involve evil deeds of any sort. Pacts are simply a requirement of the healing profession. Spirits will not grant the powers to restore health and preserve life without receiving payments in kind. On this point, Munch Galindo notes some ambivalence pervading indigenous attitudes towards Christian concepts of God and the Devil. People in the Sierra are inclined to see them as brothers, not unlike the Aztec Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca.25 In a similar vein, the Chane king and his servant chaneques take on dual roles that combine both the godly and demonic powers of spirits conceived in a Christian perspective. In Munch Galindo's comments about pacts with the Devil, the ancient Chane. god of the earth and water, owner of the underworld and all animals, is converted into a satanic spirit, a demon battling against the Christian God. Similarly, Klor de Alva (1993, 190, 194) argues that the chaneques have taken over the symbols of destruction and all that is evil in Christian thought. Meanwhile San Juan Bautista has become the patron saint of the yerbateros (medicinal plant healers). Like the chaneques. this saint stands as the great master and owner of medicinal plants, the one empowered to grant humans the knowledge and ability to heal. As in ancient times, sexual abstinence must be observed by his Catholic parochial guardians and followers, in preparation for the festivities of the patron saint. San Juan has nonetheless in common with the Devil that he can grant the gift of foretelling and also luck in gambling and love. He behaves like the Devil, who takes human souls (or promises to that effect) in exchange for the powers of a mighty sorcerer, an irresistible seducer, an able horseman, and a lucky gambler (Munch Galindo 1983,181,189, 207). The ambivalence towards indigenous beliefs and rituals is not characteristic of native society alone. Dona Amparo, the fright healing salmera, claims to have healed the brother of a local Catholic nun suffering from susto. Sister Teresa asked Amparo's help in retrieving her brother's soul from the chaneques. He had lost a lot of weight over the year, ever since he was in a car accident. He had no appetite, felt constantly weak, and had insomnia. Amparo, a devoted church-goer and friend of the nun, was most happy to help. She performed the appropriate prayers and offerings to the chaneques and in return restored the man's soul. Yet the material reviewed in this chapter reflects healing concepts fundamentally at odds with Christian teachings and western biomedicine. These concepts point to a covenantial attitude inspired by the ancient tlamacehua of pre-Hispanic times (see Leon-Portilla 1993,

148 The Hot and the Cold

Figure 5.2 Transactions in health

42-53). At stake here is a worldly view of health obliging people to become worthy of the natural blessings they desire, a worthiness achieved through acts of self-denial and the offerings of sacrifice (as depicted in Figure 5.2). Ensalmo and Tallada Our discussion of beliefs concerning soul theft is incomplete without a description of the ensalmo and tallada rituals. These consist in prayers and a hand massage of the patient's arm performed as part of the ritual designed to retrieve the soul snatched by the chaneques. A salmero or salmera is a specialized healer, often an elderly woman or man, a mature adult with the know-how to retrieve a lost soul and to intercede before the chaneques. Diagnosis of the illness usually begins at

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home and is done by a family member. Through observation, a mother may note that a child is no longer playful, has lost his or her appetite, or is restless at night. If someone in the family (a parent, grandparent, brother, or sister) recalls a recent occurrence that could have frightened the child, then the salmera is called in. The healer queries the person who is ill and hears accounts from family members regarding possible causes, locations, and times of susto incidents. A patient may suffer from several types of fright at the same time, espantos that can be attributed to different events. The healer will then examine the colour of the skin (whether the person is chipujo or not) and proceeds to take the pulse, starting at the wrist and moving up the arm until the pulse is actually detected. A weak pulse at the wrist indicates low-level danger. When the pulse is felt close to the shoulder, the person is nearing death (ya estd para morir).26 Soul theft can be more or less serious, depending on the type of fright that causes it in the first place. For instance, a snakebite or a stroke of lightning will generate serious attacks of fright, irrespective of the poisoning or burning actually suffered by the victim. A person bitten by a venomous animal must be cured from both fright and poisoning. These are two separate ills that affect the person simultaneously. Each has its own healing procedures. Some snakebite healers prefer to treat only the poisonous bite and may call on a fright healer (salmero or salmera) to complete the healing by retrieving the soul held captive by the chaneque.27 People also expect age and the inner strength of a person's soul to affect the severity of the illness. Children are more easily frightened than adults and the consequences are more dangerous to their health. When a child falls into a river, fright may become life-threatening, and treatment must be promptly administered. Treatment involves several elements that overlap in time and complement each other (see Figure 5.3). One is the ensalmo or saying of incantations. In the words of Amparo, an elder Popoluca salmera28: 'Yes, to return it [the soul] you must pray to him [the chaneque] ... Yes you must pray. First to God, the Holy Ghost, all of them ... and you begin to call his name and you tell the chaneco to let your pulse go from where it has you trapped, where it has you hidden, where you got frightened. You begin to talk to him. If it [the chaneque] is from here, then you talk to him in his language.' The coexistence of Catholic and native beliefs is once more evident. By way of introduction, the healer invokes the Holy Trinity (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit). But her prayer also includes Catholic

150 The Hot and the Cold

Figure 5.3 Fright healing

saints that have a following in the area: the Virgen del divino Verbo, San Juan Bautista, Senor Salvador del Monte (Saviour of the Forest). Then names of Popoluca spirits are invoked: chane chane, tsabatschane, tunchane, ttcchane, carreterachane, etc. Chane chane is a reference to the top-ranking chaneque. the one Munch Galindo calls the Chaneque

Frights and Chaneques 151

Mayor, the Owner of the House, or King of the Earth, of water, plants, and animals. As already pointed out, chaneques of lesser authority are under his command, watching over all living things on earth, including humans (Munch Galindo 1983, 173-4). Tsabatschane is the chaneque of the red earth (tsabats nas), guardian of the sacred place where snakebite healers are initiated into the profession. Turjchane, from tur), path or road, are chaneques that prey on and frighten people on the road. Tlcchane is the chaneque that dwells in the house, from tic, a house. Finally, carreterachane is a hybrid Spanish-native term denoting chaneques who scare people through road (canetera) banditry; this is fright caused by bandits assaulting people travelling in vehicles on the road to Soteapan. The next task consists in the healer identifying the site where fright took place. Once the information is secured, a prayer is recited so as to intercede with the chaneque that guards the place where the soul has been lost. As Amparo notes, the healer's task is to identify and contact the spirit responsible for snatching the soul. She does this in the language spoken in that location, whether it be Nahuat, Popoluca, Spanish, or any other language.29 The afflicted must acknowledge the existence of chaneques and their role in depriving people of their health. Humans must pray to them, and both the healer and the patients must make offerings and become deserving of what they seek, in this case the soul in need of physical repatriation. While reciting the ensalmo prayer, the healer performs the tallada. Amparo refers to the tallada as tanc+w+tpa, which can be translated literally as 'we are healing your hand/ from tan-, we, ci, hand, wi, (good), w+tsfy, heal, and -pa, a suffix indicating an incomplete action (Elson and Gutierrez 1995,3,11,99). Another Popoluca term for the tallada is ct, wttsty, hand healing. With a bit of aguardiente and a piece of black or white copal the healer rubs the palms of the patient's hands, applying a slight pressure that will cause the pulse to come back. If the pulse does not reappear or is felt to be weak, the healer continues the rubbing moving up along the arm. Some healers also take a small mouthful of sugarcane alcohol and suck lightly at points where the pulse should be felt.30 Coals from the hearth may be used to burn some copal during the ensalmo and to smoke or perfume (Sp. sahumar, Pop. tanompa or cuomay; copal is poma)31 the patient and the site where the healing is performed. When asked why copal and sugarcane alcohol are used, most reply that both substances are traditional offerings. Some healers

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say that copal is what the chaneques eat. Munch Galindo (1983, 200) reports a Popoluca belief according to which copal emits a warm aroma (jocox is the word for warm, and joco denotes smoke or vapour) that transforms itself into beautiful flowers that procure pleasure to the chaneques.^ While copal was a common gift to the gods in pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica, the use of aguardiente seems to be more recent and is perhaps a substitute for pulque, a fermented drink from the agave plant used by the Nahuas to fight fatigue since the seventeenth century. Copal and sugarcane alcohol are now applied on parts of the body where the soul has made its exit and is likely to return, in exchange for offerings to the chaneques. Once the ensalmo and tallada are over, the offerings are thrown into the river as food for the chaneques. This is done at the same time that the patient bathes, a ritual to mark a new beginning for life - renewing it in the freshness of water. Jose the healer explains: First they massage your hand and on the seventh day they unsmoke you (desahumar) and they bathe you well ... with new soap. They come and fetch you, they bring you to a waterfall ... the chanecos are in the precipices, in the falls ... Healers say that they're going to pay the chanecos ... When they arrive, they start a fire, they take some coals so as to unsmoke the one who is sick. And then the man starts praying ... so that the soul is returned to the one who is sick, so that he does not continue suffering, so that it (the soul) is released. The healer then starts throwing copal smoke, and he puts a bit of it in the waterfall, a bit of copal, a bit of candle ... (and coals extinguished with aguardiente) and that's when he throws the chicken and then goes away. (Field note 02/12/94; cf. Interview: Amparo 11/01/95)

The ensalmo and tallada last a total of seven days. During this period the patient must follow certain rules. In cases where fright is severe, it is best for the patient not to leave the safety of his or her house and to avoid talking to others. The soul will come back only where tranquillity reigns (Hernandez and Bautista 1983, 26-7). Visitors other than healers are not allowed into the house since the soul of the person struck with fright is weak and vulnerable to external influences. Only the mother or wife can come into the room to bring food or smoke to the patient.34 If in the presence of a sick child, people must speak slowly. Those receiving an ensalmo treatment should have a piece of copal or cotton tied to their hands to 'signal that they are being healed'

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(Interview: Pedro 20/03/94). Fright victims should take all necessary precautions to avoid exposure to the heat emanating from pregnant and menstruating women, recent widows, and elderly people as well. In addition to staying at home, adult patients must abstain from sex. Otherwise they will not heal. Sexual intercourse is a cooling activity that may further debilitate the body in a state of fright and excessive coldness. Nor is the patient allowed to go to the river or well to have a bath. Otherwise, the chaneques will frighten the patient again, and this time death is sure to follow (Gonzalez Cruz et al. 1983, 31). Patients should avoid water sites until the seventh day, which is when a ritual bath (using new soap) is performed and offerings are made to the chaneque in exchange for the patient's soul, including copal, aguardiente, a chicken, and sweepings from the house.35 The offerings and sweepings are thrown into the river together with all ingredients used in the treatment.36 But the house should not be swept until the seventh day as this can scare away the soul departing from the body (during the time of illness or a period of mourning). Healing procedures vary from one healer to another. Some use the sucking technique with a mouthful of aguardiente during the ensalmo, others do not. Some burn copal during every ensalmo, others wait till the seventh day before they smoke the patient. When the patient is not very weak, he or she can go to the healer's house to receive treatment. If the afflicted cannot leave the house and the healer lives in another village, the healer can first meet with the patient and later proceed with treatment at a distance, using a piece of clothing from the patient. The ensalmo and tallada are performed during the first visit. The healer will then use the piece of clothing to do the sahumada on a daily basis, until the seven-day treatment is over. Some healers perform the ritual bath at waterfalls.37 Others do it anywhere along the river, in a spot 'where the water is flowing' (donde cone el agua).38 One healer noted that she will offer a sacrificial chicken (polio del reemplazo) only when the illness is life threatening, as in the case of a snakebite or when a person is struck by lightning.39 To conclude, the floral and water imagery tied to the chaneques and their world points to the blessings of a better life filled with laughter and the freshness of life renewed. The blessings, however, can turn into a nightmare if pursued without abnegation. Feasting without fasting gluttony without sacrifice - spells ruin for humans who aspire to live in a land of plenty. If unrestrained, the outpouring of water and the fluids of life gives way to a flood of tears caused by illness, rotting, and

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soul theft. Undeserving souls caught delighting themselves at springs and wells are likely to be lost at the hands of chthonian spirits who have it in their power to divest humans of food, health, and the solar life force dwelling in them. To avoid losing everything they crave for, humans must show respect towards nature and deprive themselves of the good life through dietary practices (sexual and alimentary) and warm offerings to spirits dwelling in cool waters of the underworld (Foster 1945, 180). Otherwise they will not be able to preserve their health or produce sustenance to meet their needs, and their efforts to conquer the women and the animals they chase will end in failure. As in pre-Hispanic days, humans must show self-control in matters of food and sex (Leon-Portilla 1983, 131, 135, 142ff., 222f., 238). They must renounce pleasures of the flesh, make floral offerings to the chaneques. and emulate these asexual childlike spirits. They must do this if they wish to be like them, creatures finding laughter and walking in the nude in the underworld Eden known as Talogan. In her study of healing traditions among the Quiche Mayas of Guatemala, Tedlock (1987) notes an absence of explicit references to hot and cold categories in local explanations of fright and related remedies. This leads her to question the relevance of humoral theories in local healing beliefs and practices, claiming that humoral reasoning is often blown out of proportion by anthropologists who tend to use faulty interviewing techniques couched in humoral terms. She concludes that traditional medicinal treatments are based not on humoral theory but rather on generations of experimentation with specific plant substances, with healing in view. Unlike Tedlock's study, our analysis of susto shows that while they do not follow George Foster's humoral reasoning, traditional treatments go beyond an empirical knowledge of medicinal plants. For the Popolucas and Nahuas of the Sierra, fright is seen as a condition in which vital energy is taken away from the body. Without this energy, the body cannot function normally. Basic organic cycles and growth processes become disrupted and lead to a series of pathological conditions. Treatment is logically guided, first and foremost, by procedures to restore the lost energy. But this cannot be achieved with the application of herbal remedies alone. It requires rituals tied to transactions between human beings and spirits of preHispanic ancestry. Spirits and their expectations of human penance and sacrifice play a key role in restoring health to souls lost through fright.

CHAPTER SIX

Milpa Medicine and the Lunisolar Calendar

Sowing and Dieting Measures of hot and cold govern all cycles of life. New life begins in water, yet its natural progression is a movement away from life-giving fluids flowing in the human body and watering the earth. In the end, life is a gift from the heavens - from the solar warmth that gives movement and strength to all bodies that grow and thrive under the sun. This energy increases as humans age and dry themselves up toiling the land and raising the seed of future generations of children and ears of corn. Heliotropic growth must nonetheless proceed with a sense of pace. As they put years on, humans must maintain a proper balance between things and activities deemed to be either cool or warm, cold or hot. Proper thermal measure is needed in all things, and excesses are to be avoided lest life should burn up and wither through drowning or premature drying. This is a general rule that applies to all spheres of life, including work, food, and sex. Equilibrium in all such matters is essential to the preservation of health and life itself. Dietary recommendations are thus concerned with prescribing specific foods and behaviour to counter or prevent imbalances and illnesses of the body. Foods and activities such as coitus and sleep have either hot or cold qualities which, depending on the illness or state of the body, can either disrupt or restore the energy balance governing the human organism. Rules as to what humans should eat or do concern not only their own health but also everything they wish to achieve, including the sustenance of life secured through hunting, fishing, or agriculture. The state of one's body directly affects one's capacity to heal, to catch fish

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and animals, or to produce plentiful corn and other foodstuffs planted in the milpa. Illnesses of land and body are inseparable. A good illustration of this can be found in an agricultural ritual involving the sowing of corn and related prescriptions applied to food and sex. Continence and smoking with burning copal are the main ritual forms. For seven nights before planting a man must not sleep with his wife. Rats and racoons are believed to eat the seeds if the taboo is violated. Before breakfast on the day of sowing, all seed is smoked with copal and a prayer made to the Virgen Carmen of Catemaco, or to mok santu (maize saint), the maize god. The sown field is then smoked by walking through it with a small clay pot containing burning copal. Smoking is again done when the corn is knee high, and when the tassel and tiny ears appear. When roasting ears are ready a man and his wife go to the field before sunrise, smoke copal, cut seven ears, return home, and make tamales, and eat them around midnight. From then on ears can be cut as needed. When the grains are hard, seven ears are brought home, smoked with copal, and placed beside burning candles. This is believed to prevent attacks by insect pests and mould. A final smoking occurs in the spring when all the harvest is in. (Foster 1942,42)

Rats playing and toying with a man's corn is a suitable punishment for a man who indulges in pleasures of the flesh instead of being serious about his work. The following prayer to Homshuk is thus recited immediately before corn is sown and is designed to protect maize plants from rat predators: 'Homshuk, this day I will sow you, here where I have cleaned the land, one head, two heads, three heads. They (the rats) will not pick you up like a toy, they will not scrape you out like a toy' (Field note: Hernandez 07/91). Baez-Jorge (1973, 98) reports that people's food regime was very restricted for seven days prior to the first offering of copal that preceded the sowing of corn. This first offering was done at midnight in the middle of the milpa. From that time until twenty-four hours later, the person had to abstain from eating and make sure that seven ears of corn (i.e., seven seeds) were sown in seven holes concentrated in the middle of the milpa. These and other precautionary measures continue to be observed by some. To begin with, excessive coldness of the human body must be avoided as it can be harmful to the seed plot and cause food plants to

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rot. Chahuistle or chawis is a rotting disease that can affect corn and other plants such as coffee and fruit trees. It may be produced by an excess of humidity that burns the plant, causing it to dry up and wither. Effects of coldness hitting the plant are so extreme that the end result is a burning phenomenon described as hot. Two types of chawis can affect corn plants. The yellow one attacks corn when it is small. The plant turns yellow from top to bottom and ears fail to grow. The other type of chawis produces a reddish or pinkish (pintito) colour attacking the leaves and causing the ears of corn to rot when they are young. Chawis can be brought on by different factors, including hail, dense fogs, and strong variations between daytime and night-time temperature.1 All of these are climatic events well within the influence of the chaneques, the servants of the Tlaloc or Chane. Breaking dietary rules and failing to make proper payments to the chaneques can elicit their punishment through any of these natural phenomena. If in a state of excessive coldness, men who plant corn seed can also be the cause of chawis invading the milpa. Actually, dieting in order to enhance one's heat and vigour may be needed to add strength to seed sown by man, which include semen but also the grain of corn. Among the Popolucas, a man who is serious, single, or abstains from sexual activity and diets for seven days prior to planting is thought to be in an ideal position to sow strong maize seeds. The man should not leave his house during the sowing week as someone else may jeopardize maize growth by touching or pinching his behind, a gesture evoking sexual activity. The man's physical and moral condition must be one of dryness and heat, which is what is required to secure the regeneration of human and botanical life alike. Both the man and his maize plants are then considered to be jamamoc, the opposite of a ygjnoc, a frivolous non-dieting campesino and his plot. While jamamoc literally means sun corn, an allusion to the state of heat that results from sexual abstinence, yojnoc comes from yomo, woman, and moc, corn, an imagery implying sexual contact with a man's female partner prior to sowing. Rodriguez Hernandez (n.d.b, 3) refers to jamamoc as the campesino who has performed the dieta (period of sexual abstinence) prior to sowing; and yojnoc as the one who does not stop having sexual contact with his partner. When maize seeds are planted or visited by a yojnoc or sown in the immediate vicinity of a yojnoc milpa, plants suffer from various ailments, including the yomoc arriving in the form of an animal predator.

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Weak as they are, yomoc seeds are an easy prey for predators. They fight in the sense of interbreeding with other species that harm them. Their leaves eventually turn white, soaplike, and therefore hot. They get lazy, they grow in small numbers, and they rot before reaching maturity. Most of all, when harvested and eaten they give little satisfaction and strength and are quickly consumed. Given these rules of proper sowing conduct, the corn god Homshuk does not tolerate lazy campesinos or children playing in the milpa at seedtime (Rodriguez Hernandez 1994,11,19-20; cf. Lopez Austin 1980, 393). A campesino who is worried that the cold yQimoc condition of his neighbour will spread to his own plants can protect his milpa by planting his jamamoc seed first (see Figure 6.1). To protect his neighbour's field, the yQimoc campesino may ask a young unmarried son to plant the first seven seeds of corn. Other preventive measures include maintaining maximum distance between the two plots, about seventy-five metres. Hot objects can also be buried, as with dry seed planted in fresh soil. For instance, copal incense, red-coloured staff (the colour of blood, fire, lightning), and old machetes with red ribbons may be planted in the corners and the middle of the plot. The milpa periphery may be smoked so as to protect food plants against winds and diseases. Lastly, the concerned campesino may stand between the two plots and stamp the soil with a digging stick called espeque, requesting the plants from the two neighbouring milpas not to fight among themselves and harm one another through interbreeding (Rodriguez Hernandez 1994,11,13,20). Other ritual precautions include burning copal around the milpa seven days after planting. Before sowing, seeds should be watered and then dried and smoked with copal so that they do not rot. Offerings to the chaneques will protect the plot against animal predators under their control. Pedro narrates: When I was a young boy ... when people sowed, first they had to sow seven heads ... Because that's the way it was done, you also smoke it, you take a handful of maize, you smoke it with a wick, with copal, then you go to sow, right in the middle of the milpa. Around the milpa, you take half ... In the middle of the milpa you sow seven heads ... as a sign. If you sow seven heads and all of them are born, then they say that the others will go well. But if the heads are not well born, sometimes only five are born, sometimes six ... then they won't come out well, as a sample. The sample doesn't come out well ... Seven days afterwards, you have to go to the

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Figure 6.1 Sowing sun corn milpa to smoke the heads. And then you have to smoke the milpa, around, the outskirts, making seven rounds ... You count seven times, fasting, you don't eat until twelve. Then they say the corn is well protected. Animals won't come to eat it, the wild animals, nor the winds will make them fall ... And when they sow, those seven days they will not 'use the woman,' they won't touch women until those seven days have passed. (Field note 08/06/94)

160 The Hot and the Cold

Given his hot condition, however, a jamamoc campesino must refrain from accumulating too much heat. Accordingly, he must avoid ingesting foodstuffs considered to be hot. The following excerpt is from an interview with a local healer expressing his views about the relationship between food restrictions and the planting of corn.2 ANDRES: People have told me that you should not eat mamey during seven days before the sowing. JOSE: Yes, this is true. ANDRES: Why? JOSE: Because mamey is hot. ANDRES: And what happens to the corn? JOSE: If you eat some, the corn will rot. ANDRES: Are things that rot hot? JOSE: Yes, things that rot are hot. (Field note 03/04/94)

Don Jose explains that many things are hot and that these cannot be eaten during the critical seven-day period preceding the sowing of corn. They include eggs, avocado, onions, chili, and honey. Breaking this dietary rule brings harm to humans through damage to the maize crop. Eating hot foods makes corn fall prey to chahuistle burning. Note that honey is associated with the blood of Christ and is taboo at Eastertime, a feast marking the dry season preceding the arrival of rains and the planting of wet corn. On a more practical level, honey and onions are all the more harmful as they are said to attract maize predators such as ants and rabbits. As for soap, it is said to be spicy and hot, which means the campesino should not use it to wash his body lest the plants should grow white leaves and wither. Bodies and clothing should not be washed with soap (or copal incense) until the seventh day, which is when Homshuk was born as an egg (Interviews: Jose 03 / 04/94,10/06/94, Pedro 08/06/94; Rodriguez Hernandez 1994,1-3). The final bath event plays an important role in a Sierra community known as Santa Marta. The ritual is performed on the day of the village patron saint, a festivity held at the end of July, a few weeks after the sowing of corn. The festivity ends with a river bath to cool off the bodies of those who have properly dieted, thereby countering the heat accumulated during days of vigil and sexual abstention. When entering the water, a mouthful of alcohol is blown so that the chaneques will be satisfied with us and refrain from doing harm. Without this bath and the washing of clothes, it is said that rain and cold would never

f

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come to Santa Marta, and there would only be summer and therefore no corn (Rodriguez Hernandez 1994, 8). Excessive heat jeopardizing man's seeding activities can also take the form of anxieties and preoccupations about matters other than milpa labour, worries that detract men from their parentlike duties visa-vis corn plants and their seed. Thus, when sowing campesinos should do seven tareas (each equalling one-sixteenth of an hectare) without looking behind, a gesture that would offend the maize plants (Interview: Jose 03/04/94). The first seven 'heads' are sown without the campesino turning the head in any direction. Failing this, corn might choose to leave the milpa (Rodriguez Hernandez 1994, 3-4). Nor should any seed be thrown away and wasted. One campesino reports having heard Homshuk cry 'like many children.' After finding grains of corn scattered and abandoned on the soil, he brought them to his house to avoid Homshuk's anger. Had he not done this, the plants could have gone to rot and the harvest could have been lost. This is to say that fatherly care is an essential ingredient in the reproductive process. When sowing, the campesino should talk to the seed, uttering in Popoluca reassuring words such as the following: 'However close the other [milpa] may be, don't pay any attention to those near you. I will look after you so that you grow nicely, I will clean you, love you, smoke you, but don't pay attention to the wind, to the whirlwinds, put your trust in your master.' Campesinos must talk regularly to maize plants growing in the milpa and later stored above the kitchen. Likewise, caution must be taken never to bad-mouth the plants. For instance, if someone comes to purchase maize and the owner says he has none, the maize will get angry and go away. At night maize plants talk to one another to see how human masters treat them. If mistreated, corn plants will leave the milpa or house and seek another master. The campesino will then see children crying in his dreams, children abandoned and with dirty feet (Rodriguez Hernandez 1994,1-4; n.d.b, 3, 5). In short, the dietary and propitiatory principles designed to protect and reproduce human life apply to matters of health, but they also extend to other domains such as agriculture and politics (as shown in Figure 6.2). All domains involve cold beginnings and hot endings modelled after the cool birth and dry death of the corn god. Acts of self-sacrifice precede the beginning of a new cycle, bringing the human body to the state of heat required to exercise authority, heal, and reproduce. Abstention from sleep and sex produces an accumulation of

162 The Hot and the Cold

Figure 6.2 Sacrifice and renewal

inner energy, an excess of solar heat that denotes a higher spiritual condition and makes a person worthy of what is being sought, be it health, leadership, or milpa productivity. Too much heat must nonetheless be avoided as it can be destructive of the powers of life. Men sowing the seed of new plants must refrain from eating food that is too hot. They must bathe at the proper time if fresh rain and cool weather are to sustain plant sprouting and growth. Last but not least, they should not let their mind get heated with too many worries, concerns that detract their attention from the care they must bestow on their childlike plants. The life cycle of plants and human bodies entails a succession of events occurring in the appropriate season, each in their own good

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time. Native categories speak to these orderly divisions and transformations in time. But they also address three basic facts of life. The first fact is that things can always go wrong. The second is that humans can make mistakes, and someone can be blamed for bad things arriving unexpectedly. Alvarez Heydenreich (1987,133,178) is correct in pointing out that humans are not automatically responsible for their sufferings. Yet the system is inherently moral in that practically all illnesses can be attributed to either human carelessness, sorcery, or the intervention of spirits. The third fact of life is that things can be done to restore order and enjoy happier days. All in all, time is inherently flexible and malleable. It is constantly on the move, heading in directions that are never entirely predictable and never without a plot. Milpa, Women, and the Moon Men should diet and keep themselves hot when sowing a milpa. They should keep their bodily fluids to themselves if they are to gather strength and generate strong seed. Too much heat should nonetheless be avoided. For instance, a male sower should not go to the field wearing something red or carrying a mirror or an aluminum pump. Given their association with heat and thunder, these objects may destroy the coolness and wetness of corn freshly planted in the milpa. The man wearing the colour of thunder and lightning will not go unpunished. He may end up being attacked by the god of thunder who does not wish anyone to use his redness and other shining instruments in vain (Rodriguez Hernandez 1994,1, 4). Does the same reasoning apply to women? Should they be hot when corn is planted? Definitely not. A woman in a state of heat because menstruating, pregnant, or in labour can only bring harm to the seed plot (Lopez Austin 1980,337). Women should not walk through or near a corn field at seedtime, which is when the plants are fresh and cool. Otherwise what is happening to their own body - wombs drying up from within - will be extended to the corn field and Mother Earth. Since infants in the womb thrive on the corn food that feeds the mother, they are in competition with seeds and young plants growing in the milpa. The heat emanating from the woman's body will therefore cause fruit to fall and rot, flowers to wither, or plants to be attacked by thunder and pest.3 If the fetus growing in a woman's womb is evil (cf. Lopez Austin 1980, 232), greater harm will be done to the milpa. Plants that are particularly at risk include maize, beans, orange trees, melon,

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watermelon, calabash, chili, and papaya. Honey is also vulnerable. Hot women and the newborn are particularly fond of honey, a substitute for breast milk that can turn to water when needlessly exposed to a hot woman's presence; her nearness deprives the nectar of its warmth and thickness, as if it were feeding the fetus before the proper time (Interviews: Jose 03/04/94,10/06/94; Rodriguez Hernandez 1994,4). The fetus is like a nacido tumour that sucks the blood and fluid of life from the female body and from the earth as well. It literally eats up the mother and her sustenance consisting of corn from the milpa. A woman is also hot when in her month (imeets). her moon filled with blood (esmeeualisti}. Actually, a woman swollen with the blood of new life resembles the full moon, Our Mother fully grown and bursting with her warmth and light in heaven (Interview: Jose 03/04/94). Given this parallel, the harm that a seed plot can suffer through contact with women in heat can also stem from exposure to the full moon. Campesinos would be ill-advised to sow corn seed under a full moon, at a time when the lunar body is aging and the tide of fluids in human and plant bodies is low. This would amount to sowing in conditions of excessive heat. If the rule is not observed, cultivated plants will rot, burn, and suffer diseases or heat attacks. The milpa will yield no corn or produce dry cobs at best. Ears might also split, with two small ears being harvested instead of a big one, each consisting of pure cob and no grain. "That's why banana is planted when the moon is new, so that it will grow well and produce big bunches ... Because if they plant during a full moon, yes they grow, but if the fruit ... starts splitting, the fruit splits in all directions.' Sugarcane is also known to become hard as rock when planted in days of the full moon. Like most other plants, it will produce more juice and be easier to chew if sown under a new moon. Finally, houses must not be built in days of the full moon, nor should animals be castrated if they are to grow properly in lieu of bleeding to death or being struck with cancer.4 When the milpa suffers from a heat shock (cheque caliente) emanating from either an object, a woman, or the moon, various actions can be taken to ward off the attack. The assistance of a special healer known as the Thunderbolt Woman (Mujer Rayo) can be sought to fortify the milpa. She and others can also use objects such a ribbons or pieces of cloth coloured red to shield the plants from heat attacks. These protective flags are tied to branches or stakes located around the plot. But why resort to the powers of redness, thunder, and lightning to counter threats of heat? The answer lies in requirements of strength, as Jose explains:

Milpa Medicine and the Lunisolar Calendar 165 Redness takes away all bad things, so that it doesn't affect the milpa ... As you can see, for instance, the chili fields, the papaya fields... like other species that you plant... watermelon, melons, like other things, you put red flags in the corners of the milpa ... because there are a lot of people who go by and who are hot in their eyes, and they make everything wither, the flowers and the harvest. To avoid this, they put little red flags ... For the same reason that you put little flags to the plants [before the flowers come out], because they say that in the old days, the pregnant [or menstruating] woman carries a baby ... very bad ... it means very hot ... That's why when a woman goes into a seed plot... something red should be in the seed plot, so that the flowers don't wither and the fruit doesn't rot. (Field note 17/10/94; see Olavarrieta Marenco 1977,123)

Fire is fought with fire. 'It's better to put it [red ribbon] in the milpa, or on the orange tree ... so that the fruit doesn't fall... Because they say that red is a very strong colour and repels all of that, the hot' (Interview: Maria 19/10/94). It takes away 'all wickedness.'5 A seed plot surrounded with red flags is as hot and pregnant with seed as a woman in labour. Consequently, it has nothing to fear from people in heat. In strength lies the protection against someone else's strength. Only the weak are vulnerable to immoderate heat. If a woman bearing a child comes near the field, she does not only endanger the plants, but she can also be struck down with fever; her body then becomes hotter than it already is. When combined with the action of a blood-fetus emptying the woman of her life fluids, corn seed, and young plants growing in the milpa can dry her out even more, causing her body temperature to rise. This fever can be remedied by massaging the woman's head with an uncooked egg. This should be done for seven consecutive days, usually in the morning before breakfast. The egg extracts the heat and becomes hot or cooked once the massage is over. It 'absorbs, and then you realize in what shape the person is. If the person is very hot in the brain, you will see it in the egg, in a glass of water. When you break it the egg yoke comes out, that is, well cooked' (Interview: Jose 23/10/94). Once the treatment is over, eggs should be thrown into the river. Alternatively, the healer may wet and cool off the woman's head with the use of an ironstone axe head dropped on earth by the god of thunder, or an old Mexican coin dipped in water; the water should be taken from the well or the tap early in the morning (Interview: Felicia 15/06/94). Hot women and the full moon no longer present a danger when

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plants are ripe and dry enough to be harvested. Actually, it is recommended that corn and medicinal plants be doubled, pruned, or harvested during days of the full moon. A moon growing in size is a good time for ears of corn to be doubled and harvested. 'In my milpa, when I double, yes it's good when the moon is full or half-full, that is, little is missing for the moon to become full... and then one doubles it and it isn't attacked by a disease... If one is going to double under a new moon, or two moons, well no! the corn is attacked by a disease ['se pica/ agui p6tspa moc, meaning literally becoming very termite-eaten corn]' (Interview: Maria 19/10/94; see Interviews: Juliana 21/11/94, Pedro 27/11/94). The heat emanating from a full moon and a woman bearing a child is not a threat to mature medicinal plants, ears of maize, and corn fields that are in the process of drying up and are about to be harvested. The full moon is also an appropriate time for cutting wood. When the moon is full and therefore at low tide, trees are dry and ready to be felled. To cut them in days of the youthful and watery moon would be to invite problems of rotting. Days of the new moon (ma/ii pQya, fresh or tender moon) are a cold time of the month when plant fluids are at high tide and Our Mother in heaven is at rest and no longer shedding her warm light on earth. Thus, trees should not be cut or harvested when the moon is at high tide, which is when plants and the heavenly body contain water and 'have their blood.' When the moon is full 'the tide is low, it's the strength of the earth, and when the tide rises, the moon is fresh' and 'trees are full of juice' (Rodriguez Hernandez and Ramos Vasquez 1993, 4; Interview: Juliana 21/11/94). Note that cutting a piece of bark around a tree trunk can be performed under a new moon provided that felling by rotting is the goal (Rodriguez Hernandez 1994,2,4; Interview: Pedro 27/11/94). All in all, corn should be sown by men in heat, yet new seed about to sprout should not be exposed to heat stemming from pregnant women or their full-moon equivalent. Exposure to a seed plot can in turn be harmful to pregnant women and their children. Both situations produce heat attacks that can be countered through warm-red remedies that procure protective warmth and strength to fields and fetuses otherwise fresh and weak. Unlike new seed, however, trees and plants that are fully grown and ripe can be pruned, cut, or harvested during days of the full moon, a time of the month that enhances the dryness of all plants and foodstuffs (see Olavarrieta Marenco 1977, 132). This is when the moon goes through a period of low tide, days when the earth is strong and plants are no longer full of juice.

Milpa Medicine and the Lunisolar Calendar 167 When planting new corn the earth should be full of juice and seed should not be exposed to heat emanating from female bodies, be they lunar or womanly. Given the new life that pregnant mothers must feed, sowing corn in the presence of female swellings spells trouble for corn that is not yet grown and ready to be eaten. It should be emphasized that this logic applies to milpa plants but not to man and woman begetting their own seed. The best time for man to impregnate a woman is when she is menstruating and the moon is full. Since heat is a requirement of reproductive maturity among humans, the fetus is said to have a better chance of sticking to the womb when both the moon and the woman are hot. This is so true that lunar heat and swelling reduced by the effect of an eclipse can jeopardize a child's prospects of growth. When two or three months old, the fetus is still very tender and can be eaten by the moon going through an eclipse (qualocayotl) and swallowed up by darkness. The Gulf Nahuas refer to a lunar eclipse as nemi balo toyetsin. our mother is being eaten (presumably by the sun-father; see Foster 1945, 217). The term balo is to be eaten, to suffer. Unless protected, babies exposed to a lunar eclipse may come out of the uterus with a bitten ear or lip (cuchuc or cut'u), because the moon ate them (icunip£>ya). In lieu of being impregnated with new life by her fiery lover, a female moon devoured by the male sun hungers for child flesh. In the event of a lunar eclipse occurring, pregnant women should wear a red ribbon or carry an iron object. The moon can't eat the baby since iron is hard' (Interview: Maria 19/ 10/94; Olavarrieta Marenco 1977,134; Foster 1994, 58). A dose of heat and hardness compensates for the vulnerability inhering to the softness of new flesh. The Carnaval and Plant Gathering Ailments of the body and diseases in the milpa are inseparable. Ills of body and land are governed by the same principles and also interact; growth and health factors among humans affect and are affected by the milpa condition. Many ritual activities involving humans, plants, sun, moon, and chaneques speak to this vital commerce between all life forms on earth and in heaven. One such activity is the Carnaval of San Pedro Soteapan that used to be held each year at the end of February.6 This was the most important celebration of the Popolucas. Its purpose was to secure rain in due time, a good harvest of maize, and the prevention of disease in the community. The celebration exemplified the

168 The Hot and the Cold intimate relationship that existed in earlier times between medicine, agriculture, religion, and politics. A new fire was lit on the first of January in the house of a community leader. Authorities and dancers kept vigil in front of it for a whole night. The event ended with a feast and a ritual bath by the river or waterfall. The fire could not be put out until the Tuesday of carnival celebrations. Before the carnival started, municipal authorities, healers, sorcerers, religious officers, and dancers, all had to endure long periods of vigil, fasting, and sexual dieting in preparation for the festivities. In his capacity as the carnival mayordomo or 'priest of the lineage of idols' (Interview: Pedro 20/10/94), the municipal president had to diet for 157 days prior to the event. Lower-ranking officials followed shorter periods of sexual abstinence (fifty-three or twenty-eight days), and the rest of community participants only seven days. Ceremonial events included the offering of copal to the chaneques by community authorities and individuals in their own homes. In the words of a Popoluca healer, offerings were done to these spirits because 'they are the ones that give protection against diseases/7 As already explained, fasting and mortification gave leaders an inner energy that was so powerful it could kill unprepared common folk from an overdose of heat. Sorcerers and dancers preparing for the carnival were expected to gather the strength needed to carry out their ritual obligations. Munch Galindo (1983, 247) reports that political leaders 'could not touch others because they would die from heat, a simple greeting was enough to become contaminated and die.' Lopez Austin (1980, 457, 460) describes similar ritual demands and related powers granted to ancient Nahua authorities. For example, rulers of a given territory known as tecuhtli had to undergo ritual transformations that gave them access to the attributes of higher beings, powers that could be harmful to the common folk. Rites included four days and four nights of fasting, vigil, and sexual abstinence. Great heat was built up and stored in the body of a ruler or person destined to occupy a position of authority. Accordingly, tleyotia and tleyohua, to ennoble someone and to become renowned, was to fill someone with fire. Among the ancient Nahuas a man preparing to become a tecuhtli had to remain naked for two days in front of a fire dedicated to the god of fire and giver of life, Xiuhtecuhtli.8 His nasal septum was perforated with awls made from eagle claws and tiger bones, adornments befitting the ruler's title. The man was then painted in black and endured four days of penance and mortification. The rite of passage ended with

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a ceremonial bath dedicated to Chalchiuhtlicue. goddess of terrestrial waters, marking his accession to a higher level of fire energy and rebirth as ruler. Ochpaniztli9 is another ancient ritual that illustrates the concept of heat building up in bodies of exceptional strength. This was a yearly celebration to Toci. mother of all gods and goddesses of midwives and healers. It involved offerings of copal and the hearts of women beheaded and skinned. Mature women were sacrificed at dusk and their skins were worn by priests who had to purify themselves beforehand to withstand the energy concentrated in them. Once worn, these skins were deposited in a special cave. As part of the celebration, all the main streets, temples, and houses were swept and people had ritual baths. In the Popoluca carnival, connections between power, solar heat, and sexual dieting play a central role, the meanings of which have already been explored. As with the ancient Nahuas, coitus involves a cooling-off experience, a refreshment that renews physical energy but may also have debilitating effects if performed too frequently or by people in a weak condition. Thus, sexual abstention for long periods of time has one of two effects. Either it makes a person ill as heat builds up inside, causing headaches and pain in the eyes (cf. Olavarrieta Marenco 1977, 66). Or it enhances one's heat to the point of becoming a danger to others.10 This is understandable given that sexual activity affects the tonalli, the inner solar life force that grows with age and leaves the body during sexual intercourse (Lopez Austin 1980, 333, 348, 354, 428; Viesca Trevino 1986, 65). When abstaining from sex, a person's solar energy may rise considerably and approximate a state closer to the divine. Through self-denial, the person becomes worthy of the powers and blessings he or she yearns for. As we shall see, this is true of the corn god's journey through life, but it also applies to all humans and their religious, political, and medical leaders as well. The idea of becoming worthy through acts of self-denial is well captured in what a Popoluca man has to say about the sexual diet of sorcerers and leaders preparing for the carnival: 'Yes, [sexual abstinence] was carried out so people would respect them, because if one goes to see those who are going to take charge [occupy positions of leadership] and they do not diet, people will not give them respect. They are like youths! You can hit them! You can kill them! Yes, but if one carries out the dieta, they say that one will have a lot of power, a lot of maturity, yes, the spirit to face people.'11

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Vigils follow similar principles. As with the ancient Nahuas, work is thought to produce heat in the body, to be countered through sleep and rest. As an act of self-denial in preparation for a religious event, staying up at night preserves and enhances the tonal energy of a person awake and therefore still at work.12 The vigil or wake is a hot condition in that the blood keeps circulating in the body (Rodriguez Hernandez 1994, 4). Outside this ritual context, however, too much work with no rest will produce fatigue and illness.13 The rejoicing and blessings that come at the end of this lengthy ritual preparation achieved through vigil and dieting are proportional to the sacrifices endured. In Popoluca the verb to celebrate is ntc, which also means to drink water or to eat tamales, a traditional food of seasoned meat and maize flour steamed or baked in maize husks (Elson and Gutierrez 1995, 20, 76). Fiesta is translated as str), a word evoking the sky and the alma soul or spirit (Elson and Gutierrez 1995, 87). But festivities can turn sour. The risks taken by those participating in events such as the Carnaval are great. Feasts enjoyed without adequate measures of sacrifice endured beforehand will bring ruin and disease instead of the blessings of life on earth. The Carnaval was last held in 1951 (Perales 1992, 57-60). It is now a thing of the past. Municipal authorities apparently banned it because of the severe duties demanded of them, and the belief by many that a failure to satisfy all ritual requirements could bring harm to the community (Baez-Jorge 1973, 206-7). Many are of the view that it is better not to perform rites at all rather than making a botch of them. A badly performed ritual can bring poor crops for many years to come. Failing to follow all the requisites of preparing oneself for the carnival can also result in death. Many of those interviewed knew of someone whose fate had been sealed by a failure to comply with rules of proper ritual preparation and performance. Baez-Jorge (1973,206-7, our translation) cites Juan Cruz who recalls that in 1938, 'two authorities did not follow the dolgencia [sexual abstinence] and as the Carnaval came to an end, dysentery was let loose killing 180 people.' Elderly people feel nonetheless that the tendency to abandon the old ways accounts for the hardships currently endured by Popolucas. A typical reaction is captured in the words of an old man standing at the top of a hill overlooking the town of Soteapan. In response to a comment about how beautiful the town looked from a distance, the old man replied that many people from the outside were coming to the region trying to establish themselves and find a plot of land. He complained

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about the politicians of today: The only thing they want is money. Before it was not like that.' When asked if he was referring to the times when the Carnaval used to be celebrated, he answered, 'Yes, indeed! Then they were good! How beautiful the Carnavall Then you did have fruit, without worms, people did not get ill, the harvest was good. Not any more!' He added, 'My milpa doesn't produce like before.'14 In many ways the Carnaval has been replaced by Easter celebrations, giving rise to a blending of native and Christian rituals and beliefs, a syncretism observed in practically all indigenous areas of Latin America. In the Sierra Santa Marta, some consider that Christ and the sun are one and the same divinity (see also Sandstrom 1991, 248). Encounters with the chaneques are more likely to occur at Easter, around the time of the vernal equinox and the harvesting of dry-season ears of corn (used to decorate the church on Good Friday). The date corresponds to the end of the Christian Lent, a four-week period during which present-day healers collect and prepare medicinal plants growing in the forest. Contacts with the other world also occur typically around the time of the summer solstice, on the night of the twenty-fourth of June. This period of the year extending from early March to the summer solstice (known in Spanish as the tiempo de figuras) is a time when important religious festivities are held and when maize seeds begin to sprout, medicinal plants are collected, and apprentice healers are trained.15 Unlike the Carnaval, rites of plant gathering tied to the healing profession seem to better withstand the passing of time. They involve the collection of plants that must dry under the sun or by the fire. To carry out this activity with success, the healer is expected to achieve the 'good posture' and heat energy needed to acquire the powers of healing and pass them on to the plants collected for medicinal purposes. The twenty-fourth of June is a particularly important date in this regard. It marks the religious celebration of San Juan Bautista, considered by the Popolucas and Nahuas to be the great master of medicinal plants. Curanderos go that night into sacred mountains to obtain from San Juan Bautista the knowledge of medicinal plants and the gift to heal (Munch Galindo 1983,205-9). At midnight 'the snake comes dancing out of the ant hole, transforming itself into a beautiful woman that delights snakebite healers and instructs them, granting the wisdom to cure' (1983,190; our translation). We shall return to this symbolism, in reference to the ancient legend of the suns and related evocations of sacred mountains, caves, ant holes, snakes, and the good life obtained through penance and sacrifice.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Corn, Water, and Iguana

The preceding chapter explored the botanical side of native healing practices, with an emphasis on how cycles of human activity and lunar motions affect corn growth and the sustenance of human life. Corn harvesting and plant pruning are best done in days of the full moon, a low-tide moment of the month when plants reach optimum levels of dryness, ripeness, and maturity. Conversely, milpa sowing and early corn growth require a good dose of coolness. Young growths thrive on the freshness of fluids flowing at high tide, during days of the new moon. Given these requirements of wetness and coolness, men sowing corn must avoid hot foodstuffs and women who are in heat because menstruating or pregnant (bearing children hungering for their mothers' feed of corn). Maize growth is positively influenced by the strength of male seed secured through sexual dieta, abstention performed with moderation by men in heat. Cyclic events governed by yearly motions of the sun and the seasons also intervene in the ritual management of milpa activities. Of all cyclic events aimed at securing corn growth and the livelihood of humans well fed and well protected against disease, the February Carnaval of Soteapan stands out above all the rest. The event used to celebrate and guarantee the arrival of rains required for plants to sprout and grow. It also allowed humans to renew their sacred pact with the corn god and spirits of the underworld, using a ritual language that brought together many key elements of indigenous healing practices and related beliefs. Agricultural planning, prayers to the corn god, the exercise of communal authority, dietary prescriptions aimed at storing warmth and strength, offerings to chaneques, all came together in a ritual venture of the first magnitude.

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To these daily and yearly cycles and ritual measures designed to secure the health of humans and maize should be added events pitched on a much broader scale: those that account for the primordial beginnings of maize and the pact once made between humans, the god of thunder, and the corn god. As we shall see, events related through corn mythology add great cosmological value to hot-cold reasoning founded on the threefold principles of balance, periodicity, and growth. Stories of Corn and the Interpretive Method To the Gulf Nahuas and Popolucas, maize is not merely a staple food satisfying biological needs, a plant exploited by humans bent on harnessing nature to survive. Corn is not simply a use value, let alone a material commodity that may be exchanged for money. Rather, the maize plant is a godly figure, a divine being who secures the sustenance and well-being of humans and to whom prayers are still recited (Elson 1947). The agricultural deity plays a crucial role in the Mesoamerican view of linkages between humans and many other life forms dwelling in the universe. The story of the corn god's mythical journey through life situates humans within a web of life involving plant gods, animal spirits, and the forces of nature. In its own speculative way, this mythology also replicates the basic principles explored in previous chapters: those of thermal balance (avoiding extreme situations), cyclic periodicity (alternating between wetness and dryness, or coolness and warmth), and the progressive movement of life from its aquatic beginnings towards later stages of reproductive heat, old age, and the inevitable death that follows. The origin of this com mythology is uncertain. It may have been borrowed by the Gulf Nahuas from their Popoluca neighbours following the invasion of Nahua speakers migrating from the Central Plateau in the ninth century (Garcia de Leon 1976,10-14). Briefly, it tells the story of the plant child known to the Nahuas as Sintiopiltsin and Homshuk or Jomxuc to the Popolucas (from JQmi, new).1 This is a local god also known as the Corn Master. In Soteapan Homshuk is synonymous with Moc santu (corn saint), 'a dwarf three feet high, with hair of cornsilk. When ears are small he is young with golden hair, and as the corn matures he likewise becomes old, finishing the year as a wizened old man with dry, brown hair' (Foster 1942, 42). In Nahuat the divinity is sometimes known as Tamakastsin. the little priest, Itamatiosinti. the wise

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maize god, or San Isidro Labrador in the village of Zaragoza (Garcia de Leon 1991, 35). Maize reigns like king in the milpa. The Corn Master is the god that 'feeds the heart, he is the second god' (Rodriguez Hernandez n.d.b, 3). Several regional variants of this corn mythology were collected in the Nahua language by Garcia de Leon (1968, 1976) in Pajapan, Zaragoza, and San Juan Volador, by Cultures Populares in Hueyapan de Ocampo (Lopez Arias 1983, 6-23), and by Law in Mecayapan (Law 1957; Campos 1982, 163-70). Three Popoluca variants have been published by Elson (1947, 193-214) and Foster (1945, 177-250; see Munch Galindo 1983, 163-9). Several other versions have been collected and transcribed by the authors of this book and members of the Sierra Santa Marta Project. Stories of the Corn Master contain incidents that are treated differently from one variant to another. All stories nonetheless share important elements revolving around a common theme, the corn god's birth as a child, his pilgrimage to the burial ground of his father, and his quest for immortality. In most Nahua versions the story begins with an old man and his wife discovering two eggs in a milpa, eating one (the female) and preserving the other. A young boy is born from the egg that was saved, and he grows up to become the corn god. One day the child goes to fetch water for his adoptive father and meets with a few iguanas who make fun of him and tell him where his real father is: in tagatauatzaloyan, the place where men are dry. The boy eventually catches one animal by the tail, but then lets it go. The child grows in age and decides one day to join some old men who undertake a journey to Oaxaca, towards the land of his father. Two incidents occur along the way to the boy's destination: ants eat his flesh and a rock swallows him. In each case the boy is attacked while sleeping and is abandoned by elderly men described as pilgrim fathers. The boy delivers and restores himself to life by catching one ant with his hair and by urinating on his own chest. He then arrives in the land of his father where he sees an old woman sleeping under a sapodilla heavy with fruit (sometimes an orange tree). The boy climbs up the tree and throws fruit at the woman. After climbing down from the tree the boy learns from his mother that his father has already died. He decides to resurrect his father but warns his mother not to cry or hug her deceased husband lest he should turn into a wild animal. The mother fails to comply with this recommendation, and the story ends with the father transforming himself into a deer that flees into the forest.

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The Popoluca variant recorded by Elson places more emphasis on the origins of natural species and their anatomical features from a native perspective. It tells how all bad animals and insects came into being and where the deer got its horns, the rabbit its long ears, the toad its warty skin, and the lizard its split tongue. The iguana incident is relatively the same, save that minnows also mock the boy Homshuk who ends up being hurt, with a sore in his foot. Homshuk eventually catches both lizards and fish and takes them to the old woman for her to cook. She tells him to set them free, which is what he does. As Homshuk grows, the old man and woman decide to trap and eat him. Our hero becomes aware of the plot and readies himself. The old man is killed during Homshuk's escape, and the old woman is later burned in a trap set by Homshuk. The child gathers the ashes of the old woman into a sack and asks a toad to throw them into the ocean. Homshuk warns the toad not to open the sack, but the toad disobeys. After carrying the bag for a while, the toad feels something itching and decides to open the bag. This causes all animals that sting to jump out of the sack, including snakes, wasps, flies, scorpions, mosquitoes, and black ants. Given its misbehaviour, the toad is stung by these animals let loose and is cursed with a pustular skin.2 In some Popoluca variants, the father is said to have gone to the land where Thunderbolt lives, which is where Homshuk, the corn saint or corn god, decides to go. In his journey, Homshuk crosses the ocean on the back of a turtle before arriving to the land of Thunderbolt. The turtle breaks its chest in the process. Homshuk scolds the turtle for offering to do a task it cannot fulfil. Given its obedient disposition, the turtle is brought back to shore and is healed by a rabbit at Homshuk's request. The corn god then rewards the rabbit for its deed. He gives it a pair of horns as payment for the healing and the medicinal plants used by the rabbit. Homshuk succeeds in crossing the ocean on the back of a second turtle. In return, he decorates the turtle's shell. Our hero is then forced to conquer snakes, tigers, and arrows sent by Thunderbolt to kill him (Homshuk converts the arrows into fishing weaponry). He also escapes from prison with the assistance of turkeys dancing at the sound of thunder. Homshuk eventually defeats his enemy by letting himself be cradled in a hammock and then cradling Thunderbolt in like manner. While doing this Homshuk orders a mole to dig a hole beneath the hammock and asks worms to eat up the poles supporting the hammock. Thunderbolt falls and is buried in the earth (Rodriguez Hernandez n.d.a, 3). Homshuk is said nonetheless to spare his enemy's

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life, on condition that Thunderbolt resurrects his father. Thunderbolt revives Homshuk's father by jumping seven times across the ocean. He also promises Homshuk that he will wet the corn's head whenever there is too much heat from the sun. Meanwhile the resurrected father returns home. Homshuk sends a lizard to warn his mother not to cry and to express joy or laughter when she sees her returning husband. The lizard passes on the message to a second lizard who delivers wrong instructions to Homshuk's mother. When she sees her husband, she does begin to cry. The old husband dies on the spot and disappears; only his bones remain. The story ends with Homshuk splitting the lizard's tongue, in punishment for delivering the wrong message (the lizard is known in Popoluca as agatsuts, liar).3 Before we delve into these imageries and their associations with concepts of wetness and dryness, a few remarks should be made regarding the interpretive method adopted below. First, semantic information conveyed through myth was gathered by researching the lexical, colloquial, and etymological effects conventionally assigned to words and imageries deployed in stories under analysis. Part of this information was obtained through ethno-semantic interviews carried out in Pajapan and Soteapan, the villages where most variants were actually collected. Ethno-linguistic associations come mostly from denotations and connotations assigned to the words by our Pajapan and Soteapan informants and also by Garcia de Leon and Elson and Gutierrez, authors of Mexican Gulf Nahua and Popoluca dictionaries, respectively. To this material we add references to entries appearing in dictionaries compiled by Simeon, originally published in 1885, and more recently by Andrews (1975) and Karttunen (1983). To avoid making gratuitous connections, most of the etymological interpretations suggested throughout the analysis are based on these dictionary entries which contain extensive information on word formation by agglutination. We should stress that the purpose of our occasional excursions into classical Nahuatl is not to explain Gulf Nahua mythology through Aztec culture. Rather, our intention is to suggest that some of the themes explored through this myth may be variations on linguistic usages dating back to pre-Hispanic times. The implications of key signs and motifs were also explored by looking at connections made explicit in variants of the same myth and in manifestations of Gulf Nahua and Popoluca culture, including rituals, folklore, popular beliefs. Moreover, our interpretive reading of this

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mythology takes into account ethnographic observations concerning the practical usages, perceptions, and knowledge associated with signs deployed in the narratives (e.g., how iguana snares are made and used). All of this information collected either by ourselves or by other anthropologists may be used to unpack narrative symbolism while situating it in its proper cultural context. Life Begins in Water: Two Eggs in a Milpa In the Gulf Nahua and Popoluca perspective, the blessings of life renewed are to be found in aquatic surroundings, not on dry land. As in pre-Hispanic times, life begins essentially in water (Lopez Austin 1980,181). But the fluids of life can take many shapes that will not let themselves be captured in a single motif, not even water. The question then is, How can the multiple beginnings of life be conveyed through an imagery that is both simple and variable? One answer to this question lies in the first scene of the Nahua corn story: an old childless couple goes to work in their milpa where they discover two large eggs, one male and the other female. It is said fgihtoa] that there was an old man (wewehtsin) with his old woman (ilamahtsin} but they did not have children dnpiloantsitsin}. There was only the man and the woman. However, they had a milpa dnmiltsin'] and they went to work (gitegipanoayah) i n their milpa, weeding(tamiah). One day they found (gitechoah) two chicken eggs (ome pioteksis), two large (wehwey) eggs. 'Old woman, let's take (tikwiatih) these eggs and have our hen (topio) sit on them (tapacholtitih) and see (matigitagan) what they lay (poniti).' So they went to their house (ichari\ and had the hen sit on them. The hen sat on one egg and they took (gimangeh) the other and ate it (gibahkeh). They ate the egg. The hen sat on the other egg for a few days. When it hatched, it laid a boy (gonetsin). a male infant (chogotsin). The old man and the woman were surprised. 'Caramba, we lost (tikpolohkeh) an egg, the one we ate; if not maybe (anga) the couple would have been born; the other was probably a girl (tagotsin). But we already ate it.' Moreover, they didn't know (agimatiah) who the little boy was. He was 'the venerable son-god-ear-of-corn' (Sintiopiltsiri).*

As we are about to see, this scene featuring the corn-god's birth is rife with signs of fertility that bring together not only humans and plants but also the old and the young, fruit and grain, work and food,

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the male and the female, people and land. Richly textured, the imageries converge on the watery origins of life. Young and Old, Fruit and Grain, Food and Work

Consider first the matter of youth and old age and related evocations of fruit and grain. The first scene speaks to the onset of life, the birth of a plant-child portrayed as an egg. In the Nahua variant the corn egg found in the milpa is referred to as gonetsin, a term used by women to denote a child of either sex. The narrative immediately adds another word, chogotsin. In Kartunnen's dictionary, xocoh (with a long vowel in the first syllable) is a term very similar to the word for fruit or cherry fruit, that is, xocot (with a short vowel in the first syllable); xogoyo is to bear fruit. Both motifs evoke plant life and things that are green, small, or immature. Accordingly, cnogotsin denotes the youngest son of the family, the one who inherits the land and the obligation to look after his parents when old and unable to provide for their own needs. The corn-child found in the milpa takes the shape of a fruitlike egg nesting in a tree. The boy, however, is more than an egglike fruit: he is also a staple plant. This is the story of the corn-god-child known in Nahuat as Sintiopiltsin. from sinti. a dry ear of corn, the grain-bearing spike or head of the plant; tio. a deity; and piltsin. a child (in Nahuatl, a lord). Although resembling a fruit, the corn-child is like a seed of grain planted in a plot, hence ach (achtli, a seed, a grain). In Gulf Nahua ach stands for an uncle or an older brother, or the son who comes first (achto). In classical Nahuatl, there is a vowel-length discrepancy between words denoting seed and the elder brother (from the point of view of a younger sister), yet the terms seem to be related via the common achto imagery (see Karttunen 1983). In one variant of the myth, the corn god is said to be the first child to be born. The genealogical rendering of the first-seed motif points in turn to the word tayagantok. from the nose (vac), denoting an older brother holding power vis-a-vis his siblings and looking after their welfare. In Nahuatl, tlayacayotl (or yacapantli) is primogeniture. Signs of fruit and seed converge on principles of reciprocity and hierarchy prevailing within the family. The first son may exercise authority, yet he is obliged to attend to the needs of his siblings, as if he were their humble servant (achtli in Simeon).5 As for the youngest son (chogotsin. xocoyotl). he is the one who inherits the land,6 yet with this privilege comes the duty of serving one's parents in their old age. In

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short, there is neither authority nor property without family responsibility. The first and last sons complement one another like fruit and grain, two items of consumption that feed into the good life. The young son is to the old as the fruit of luxury is to the first grain seed and the sustenance of life procured through labour. Fruit include things that taste sour (xogok, xogomigui) and are a source of drunkenness (xocomiquiliztU), pleasures collected like eggs in trees without toil. But fruit are not enough. Although they enjoy eating them, the Gulf Nahuas and Popolucas do not consider fruit (all sweet fruits, banana, plantain, root crops, sugarcane, squash, green maize on the cob) to be suitable for a main meal. Raw fruit may be delightful, but subsistence requires real food consisting of taxcal (tortillas), hot tamal and tabal. or side dishes cooked and eaten with tortillas (soup, stew, broiled meat; see Stuart 1978, 234ff). Two eggs in a milpa promise both forms of nourishment, adding staple food to fruits of delight. Male and Female Vessels and Fluids

A lonely aging couple going to work in the milpa is blessed with childlike grain and fruit procured without labour. The scene reconciles youth and age, work and food, fruit and grain. It strikes a simple balance between types of nourishment and rights and obligations in the family. The imagery also points to the complementarity between man and woman. The two eggs appearing in the first scene conjoin the masculine and the feminine; one egg is male, and the other female. But the egg motif mediates between the masculine and the feminine in other ways that tell a long story about indigenous views on the anatomy of reproduction. The egg scene focuses on signs of masculinity. It highlights the birth of the corn-son, a maize plant defined as a male creature. Morphologically speaking, the "son of maize" is the name assigned to the umbilicus (ixictayol) or germ of the kernel taken from a large, dry ear of corn. The narrative assimilates the male egg-fruit found in the milpa to the germ of the corn seed surrounded with albumen. Corn life declined in the masculine gender thus begins with a promising egg-son-fruit-germ-seed composition. The egg imagery also triggers signs of male reproductive sexuality comprising birds, stones, testicles, and the penis. The story starts with two large pioteksis eggs found like stones in a field. Pz'o and teksis are of unknown origin. The

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first term means chicken and may come from pilli or pillotl. which stands for childhood, nobility, and descent (nopiloan in Pajapan). Derivative terms include piltia. to be born, pilhuatia. to procreate, and pilhua, someone who has many children. In Nahuatl, a chicken is called a totolin. and an egg is a toto-tetl. a bird-stone.7 In present-day Pajapan, the egg or bird-stone motif is a metaphor for testicle, while the totot bird is synonymous with both the newborn child and the penis (like the English cock). The notion that the bird embodies the principle of male fertility is confirmed in such derivative expressions as totomigui (bird-dead), to be impotent. Two eggs in a seed plot offer the blessings of masculine fertility embodied in the phallic bird, the stone-testicles (actsa in Popoluca8), and the childlike eggs of noble descent. The egg-son-fruit-seed-bird-stone-testicle-penis composition is committed to signs of masculine reproduction. But it also mobilizes motifs that belong to both sexes and that represent basic features of the human anatomy. When sexually transposed, primordial eggs conjure up visions of water-stones, hollow tubes, and headlike gourds that contain and emit the fluids of manly and womanly procreation. Organs of reproduction are pipes equipped with heads and lip orifices carrying the fluids of life. In classical Nahuatl, the penis is like a stump or trunk (tepulli)9 that differs from the vulva or vagina (tepilli) in the same way that organs of male-flesh (oquich-nacayotl) differ from organs of female-flesh (ciua-nacayotl). Notwithstanding these contrasts, both organs have in common that they act as reproductive tubes or reeds. Acayotl (acatl. reed, and ayotl. juice) means the urethra and, by extension, the penis; tepulacayotl is the penis viewed as a urinary conduct. When preceded by ciuatl (woman), acayotl becomes the vaginal tube (see Lopez Austin 1980,126-9). The fluid or seed of life passing through these conduits is called at. This is a key term denoting water and urine. Another term denoting water, juice, or liquid is ayol or ayotl (ayah is juicy). Thus, the Gulf Nahua word for semen or any fluid secreted from the body is tepolayol (in Popoluca, semen is tutunt, penis-water). In ancient Nahuatl, semen was fluid from a juicy-stone testicle, an ayo-tetl. The pouring of sperm secreted from male stones are like emissions of juice and seed that may also stand for real children. The female counterpart of male secretions (tepulayotl) consists in female fluids known as ciua-ayotl (see Lopez Austin 1980,190). On this matter of male and female secretions, it bears mentioning that men engaging in sex are like women breastfeeding their children: both are

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giving out milk. Milk is both juice from the breast, chichiualliayotl in Nahuatl, and semen from the penis (tepolecheh-uo). To secrete the water and milk of life, organs of reproduction must contain these fluids, thereby serving as gourds, bowls, vessels, or jars. In Pajapan gomit is a bowl made from the calabash. When applied to the phallus, the bowl motif designates the penis-head or glans. The Gulf Nahua word for glans is tzontegonxipin (xipintzontecomatl). It literally means the hair-stone-vesse(tzontegon)penis (xipin In classical Nahuatl the glans was known as tepul-qua-xipeuhcatl. a penis-head peeled. Thus, the phallus is a pipe equipped with a jarlike head. But the vagina and womb are also jars in their own right. In present-day Pajapan, the vulva is axix-tegon, the urine bowl or water vessel, a motif often associated with the head (as in the Popol Vuh; see Foster 1945, 195; Lopez Austin 1980,104,152,160). Little is needed to convert the water-containing gourd into a headlike squash or calabash. The word for juice, ayol, is akin to the ayo or ayohtli calabash (save for the contrast in first vowel lengths), an earth fruit that does not grow on trees (Pop. nas pasun, an 'earth calabash'). Calabashes are cultivated in the milpa and converted into gourds by making a small hole into them, pouring water, and letting the interior rot, to be cleaned afterward with water. What do phallic and vaginal tubes have in common with the gourd (made from the calabash) and the head? The answer lies in the waters and seeds of new life passing through reproductive orifices resembling the lips and the mouth. According to Simeon, the tepilli vagina is an amalgamation of two terms: pilli for child, and tentli for lips or mouth. The vagina is thus a mouth that gives birth. However, the uterus was also called tepilquaxicalli. the head-gourd of a child-mouth (vulva): from tentli (mouth), pilli (child), quaitl (head, extremity), and xicalli (gourd vessel). In Pajapan, the vulva is referred to as axix-tegon. the water jar that expels urine (axixti) coming out of the xiton bladder (tsempoc, from tsem, urine and poc, tecomate or calabash). Similar tropes apply to the penis-head, a pipe that carries water and ejects it through mouth and lips. The penis is a headlike vessel endowed with a mouth orifice and lips in ancient times known as tepulcamapiccatl. tepul for penis, camatl for mouth, and piccatl for the lips or female labia. The notion that headlike gourds emit the fluids of life is reinforced by a figure of speech appearing in Simeon, oc atl. which means an infant, a human being whose brain is still water.10 All in all, both the phallus and the vagina are vessels and rubes that contain and secrete the childlike headwaters of life.

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In retrospect, the eggs discovered in the opening scene of the corn myth contain fledglings and albumen in the same way that heads contain brains or that nests in tree-heads shelter eggs and fruit. Similar tropes apply to the gourd-vessel holding water, the breast or penis containing milk, or the womb and penis carrying children and seed. As it happens all of these connections are borne out in native mythology. In the Popoluca variant of the corn myth (Lopez Arias 1983), a son whose father had died was crying so much that his mother decided to grind him on a metate rock (used for preparing the dough to make tortillas) and to throw the mantilla head covering or rebozo shawl (often used to carry fruit) containing his remains into the river. She disposed of the son as she would corn but also fruit wrapped in clothing. The poor boy was then transformed into an egg and placed on a liana, above ground. While going to the river, a cannibal sorceress named Chichiman saw the egg reflected in the water. With the help of her sorcerer husband, she tried in vain to pull the egg out of the river until the man looked above and saw the egg nesting in the liana (or perched on stones). The couple brought the egg down for the sorcerer to eat, but the old woman insisted that they cover the egg to see what was in it. After seven days a little boy broke out of the egg and started immediately to cry (emitting water from the head). The woman thought she recognized her son. The old man told his wife they should raise him and eat him. After seven days the boy was already tall, and the sorceress sent him to fetch water from the river. This story brings out some of the implications of signs introduced in the inaugural scene. Associations between egg, seed, fruit, and head (egg-seed wrapped like fruit in head covering) and the waters of a newborn life are made explicit. In Foster's variant of the corn myth, the corn-boy and fish are taken out of water with a fish net and a sombrero, respectively (Foster 1945, 191). The water-of-life motif is additionally conveyed through the infant's tears, the child bathing in the river, and the boy fetching water for his surrogate mother. Interestingly, the fruit-child-egg seed wrapped in clothing (tlaaquillotl) happens to be synonymous with the chayote, a thorny, calabashlike fruit known as taguihlo in Pajapan, also a term for any fruit that hangs and for the vulva as well. A closely related motif is the tahaguilo imagery, a tree filled or dressed with a lot of fruit hanging from the tree top (taktok, taguih) or hairy-house head (tzongal). In the Popoluca variant of the corn myth (Lopez Arias 1983), the ashes of the vagina of the ogress Chichiman are sown by the hero to produce calabash and also chayote

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which grows on vines (synonymous with lovers) climbing around tree trunks (synonymous with the tepulli, penis).11 Given these connections, it is only logical that a fruit or child placed in a vulvar garment (beuit) and thrown into water should grow back into an infant nesting like fruit or chayote in a liana. To conclude, the story begins on a hopeful note as it turns two lifeless stones of the field into testiclelike seeds and womblike containers of the headwaters of life. Two eggs are laid by a female, cocklike bird and freely granted to a couple otherwise childless and aging. The inaugural stone-egg composition brings opposites together on several planes. It acts as a mediator between the young and the old, fruit and grain, the masculine and the feminine. The scene is rife with signs of fertility - eggs evoking the water-stones, milky secretions, hollow tubes, and headlike organs of manly and womanly procreation. Inhabitants and Dwelling Place

The sight of an old couple discovering two large eggs in their milpa, one of which incubates the corn god, is reassuring in another way. The imagery is a reminder of everything that binds humans, corn plants, and watered land. For one thing the fact that the old couple owns and cultivates a milpa or seed plot (sementera) suggests a close tie between humans and land. Note that the suffix tzin, commonly used as a diminutive and a mark of affection, respect, and protection, is assigned to the milpa, the couple, and the egg offspring as well (emphasized by way of repetition). Likewise, the prefix we is assigned to the old man and the eggs. It connotes distance in time (old age) or space (i.e., high; large is -weyac. far is -wehca). The prefix may also imply a measure of growth and superiority in rank, as in -weya and -weica. When combined, the milpa, the suffix, and the prefix suggest that, although deprived of sons to look after them, the couple and their seed plot are blessed with promises of life about to be renewed. Large eggs point to positive ties between people and corn growth for three other sets of reasons. First, the water vessels and pipes they associate with have much in common with maize stalks (cana de maiz) drawing water from the earth, hence poc in Popoluca, a term also denoting the calabash. If seen on the female side, this egg and uterinecalabash imagery can turn into a xigal understood as a tortillera, a corn grain container traditionally made from the calabash. Second, the fact that there are two eggs, twins as it were, holds

184 The Hot and the Cold

promise. The word for twin or friend in Pajapan is cuate. from goat or coatl. a snake. In classical Nahuatl, the word is synonymous with the dibble stick used for planting (Gonzalez Torres 1985, 84) and also the umbilicus and the stomach (xicti, ihti in Pajapan; see Lopez Austin 1980,154). This symbolism evokes the feathered precious-twin serpent known as Ouetzalcoatl. a double-headed imagery that has many positive associations. The twin-serpent-umbilicus association bears witness to the close relationship that exists between human beings, such as between a mother and a child or between twins (Olavarrieta Marenco 1977, 253). It can also evoke the tie that binds a man to the female earth, or any person to his or her native land. The umbilicus, like the corn plant, binds the motherland and the parent plant to all the lives they feed, including humans and the navel-like germs or sons (ixictayol) of the corn plant. Connections between umbilicus, corn, and motherland are made explicit in local birth rituals. In the Nahua-speaking village of Mecayapan, the umbilicus of the newborn is held against an ear of corn when cut; the midwife wraps it in leaves and buries it in a corner of the house. As already explained, the gesture conveys two wishes: that the child experiences good luck in life (plentiful corn) and that he or she remains in the village when growing up (Gonzalez Cruz et al. 1983,10, 62). Third, implications of stone and water embedded in the egg imagery bode well for ties between people and land. Although associated with the phallus, watery egg-stones can turn into womblike dwellings serving as house structures sheltering those who dwell in them. In classical Nahuatl tetia is to spawn or lay eggs. Given its association with the stone imagery, however, the word tetia can also be used to denote the action of amassing building stones. Accordingly, tepantia is to build a house. Houses are made up of egglike stones that contain the waters of life, as it were. The same imagery lends itself to evocations of real mountains and water sites that shelter and feed human populations. Water marks the site of territorial ownership: aua is the owner of water, and aua tepeua. the owner of water and mountain, a dweller of the land. In keeping with this, the word altepet (water-mountain) is still used in the Sierra Santa Marta to denote a community.12 Tepet. from tet (stone), means a mountain, a country, or a locality, hence a portion of the Mother Earth sheltering people, water, and spirits residing all in one place. When brought together water and stones become the site of fertile land and people. The same can be said of a-tetl. the Nahuatl term denoting a

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rock in water and therefore a testicle, an imagery echoed by a watermountain community (altepet) and a rock-mountain (tepetl) secreting spring water (tepeat). From an agricultural perspective, connections of this fruitful sort are reinforced by the notion that stones lying in a field keep the soil humid and fertile. Ties between the mountain-earth-house imagery and the story of a corn-egg born in water are highlighted in another version of the introductory scene of the corn myth, as told by a Popoluca narrator (see also Elson 1947, 204). It describes Homshuk as a child that cried so much that the angry mother decided to grind him on a metate stone. She put the dough made of the child's flesh, bones, and blood into a xigal gourd which she then placed into an arriera ant hill, an earth mound serving as a house for harvester ants and from which the child emerged as an egg. The story goes on to describe how corn is generated from bath water poured on Homshuk's head, once more confirming the notion that the source of life flows from the headwater imagery. This narrative material brings together many of the motifs discussed above, including corn, egg, gourd, head, stone, mountain, and water. The scene is all the more remarkable as it shares many striking parallels with the discovery of maize as told in the legend of the suns, a sixteenth-century story to which we later return. Signs of Troubled Waters: Sex and Twins A narrative that begins with eggs, water, and seed plot holds great promise. But the story must continue, and so must life, well beyond all those things that will simply announce a fresh start. In point of fact, the imageries explored above contain seeds of negative developments that other scenes are bound to address, darker prospects that form an integral part of the narrative journey of humans and plants alike. To begin with, the notion that corn-eggs should be discovered by a couple aging, childless, and weeding the land may be a source of some concern. With this primordial couple comes the old age motif (we] and the affliction of human sterility. The couple is without pilhuatsitsin offspring; one Popoluca variant makes it clear that the old couple never had any children (Foster 1945,191). Sadly, the life of an aging man and his elderly wife is not being rejuvenated and honoured with pilli. children. Childlessness is compensated by the attribution of a seed plot. But the notion that the adoptive father and mother are without children to inherit the land places the old couple in a vulnerable position. Who

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will serve them and look after their property when they are no longer able to work the land? In retrospect, the fact that this infertile couple is going to weed the milpa suggests that the man and the woman are lowstatus peasants working the land without anyone's help, be they children or peons. The narrative may be pointing to a humble peasant (miltggaf) condemned to labour and serve (tequipanoa), the male counterpart of a woman doing housework (teguicha). To the Aztecs, labour and servitude came with the primordial creation of man and woman (Leon-Portilla 1983,181). The opening egg scene could be treading similar mythical grounds. The act of weeding (tamiah) is another thorny issue. This is a critical field operation designed to eliminate weeds that compete for juices of the earth and soil strength. Foodstuffs in the milpa are in need of protection, which means that corn cultivation is never entirely guaranteed. Note that terms for cutting, peeling, shaving, felling, or destroying (xima. xini. xixini) also denote the action of a man pouring or spreading the seed of life (xinachtia) or fruit being thrown on the ground (as in the last scene of the Sintiopiltsin story). Since acts of weeding and seed throwing are performed by a man aging and without a treelike family, we might think that the man is compensating the absence of a child by cultivating the earth and dropping his seed in watered (xixintok) soil. If so, the imagery is converging on the paradox of planting and weeding, fruition and destruction, hence life secured through combined gestures of rooting and severance. Life that grows and flourishes is not without costs. It requires both operations of planting and cutting, issues to be coped with in later scenes of the myth.13 The notion that eggs are like stones in a field is not entirely promising either. As in other languages, the rock symbolism can be applied to the destruction of life. While in Nahuatl tepantia is to build a house, the same word can be used in Pajapan to indicate the action of throwing stones at someone, to accuse. Likewise, tetia means to amass building stones and to lay eggs but also to become solid and hard as a lifeless rock (tetic. tetia}. Other inauspicious usages mentioned by Simeon include tepeouican (dangerous mountain), which stands for a precipice or the abyss. Accordingly, tepexiuia is to throw oneself or someone into the pit, to commit a serious fault, or to punish and destroy a country. When associated with the tree motif (quauitl). stones can serve to chastise. Last but not least, the sufferings of human beings are known to end with the tepetlacalli burial, a funeral rock-mountainhouse or earth-womb turned solid and lifeless. For the moment, nega-

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tive usages of the uterine stone imagery are excluded from the surface text. Darker associations may nonetheless loom large in narrative developments to follow. Sombre prospects may also be kept in store for relations between siblings, generations, and the sexes. Consider first the sibling-egg imagery. Our narrative portrays the two fledglings as twinlike brother and sister born at the same time. Twins may represent the rule of unity obtained by way of likeness bordering on sameness. The reality of twins, however, is that one can live without the other; the two individuals are similar but not interdependent. Given their dualistic inclination, the capacity of twins to introduce unity and continuity in a world otherwise divided is bound to be impaired. Implications of unresolved duality explain perhaps the fact that the Gulf Nahuas view twins as abnormal creatures and do not welcome them; some women will breastfeed one child and let the other die (Gonzalez Cruz et al. 1983, 7). The fate awaiting Sintiopiltsin's sister (eaten by the old couple) may confirm our suspicion that twins are not good news. Although two eggs imply more food and life than a single offspring, a scene of cuate eggs born at the same time may be disturbing after all. The twin imagery harks back to Ciuacoatl (alias Ouilaztli). the Aztec goddess portrayed as the woman-serpent, mother of twins and the human species as a whole. Her reign implied a two-sided life force that could lapse into the rule of death. Given these associations, the lady's twin offspring cannot be expected to embody the rule of unity. Even when sighted in a corn plot, twins lack what is needed to help the story move beyond the principle of duality (once ruled by Ometeotl). towards the reign of harmony attained through complementarity, as between sexes and generations (Leon-Portilla 1983, 92, 153-63, 172-6). Despite its positive aspects, the inaugural egg scene may be hatching an evil plan. Non-identical twins herald a primordial unity about to be broken. A gloomy future may also await relations between the sexes. The Nahua corn myth starts with a male-centred division between man and woman. The couple revolves around a man with his woman, a masculine bias that prefigures the couple not only planting male seed in the milpa but also killing the corn god's sister-egg. The couple brings the eggs home where they use the female egg as food for human consumption, hence both a loss (poloa) and a requirement of life. Life must either conquer (poloa) and devour its prey or die. This form of conquest is nonetheless a risky venture. The consumption of female

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flesh (the egg-sister, the hen) may be an essential ingredient of the good life, yet it is also a threat to its preservation secured through female reproduction. By definition, acts of conquest and consumption imply the loss, wastage, or destruction of what is edible (qualoni). hence what is good (qualli). beautiful (qualnezcayotl). magnificent (qualneci). or simply appropriate (qualcan). The satisfaction of man's appetite ends therefore in sadness, for it is incompatible with the preservation of food (tlaqualli) and all that is valuable and worth praising (qualitoa). including the virtue of moderation (quallotD as expressed through fasting and dieting (tlaqualizcaua) (cf. Leon-Portilla 1983, 387). Although the scene under analysis sadly loses the weaker egg, the female, it attends to the needs of the old couple and their male seed. The male egg is treated as offspring to be covered and kept alive by a hen, the fertile counterpart of an old man's aging and sterile wife. The corn-boy is kept alive by the domestic fowl. All the same, death awaits the corn-boy who is destined to serve as food for humans and farmyard animals alike. Our story starts off by domesticating the eggshaped bird or fruit-grain, bringing it down to earth, away from its tree nest and forest habitat, into the milpa and then home. All of this is done with one thing in view: setting the scene for one life (human) devouring another (corn). As with real corn, one egg is consumed whereas another, the stronger, is put aside for future needs. Moderation is a guarantee of survival. But there is a price to be paid for the preferential treatment accorded to the male seed: although preserved, it too will die. The same reasoning applies to human seed and male offspring in the family domain. Sons nurtured by their parents are trapped into serving their masters. The act of brooding (tapachoa, wrapping, encircling) performed by the hen and the old couple implies protection; it also suggests a measure of domination. In Nahuatl, a pacholoni is a person nestling against another but also someone placed in a position of inferiority and subordination. Conversely, a person that broods (ilapacho) is someone with authority, a household head, one who governs or administers property. A creature that broods holds another in captivity, be it a domestic bird or child. The entrapment that comes with the brooding motif points to tlapachouaztli. a net for catching birds. It also evokes the amnion or chorion membrane surrounding the egg or the fetus, a wrapping known as cone-matlatl. literally a child net or snare. Lastly, both the child and the hen may be well fed by their captors, yet

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to feed, qualtia, is also to punish. Wittingly or not, one creature nurturing and folding another in its arms may end up crushing it, covering it with stones (tepachoa). as it were. Ties between husband and wife are no different. One spouse may nurture the other, but marriage is still a trap. In her own way, a woman nestling against her husband and his family is someone who has been caught, that is, taken away from her father and captured by a son-inlaw behaving like a snare. Thus, the word montli means both a sonin-law (monti in Pajapan) and a trap for mice and rats (in Simeon), parasites that feed on other people's flesh and corn. In retrospect, the male egg-seed protected by the corn-eating hen is vulnerable. The male egg or corn seed is to the hen what the hen, daughter, or wife is to the milpa master. He is a dependent in need of protection but also a servant and a source of food and flesh bound to perish. Likewise, the relationship between fruit and seed, the first son and the last, is not without problems. The two ingredients of family reproduction are not created equal in the eyes of man, nor are they fully compatible. Basic dualities such as these will not let themselves be resolved through a simple twin-sibling imagery. Ties between genders and generations are sites of forces of domination and subordination inherent to family life. For the moment, the twin offspring is a pale reflection of what the overall myth is searching for: an elaborate answer to problems of life and death, planting and weeding, reproduction and destruction, authority and subservience. But of all signs tied to corn-eggs born in a milpa, water and derivatives thereof are perhaps the most problematical. Waters of the womb and the earth are the source of all life; too much water, however, can also be the cause of death. Life may begin in water, yet it must not remain there if it is to avoid premature death without renewal. Scenes to follow speak essentially to the teachings of life that must grow out of water in order to reproduce. Life Grows out of Water: the Milpa Cycle The seed and fruit of life grow in water. The fluid implies a fountain (apan. or amel. water-flow) of blessings, whether it be expressed through evocations of water, rain, fruit, eggs, children, semen, seed, head, gourd, or brain. The corn child's task after birth is to grow with beneficial rain watering the head of the young plant in due season, immediately after sowing (May-June). Accordingly, in the Nahua story

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the surrogate father who adopts Sintiopiltsin asks the young hero to fetch water while he is working in the milpa, weeding it so that corn plants can gather sufficient water and strength from the earth. All is as if the youth were asked to draw water (atabi) from the underground to feed humans who return the favour by killing weeds and grasses robbing the water of life from plants. Indices of our introductory scene converge on the fluid of life and the birth of maize. Sub-indices, however, point in the direction of destruction and death. In many versions of the myth, an old couple eats the female egg and plans on devouring the corn-boy (with teeth sharpened to cut through his bones). Also, the egg placed in a gourd and earth mound is suggestive of a corpse lying in a burial ground. In some variants, a gourd is said to contain ashes of the vagina of Chichiman, the ogress who discovers the egg-child; the ashes are sown like seed in the milpa to produce calabash. Why should scenes and indices of birth and reproduction contain these darker reservations? Could it be that the story of corn life is bathing in troubled waters from the start? Part of the answer lies in the imagery of water itself. Fluids may be necessary to the renewal of life, yet they are dangerous if used in excess of what the plant needs in order to grow and reproduce. Consider the maize production cycle. For the campesinos of the Sierra, milpa productivity hinges on a balanced application of sun and water, heat and cold, dryness and wetness, with variations reflecting shifts in seasons and stages of growth. The main maize crop is planted in June, at the beginning of the wet temporal season, and is harvested between November and January. The land itself must be prepared before planting through a process that involves cutting, drying, and then burning, just prior to the rainy season. This happens during the dry months of April and May. The secondary vegetation growing in the post-harvest milpa is cut down and left to dry under the sun. The tinder is then set on fire, an operation known in Spanish as la quema, the burning. Soon after, lightning and thunder announce the first rains, and campesinos prepare for the sowing. Corn is planted and the ashes obtained from the drying forces of sun and fire combine with the rain water to bring life into the corn seed. From these wet beginnings, the corn plant undergoes a progressive hardening and drying as it grows and matures. Its death, bent over in the milpa, produces new seeds to be kept in store for the next milpa cycle. In keeping with this evolution of the maize plant, the corn god is portrayed by elders as a young, childlike dwarf when maize is first planted, aging in parallel with the corn

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plants in the milpa, and becoming withered and parched when the corn stands bent and dry in the field (Elson 1947,193). Essential as it may be to reproductive activity, water is not synonymous with life. New plants emerging from the soil must take their distance from everything that is wet, fresh, and cold if they are to grow, mature, and reproduce. As with humans, plants must go through different phases, from wetness to dryness (and eventually back to a state of wetness), in order to age and survive. This general plant movement, away from wetness and softness, is reflected in the multiple titles and facets assigned to the god of maize in pre-Hispanic times. The corn divinity had several names that corresponded to different stages of growth. Tzinteotl. from itzinti. to begin, was the origin and first phase of corn life. Xilonen came immediately after. She was the goddess of corn ears that are edible though still at the milk stage, hence starting to form themselves (xiloti) and growing hair (xiloti. xilot. xilotzonti in Pajapan). Corn that grows and sprouts (nenepiltia) produced offspring of its own, children from the vulva projected like a tongue (nenepil, the vulva-child) from the mouth. The corn goddess used to be celebrated in the seventh month, from about 22 June to 11 July. She was also known as Tonantzin (our mother, tonan in Pajapan), serpent-woman (Ciuacoatl), mother of twins and goddess of the earth. Some of this ancient imagery is reflected in current Nahua terms used to describe stages of maize growth (terms followed by ya nomil. my milpa).14 Wechome: maize sprouting with no leaves, one week from planting (JuneJuly) Isuauo (or xrigo) pontok: four inches, with leaves about to open (izcallo is to have a stalk guide) Maxintok: when the leaves open (eleven to twelve days after planting), with arms extended Totamba: when the maize is knee high, about one month old Batepompolitia: 1.5-month-old, above tree stumps (small heads lost) Punti aroti: with flower tips, will flower soon (one month, twenty-five days) Netnia pone: with flowers starting to open Nemia xilotia: small ears beginning to form, two months old Tomakxrilot: ears well started, getting fat, two months ten days Etzal: first leaves of husk beginning to dry, two months twenty days Celik elot: young ears ready to pick for eating on cob

192 The Hot and the Cold Elot: kernel beginning to harden, though still in milk stage (time to make fresh maize tamales; an dote is a green ear with grains already formed, while an olote is a shelled ear) Elot taxkaja: kernel slightly harder, time to make fresh maize tortillas Sinti: maize Niaya postavitik: time to bend over or break the stalks (when grain are yellow and dry) Sagik ya sinti: dry and ready for harvest (sintia is said of a plot that gives maize) Nisia nik pixkati: all harvested

As the seed draws water from the earth, plant life bursts into sprouts, leaves spread out like arms or hands, and then flowers and fresh ears of corn grow fat (tomakxrilot) and produce tender ears of elot corn. The earth cover freshens up as it recovers its luxuriant clothing or soft botanical skin. But the regeneration of maize also implies death through a series of operations involving cutting, burning, hardening, and drying. Without these cut-and-dry operations, corn plants would not be able to feed humans let alone enjoy the blessings of the afterlife, giving way to new generations of maize born from deceased parent plants. Despite its dependence on water, the general movement of maize growth is essentially from wetness to dryness, from plant life to botanical death (see Figure 7.1). Over and beyond the simple process of germination and growth, slash-and-burn farming requires a series of cutting, burning, and drying processes that play a critical role in the agricultural cycle. Cutting activities mean that primary or secondary vegetation and weeds must be cleared (limpiar) from the plot so that milpa food plants can develop. After weeding comes the losing of small heads (batepompolitia). a decapitation imagery depicting young maize plants growing above tree stumps. The cutting is eventually turned against the yellow-grain corn plant; stalks are doubled or bent over with a view to protecting the ears from rotting from excess humidity accumulating over the wet season. Corn is 'doubled when it is yellowish, ripe, because if it is not, green maize will rot. It is doubled so that corn will not rot' (Rodriguez Hernandez n.d.b, 1). The last phase of these cutting operations comes when ears are actually picked and plucked from the plot. The drying process goes through several phases as well. It applies initially to milpa grasses that must dry and be burned, thereby destroy-

Corn, Water, and Iguana 193

Figure 7.1 Life and death of the milpa

ing all vegetation competing with corn and food plants. Trees must be felled so as to let rays of the sun enter the milpa (Interview: Pedro 08/ 06/94). Clearing and burning is done during dry months of the spring equinox and involves stripping the land of its green cover and reducing it to ashes (elderly inhabitants of the village of San Pedro complain that the statue of Santo Domingo celebrated in dry April is no longer stripped of all clothing, thereby ignoring older connections between seasonal cycle and milpa cover; cf. Rodriguez Hernandez 1994, 3). Following the querna and the arrival of the first rains, dry seeds are fed into the earth. Herbicides can then be used to kill weeds and grasses through chemical burning. But the drying-hardening process must be applied to the maize plants as well. This starts happening at the etzal and elot stages, which is when the leaves of husk begin to dry and the ears to

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harden (though still in the milk stage). Elot taxkaja comes later when the kernel is slightly harder and it is time to make fresh maize tortillas. Following this the doubling operation is performed so as to allow the ears to dry and produce seed and ears that farmers will be able to preserve. The ears are stored in dry conditions, usually in the smoke-filled corn loft immediately above the kitchen. Drying and burning processes must not occur prematurely or be carried too far lest the plants should fail to grow and lose their reproductive potential. This can happen through excess heat. Overexposure to solar heat can take various forms, including insufficient rains falling at seedtime and overcultivated plots that are so dry and tired as to be unproductive. Mention should also be made of the action of the hot spring wind (tonalehevat} rising to the south or the east (tonayan), suradas blowing from February to March and causing ears of corn to die through burning and drying (tonalmigui}. This problem applies to dryseason corn known as tapachole. Rainfall in the months of November through February makes it sometimes possible to plant dry-season maize, to be harvested in March and April. This second planting season requires little clearing, less weeding, and no burning. However, since tapachole matures at the height of the dry season, the harvest is vulnerable to problems of drought. Slash produced from weeds and the stalks of the previous harvest (the wet-season temporal) is therefore needed to provide the growing plants with some additional nutrients and conserve soil moisture. Excessive heat and threats of drought are typical problems facing tapachole harvests. Plants receiving too much water at any stage of growth are faced with the opposite threat. The effects of plant drowning are nonetheless comparable to those of excessive dryness or heat. Both situations are feared by native farmers and will produce the same result: an unwanted burning of the plant. Overexposure to waterburning occurs when there is too much rain or when the plot is insufficiently cleared of primary or secondary vegetation. Unless trees and grasses are cut down, and water and sun are allowed to penetrate the soil, corn cannot grow and will go to rot. Plants that wither are said to burn by the action of either drought or water-burning known as chahuistle. A Popoluca term for waterburning indicates the illness by its origin, that is, oma piichi, from oma, fog, and piicht, night. The fog in question is associated with the month of August, as distinct from the white fog usually striking from December to March, a time of the year when people are said to fall ill and

Corn, Water, and Iguana 195 have running noses and sues coughs (sucsuc is cold; Interview: Manuel 29/11/94). In the words of a medicinal plant healer: When a heavy fog falls, that's when the plant turns yellow (chipujo) the next day. It becomes sad because of the disease that struck... the nocturnal humidity brought by the fog ... that is, it comes contaminated, that's why it feels sad the next day ... It burns it, and takes the advantage away [from maize and bean plants]. Like now that the sun is nice and clear, that's when the tree is luxuriant because it rained, then it's well alive. But if a fog comes soon after, with dampness, the plant can take it at first, but the next day sun heat strikes again and affects it, it becomes sad, yellowish ... Sometimes it comes from the north wind, sometimes it's the south wind. The south wind is the one that does the greatest harm because it comes with more factory pollution, from companies over there [the petro-chemical Coatzacoalcos-Minatitlan complex]. (Interview: Jose 17/10/94)

Associated with cold weather, chahuistle nevertheless has a burning effect, just like ice or hail (Lopez Austin 1980, 286). Jose remarks in the same interview: 'It burns [the harvest]. It burns! It's hot! You think it's cold, but it's not cold, it's hot... It's very cold, very cold ... it's like ice. You see, they say that ice is cold, but it's not cold, it's hot... because it too burns, that's the way it is.' Chahuistle denotes the decomposition of maize plants by the action of a fungus or disease characterized as very cold, like ice. Although frozen, ice is considered to be mostly hot because it is generated with electrical heat and is so hard as to be destructive of life (Interview: Jose 10/06/94). Chahuistle dries everything prematurely, causing the heart of the seed to rot, the seed to peel off, and the plants to lose their leaves. Normally, the heart of the seed is protected from chahuistle by its shell or clothing. But when stripped of this clothing, the heart (tcxi a.namaj, kernel heart) dies through rotting. Excessive water can have this effect, but so can weevil; it too can eat the heart away. When corn is planted, four or five seeds 'not damaged from the heart' are sown so that if one dies because 'rotten from the heart' others may grow.15 Corn mushrooms known as cuitlacoche, from cuitlatl. excrement, and cochi, to sleep, are also signs of humidity over and beyond normal maize cultivation requirements. The Popoluca term for this corn mushroom is moc t'in, maize-excrement that strikes 'plants that are about to produce elote, that want to produce ears but that don't' (Interview: Pedro 20/03/94).

196 The Hot and the Cold

Figure 7.2 The milpa cycle

To sum up, corn growth is a twofold process. On the one hand, a maize plant 'does not want sun or heat only, nor does it want water or cold only' Caguinegui niat. aguinegui tonati: aguinegui ni cece. aguinegui ni totoni'). A good balance between the hot and the cold is essential to corn cultivation. On the other hand, as with human growth, plant development generally proceeds from things cold and wet to things hot and dry. Ears of corn born in freshness and water must eventually ripen and die through cutting, drying, and cooking (yoksik. uouoksik. synonymous with ripening) if they are to reproduce and generate the food of life. The same twofold reasoning applies to corn soil and plot (see Figure 7.2). Food plants initially derive strength (fuerza) from the freshness of the earth. But the milpa regenerates its strength on condition that the plot is allowed to freshen up. The plot is usually put to rest during

Corn, Water, and Iguana 197 colder and drier months of the year, until the cycle described above begins anew at spring. If dry-season tapachole is planted, weeds and stalks of temporal maize are slashed and left in the field, creating mulch that secures the wetness or coolness of the soil.16 Provided that it is allowed to rest, the milpa can revert from dryness to wetness and proceed to a new corn season. Rain water falling on the milpa will play a vital role in this regeneration process, assuming that it is not in excess of what the field actually needs. Too much rain can negatively affect the soil through erosion, taking away 'the softness of the soil, its skin'; this is especially true of fields with heavy slopes. Erosion removes the topsoil that serves as clothing to the heart of the soil otherwise hard; 'the heart is not good for the harvest' (Rodriguez Hernandez 1994,13, 23, 29). In the long run, however, the soil is fated to burn out such that a longer fallow period of rest is needed. As the milpa cycle is repeated for a few consecutive years, the land dries up and becomes too tired to reproduce maize in adequate quantity. Local knowledge of soil types reflects considerations of earth freshness and dryness. The Gulf Nahuas have a soil taxonomy based on colour, structure, and potential for agriculture.17 While gostiktal. a yellow soil, can be found throughout the Sierra Santa Marta, tatahuiktal, a red rocky earth soil of poor quality, has been spreading over time, currently covering a large portion of the high, medium, and low hills found in the area. The brighter colour of these superficial soil horizons is the result of soil degradation processes provoked by exposure to the elements and intensive agricultural use. By contrast, pistiktal and media pistiktal are black and moderately black soils considered the most fertile of all local soils. In municipal Pajapan they are associated with the flat plains coveted for agriculture and cattle ranching. Xalnelijtok. xaltal. and xalli are sandy soils mixed with varying amounts of alluvial sediments. They are found on the coastal corridor and along river beds. The seasonally and permanently flooded lowlands are characterized by what the Gulf Nahuas call pistiksogik, black mud. Another zone identified by Pajapenos consists of gonsogik soils, a mud sediment formed around springs, usually at points where the medium hills change to low hills. This local taxonomy speaks to a critical issue in the pursuit of subsistence agriculture: the amount of water available for plant growth and the level of fertility associated with the regeneration of soil strength. While the coldest colour (black) signals soils that are moist and fresh, hot colours (red, yellow) mark soils that have dried up. When overcul-

198 The Hot and the Cold

tivated, the black topsoil is lost and soils turn red or yellow. This is when the plot must be abandoned and left to fallow for a few years, converting itself into a secondary growth acahual. Soil strength may be recovered by letting the land rest (ceui) for several years. The abandoned field generates a large amount of tasol (garbage), plant litter that 'gives life to corn' by shading out weeds, rotting (palaktik) and making the soil wet, cold or fresh (cece) again. In the words of a Popoluca campesino, this litter is puchi (puc, to rot) garbage. 'For example, banana peels, lemon crust, the "bark" of everything, they are puchi; leaf, a piece of wood is puchi, sawdust, they are puchi... What is cut [in the milpa] and falls is puchi' (Interview: Juan 20/10/94). When ploughing a field, care should be taken not to push down this puchi manure, thereby bringing up bad soil to the surface. Green manure keeps the soil fertile (yamani). Trees must be cut down and felled if the land is to be quauhtlalli. soil fertilized with disintegrated wood, excellent for corn production. Note that the fallow is aided by cold plant species such as jonote and pica pica (velvet bean). They produce juice and a great deal of litter, thereby softening the soil and "releasing juices" of the earth (in Cuetzalan, cold trees are those that rot quickly when felled; see Beaucage 1987). By contrast, hot plants such as oak dry out and harden the land, fixing soil juices in their thick bark.18 This recovery of soil fertility is perceived by native farmers as a process of healing obtained through a regeneration of the freshness of the earth. In the native perspective, the soil is primarily a medium for these complex operations, not the source of fertility per se. Soil regeneration for milpa production must nonetheless avoid problems of excess humidity. The leaf litter that falls on the ground during the fallow period becomes soil, but so does the ash (banesh, or cuy jam, lime made from wood) obtained through burning. Campesinos know that dry-season mulching and plant decomposition in fallow lands will enhance the coldness or wetness of the soil, yet they also count on the spring burning to fertilize the soil and prevent food plants from an attack of water-burning. Maize growth requires burnt material. Otherwise the plants are said to produce mostly leaves and young ears turn yellow and tend to be small. In contrast, when fed with ashes and coal, ears grow bigger and become green (Rodriguez Hernandez 1994, 22, 29, 31). When burning the plot, care should be taken not to burn the soil too deeply, no more than eight centimetres deep. If the plot is burnt properly, ashes will contribute to plant reproduction, a notion made explicit in the Popoluca variant of the corn myth (ashes of the vagina of

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the ogress Chichiman are sown by the hero to produce calabash and chayote, fruit of female reproduction par excellence; Lopez Arias 1983). All in all, it is the combined action of fallowing-mulching and felling-burning-weeding that provides the cultivated earth with dead material and ashes needed to replenish ('give juice to') the soil and 'give colour to maize' (Interview: Pedro 20/03/94). Biological cycles are attuned to interactions between sun, water, wind, fire, and earth. But this accord is only made possible through human intervention involving constant care and hard labour, hence the moral teachings of self-mastery and sacrifice. Campesinos and corn plants engage in a symbiotic relationship whereby each life must feed into and be devoured by the other. In scenes to follow we probe into native morality as it relates to the requirements of life and death built into the milpa cultivation process. Lessons of Immaturity: The Corn Boy Mocked The corn myth's opening scene of corn eggs found in a milpa revolves around signs of life that begins in water. The darker necessities of reproduction, those of death obtained through cutting, burning, and drying, are nowhere in sight. The question is whether later scenes bring out these requirements of agricultural production, if only by way of metaphor. Part of the answer is to be found at the site of a well. In one Nahua variant of the corn myth (collected by the authors in 1987), dough shaped like an egg and made from the corn-child is placed in an iguana nest perched in a tree. In Garcia de Leon's version, however, the iguana acts as the child's enemy. The scene involves the corn-boy going to fetch water for his adoptive father and meeting a few unfriendly iguanas at the site of a well. The latter make fun of his 'ears cut' and tell him where his real father is, namely, in tagatauatzaloyan. the place where men are dry. The boy eventually uses a lasso to catch one animal by the tail and then decides to let it go. 'And there were iguanas (bagetspalimeh) there who were making fun (pinahtiawh) of the boy. They said "elote, elote. cut ears (nagastanpepel). your father is over there, in the land where men are dry (tagatauatzaloyan)." They came to inform (ginotsaya) the boy. He didn't know (agimatia) what they were saying. They were just saying "elote, elote, cut ears, your father (motah) is over there, in the land where men are dry."' Elsewhere the same antagonism is expressed by an iguana using its tail to flog the corn boy's feet rotting in water while fishing.

200 The Hot and the Cold

Given this corn-iguana antagonism, we can presume the hero and his mortal corn-eating enemy to be radically different. But what is it exactly that opposes the animal and the plant god? Do they have distinct attributes that convey a native expression of dualistic thinking, as in Aztec cosmology? Could an analysis of correlations of oppositions do justice to this scene? We think not. The conflict that pits the cornboy against the iguana lies not in mere difference. More to the point, the polarity stems from competing claims to the logic of mediation. As we are about to see, the encounter between hero and foe speaks to their common aspiration to the blessings of harmony and competing responses to such hopes. The iguana is a powerful mediator. On the spatial level, the creature walks with four legs, lives near water and mangrove swamps, and is a good swimmer. Like a fish or a serpent, it has a body covered with scales and a mighty tail to punish or protect itself from its enemies (Garcia de Leon 1991, 30). Accordingly, rumour has it in Pajapan that the reptile has ophidian flesh because of its habit of mating with snakes. The animal also resembles a bird. It lays lots of eggs (thirty to fifty), dwells in trees, and eats fruit, insects, and eggs. The tricksterlike iguana or forest lizard (baguetspalin)19thus has no problem in mediating the high and the low; it moves freely among land, water, and sky. Finally, the animal embodies the good life. It is not only good to eat but also a prolific begetter and a voracious eater, a glutton (cuetzpal) well known for its taste for plants growing in the milpa. The iguana has every reason to make fun of the corn-child. The boy is disgraced by the fact that he is no match for the iguana. He is mocked (pinahtiawh) by his foe while fetching water at the well. The animals make fun of his cut ears (nagastanpepel, drooping, hairless) and tell the dote boy where his real father is, in the land where men are dry (tavatauatzalown). An elote is maize after three months of growth, beyond the immature xiloti stage, with leaves of husk that have begun to dry. Although still in the milk stage and not dry enough to be harvested or to produce seed for future generations, the elote grains are already formed and can be eaten on the cob or be ground to produce fresh-maize tamales or tortillas. This growth stage is normally reached just before the arrival of the heavy rains of September and October brought by tropical storms in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean. The storms are followed by the cold, gusty nortes blowing from October through March. To promote drying and protect elote ears against wind and water, the stalks are bent over or doubled

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below the lowest ear. This is done as soon as the corn has reached sufficient maturity and grains no longer contain water when pinched. The upper part of the stalk is usually tied to the lower with the maize leaves. The iguanas seem to be laughing at the sight of the cornchild's doubled ears. The word nagastanpepd appears to be a combination of nagaz for ear, and penaga, to be naked, or pepetlaua, to strip. To the Aztecs, a person who has large or sharp angular ears (nacace. nacazueyac in Pajapan) is by definition a wise person. As should be expected, the corn-child has no such ears and is without wisdom. He is without the honours or power lodged in nacaztia. ears sticking out. Unlike a tenacaz. he is not vested with the authority to represent others. Alternatively, the passage may suggest that the corn ear is without hair, another sign of powerlessness and immaturity. The young plant is deprived of the silk hair needed to carry pollen to each seed for fertilization. In lieu of having rocklike hair on his ears (nacatzontel). hence being proud and rebellious, the boy is punished and humiliated (nacazana). That is, his ears are mutilated, bent, or cut (nagaztegui). As a result, the boy is unable to understand the words uttered by the iguanas, as if hard of hearing (nacaztepetla) or stone deaf (nacatzatzatl, denoting a sticky substance in Pajapan).20 In a Popoluca variant (Lopez Arias 1983), the corn-boy identifies himself as clavito y a la vez dobladito, naillike yet bending double. The plant-boy is standing up but also bowing down before the mighty winds and rains of the high sea. Corn-eating pigeons and grackles also make fun of his red hair and threaten to eat him. The red-hair attribute assigned to the hero converges again on signs of immaturity. The plant creature feeding on water and light (tauil) partakes in the redness (tlauhyo. tatahuic) of the morning sun rising at dawn (tlauizcalli. lighthouse), literally lighting up while ascending through the red house to the east or southeast (tlauhcopa). beyond the sea.21 Iguanas and birds laughing at the red-haired elote boy make him go red and blush to the root of his hair. It is as if the redness of the dawning sun were turned against our inexperienced hero, putting him to shame, as in pinahtia, to grimace, to humiliate or blame. The word is from pinah, to be ashamed, to go red in the face, to be saddened (also tlauia: tepinauiz used to denote the shameful parts). Signs of unripeness are confirmed in another version (Rodriguez Hernandez 1994,1; n.d.a, 2-3) of our myth, a variant where the boy is with feet rotting in water and presents himself as the 'one coming out of child's clothing (canastilla) and like a

202 The Hot and the Cold

knee/ As already mentioned, corn that is knee high is barely one month old, resembling an infant wrapped in cloth. The corn-boy has yet to reach maturity. He is caught with feet in water and has yet to move away from the rawness and freshness of life. The old man who adopts Sintiopiltsin in the Nahua version faces the opposite problem. As with all those who work the land, the old man experiences thirst while labouring. A dry mouth indicates that someone is dying of thirst (amigui) and is in a state of want.22 Logically, a man who is aging, moving away from life that begins in water, will suffer from thirst. The corn child's real father suffers a similar fate in that he dwells in tagatauatzaloyan. the land where men are dry. The term combines the word for man, tagat. with uatza. to dry, to become weak, or to drain oneself sexually; tauatzal denotes something that has been tanned or dried (uaktok). According to Garcia de Leon (1969,3034; 1976, 138), the mythical land in question is of pre-Hispanic origin and is located in the highland Papaloapan valley, west of the Sierra Santa Marta. The site corresponds to galagui tonati. the house where the sun enters, the place where the sun ages and disappears beyond the mountains at the end of each day. The sun's westerly house lies far away from the sea, opposite from guifa tonati, which is where the sun comes out or begins (igatok is to be alive, and igagan means early).23 In short, the iguanas surpass the corn god and his father in their ability to counter the afflictions and divisions of life. Given these powers, the baguetspalin can make fun of both the young Sintiopiltsin and his deceased father. Son and father are no match for the iguana in that they fail to reunite opposites in a world that needs mending. The young corn-child is to his father what east is to west, wet lowland to dry upland, morning light to evening darkness. One is to the other what the reign of life renewed is to the reign of life that is no longer. Both characters can be mocked as they lack the ability to reconcile opposite moments in time and locations in space. Although born from an egglike seed and feeding on water and sun, the young plant is doomed to grow with the constant shame or fear (tepinaualiztli) of either drowning prematurely in water or drying later in the heat of the sun. The upland-father and lowland-son imagery cannot overcome problems originating from the upper north (para ahko) or the lower south (para tani). directions associated with winds that blow at different times of the year. In Spanish the norte denotes the north but also a cold wind (cecekehegat) or rainstorm coming from the gulf coast. By contrast, the suradas (tonalehegat) are strong sun-winds that blow from

Corn, Water, and Iguana 203

the south during the dry season. Destructive winds (yualehegat) from the south also blow in August. Be they hot or cold, winds that damage maize crops are a reminder that sun and water, two vital ingredients of life, can be deadly. Unless flames are put out to rest (ceuia) or protection is found in the shade (gan ta ceui). the sun can cause creatures to die of heat (tonalmigui). Water without light and warmth can be equally lethal. Rain and dew (cekti) are inherently cold (cecec). they may freeze into ice (cetl), or they can turn into cold water (cecegat) and fearsome storms descending from the north. Given the lethal potential of wet and cold winds hailing from the ocean to the north and the east, why should the myth emphasize the westerly aspects of heat and dryness that bring about plant death? Couldn't the father have died by the action of rain and thunder brought by the nortes blowing in autumn? The Popoluca variant answers this question in the affirmative (Rodriguez Hernandez 1994, 1). This is the myth where Homshuk's father is said to have died at the hands of the god of thunder, in the land where Thunderbolt lives, across the ocean. To avenge himself of the harm done to him and his father by the night wind masawa and his dogs (squirrels, badgers, wolverines), Homshuk crosses the ocean and struggles with Thunderbolt. According to one storyteller, the corn-boy's father is the god of lightning (Interview: Pedro 08/06/94). But how can the murderer (of one's father) in one story be his own victim in another? Readers are reminded that Thunderbolt gives life to corn in that he is responsible for announcing the season of sowing and for bringing the rain that wets the corn child's head. The god can thus provide fatherly care to the corn-child. But Thunderbolt can also struggle with and harm or even kill corn through stormy weather (this is particularly likely to happen if farmers fail to take good care of maize plants; see Rodriguez Hernandez 1994, 14). The same contradictory relationship lies in a corn-boy found in an iguana nest yet mocked and flogged by corn-eating iguanas; the animal can both nurture and chastise the boy. The reasoning also applies to the milpa campesino who fathers Sintiopiltsin yet plans on eating the adopted son (after eating the boy's sister, a female corn plant taken away by Thunderbolt in another variant; see Garcia de Leon 1966, 5). For some reason, no creature adopting or fathering another can remain forever united with his own dependent offspring. Although they belong to different species, corn and man are like father and son to one another. That is, Homshuk feeds man while man

204 The Hot and the Cold

sows, protects, and nurtures the seed of corn. Neither of them can count on real genitors to look after them as they grow and gather in age. When cultivating maize, man can no longer rely on his aging or deceased father to look after his needs. As a child he grew thanks to the sustenance of life that came in the form of corn. The same can be said of corn seed and youth whose parent plants have dried and long since passed away. They too must rely on fathers who adopt them in order to survive. This points to a fundamental feature of the primordial encounter between man and maize: both are orphans destined to meet, work, and care for one another at the site of a milpa. A prayer recited on the day that corn is sown captures this lesson in a most inspiring way: 'Homshuk, I am going to plant you here, so they will not pick you up over there, so you will work here, so you will not stimulate their appetite over there where you are thrown away ... You come from another people, you are not from here. You whose house lies on the other side of the pond (where the sea falls), where the sun goes up, (where) the dead rise. I am a little orphan, you are a little orphan as well. Now we meet here, the two little orphans' (Field note: Rodriguez Hernandez 07/91). Man is nonetheless fated to kill and devour his seed of corn. Another prayer to Homshuk aimed at securing plentiful corn thus adds a sense of guilt to the partnership between maize and man: 'You who are not from here, man. You who come from a new day, man. You who are from the other side of the pond, where the blue sun rises, where the blue moon rises. You, (the one) they will pull out and collect (harvest), I feel a stone of shame in my throat (at the thought that) they beat you up and cut you up, Homshuk. You Homshuk, never have you left me idle here, you who make me work all the time, who never leaves me idle' (Field note: Rodriguez Hernandez 07/91). Unlike the iguana who enjoys the good life, the corn god is in no position to reconcile water and sun, earth and sky, west and east, age and youth. Nor can he overcome the contradictory aspects of maize and human life forms, both of which are torn between exigencies of reciprocity and mutual predation, one feeding on the life of the other, as must be. Evils of Vanity: The Iguana Caught Given its ability to overcome the contradictions of life and geography, the iguana can triumph over the corn-boy. And yet the animal is cap-

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tured and scolded by the young hero. In one variant of the corn myth collected in Pajapan, an alligator eats the corn god while travelling to Oaxaca. The boy cuts his way out of the animal's belly with an obsidian knife. Considering his weaknesses, why should the plant-boy triumph over his mighty predator? Could it be that great weakness lies in the lizard's strength? As a gluttonous creature and a corn-eating parasite, the animal lacks perhaps what is needed to reconcile the good life with the requirements of growth, aging, and reproduction. Unlike the corn god, the lizard may not be equipped to address the paradoxical features of life and death. Accordingly, mythology assigns basic limitations to what the iguana can do to resolve problems of the native life-world. In exchange the corn myth offers a higher strategy to secure the blessings of life, a strategy that speaks to the moral ways of milpa cultivation. The corn-iguana encounter points to a native formulation of selfdenial (without the Judeo-Christian depreciation of Nature). In its own way, the scene deliberates two forms of mediation, the hedonistic and the ascetic. The battle is skewed from the start, in favour of the sacrificial ways of the corn god, to the detriment of all enemies of maize, including the iguana. By bridging distances in time and space, the iguana strategy appeals to signs of ready-made unity and harmony. Although more demanding, the corn strategy entails a more durable way of securing the blessings of life on earth. Through lessons of the corn god, tales of sacrifice facilitate exchanges between contraries such as life (wetness of the earth) and death (dryness under the sun), a far cry from signs of their final dissolution vested in the vain iguana. Featuring a battle pitting two mythical characters, native mythology speaks to an epic confrontation between the moral good and pleasure. The struggle is between the value of virtue and the exercise of selfinterest and power without constraint. The symbolism is primarily concerned with the exemplary conduct of the corn god securing the good life for humans, men and women who feed on corn and in turn dedicate their lives to feeding and reproducing the divine plant. Note that moral anxieties are not explicitly addressed in the iguana scene under analysis. Although it occasionally comments on issues of sacrifice, the narrative involves convoluted symbolism mostly of the anecdotal and dreamlike sort. All the same, moral questions are central to the imageries at hand, provided that connections unattended by the surface script are understood for what they are: signs loaded with ethical and philosophical implications announcing later moments in narrative time. In the Nahua version the iguana makes fun of the corn god's droop-

206 The Hot and the Cold

ing ears and of his father dwelling in the land where men are dry. The exchange is immediately followed by a battle. Using a string (nomamegat) or snare (nopichawan) made by his adoptive father, the boy captures an iguana: 'Come on you ruffian (anda cabron), I'm going to lasso you (nia nigitsonwiti).' says the boy. The boy follows (gitogatih) the animals with his snare and at the sound 'tras' catches (gilpilih) one iguana by the tail. But the tail breaks (postek} and the animal flees. The iguana comes back and the boy catches it (gigiskih) by the foot (iyikxi) and hits it with the lasso string (gimegawitek). He reprimands the animal and warns it that if it comes back and mocks him again, he will lasso the animal and will never let it go (ninamechmahkawati) or feed it to his grandfather. Frightened (ginmohmotih}. the animals go away and never come back. They only shout (gitsahtsiliah} at Sintiopiltsin from afar. Although the iguana has every reason to ridicule Sintiopiltsin, this scene chooses to go into a new direction, inverting the relationship between animal and plant. The corn-child becomes a predator equipped with a long lasso and words of reprimand and threat. Conversely, the iguana turns into an edible prey with a broken tail, feet immobilized by a snare, and speech sound reduced to shouting and noise. Why the inversion? Could it be that the hero triumphs over his foe by virtue of the weaknesses that lie in the animal's strength? Although enjoying the good life, the parasite, predator, and prolific begetter lacks the ascetic disposition needed to deal with real oppositions in life. The iguana does not know how to turn death and related afflictions into requisites for the blessings of life. A creature that wants things to be simple, taking the easy way out of problems situated in time (death) or space (water vs earth vs sky) is no match for a mediator who sustains sacrificial exchanges between water and sun, the earth and the sky, pleasure and pain. Iguana in Mocking Scene Powerful mediator Speaking, mocking Corn-eater (predator) Prolific begetter Moves between water, land, sky Swimmer, terrestrial, born from egg Long tail

Corn in Mocking Scene Weak mediator Spoken to, mocked Eaten (prey) Immature elote corn-child Father above (dry land, west) Son standing still, below (near water, east) Vulnerable to excessive wetness or dryness Ears cut, back broken or doubled

Corn, Water, and Iguana 207 Corn in Trap Scene

Iguana in Trap Scene

Predator Long lasso Speaking words of reprimand

Prey Tail broken, feet immobilized Shouting, making noise

But how do implications of the corn-iguana battle suggest alternative teachings, those of self-denial? To answer this question, we turn to pivotal signs of the iguana trap imagery. The scene revolves around the impressive tail and tongue of the mocking iguana, appendages that raise basic issues regarding language, morality, and sexuality. The loose-tongue motif appears first. The animals put the boy to shame by calling him (and his father) names; in Gulf Nahua notza is to call a person by his name and nohnotza, to criticize or insult.24 In spite of their massive tongues, or perhaps because of them, the iguanas are unable to speak the human way, with caution and modesty (tlacatlatoa). They are guilty of indiscretion, of letting words escape from their careful attention. They indulge in frivolous language. Such ill-spoken, eviltongued creatures are not worthy of admiration (mauizoa) and deserve to be silenced or reduced to shouting and crying (mahmauitzatzi, tzohtzi. tzatzatzi) while fleeing. The moral importance attributed to language is reflected in classical derivations of itoa, to speak. The term can serve to evoke men of noble descent (tlatocamecayotl) such as kings, lords, princes, governors, ambassadors, and mediators (tlatoani). These are men who speak (tlatoa. tahtoa) for others and distinguish themselves by their heroic deeds (tlatocatlachiuhtin and the palaces (tlatocan) they live in. More importantly, they can be recognized by their manner of speech (tlatojizili), their ability to sing or express themselves with persuasion (tlatolmaca). eloquence, dignity (tlatocayotl). and poetry (tlatolchichiualiztli). They master the discourse of history (tlatollotl) and writing (tlatollacuiloliztli) as well. Perfection and purity of speech is at the origin of all the powers that the noble possess, including the capacity to command others (tlatocatlatoa) and to make their will manifest (tlatoltica). Great value lies in words (tahtol) that deserve to be spoken (tlatoloni). In a Popoluca variant (Lopez Arias 1983), the iguana has a bad cough and is unable to deliver an important message. A small lizard takes over from the iguana but ends up saying exactly the opposite of what the corn boy meant to tell his mother. The animal is accused of treating words like rumours, mockeries, and lies that spread too quickly, changing their meaning through misinterpretation. Because of the lie told by the lizard,

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the narrative goes on to say, human beings are no longer immortal. To punish the animal, the corn god cuts the lizard's tongue in half, which accounts for the forked tongue characteristic of the small cowixin lizard. Fish poking fun at the boy's red hair suffer a similar fate; the boy retaliates by catching a few fish with a line and hook and then passing a string through their mouths. In another version pepesco fish eat Homshuk's dough and then vomit it after bumping into an iguana; the iguana opens their belly, sows it back (producing a characteristic scar), and then deposits the egg-shaped dough at the top of a tree (Rodriguez Hernandez n.d.a, 1). All in all, the iguana, the lizard, and the fish are punished where they have sinned, through belly, mouth, and tongue.25 Signs tied to the longish tail endowment of the iguana and the lasso or snare used to capture the animal are also telling. A convergent sign, the word megat for line, applies to both tail and snare. When combined with -tzin which is the root term for the back or rear end of something, the megat line produces the tail appendage or backside handle motif (tzinmevayo}. The narrative clearly focuses on this appendage when describing Sintiopiltsin's prey. But the same line can be extended to the lasso or snare (mecauia. mecayotia) used to capture the appendage. The snare consists indeed of a megat string tied to a bamboo stick at one end to pull a lasso fixed at the other extremity. The string is made up of a cord twisted (malinah) like a liana or climbing plant (bamegat, bamegayo) and covered with beeswax to make the noose slide.26 When closely examined, the snare appears to be made of parts deviously stolen from the animal. The bamboo stick is elongated and segmented like an arrow, a spinal column, or the backside appendage of the powerfully tailed lizard. The snare also works like a pitzauayan trap, a word designating the narrow or central part of a hole or a body, hence the belt or the waist to which tails are attached. Finally, there is wax (xicocuitlatl, bee excrement, honey), a substance akin to tallow fat (xicocuitla-icpayollototl) and evoking the fatness and sweetness of the underworld paradise, a land of plenty enjoyed by chaneque spirits resembling the prolific and gluttonous iguana. Stories of underworld creatures caught with honey are common in Pajapan (Garcia de Leon 1969,297; 1976,84-6; for older connections between honey and sex, see Leon-Portilla 1983,238). Other megat associations reinforce signs of domination vested in this imagery. The word can be used to denote a mamegat fishing line, or a twisted cord to shoot arrows with (mecayotia). If used to carry heavy loads, the string (megapal) becomes the mark of a slave (mecapallo). a

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creature flogged (megauitegui) by his master and forced to carry heavy loads attached to straps around the head. The iguana-tail-whip connection is confirmed by variants that describe the iguana using its tail to flog Homshuk who is caught fishing and with feet rotting in water (Rodriguez Hernandez 1994, 1). Water chaneques can also use the animal tail to whip hunters who hurt animals needlessly or kill them to feed their mistresses (Garcia de Leon 1969, 294, 306). In short, all signs of the snare or trap prefigure and converge on the tail and the animal to be caught. This means that losses suffered by the iguana are our young hero's gains. Sintiopiltsin's plan to catch the mighty-tailed iguana is merely a pretext to rob the animal of its inherent powers. The mastery procured through the tail-and-string imagery extends to the reproductive domain. Signs converging on sexual matters are many. First, the lizard's phallic tail27 is a rear end so impressively long that the animal is reputed to mate with serpents and to possess ophidian flesh. Its tail is so massive and strong that the Gulf Nahuas believe it will continue to live even when cut, like a serpent. Second, the noose or net used in this scene stands for the greatest prey of all: a megat lover (chaywtchQmo).28 The imagery of a boy capturing his prey at the site of a well suggests that the boy is trying to put someone else's head in the noose (ilpiacayotl) in the sense of enslaving, binding, or attaching (ilpia} another life to his own, confining an attractive creature to a prisonlike (teilpilcalli) trap. The fact that a prey should be chased at a fountain or well is particularly appropriate if we consider that courtship between Popoluca or Gulf Nahua men and women typically occurs on the way to or at the site of a well or a brook. Actually, a boy growing up and taking water from an atlacui well is a prelude to a man pouring his own fluids (auetzi) and having sexual intercourse. The imagery of a boy taking (bi, bilia, cui) water from a well lends itself to threats of stealing and sexual abuse. To rape a woman (guiguizki. cuitiuetzi} is to take something away with haste, a gesture implying an act of cutting, removing, or grasping (guizki. cuicui).29 Accordingly, falling into water (atoy_auia) conjures up the vision of a moral fall, of man lapsing into sin by letting too much of his own water fall through sexual activity.30 Third, if converted into a matrimonial tie, the liana-string can turn into an umbilical cord (xicmegat). The anatomical conversion points to the germ-son of corn (ixictayol) and all the lines, ties, and linkages of lineage, family, and genealogy (mecayotl).

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Given these many enviable associations, it is understandable that lianas should serve as doors opening onto sacred sites full of riches owned by underworld chaneque spirits (Garcia de Leon 1969, 295). The same can be said of iguana tails: they can be the object of considerable envy, especially for those who aspire to the blessings and riches of chaneques reputed to inhabit the breadlike buttocks (tzintamal) of the iguana. To use the classical Nahua imagery, an appendage of robust flesh (cuitlananacatic) is all that is needed for someone to prosper (cuitlapiltia). The creature who possesses it is likely to grow a bigger belly (cuitlatecomatl). Riches of the earth shall accrue to powerful men endowed with shoulders (cuitlapane). creatures who have spinal columns, behinds (cuitlapampa). buttocks (cuitlaxacayatl. "the backside face"), and trunks prolific as a corn ear (cuitlapanxilotcayotl). strong as an arrow or a shinbone (cuitlapanteputzchichiquilli). The iguana tail (cuitlapilli) points to other species equally well endowed in this regard, such as rats (cuitlapilhueyac) and quetzal birds. Interestingly, the Gulf Nahua guetza motif raises closely related issues having to do with tails, feathers, and sex. In classical Nahuatl, quetza stands for things and people of great value: jewellery, a son or parent, a protector or leader, a generous soul (quetzalyollotl). It also evokes the elegance of the Nahua language.31 All of these are as precious and beautiful as the green tail feather of the quetzaltototl (Pharomacrus mocino), a trogon bird brilliant green above and red below, with long streaming tail feathers in the male. In keeping with these feather-tail associations, the verb quetza means to rise, to erect, to stand up. Finally, the root word lends itself to evocations of sensual activity and mating. The term signifies to unite, to create harmony, to embrace, to support (as with a taguetzal pillar or post). The symbology applies to a couple about to marry: the Gulf Nahuas speak of a tauialquetzal fiance, a shining feather, and his soaguetzal bride. In classical Nahuatl, quequeca was the word applied to birds mating. An animal in heat (quetztlani) was a quetzallani. and tequetzani. a breeding stallion.32 This material suggests that there is a lot at stake in the iguana's defeat. All is as if the iguana was divested of the reproductive powers vested in its tail; too big a tail spells ruin for the wealthy, the potent, and the powerful. The end result is death by emasculation or decomposition. The inferior backside part becomes perishable in the sense of being linked to material that rots, hence excrement, bitat in Pajapan, a term synonymous with money, fault, and filth.33 Older derivatives of

Corn, Water, and Iguana 211

the tail motif denote a wound, ripeness verging on decay (cuitlacucic), or the act of sullying someone's reputation (cuitlayoa) and sowing discord (cuitlacpeua). When transposed to humans, the tail stands for a vulgar person, a peasant, a worker, a beastlike slave. Finally, the buttocks and the tail point to creatures that are fat and walk slowly (cuitlananacatid. immature individuals who have no sphincter control (tzinbita in Pajapan), hence the weak, the sleepy, and the lazy (cuitlapan. also for latrines).34 Thus, a deformed corn ear is cuitlacochin. maize that sleeps and that will not resist strong winds blowing in August. The lizard stands accused of making fun (auiltia) of the corn-boy, playing or toying (auilnemi. ahauil} with the root verb auia. a term implying a wastage of one's wealth.35 Accordingly, the animal deserves to lose its appendage. An excess of phallic might results in castration. The mighty-tailed animal is chastised according to the rule of proportional retribution, a rule whereby evil returns to cause its own destruction. Other indices point to the same conclusion. For one thing, the boy insults the iguana by calling it cabrdn, a male goat that stands for a cuckold but also a paramour, ruffian, or pimp. The insult suggests a conversion, from cock to cuckold. More importantly, the hero catches and mutilates his prey. The iguana is caught by the rear end, producing the sound tras, an onomatopoeia and the Spanish word for behind (trasero, tzin in Nahua). The corn boy cuts the animal tail and frightens (mahmaui, cuitla-pammauhtia) the iguana away. The gesture is the equivalent of denigrating (mauizpoloa') and reprimanding (postegui) the culprit, breaking the animal's back, shoulders or loins.36 The iguana becomes spineless and shoulderless. It is condemned to flee, hence to turn a shoulder and run with fear.37 The imagery suggests emasculation: the captured tail is a bottom-stick (tzinbayo). a staff or stalk that suffers from impotence when broken (postequitzinbayo) or dead (tzjnrniccrai). The punishment is so severe as to affect all bodily extremities: not only the phallus but also the tongue, the tail, and the foot. The long-tailed, firm-footed, and loose-tongued animal is unmanned, silenced, put down, and trampled (icxipechtia). The narrative ties the animal by the tongue, the tail, and the foot (icxiilpia. icximegauia).3S It silences and slows it down with the appropriate string (icximegat), thus confirming its inclination to self-debasement and laziness (icximiqui, dead feet).

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Hopes of Sacrifice: Letting the Animal Go The corn-boy uses a lasso to capture the powers vested in the iguana tail. In doing so, however, the hero jeopardizes his mission. His newly acquired possessions may be turned against the hero, placing him in a position similar to that of the vulnerable iguana. To catch the iguana, the corn-boy had to follow (toga, togatia) or search for (temoa) his prey. The question is whether the hero will be tempted to follow in his enemy's footsteps. The catch thus results in a riddle: what happens to a hunter appropriating an animal tail while also finding fault with it? Wisely enough, the narrative chooses to remove the appendage from the boy's grip. In one variant (Rodriguez Hernandez 1994), the boy kills the iguana but is scolded by the grandmother who commands him to resurrect the animal, which he does. Instead of asserting his mastery over the animal and appropriating all related powers, he persists in his task, which is to seek a higher expression of courage and valour. The narrative goes on to show the boy fetching fresh water for his adoptive father. By implication, the hero secures and gives up the source and fluid of life (and the iguana flesh) for the sake of his father, all in anticipation of an even greater sacrifice: the corn god offering himself as food for humans - 'food for angels of the earth' (Rodriguez Hernandez n.d.a, 3). The answer to questions of morality lies in sacrifice, not in the conquering ways and spoils of the hunter (see Figure 7.3). In retrospect, the megat and derivatives thereof can serve to express: (1) the means to conquer (snare, lasso, fishing line, bow string); (2) the object conquered or possessed (flesh, phallus, prey, lover, slave, family ties); and (3) the pains of being conquered (dismemberment, castration, impotence, a broken back, trampling, silencing). To these derivations can be added other connections that point the way to (4) the higher teachings of self-denial - renouncing (1) and (2), accepting (3). Sacrificial usages of the string imagery suggest that objects of desire and means to possess them can be mastered and preserved only if they are renounced. Heroes may secure signs and possessions of the good life by letting them go. The corn-boy starts setting the example by releasing or resurrecting his prey. The question, however, is whether letting the iguana go is a full expression of what the narrative is driving at: the necessity to attain the blessings of life through the trials of sacrifice. The answer is no. For the moment, the corn-child's treatment of the megat string is a timid deployment of the sacrificial attitude and ensu-

Corn, Water, and Iguana 213

Figure 7.3 Breaking the tail and the back

ing rewards. All indications are that signs of full-fledged sacrifice are bracketed and held in abeyance, if only for a narrative while. Erotic and ascetic evocations are hidden for several reasons. On the erotic side of things, the young hero captures his prey and yet dreads the sexual powers vested in the iguana. He lets go of the powerful tail in his possession for fear of becoming like the animal itself, a creature loaded down with signs of lechery. The move is all the more understandable as the hero is too young to chase and tie himself to the megat woman of his desire (typically encountered at a well, which is where

214 The Hot and the Cold

the iguana makes fun of his immaturity). Although growing rapidly, the ear of corn is still without the reproductive powers of the iguana and the ability to reunite water, earth, and sky. Nor does his leafy stalk compare favourably with the tail and fatness of the iguana. On the ascetic side, the corn boy shows equal timidity in that he dares not turn the string imagery against himself, in the form of a belt tightened around his body, an expression of reproduction achieved through abnegation (see below). Although he masters the iguana and shows wisdom by releasing its tail, the corn-child is not accepting the full costs of growth and reproduction, issues that must be confronted sooner or later. In the iguana trap scene, two complementary anxieties are registered while being unsaid: the fear that the child misbehaves and the hope that sooner or later he comports himself heroically. On the one hand, there is the fear of transgression conveyed through a megat snare acting as a lustful be-longing. The instrument points to what the young hero is searching for, something that he is not allowed to possess and that speaks to a desire possessing him. The snare and derivatives thereof embody all the trappings of the good life on earth, the kind foolishly enjoyed and lost by the prolific, long-tailed iguana. On the other hand, the snare creates moral expectations. Since the child chooses not to keep the trap and the prey in his possession, readers may be hopeful (but not certain) that the hero's journey through life will set an example of virtue. As we are about to see, promises of virtuous conduct can be expressed through the megat imagery. The string can denote a belt tightened around the body or a whip to flog oneself with, both of which stand as signs of self-discipline. It can also be used to sever the head from the body or to pull hair from one's head, imageries that apply to the doubling and harvesting of maize plants in autumn. The corn-boy can master his prey through a show of self-denial, an exercise that requires the megat string to be made of hair plucked from the child's head. As with Samson, the strength of our hero lies in his hirsute head, in his ability to lasso (tzonguia, tzonuia) his enemy with his hair (tzonti), catching it with his tzongal hair-house turned into a deadly snare (tzouaztli). To possess this snare and conquer his prey, however, the maize-boy must be made bald. That is, he can obtain victory by attaining maturity, the kind that results in a pixca harvest, from pi, to tear or pull a plant or a person's hair. Like the iguana hanging by the string or the fish caught with hook and line, the plant must be pulled by the head and then husked with a wooden tool called pixcon.

Corn, Water, and Iguana 215

In Pajapan, this husking device is a euphemism for the penis, and the husking, peeling, and plucking imagery, the equivalent of a man losing his virginity. The powers of reproduction shall therefore be granted to the hero provided that the boy resigns himself to being deflowered, bowing the head down, and losing his hair or head. He must refrain from raising his hair (tzghmioguetza), becoming angry, and rebelling against what life has in store for him. In the long run, a head that bows down is the only head that can sow (tzontoctoc. from tzonti and toga, to sow). Death by hair cutting (tzontegui. also to cut oneself) or decapitation (geshtzontegui) heralds a new life.39 The fact that the corn god masters the iguana augurs well. But the boy has yet to demonstrate his valour and achieve maturity by turning the string and tail imagery against himself. Unless he flogs or disciplines (megauitegui) himself and atones for the crimes of others (cuitlatzacuilia). his victory will be as short-lived as the powers enjoyed by the foolish iguana. If the boy refuses to break down and bend (doblar, beloa) under the heavy rains, he will suffer the fate inflicted on his father, as in the Popoluca story. That is, he will be whipped by the winds of autumn and be destroyed by lightning and thunder from the north (Rodriguez Hernandez 1994, 2). To reproduce, the boy must tighten a belt (cuitlapicayotl) of leaves around his body, gird up his loins (cuitlalpia). and then bow (cuitlacaxxoa) or fall to the ground, be shelled, beaten, and chastised (uitegui). The secret of immortality lies precisely in the corn god's ability to withstand all such trials, which are unknown to the iguana. Like Sintiopiltsin, humans must suffer the trials of back-breaking labour. They must do this in order to secure the good life, the ownership of land, and the provisioning of adequate food supplies. A word that conveys this paradoxical relationship between the blessings of wealth and the obligations of life is teguit or tego (hence tegui, to cut). The word evokes the benefits of ownership but also the condition of a woman doing housework (teguicha) or a peasant (miltagat) condemned to labour and serve (tequipanoa). To the Aztecs, a tequipane was someone hired on a weekly basis and tequipanilhuia (or tequitilia) was to work for someone else. The low-status attributes of the peasantry are strengthened by the root word tegui. which implies work and the burden of function, servitude, and also tribute (or the cut in produce and profits given to the powerful). Teguit also denotes collective work (faeno) organized by the communal authorities and the municipal teguiwa president, the one in charge of distributing or speaking on mat-

216 The Hot and the Cold

ters of work and taxation (teguitatoa). In Pajapan, the term teguio refers to someone who carries the burden of a public office.40 The story of the corn god does not develop these negative associations of peasant labour and tribute. But it does suggest that humans have ample reason to labour and to teguipachoa. which is to suffer discontent and to be preoccupied with one's immediate future. In any case, life without suffering is inconceivable. The rule is epitomized by the corn production cycle. Once doubled, husked, and plucked, the best ears of the previous harvest are selected, put aside, dried, and cared for (tapachoa). to be used to feed humans and seed the milpa again. Like eggs and chickens that the Gulf Nahuas and Popolucas will sacrifice to restore health and growth to humans and plants (Garcia de Leon 1991, 30; Boege 1988,118,143-5,193), the corn-boy must dry out and be devoured and buried (into stomach and soil) so as to feed new generations of humans and maize alike. Those who fail to follow the example set by the corn god, refusing the sacrificial requirements of reproduction, jeopardize the web of life. They can expect to suffer reprimand. Although apparently without a sense of dramatic development (see Foster 1945, 243), the corn myth follows a plot. Sintiopiltsin's journey to the land where men are dry is a fully developed illustration of signs of self-denial built into heliotropic cycles of life and death. The young waterlike corn-child is a god destined to dry and die under the heat of the sun and the winds of autumn and then to be eaten by the men and women who actually raise the plant. He must die at the hands of his milpa masters who must in turn sweat, break their backs, and work themselves to death reproducing the plant and their own children at the same time (see Figure 7.4). They require water to grow; but plants and humans must also dry out and exhaust themselves in the process of producing food and seed for future generations. These implications have yet to be borne out by the narrative. The iguana scene is generally silent about the exigencies of sacrifice. The string used as a hunting instrument is not conducive to a reading of ascetic (belt) meanings into the megat motif. The text also precludes an erotic interpretation. The megat imagery is not applied to the blessings and rewards (lover, lineage) that result from sacrificial behaviour. For the moment, the narrative chooses to inhibit the ascetic and erotic connections potentially triggered by the string imagery. Related affects and precepts are not for all that absent from the scene. Informed listeners know that the iguana is misbehaving, that the corn god is still

Com, Water, and Iguana 217

Figure 7.4 On the way to the land where men are dry

immature, that he has good reason to be angry, that he has what it takes to triumph over the iguana, that evil inflicted upon the corn god threatens the livelihood of human beings, and that letting the lizard go is full of reassuring implications. All indications are that the story is not over and that issues raised by the iguana incident have yet to be dealt with at greater length. The secret implications of the corn-child catching the iguana and

218 The Hot and the Cold

breaking its tail point to scenes that have yet to be told. As already suggested, the moral weaknesses of the mighty-tailed lizard account for the punishment inflicted on the animal. More importantly, its demise at the hands of the corn-child produces pre- and post-figurative effects that serve to keep the narrative plot in motion. For one thing, the battle reminds listeners of several things that the corn-child should not forget: his immaturity, the danger of a good life procured without abnegation, and the many enemies and obstacles in the way of reproduction and growth. Although Sintiopiltsin masters the iguana, the scene lays the ground for a more durable resolution of these problems. It invites listeners to place their hopes in the sacrificial ways of the mature corn god. It does so pre-figuratively, well before the hero's arrival to the land where men are dry, and indirectly, through the breaking of the lizard's back and the child releasing the animal's tail. To conclude, the iguana's ability to move freely among water, earth, and sky and the corresponding forms of life can be held against it. Powers acquired at no sacrificial cost will not last; they cannot be preserved because they are not deserved. An earthly creature of the flesh (gluttonous and well fed, yet edible and mortal) rising above the earth without sacrificial intent can be suspected of rising above (ahco) and therefore against (acomana) the godly powers that be. Accordingly, the animal should be punished. To avoid suffering the same fate as the iguana, the corn-boy must be taught and assume the ascetic way of life. Lowering the immature corn ear is a good start. The downward position (tan/) is bound to produce some humiliation or downfall (Hanitlaga). The plant, however, can turn its fall to advantage by transforming it into a sacrifice. Through doubling and drying, the hero will emulate the plant that gave him life. He will grow, mature, and reproduce himself together with the lives of all those who look after corn.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Ants, Turtles, and Thunder

The Pilgrimage of Life: Cutting Leaves and Ants Having given up life that begins in water to the east and having mastered the iguana, Sintiopiltsin the corn god seeks his adoptive father's permission to travel to Oaxaca, west of the land that gave him birth. The Gulf Nahua hero is thus empowered to move between water, earth, and sky, closer to his father in the highland. Steps are taken to reunite the high and the low, and movement occurs through time as well. The child has grown and his journey to the headwaters of the Papaloapan River, from sunrise to sunset, is undertaken in the company of pilgriming fathers substituted for his adoptive grandfather. Sintiopiltsin's trip to tagatauatzalouan is full of signs of the good life procured through abnegation. Saintly behaviour is associated with westward devotional voyages but also the drying process, the lowering of the head, and ritual synonyms thereof - beheading, self-flagellation, and so on. All is as if the pilgriming fathers were taking the corn-boy to the land of the Senor de Otatitlan, a dark-skinned father figure of the highland Papaloapan Valley reputed to have survived his own decapitation (Munch Galindo 1983,255-9).1 The sanctuary of Otatitlan attracts pilgrims from the Sierra Santa Marta and all parts of Mexico during the first week of May. The Senor de la Salud and la Santa Cruz, protector of merchants (in ancient times travelling to Guatemala via Tabasco and Chiapas), are also celebrated in early May, in memory of Christ ascending to heaven. Shortly thereafter, a visit is made to the Virgen del Carmen in Catemaco with a view to securing adequate rains and a good harvest in return for the sacrifices and offerings made to God and the Virgin.2 During these trips pilgrims must fast and flog themselves ritu-

220 The Hot and the Cold

ally while walking. These religious events occur from early March to the summer solstice, a crucial time known in Spanish as the tiempo defiguras. This is a time when most medicinal plants are collected, maize plots are cleared before the rainy season, corn and calabash are planted, and corn seeds begin to sprout (Garcia de Leon 1969, 302). The pilgrimages are all the more important as they occur immediately before the early days of July, a period characterized by a shortage of corn, poor hunting and fishing, times of sickness and death (Stuart 1978, 212). Then comes the season of plant maturation and the drying process. As already mentioned, the corn-boy growing in July and August is destined to be doubled over and bow before the heavy rainfalls and storms blowing in autumn. When transposed to issues of moral behaviour, the story implies that life and food will grow provided that acts of lowliness and renunciation are accomplished in the proper season. Accordingly, the boy's adoptive father must give up the son he appreciates (tasohta) and let the food of his life leave the fatherland if it is to mature and reproduce. As for the boy, he must feed the life of others with little concern for his own needs. He gives fresh water to his adoptive father and loses part of himself in the form of food he feeds to the pilgriming fathers (i.e., taxkal, tortilla, and totopito, roasted tortilla). The corn god is a thriving plant youth, yet he chooses to uproot himself from his native soil, after the manner of yearly pilgrims who renounce the comfort of their native land. As in real life, father and son depend on one another to survive. This relationship of mutual complementarity, however, is not likely to last. After all, the corn boy is undertaking a journey towards full botanical maturity, which is to say towards his own death by drying and the regeneration of life that follows soon thereafter. The narrative holds many trials in store for the young hero, including separation from the pilgriming fathers who will repeatedly abandon Sintiopiltsin as they travel to the land where men are dry. In the Nahua myth, the first pilgrimage scene is set in the summer season, between the moment of planting and the full maturation of corn plants obtained through doubling and drying. Danger awaits the hero and the pilgrims as they attain the midpoint of maize growth, midway between the lowland and the highland. The danger takes the shape of leaf-cutters, harvester ants known as arrieras in Spanish, from the word for mule drivers. The insects are large red harvester ants that attack maize plants from the moment of sprouting to the appearance of ears, two months after planting. Arriera ants can strip a plant by cut-

Ants, Turtles, and Thunder 221

ting sections roughly one square centimetre from the leaves. Soldier ants may reach a length of 1.5 centimetres. Their nests can cover an area of fifty square metres or more. When peasants select a milpa site they will avoid the nests if they can, but the ants can travel over long distances (100 to 200 metres) (Stuart 1978, 160). It is from these creatures that Ouetzalcoatl received the gift of maize (Munch Galindo 1983, 177; Leon-Portilla 1983, 107). More will be said on this parallel later. The pilgriming fathers instruct the corn god to spread a few leaves on the ground and prepare his bed. The bed must be done properly lest the hero should be attacked by ants. But the child spreads three leaves only and then lies down, falls asleep, and is devoured by the arrieras. When reprimanded, the hero tells the pilgriming fathers that he knows what he is doing, that they should leave him behind, which they do, and that he will catch up with them along the trail. A leaf-cutter then comes to cut more of the boy's flesh. The boy grabs one of his own hairs, ties the ant by the waist with it, and threatens to cut his prey in half if he is not given back his flesh. The ant is eventually loosened and goes to fetch the ant leader, an arriera with a big behind who commands that the flesh be given back. With his whole body restored, the boy gets up, goes behind the pilgriming fathers, kicks one man's behind, and then brags about his wisdom. Great danger lies in the decision to lie down and fall asleep while rising at the height of the summer season. The lesson applies to corn plants and milpa owners as well. Tega is to lay (e.g., leaves on the ground), to lie down. In pre-Hispanic times, however, the word also meant to have sex, to sow discord, to dishonour; a tetecani was a slanderer and a man who had sex with a woman. As for the resting motif, it connotes sleeping (gochi) viewed as the opposite of vigilance. Someone who sleeps a lot (gochca) neglects (cochcaua) things that need attending, indulges in sex, and sleeps with women or possesses them in dreams or in their sleep (cochuia). Little does a lazy man know that while he dreams in silence (vochtemigui) he also courts death (gogochi, gochmigui. sleep-death).3 Given his inclination to rest, the leaf-cutters get the better of the corn god. Although small and easily trampled, the devouring ants (tzigat) behave like man-eating tigers (tebani) and serpents (tequancoatH. hence the offspring of a venomous serpent (tebangonet).* The insects inspire as much fear as their queen mother and her kindred spirit, the monstrous tzicatl inan (ant mother) or nauayaca fer-de-lance, a serpent

222 The Hot and the Cold

dwelling in arriera ant hills and appearing as a beautiful woman to any sorcerer rolling himself in the nude over the ant hill (Munch Galindo 1983, 208; Garcia de Leon 1969, 286; Interview: Mauricio, snakebite healer, 02/12/94). In lieu of possessing the earth and the woman of his dream, the corn-boy ends up being bitten and devoured by servants in the train of an all-powerful queen ant. The ants consume his flesh. Why though? Why can't the corn god enjoy a good night's rest and the good life that comes with it? The answer lies in three cut and dry moments of milpa cultivation, leafcutting operations required to secure proper growth and life after death. The first task involves grass weeding performed by men and women. This is a painstaking operation essential to the survival of maize plants whose yields suffer greatly from weed competition. It is a time-consuming activity that usually occurs in the month of July, some thirty days after planting maize. The task is accomplished when maize plants are knee high, with leaves open but still without flowers or ears. The field is cleared of weeds so that corn can develop under the combined actions of rain and sun. The second task corresponds to the etzal stage of corn growth, which is when the first leaves of husk start to dry. But the third moment comes closer to what the scene evokes. It involves the tapesh bed motif or, better said, the ahcotapesh deathbed, the corn loft where maize plants stripped of life and leaves are stored away for protection against insects. The secret of a peaceful rest lies in those leaves carried and devoured by the ants, leaves that should have been cut in greater number by the corn-child lying and drying in bed so as to reproduce (feeding new plants and humans alike). The pilgriming fathers tell the corn boy to cut a few (achi) leaves to make his bed, with the implication that he should not cut too many. That would spell ruin for him in that he would lose his green foliage and with it his ability to grow and reproduce. The narrative makes it nonetheless clear that he should cut more than just a few leaves, if not a lot (miagueh), if he is to survive. Herein lies his fault: his refusal to let go of more than three leaves. Because he doesn't cut enough leaves, the corn boy is cut into pieces and ends up somewhere between life and death. He wakes up (taneci). literally making himself manifest, showing his face and coming to light like the sun appearing (neci, nextia) in the morning. At the same time he disappears from everybody's sight. He is not entirely there: ate mad. he was no longer complete, from aci, to arrive, to reach (acic is perfect), to mature (Lopez Austin 1980, 321). The child loses his cheeks (ixna-

Ants, Turtles, and Thunder 223

gayo) and corn-bread buttocks (nagatamal). He is deprived of all flesh (nagat), the source of physical mobility, potency, descent, food, and the festive life (nacaqua). The ants are known to indulge in reproachable behaviour as well, which means that the corn-boy can hope to win this battle against another foe. Instead of tightening its belt and making do with the provisions stolen from its victim, one gluttonous ant comes back to cut more flesh. Like the long-tailed iguana in the well scene, the ant shows no restraint. The creature deserves to be punished where it has sinned, the belly. The episode is said to account for a central feature of ant anatomy: a thin waist separating the frontal sections of the insect from its large abdomen and the ovipositor at the end. Deprived of his flesh, Sintiopiltsin takes advantage of his weakness. Through self-sacrifice, he turns the string or belt imagery against his enemy. The hero plucks one hair (tzonti) from his head, a gesture resembling the pixca harvest and the act of husking, stripping the ear of its blond tassel hair (xilot. xilotzonti) or silky headdress with a wooden tool called pixcon.5 Given that hair (tzongal, hair-house) is synonymous with head, the hair-cutting gesture implies decapitation, or the separation of upper and lower parts of the body.6 Death by beheading corresponds to what happens to the elote boy at autumn, a time when stalks are doubled, bent over, and fastened at the waist level; the upper part is tied to the lower with the use of leaves forming a belt.7 Measures of self-sacrifice can also be obtained by cutting something or oneself in half (tahcotegui), which is what men do when they bend and double over as they weed the land or as they simply get older (Lopez Austin 1980, 323).8 The action amounts to breaking someone's back (tahcopostegui) or his column (tahcoomio). This back-breaking motif has already been discussed, in reference to the iguana tail and the doubling of corn in autumn.9 In keeping with these evocations, the belt and doubling imagery evokes a common tree-felling technique which consists in cutting a piece of bark around the trunk of a large tree and letting it dry until it falls. It also evokes all bodily articulations designed to generate movement through folding and breaking (Lopez Austin 1980,194). The child regains the strength needed to take revenge against his enemies. The hair string plucked from his head gives him an instrument of domination, a cord to lasso (tzonuia) his enemy, tying (ilpia) the victim and making it fall into a snare. Great power lies in acts of self-mutilation, including the power to recover from thinness and

224 The Hot and the Cold

death and to master one's enemy. The hero converts the thinness (pitzac) of his middle body (tahco) into a pitzauayan snare, a tahcoilpia belt (cuitlalpia) tightened around the enemy's waist.10 As in the iguana scene, however, the boy's victory over his predator must not end in sheer destruction. Domination is a means towards an end, which is to get his flesh back. The ant goes to fetch the tayaganga queen ant, from yagat, the nose, a mark of seniority and superiority. The ruling ant restores the corn boy to his former condition. Having mastered the ant, the hero must let his prey loose. Were he to rob the insects of their lives and tie (ilpia} or possess the fat-bellied queen ant, the corn-child would become like his enemy, a gluttonous creature in need of reprimand. As with the iguana, the corn god must release his prey and her oversized behind, letting go of her massive buttocks (tzintanah) shaped like a large tanah (tanahtli) straw bag.11 If not her body will put temptation in Sintiopiltsin's way. From Ants to Thunder The story of Sintiopiltsin goes on to describe the corn god beheaded and devoured by a gluttonous stone while sleeping at night and then reviving himself by urinating on his own chest. At the end of his highland journey, our young hero meets his mother and manages to resurrect his father but without making him immortal. As shown elsewhere (Chevalier and Buckles 1995, 311-20), these scenes address the outcome and finality of the corn god's journey through life, along lines that reinforce the implications of self-sacrifice built into the cyclic and heliotropic requirements of corn cultivation. Nahua mythology emphasizes the corn-boy's westward journey to tagatauatzaloyan. away from life that begins in the coolness and freshness of water. However, other local or regional variants of corn mythology evolve in the direction of the sea and the east, towards a clearer understanding of the sacrificial role that water and the god of thunder can play in matters of life and death. The stories we are about to examine feature imageries already familiar to our readers: the dangers of resting at night, tails that are too long to be virtuous, encounters with the arriera ants and the ambivalent father figure, and flesh lost and injuries suffered at the hands of predators. They also take the teachings of sacrifice out of the land where men are dry, investing them in godly figures that stand for death by the action of water. We begin with a Popoluca variant reiterating the notion that tails can

Ants, Turtles, and Thunder 225

be lost through lack of virtue. The story tells of a blue-coloured, pigeonlike ut tut bird that was instructed to keep close watch over the trail where corn was scattered each morning and find out who was taking it away and where. But the bird disobeyed the corn god and fell asleep at night. It failed to follow Homshuk's instructions and lied about it as well. As a result, the bird got its tail eaten by arriera ants. The tapacamino was given the same task and succeeded where the other bird had failed. This is a 'road blocking' bird that 'always waits for us on trails' and that doesn't sleep and can be heard at night. The watchful bird discovered that arriera ants were sneaking corn from the road and storing it in a hill, a bank or warehouse made of pure rock and accessed through a crack in the rock. Homshuk went to ask Thunderbolt to strike and break the rock in the middle, causing a stone to hit Thunderbolt at the knee. The knee started to bleed and drip on the corn, which accounts for the origin of red-striped (rayado) corn known as nu.cn«pinmoc, for thunder. The narrator adds that Thunderbolt received from Homshuk the power to announce rain and to cause the earth to tremble. Thanks to his intervention plentiful corn was discovered.12 The story confirms that long tails and laziness or watchlessness will turn against creatures enjoying the good life without cost. Once again ants play a corn-predator role, save that their appearance is closely associated with the god of thunder who provides assistance to the corn god and endures pain as a result. The long tail of the ut tut bird is eaten up by the ants, and the legs of Thunderbolt are injured, a wound echoing the ant hill or rock-house hit in the middle but also the long-tailed iguana and the ant injured at the waist. As should be expected, the harm inflicted on Thunderbolt is not in vain. The pain he suffers is the outcome of a worthwhile gesture, which consists in freeing up the corn stolen and hidden by the harvester ants. His suffering thus turns into food. The redness of the arriera ant gives way to a scene of Thunderbolt bleeding at the knee level, a sight of blood that becomes sustenance for humans in the shape of maiz rayado. The imagery reminds us that a rift in male legs or stalks and egglike stones or hills of fertility may hold great promise. Knees that bend and bleed (so as to withstand wind, rain, and thunder blowing from the north) are the source of food and new life for humans and corn alike. They evoke a Popoluca prayer to Homshuk about to be sown, a prayer where the com god is likened to a nail bending the knee (Field note: Rodriguez Hernandez 07/91). But why should Thunderbolt endure pain for the sake of corn? Also, why should sufferings be expressed through the pouring of fluid

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(blood from the Thunderbolt's knee) and the bathing of corn? In stories of Sintiopiltsin, the negative or positive role assigned to lightning and thunder is always seen from the perspective of corn and his sacrificial mission in life. When seen in a negative perspective, thunder and rain may act as enemies of corn, which is what happens when stormy weather attacks plants that need drying and are about to be harvested. These events are inherently troublesome, imposing sufferings on the corn god but not on the god of thunder. When seen in a positive light, thunder may nonetheless act as an ally of plant growth. He may announce the arrival of rain and the 'cracking of corn vessels,' events that are generally positive in that the water of life is poured over the head of corn seed and young plants, permitting grain and ear to crack shell, soil, and husk as they sprout and grow. These real events, climatic and agricultural, seem to be reflected in the preceding role assigned to the god of thunder, which is to crack the hill that contains corn. But the role that water plays here is essentially productive and does not impose sufferings and costs on the god of thunder. Furthermore, water poured from the sky at seedtime marks the birth and early growth of the corn god, but it does not convey the sacrificial movement of plant life growing out of its aquatic surroundings. Other stories, however, explain how Thunderbolt can endure suffering and turn his pain to the advantage of humans and corn. Incidentally, this lesson can also be extended to the ant. It too can turn from foe into hero (cooperating with thunder). This is not surprising, given that ants, water, wind, and thunder can play radically different functions, depending on the season and growth stage involved and the actual concerns addressed through narrative metaphor. Ants are known to steal and devour corn grain, but they also do what humans do to secure their livelihood and the provisioning of corn. They bury seed into soil, protecting it from too much water that makes the seed rot or makes grain turn into dough for immediate consumption, with none stored or saved. Thus, ants do not always play the role of predators stealing or devouring corn. Pedro, a Popoluca storyteller narrates: It [the story] says that Homshuk was a child that cried a lot. He cried a lot that child! His mother became angry. She became angry. She put him on top of the metate to grind him! He was ground in the metate because she was angry that he cried a lot. There! She turned him into dough. She then cleaned the metate. and it [the story] says that she looked for ideal [a container made from a gourd]. There she put everything, everything, the

Ants, Turtles, and Thunder 227 flesh, the blood, everything there. And then, there was an arriero ant hill nearby ... They raise the soil, raise the soil [into a mound]. The arriera had been working there for some time now. It had a house there ... She went to throw it there. He was inside [the hole], then he spoke. It [the story] says that he said, 'Hi, what are you all doing? My mother came to throw me in here, but I must get out.' The ants answered, 'How will you do that?' He replied, 'You will take me out.' Because it [the story] says that Homshuk was senior to everyone. So the ants replied, 'Yes uncle, whatever you order we have to do.' So they took him up. They took the egg up. He was already an egg. So then, first he was crushed, then he was thrown into the ant's hole, of the arriera ant. So he was inside, and when he turned into an egg, he left. He said, 'Now, take me out of here.' So they took him out. 'Now what do we do?' the ants said. 'Now, you take me there, to the well.' There were some rocks there, so they put him on top of them. There he was, but as ordered by him. And there it was where the chichimistes [old women] came to fetch water. (Field note 08/06/94)13

In this opening scene, the mother of the corn god is tired of hearing the child crying. She decides to grind him on a metate stone, transforming him into dough and throwing his flesh and blood into an arriera ant hill (Interview: Pedro 08/06/94). The boy takes the shape of an egg and becomes the unclelike master of harvester ants. He orders the arrieras to pull him out of the ant hill and to place him on stones near a well, which they do. In some variants the egg is placed in a spiderweb or net that protects the child from thunder and heavy rains (Interview: Francisco 11/06/94, Rodriguez Hernandez 1994, 3). An old Chichimiste woman comes and sees the egg reflected in the water and tries to well him out until she gets tired or fills her belly with water. She then stretches and sees the egg above. She takes the egg, wraps it in clothing or cotton, brings it home and puts it in a trunk for seven days, till the egg cracks at the sound of thunder or a firecracker. A blond-haired child comes out, and thus starts the life of the corn god known as Homshuk. This Popoluca story inverts the Nahua antagonism between Sintiopiltsin and the predatory ants. Like humans, insects act as dependent creatures that owe their lives to the plant that sustains them. Accordingly, they keep corn in store and protect it from predators and agents of destruction. The ants further return the favour to the corn god by bringing forth the egg-child, raising him above the earth, the stones, and the waters that gave him life. Thunderbolt plays a friendly role as well; the child-egg cracks and the corn god is born at the sound of

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thunder. Instead of attacking the corn-boy, both ant and thunder become father figures nurturing the process of corn life and growth. Both assist the blond-haired infant in breaking through its shell, converting severance and rejection by the mother into life that grows out of the earth and the womb. The corn boy is no longer faced with ants led by a domineering tauaganga (queen ant). Instead he becomes an unclelike character possessing seniority, as in the Nahua term tayagantok, for an older brother who looks after his siblings and exercises authority over them. In this story, ants and thunder come to the rescue of corn. But while the exemplary conduct of ants is described in some detail, very little is said about thunder and even less about the heroic nature of his assistance to the god of corn. Other tales of Homshuk elsewhere in Popoluca mythology explain a radical transformation of the god of thunder, from enemy to ally. Unlike Nahua stories of Sintiopiltsin, these are tales that generally head towards the east, across the sea, in the direction of sacrifice obtained by the action of water. The seaward journey we are about to explore speaks to three aspects of corn exposure to water. The first consists in the seed of corn watered by spring rains and bursting through its shell. The second points to the corn god about to be harvested, bathing in tears and rain brought by storms hailing from the sea at fall. The third aspect, the most important for our immediate purposes, consists in water thrown on the grinding stone and poured over Homshuk's head, using lime to soften the grain and remove the shell, gestures designed to convert corn into dough and tortilla to sustain human lives. As we shall see, water poured in this fashion does not bring life to corn, nor does it take it away before the proper time. Rather it pulls life out of the corn god in the appropriate season, a water-extraction process that may be likened to powers taken from the god of thunder, hence rain obtained from injuries inflicted on the god of thunder or bleeding emanating from the sky. Homshuk travels eastward and downward, across the ocean, in the land of thunder and water. The hero is told by his mother that this is where Thunderbolt lives, the god responsible for his father's death; in some versions, however, Thunderbolt is also said to be Homshuk's father. Homshuk succeeds in crossing the ocean on the back of a turtle. He is then forced to conquer snakes, tigers, and arrows sent by mighty Thunderbolt who wishes him dead. He eventually confronts and defeats the god of thunder but spares his life, on condition that he resurrects the boy's father. Thunderbolt revives the father by jumping

Ants, Turtles, and Thunder 229 seven times across the ocean. He also promises Homshuk that he will wet the corn's head whenever there is too much heat from the sun. Just as Homshuk was going to deprive him of his powers, Thunderbolt said, 'Don't take them away because I also have the powers that you need/ One narrator, a traditional healer in Soteapan, adds that this god 'has as powers the cloud, the wind, and the thunder. Homshuk agrees not to take his powers if he promises to help him. And he tests him. When he is small, standing in the milpa, he calls the thunder: "Thunderbolt come, let me see if it's true that you are going to help me." Thunderbolt comes and with the cloud gives rain to Homshuk.' The corn child then says, 'Now I believe you, I shall never take your powers away.'14 Like water itself, the god of thunder and lightning plays a variable role vis-a-vis the corn-child. On the one hand, thunder can be threatening in that it can bring about wind and rain that will destroy seed, sprouts, young plants, and even mature corn. On the other hand, stories of Homshuk make it clear that Thunderbolt can be counted on to announce the arrival of rains essential to the sprouting and early growth of maize sown in May or June. Without water from the sky brought by lightning and thunderous winds hailing from across the ocean, corn seed and plants would die under the heat of the sun and be deprived of the freshness and breath of life. Thunderbolt thus acts as father to every corn plant it waters and brings to life. The point to me be made here is that these services are not rendered freely. They must first be conquered by the use of force. This means that fear or pain must be inflicted on the god of thunder. The Popoluca story of Homshuk's journey across the ocean thus ponders the need to secure water from rains otherwise responsible for the death of all corn plants. Homshuk travels to the land of thunder where father plants have succumbed to heavy rains and storms blowing at harvest time. There Homshuk struggles with a god responsible for bringing previous generations to life and their destruction as well. In hindsight the god of thunder differs little from humans: he too is determined to destroy the corn plants he nurtures from the moment of birth. But Thunderbolt can also be persuaded to surrender some of his powers, bringing them into the service of corn and, what is more important, the teachings of sacrifice. The corn god is in a position to obtain these concessions from Thunderbolt, provided that he undertakes a perilous journey across the sea. The voyage is done on the back of a turtle, which implies that the saltwater reptile possesses particular powers that may bring the narrative closer to what it aims for: a sacred pact

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between Homshuk and Thunderbolt, with sacrificial implications for all parties concerned. We return to this pact later, after a brief commentary on the deserving ways of the turtle, also known as the Prince of Tides. The Prince of Tides Homshuk crosses the ocean on the back of a turtle. While carrying the corn god on his back, the turtle is said to break its chest or shell. The injured turtle is scolded for offering to do a task that it could not fulfil, yet no punishment ensues. Because of its obedience, the turtle and his passenger come back to shore. Homshuk asks the rabbit to heal the broken turtle and rewards the rabbit with a pair of horns as payment for the healing and the medicinal plants used. The hero then succeeds in crossing the ocean on the back of a second turtle. In return, he decorates the turtle's shell. Among the Gulf Nahuas the turtle is known as galapa and is synonymous with the vulva, apparently because of its shell shaped like a bowl. The word ayol (ayotD can also denote this animal and is synonymous with juice or 'something watery.' Given this uterine imagery, the scene of Homshuk transported by a turtle is suggestive of corn seed requiring a humid vessel to properly germinate and mature (without drowning). The vessel may be the shell and albumen surrounding the germ, the humid soil receiving the grain, or the husk and the storage room protecting the ear against excessive water or sun. The notion that the shell of the first galapa turtle is broken before the ocean is fully crossed implies that the journey to full maturity is risky and may be jeopardized. The protective vessel may be ruptured in an untimely fashion. Death through water-burning awaits the ear and grain of corn prematurely exposed to rain and wind. Maize drowns and rots if it fails to dry through adequate husk protection and storage in the ahkotapesh corn loft situated above the kitchen fire. The corn boy travels on a uterine vessel. All the same, his voyage across the saltwater sea implies a renouncement of the homeland, the parents, and the fresh waters that gave him birth. The journey entails the surrendering of all that is deemed inherently good. As shown below, this includes such basic things as the enjoyment of food, flesh, and rest at night. The turtle is an ideal vehicle for conveying this moral of self-denial. One turtle may not succeed in carrying this mission, yet the species as a whole has the potential to exemplify the teachings of

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reproduction through sacrifice, thereby holding the key to the cycle of life. This brings us to the myth of galapatsin, turtle and prince of the sea (Garcia de Leon 1976, 94-5). The story starts with an aging man pressuring his eighteen-year-old son into marriage. The son accedes to his father's wish and marries but treats his wife like a sister, sleeping with her but without touching her. At midnight, he transforms himself into a little turtle. When his wife looks for him, he is gone. He comes back at 1 or 2 o'clock in the morning and tells his wife that he transforms himself into a turtle and that if she looks for him and finds him, she will never see him again. The fate of this turtle-man is marked from the outset by the renouncement of marriage and sex and also rest at night and at home. Saddened by the loss of her husband gone with the wind, as it were, the woman seeks advice from the South Wind, the North Wind, and the Breeze. But they do not reveal his whereabouts. The young woman goes to see the wife of the North Wind who tells her to hide in a jar until her husband finishes his meal (otherwise he will devour her). The woman eventually learns that her husband is to be found in the middle of the sea and that she should ask the South Wind to take her there. In exchange for this information, however, she is obliged to surrender her two buttocks to the North Wind so that he may feed his two daughters, the eagles. The two eagles take the woman to her husband's house in the middle of the sea. When they arrive they lower the first bolt and inquire at seven doors, until they find him. The prince then tells his wife that he has no father or mother. He also announces that he and she are destined to reign over the sea. The sea goes up and down, and I have the key.' Thus, ends the story of the 'lord of all things to be found in the sea/ which is where the prince and his wife still live. As with the iguana reptile, the hurtle walks on earth, lays eggs, and lives in water. Unlike the iguana, however, the turtle is neither a corn predator nor a creature indulging in gluttony and pleasures of the flesh. This mythical character is rather a model of virtue. He renounces the pleasures of resting his body at night. He also leaves his parents and abstains from a normal life and marriage consummated at home. As a result, he is blessed with the title of Prince and Lord of the Sea. He becomes the master of the rising and falling of tides, an imagery synonymous with the cycle of life. The indigenous notion of tide (mareas) applies to fluids of bodies, plants, and the earth rising in

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youth, at night-time, and in rainy season. The same fluids fall in old age, at daytime, and in dry months of the year. Having renounced the joys experienced at high tide, the young man becomes the prince of all tides. The imagery is akin to the scene of Homshuk striking an alliance with Thunderbolt, the god who resides across the sea and reigns over cyclic rains - water he promises to pour periodically on the corn-boy in times of heat. The man's wife follows in his footsteps and is rewarded accordingly. She leaves home in search of her husband and faces the flesh-eating North Wind, a god capable of destroying or devouring corn that sustains the flesh and blood of humans while alive.15 She surrenders her jar-protection and her calves and buttocks (^flesh, corn, bread) so as to be reunited with her husband. This renouncement of flesh and the coolness of life is confirmed by the assistance provided to her by the South Wind, which normally blows in days of the vernal equinox, a season of great dryness and corn scarcity. Assistance comes also from the two daughters of the North Wind, eagles that reunite the young woman with her prince, thus allowing the couple to reign over the sea. Once gain, the symbolism reiterates basic teachings of corn mythology: flesh must be given up in exchange for the tidings of life. These blessings are not synonymous with immortality. Sacrifice and death continue to be requirements of survival. No appeal to godly imagery can change that, not even the sacred figure seven, a number pointing at best to recurrent cycles of time (as in seven days in a week). Women knocking at seven doors of the sea accede to the secret of tidal motions and the eternal transients of life and death, not the blessings of everlasting life. Likewise, Thunderbolt is said to secure the watering of corn by crossing the ocean seven times. Seven crossings succeed in reviving the plant that succumbs to the normal cycle of corn reproduction. Yet a cycle of seven crossings does not open on to the secret of immortality, heralding the end of all journeys that move between life and death. The miracle of life recovered after death is never equated with life that lasts forever. Although a god, the corn god is no less mortal than all those beings that it feeds and that nurture or protect him in return. The Colours of Sacrifice: Revisiting the Legend of the Suns A scene that portrays the corn boy travelling on the back of a turtle announces an encounter of mythical proportions: the struggle between Homshuk and Thunderbolt, a battle that ends with the powers of

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nature being brought into the service of the cycle of life. This outcome is achieved by the use of force, not by acts of pure generosity on the part of thunder. Concluding scenes convey nonetheless the teachings of a sacrificial economy, moral transactions that demand sufferings and offerings from all parties involved. The god of thunder controlling the pouring of water is no exception to this rule. He too will survive provided that he abides by these rules, a moral code amply illustrated by the god of corn. Thunderbolt can do this through powers under his control, measures that revolve essentially around the fluids of life. We are now in a position to explore a crucial imagery expressing sacrificial investments from both thunder and corn: signs of blood and water pouring out of thunder (his knee) and over corn. In most stories, water ends up being poured over dry grain crushed on a wet metate stone, to produce dough and cooked into tortillas that will feed human beings who will look after maize. In one Popoluca story, God tells the corn god he would never die because he would always serve as food for humanity. 'So the young boy knew it was because of this that he had power: because he was the spirit of corn. And he also understood that they were going to eat him' (Lopez Arias 1983). Gestures of sacrificial bathing performed by successive generations of corn plants lie at the root of the godliness of Homshuk. Pedro thus explains Homshuk's sacrificial mission in life and gift to humanity: For corn to be, the one we now have, that's why the bath took place. He bathed ... He took a bath. [The story says that] when he was a man, he returned to his mother's home. He arrived into his mother's house and covered her eyes with his hand. He asked his mother, 'Tell me, who am I?' And the mother replied, 'My husband!' 'No, I am not your husband.' Then, who are you?' He answered, 'Don't you remember that you crushed me on the metate [grinding stone]? Do you remember?' 'Ah!' she exclaimed. 'My son! But you have grown up! Where did you grow up?' 'Ah! I was raised in the hands of an old woman and an old man.' 'But how? How? If you died!' He replied, 'No, I was not dead, rather it was you, you who crushed me on the grinding stone. This means that I will become the corn god. This means that corn must be ground! And you crushed me on the grinding stone. This means that I am your god, I am corn! Corn must be crushed on the stone. Mother I am your god.' 'Well, and now what do you want?' T want you to give me a bath.' She answers: That's fine.' (Field note 08/06/94)

234 The Hot and the Cold

This is the story that starts with the woman grinding her son, placing the dough made of his flesh, blood, and bones into a xigal vessel and then into an ant hill. Homshuk then emerges as an egg from this hill with the assistance of arriera ants. The narrative ends with the son sacrificing himself in order to feed all humans and his starving mother as well (Munch Galindo 1983,167; Lopez Arias 1983,14). In his journey through life, the corn-child must confront and conquer temptations of the good life through self-mastery. In the end, he will grow and achieve the power to regenerate his seed only by espousing the moral of reproduction through self-denial, offering himself as food for people. This is to say that the corn god's sacrifice is self-serving. If the corn god were to refuse to give himself to humans, presuming that it were in his power to do so, then there would be no one to attend to the needs of his own seed. Like the earth that must be reduced to ashes so as to produce food, the corn god must dry and die and his remains submerged in water so as to feed peasants and the children who look after maize and parents in their old age. Humans in return must deserve Homshuk's divine offering. They must toil the land under the sun and secure the livelihood of future generations of children and corn alike. Interestingly, Pedro goes on to describe four types of corn emerging from Homshuk's sacrificial bath: He asks, 'And my father?' [The mother replies], 'It's been some time since your father died. Your father was Thunderbolt. He was the thunder.' The story says that he [Homshuk] replied, 'Well, I have the power to bring back my father.' 'But how?' her mother asked ... He said, 'I want you to give me a bath.' The mother agreed: 'If you ask me, I shall bathe you.' 'Bathe me now because I need to go.' 'I shall bathe you then.' He said, 'Under me put a washbowl, because this water we are not going to throw away.' He was there, standing. She poured water over his head and it dripped down. He spoke, 'Keep this [water], because black maize is going to come from it. From the first bath that you give me, black maize will result ... The second bath [water] you should also keep. This one will come out yellow. Now in the third bath, it will come out reddish, red maize.' He then said, Tn the fourth bath, there it must come out white, pure white. This means that all the dirt has come off me, now I am white.' It [water] turned into corn, through his power. She kept the water, and it turned into corn. The next day when she went to see, it already had grains. Yes, already grains!

Ants, Turtles, and Thunder 235 The four colours of corn reflect the amount of dirt washed away through bathing, from black to yellow, red, and then white, the purest of all. Maize that is white as bone is stripped of earth (black) but also flesh (yellow) that fills the stomach (Rodriguez Hernandez 1994,1). It is also deprived of the blood (red) that feeds into corn life. In one Popoluca story, Homshuk asks his mother to fetch and bathe him in black, red, and white earth to produce maize of corresponding colours. Another story tells how maize of all sorts - ears 'rotten, thin, dry, yellow, black, clean, dirty, and so on' - once complained to Homshuk that their master was spending too much time drinking and resting, which explains the fact that some of them were injured. Homshuk then decreed that maize of all kinds would coexist in everyone's plot but would not grow in a lazy man's milpa (Rodriguez Hernandez n.d.a, 2; 1994,4). A remarkably similar imagery can be found in an Aztec legend describing the discovery of maize. This legend is all the more interesting as it clearly extends the rule of sacrifice to the god of thunder, an extension achieved through simple means: defining the water poured over corn as blood from the gods. The myth is recorded in an ancient Nahua text evoking four colours and also the story of corn stored in an ant hill struck by the god of thunder. The story appears in a document known as The Legend of the Suns/ an anonymous manuscript that forms part of the Codice Chimalpopoca. The manuscript is dated 1558 and written in Nahuatl using the Spanish alphabet. It was first translated into Spanish by Francisco del Paso y Troncoso and published in Florence in 1903. The following account is based on a Spanish translation by Leon-Portilla (1980,166-71; our translation into English). So they said again (the gods): 'What will they eat (the humans), oh gods? Let maize descend, our sustenance!' But then the ant goes and takes the threshed corn, inside the mountain of our sustenance Ouetzalcoatl meets the ant, he tells it: 'Where did you go to get the corn? tell me.' But the ant does not want to tell him. Ouetzalcoatl questions it with insistence.

236 The Hot and the Cold At last the ant said: Truly, there.' It then guides Ouetzalcoatl. who immediately transforms himself into a black ant. The red ant guides him, and shows him into the mountain of our sustenance. Then both remove lots of corn. It is said that the red ant guided Ouetzalcoatl to the side of the mountain, where they were depositing the threshed corn. Then Ouetzalcoatl carried it on his back to Tamoanchan. There the gods ate abundantly, after which Ouetzalcoatl placed corn on our lips, so that we would become strong. And then the gods said: 'What shall we do with the mountain of our sustenance?' But the mountain wants to remain there, Ouetzalcoatl ties it [with a rope], but can not move it. In the meantime Oxomoco was trying his luck, and so was Cipactonal trying her luck, the woman of Oxomoco. because Cipactonal was a woman. Then Oxomoco and Cipactonal said: 'If only Nanahuatl would throw a thunderbolt, the mountain of our sustenance would open.' Then the tlaloques [gods of rain] descended, the blue tlaloques. the white tlaloques. the yellow tlaloques. the red tlaloques. Nanahuatl threw at once a thunderbolt and then took place the theft of corn, our sustenance,

Ants, Turtles, and Thunder 237 by the tlaloques. The white corn, the black one, the yellow one, the red corn, beans, chia, amaranth, amaranth fish, our sustenance, they were stolen for us.

As in present-day mythology, corn is given to humanity along with the arrival of rain. But there is also a passage that speaks of sacrifice and rebirth achieved through the pouring of blood. This happens in connection with the scene of a woman grinding bones, mixing it with blood to produce dough that goes into a clay pot and generates new life. The passage comes after the gods decide to ask Ouetzalcoatl. the Feathered Serpent, to go to Mictlan. the Place of the Dead. His mission is to recover the bones of human beings that existed in earlier ages, those of previous suns. Using these bones, the gods plan on restoring humanity in the new age of the Fifth Sun (Quinto Sol). Ouetzalcoatl undertakes the journey and overcomes many obstacles, including death at the hands of the Lord of Mictlan. Once resurrected, he retrieves the bones which he takes to Tamoanchan. the paradise ruled by the ancient and supreme god, Lord and Lady of Duality. There, the goddess of fecundity and maternity known as Quilaztli takes the bones, grinds them, and places the dough in a sacred clay pot, mixing it with blood from Ouetzalcoatl's bleeding penis. He and the other gods then do penance and seek to be worthy of (tlamacehuayah) what they desire (Leon-Portilla 1993, 43). Through the sacrifice and penance of the gods, new humans are born from the dough made of crushed bones and the blood of Ouetzalcoatl. What light does this ancient legend shed on the beginnings and teachings of corn? Part of the answer lies in the positive role that thunder (Nanahuatl). rain (tlaloques). and the plumed Ouetzalcoatl. a serpent adorned with feathers of the long-tailed quetzal bird, play as providers of corn for humanity. They help steal corn grain from the ants. The theft of threshed corn stored in the mountain of sustenance is essential to securing the good life for the gods in paradise (Tamoanchan) and strength for human beings as well. This is in keeping with the role of thunder in announcing rains that permit plant growth and milpa production. The legend also points to the sacrificial comportment that is expected of all those partaking in the provisioning of maize.

238 The Hot and the Cold Penance must be expressed by the plumed serpent and the corn divinity, both of whom must lose blood or be buried in the earth, crushed on stone, exposed to water, and turned into dough so that humanity may accede to a new age. The gift of corn comes from a serpent behaving sacrificially. This is to say that serpents are like ants and thunder: under certain conditions, they too can be allies of the corn god. In keeping with this, serpents currently crawling in milpas of the Sierra Santa Marta are believed to scare off predators of corn such as long-tailed rats. Their protective role may account for the notion held by some native farmers that the serpent is a father to the corn plant it protects. In the legend of the suns, ants act as enemies of corn. This is also true of the Gulf Nahua story of Sintiopiltsin where ant (tzigat) predators are bent on devouring the sustenance of life. In Gulf Nahua mythology, these gluttonous creatures are tied to a serpent and thunder-wind imagery also acting against the survival of corn. These connections are reinforced by the notion that ants are the offspring of a venomous serpent (tebangonet) or queen mother resembling the tzicatl inan (ant mother), hence the nauauaca or four-nosed fer-de-lance dwelling in arriera ant hills. Ants thus inspire as much fear as north winds issued from the mouth of a mythical serpent, to be warded off by placing a cross at each corner of the corn field or the village.16 Unlike the story of Sintiopiltsin, the legend of the suns gives the imageries of thunder and serpent a positive twist and associates them with moral behaviour. The two narratives nonetheless share some key imageries, such as the use of rope and the acts of tying, splitting, and bursting performed for the good of corn and humanity as well. The legend speaks of a mountain of sustenance that cannot be moved even when tied with a rope. Readers will recall the scene of Sintiopiltsin lassoing and mastering his gluttonous and long-tailed enemies. He ties both the iguana and the ant and frees both of them immediately after. He then goes on a journey to the land where his father died, in search of the secret of immortality. The implication is that gestures to conquer corn-eating foes will not secure food in abundance, let alone the secret of reproduction lodged in powerful tails. Rather, if they are to deserve and preserve the blessings of life, humans and gods must turn the string-rope imagery against themselves and renounce comfort at home. In its own way, the legend of the suns confirms this moral. The uterine mountain of sustenance is split open without difficulty, yet corn is

Ants, Turtles, and Thunder 239 not granted freely to dwellers of paradise. Corn is appropriated following Ouetzalcoatrs journey through death in Mictlan. Also, it is depicted as a burden on the back of Ouetzalcoatl. a heavy load presumably carried with a megapal rope or strap, the mark of a slave (mecapallo).17 Last but not least, the arrival of tlaloque rains signalled by thunder and lightning is a reminder of winds whipping or giving the belt to corn plants in autumn. Rain marks the sprouting of corn life, kernels bursting from the earth and their shell. It also brings about the sacrifice of corn ears having to be doubled and tied at the waist to dry under the stormy weather of the fall equinox. How do the four colours assigned to rain and corn relate to the sacrificial implications of death obtained by exposure to water (as when corn is soaked in water, crushed on wet stone, and turned into dough)? Redness offers perhaps the easiest connection. It is clearly associated with two things: the arriera ants that were the first owners of the corn hill and the sacrificial blood that went into producing the primordial corn dough and egg. In the legend of the suns blood comes out of Ouetzalcoatrs penis, while in the Homshuk story the fluid of life and sacrifice evokes the bleeding knee of Thunderbolt. Blood from his knee drips on corn to produce maiz rayado, the first to emerge from the dawn of mythical time. Interestingly, connections between harvester ants, blood, thunder, and the dawn of corn are confirmed in Popoluca language and mythology. Names given by our Popoluca narrator to the lord of thunder (nucuya) and corn sprinkled with his blood (nucnttpinmoc) contain the word nucu, which also stands for the arriera ant (Elson and Gutierrez 1995, 77). In their dictionary Elson and Gutierrez also mention the word nucuw+d'ay, which they translate as character in a tale - archaism (ser de cuento - arcaismo). The ancestral or fatherly aspects of the oldtale imagery are in turn embedded in derivative terms such as wtd'aya^ to grow old, hence an old man or husband (1995, 99). Ouetzalcoatl. the Lord of Thunder, the arriera ant, all make an ancestral or fatherly contribution to the redness and blood vested in the primordial conception of corn. Elson and Gutierrez translate nucnttpinmoc as streaked corn (maiz rayado), from rwpin, blood, and moc, maize. They add a telling expression involving a predication of this word, that is, Jem nucnttpinmoc wint'iptc moc, meaning streaked maize is the original maize. Our Popoluca narrator describes maiz rayado in similar terms, using the words Jem wint'iptc, from wifit'i, denoting the one that comes first or

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before. This original red-blood corn imagery takes us back to our earlier discussion of signs of youth and the dawning of life heralded by the sun rising to the east. Readers will recall that corn-eating pigeons and grackles make fun of Homshuk's red hair, a colour (tlauhyo. tatahuic} that reflects the light (tautt) of dawn (tlauizcalli. light-house). Logically, corn that begins to grow evokes the morning sun in fire (tauiltia). a sun god lighting up while ascending through the red house located to the east or southeast (tlauhcopa), beyond the sea (cf. LeonPortilla 1983, 111, 122). Remaining colours evoke other points of the compass and related winds and stages of maize growth. Leon-Portilla (1980, 170) suggests that blue tlaloques came from the south, white ones from the east, yellow ones from the west, and red ones from the north. These chromaticcompass associations are not self-evident. Lopez Austin (1980, 65) thus notes that the distribution of colours was not the same throughout Mesoamerica. In what he calls 'the most frequent division in the central high plateau/ blue is tied to the south, white to the west, black to the north, and red to the east. In the legend of the suns, the order in which corn colours are listed goes from white (W) to black (N), yellow (S?), and red (E). For the Tuxtlas, our area of study, Munch Galindo (1983,154-5) gives different associations, and the order of appearance changes as well: black is west, yellow is south, red is east, and white is north. Notwithstanding these variations, an important conclusion that may be derived from this intricate water and corn colour symbolism is that major divisions in space and time are inherently tied to the corn cultivation process. The milpa cycle is overtly associated with the orderly motions of the sun and the succession of rains and winds mapped on to the four points of the universe. The many blessings that ensue can be secured on one condition: that water is poured with sacrificial intent, through the bleeding of gods and the bathing of corn turned into dough and sustenance for humans. Provided that this is done generation after generation, the world we live in can harmonize all forces of nature, forces that are assigned different locations, complexions, and related thermal functions (hot or cold, warm or fresh). While never without risk, the resulting harmony must be framed in such ways as to reconcile three things: balance between all the forces of nature, the rule of cyclic periodicity, and the principle of heliotropic growth that must govern life at all times, including the age of the Fifth Sun.

CHAPTER NINE

Diffusion and Syncretism

This completes our analysis of healing practices, agricultural rituals, and corn mythology in the Sierra Santa Marta. In previous chapters we saw how ritual and mythical notions of thermal balance interact with dynamic concepts of cyclic shifts and heliotropic growth to sustain human and plant life over time. These principles were shown to govern not only illnesses and remedies affecting humans and maize but also mythical events implicating human beings, corn plants, and divinities alike. On the medical side of things, the composite rules we explored govern a wide range of regulations concerning practically all human activities, from eating to menstruating, having sex, getting pregnant, giving birth, falling in love, working, bathing, getting old, and dying. Breaking these rules results in all sorts of pathologies involving attacks of heat caused by snakebites, lovesickness, or contact with the dead. People can also suffer cold ailments involving soul theft by underworld spirits reputed to enjoy the coolness of life yet craving the solar energy they lack. Although sickness is almost inevitable, healing remedies can restore thermal balance in the body. Remedies serve another vital function as well, which is to allow the organism to resume normal cyclic activities and the general process of growth. Healing reactivates the movement away from life that begins but must not rot in water. It allows life to resume a natural aging process that insists on evolving at a proper pace and receiving protection against illness and premature death inflicted through excessive drying or waterburning. On the agricultural plane, ritual prescriptions and taboos teach people how to synchronize cycles of corn planting and harvesting with the hot and cold tidings of male and female bodies dwelling on earth and

242 The Hot and the Cold

in heaven (sun, moon). Corn should be sown under conditions of freshness and coolness, which means soon after the vernal equinox, in days of the new moon, without exposure to the heat of women who are pregnant or menstruating. Meanwhile men are expected to transmit some of their warm energy through the seed they sow. They can fulfil this obligation by refraining from having sex but also avoiding hot foodstuffs that would cause their bodies to carry excessive heat. Events of the religious and agricultural cycle enter into this hot-cold equation, as when people in Soteapan follow strict diets and celebrate the February Carnaval to secure the arrival of rains needed for corn seed to sprout and grow. Entirely different recommendations apply to men, women, moon, sun, and corn conjoining at the other end of the corn cycle, during days of harvest reached around the autumn equinox. But the principles to be followed remain essentially the same: in addition to making sacrificial payments to the proper divinities (especially hot offerings to chaneques dwelling in cool waters of the underworld), things hot and cold must be measured and combined wisely, in accordance with observations of cyclic time and stages of growth but also the rule of moderation exercised at all times. The mythical aspects of hot-cold reasoning were also explored at length. Contrary to influential anti-indigenous arguments such as Foster's, native beliefs and practices regarding health and corn cultivation must be understood against the background of mythical notions of heat and cold, as expressed through convoluted stories of the god of corn travelling westward, to the sun-drenched land where men are dry, or eastward, to the dwelling place of the god of thunder residing beyond the sea. That these stories can choose to head in either sunny or watery directions is symptomatic of a relatively simple premise - the notion that a maize plant 'does not want sun or heat only, nor does it want water or cold only.' But while keeping opposite ingredients of life in balance, these stories heading east or west also reflect a gradual and hazardous progression towards the death of corn either by the action of fire and sun (milpa burning, ears and grain of corn ripening and drying under the sun, corn cooking) or by the action of water (poured over dry grain crushed on a wet stone, a sacrificial bath ritual required to produce tortilla dough and the food of life). The westward-looking mythology (explored in Chapter 7) begins with an elderly couple discovering twin eggs in a corn plot, cocklike and womblike eggs containing the freshness and fluids of new life and related signs of phallic and uterine fertility. However, the scene also

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heralds the duality of life and death and the ensuing tensions prevailing between man and woman, grain and fruit, old age and youth, humans and corn, predators and prey. Accordingly, the narrative proceeds to a confrontation between the immature corn boy and gluttonous, big-bottom predators such as the iguana and the ant, all vying for the power to secure the good life - that is, food in abundance and the secret of generous reproduction over time. The power to reproduce is visibly lodged in appendages of great might - tails and bottoms that can be caught and conquered with the use of the polysemic megat string-rope imagery. Yet the scenes featuring corn, iguanas, and ants are essentially an invitation for heroes and models of virtue to ultimately turn the megat imagery against themselves through gestures of self-denial. In the end, only signs of sacrificial splitting, bursting, cutting, doubling, backbreaking, beheading, hair pulling, and uprooting can sustain the long-lasting chain and cycle of life. Only sacrifice can guarantee an enduring age governed by the twin exigencies of reciprocity and predatoriness between successive generations of corneaters and corn plants alike. Eastward speculations about the corn god's encounter with thunder (explored in Chapter 8) proceed towards imageries of underworld wetness and coolness as opposed to signs of highland dryness and heat. They reiterate themes of ant or bird tails that are too long to be virtuous and mighty. They portray the god of thunder as having the power and inclination to destroy the god of corn and the father plant that gave him life. But other scenes and variations of the same stories allow the god of thunder to act like a father to all maize plants. This comes out clearly in stories where thunder strikes a uterine anthill (making the earth tremble) and then is struck at the knee level and pours blood on corn bursting out from the hill. The pre-Hispanic legend of the suns tells a similar tale, except that blood flows from the penis of Quetzalcoatl, a plumed serpent who travels to the land of the dead, carries a heavy burden, and does penance so that humanity may be fed with primordial corn (coloured red) and thrive under a new sun. In presentday corn mythology, the god of thunder is forced to pour water on the young corn god in due season, transmitting his own fluid like father to son. Eastward-looking conditions needed to secure the blessings of the cycle of life find another telling illustration in mythical accounts of the turtle portrayed as the Prince of Tides or the vessel carrying the corn god across the sea. In these stories men and women aspire to reign over

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the sea and become the masters of the rising and falling of tides. They can do this as long as they come out of their shell and relinquish the joys and comfort of life at home (rest, sex, food of flesh). This is the surest way to attain the eternal transients of life and death short of discovering the actual secret of immortality, a secret no one seems to possess. Whether heading east or west, local corn mythology highlights the ways in which sun (heat) and thunder (water) will both father new plant life and bring it to an end in due season. As with sun and water, humans, serpents, and ants play ambivalent roles in relation to corn. Serpents may kill humans who adopt and care for the maize plants, but they also protect corn from predators in the milpa. Ants in turn may be known to devour corn, yet they resemble humans in that they store the seed of corn and protect it from immediate consumption. Rather than behaving like predators and burial sites, ants and anthills can facilitate the emergence of corn from the earth. Complex hot-cold reasoning expressed through healing rituals and agricultural practices and reinforced in mythology has been passed on from generation to generation and continues to shape people's ideas about health and illness affecting forms of life ranging from humans to plants, animals, and spirits dwelling in nature. Previous chapters, however, did not address the question of how knowledge is transmitted over time or, for that matter, the ways in which belief systems can be diffused or combined across cultural boundaries. We recognize that a full treatment of our subject matter should speak to these issues. In this concluding chapter, we offer a brief survey of existing debates regarding processes of historical diffusion and cross-cultural syncretism. We begin with an overview of Foster's theory concerning the topdown diffusion mechanisms that would account for the widespread adoption of humoral thinking in Latin America. We then proceed to a critique of theories that reduce logic and reasoning (mapped on to the hot-cold axis) to closed systems of classification passed on in their entirety and impermeable to principles other than their own. We end with the outline of a theory of syncretic politics that emphasizes the coexistence of multiple frames of reference and strategies of hegemony and resistance, a history of hybridity tactics that may account for many important features of folk medicine in Latin America. Diffusion Mechanisms Foster views the hot-cold syndrome in Latin America as the product of

Diffusion and Syncretism 245

diffusion, a process involving mechanisms of top-down transmission, rote learning, pragmatic adaptation, and logical simplification. The top-down cross-cultural transmission hypothesis is relatively simple. It consists in the notion that humoral medical theory was brought to the New World by the Spanish elite (the system was not part of Spanish folk tradition) and became an establishment science taught in medical schools until the early nineteenth century. Already-made humoral ascriptions were 'diffused to a popular level through the ministrations of religious and medical personnel in hospitals and elsewhere, through pharmacies, and through home care manuals' (Foster 1994, 150). The new learning spread in a period of wholesale acceptance of Spanish culture, a massive acculturation process facilitated by Conquest, native depopulation, culture shock, and the imposition of Spanish religion and institutions (Foster 1994,185). Rote learning is the second mechanism responsible for the widespread adoption of humoral ideas by generations of rural and urban people in Latin America. According to this principle, people are taught to assign hot or cold values to specific items on the basis of what they learn from parents, relatives, friends, or pharmacies prescribing and dispensing medicine (Foster 1994, 158). This efficient process of common learning accounts for the fact that people think so much alike, a fact still observed in the field. 'When in Tzintzuntzan I find more than 50 foods, spices, and medicinal herbs classified as Hot by 90% to 100% of a sample of from a dozen to 30 informants, and more than 40 items classified as Cold in the same proportion by the same sample, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that they have been exposed to a common learning process ... Other explanations - perceived effect on the body, place of growth, use in curing - could not produce such unanimity' (Foster 1994,106). Much of Latin American humoralism is an exercise in mnemonic regurgitation, with no trace of the logic governing hot and cold assignments, a theory in any case essentially foreign to native cultures of the New World. Nearly everyone may know the appropriate remedy for a given ailment, yet few will 'have a clear idea as to their humoral rationale; they prescribe by rote, giving little thought to theoretical consistency' (Foster 1994, 136). Even the physiological effects that may be conveyed through humoral attribution are no more than what people have learned to expect. Culture still serves as a filter, each community learning something different from previous generations. For instance, in some places people learn that salt is cold while elsewhere they are

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told it is hot. Likewise with broad beans, tomatoes, and mangos; their humoral value varies according to locally inherited knowledge (102). Rote learning applies to the history of European medicine as well. In essence, humoral attributes were initially fixed by literate founders of Hippocratic-Galenic-Arab medicine and then passed on from one generation to the next (Foster 1994, 99). Later on Spanish classifiers assigned hot and cold values to plants and animals found in the New World, values that were again filtered down to practitioners and the common folk through rote learning. The diffusion of humoral thinking has also been an exercise in pragmatic adaptation. The adoption of Old World medicine allowed for modifications and variations involving value assignment criteria of local significance, such as sensory effects, therapeutic use, or environmental aspects. This is especially true of the most common items found in the New World, "like chocolate, peanuts, tobacco, and epazote (all usually Hot), and squash, tomatoes, papaya, and turkey (all usually Cold)' (Foster 1994, 142). Yet learning of pre-Hispanic origin was preserved in a piecemeal fashion, if at all. Wholesale native theories of health and medicine simply vanished during the colony. Where hotcold reasoning prevails, it is humoral and of European origin, and in those few cases where pre-Hispanic theory has managed to survive, it is not humoral in nature. Rather, indigenous knowledge concerns 'such things as soul loss (e.g. susto) as a causative element, but not hot and cold insults' (Foster 1994,187). Some native Latin American illnesses have been left out of humoral medicine and, as a result, have become isolated and marginalized. They include bills (caused by anger or fright), skin eruptions, heart troubles, tooth abscesses, empacho indigestion, and the caida de la mollera (fall of the fontanel) (Foster 1994, 31, 47, 79, 142). Many other fragments of indigenous learning were nonetheless absorbed into a humoral framework. Examples of this adaptive incorporation of 'culture-bound illnesses' include the sibling jealousy syndrome (chipil), evil eye symptoms (mal de ojo), cancer or heat of the dead, strains and sprains treated with a bilma (binding to prevent bones from getting cold), or a child's harelip caused by the heat of an eclipse (Foster 1994, 53, 57, 67, 72-3, 79, 85, 91-5; Mak 1959,141; Alvarez Heydenreich 1987, 49,129). Empirical remedies dating back to the pre-Columbian era and later captured by humoral theory include many New World products, such as salamander, opossum, squirrel, skunk, armadillo, and deer. Interestingly, there tends to be little agreement regarding the hot-cold

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247

values of these native foods. Values are made to match various interpretations as to what different illnesses and diagnoses call for. While imposing its own conceptual apparatus, humoralism succeeded in blending two empirical traditions, capturing 'a great deal of both Spanish and indigenous American pragmatic medicine, endowing it with "scientific" (in terms of the times) validation for what it was believed to do' (Foster 1994, 142). Humoral concepts were superimposed on the empirical knowledge and practices derived from two different traditions, one of which ended up being stripped of its conceptual foundations. This Old World origin thesis is apparently confirmed by the fact that most names of ailments and treatments reported in Latin America are from classical Spanish medicine. The argument is also reinforced by the tendency for speakers of native languages to use Spanish terms for hot and cold; conversely, no Indian terms are used by Spanish speakers (Foster 1994, 84,150). When ailments and treatments are given indigenous names and are truly indigenous, they lack basic features of New World humoral pathology. That is, they do not have well-developed hot-cold nomenclatures, nor do they operate on the basis of a fully spelled-out principle of opposites (Foster 1994, 163). Moreover, they lack a purely secular approach to healing, a nature-bound attitude that precludes the intervention of spirits, sorcery, curing rituals, and concerns for social harmony (if the Christian God and Catholic saints intervene, they will do so via the laws of natural causality) (Foster 1994,186). In the words of Sandstrom: The major immediate cause of disease for these Nahuas [of southern Huasteca, Veracruz] is the ejecatl spirits [from the underworld mictlan] which are usually sent by sorcerers or which are attracted by envious neighbours, anger, gossip, or saying bad things. All curing rituals have as their objective the removal of ejecatI spirits and these rituals are not directly concerned with reestablishing hot-cold balance ... I would say that the hot-cold distinction is not well-developed among Huastecan Nahuas but that it does play a minor role in the diagnosis, curing, or avoidance of disease ... the hot-cold dichotomy is not the dominant model for disease among these Nahuas. (Communicated 1990; cited in Foster 1994,164)

In Mexico humoral practices are not found in isolated Indian communities characterized by a wealth of cultural survivals such as the Huastecan Nahuas. They are more commonly observed among groups

248 The Hot and the Cold

of greater European ancestry, people living in great urban centres and mestizo communities all over the country. The last mechanism that facilitated the diffusion of humoral learning lies in the rule of logical economy, that is, humoral medicine is appealing for its simplicity and its capacity to receive further simplification. Thus, most anthropologists view Latin American humoralism as 'simplified Graeco-Persian-Arab beliefs and practices transferred in a variety of ways to the New World (and to the Philippines as well)' throughout the Contact and post-Contact period, to become the traditional 'popular medicine of city dwellers and rural folk alike, all the way from southwestern United States to Tierra del Fuego' (Foster 1994, xvi, 2; our emphasis). In Latin America humoral medicine has been simplified in at least four ways, thereby enhancing its diffusion and adoption among illiterate people. First, the concept of humour has been dropped. Second, qualities of dryness and moisture have been collapsed into the hotcold pair. Third, in the absence of widespread literacy, formal degrees of hot-cold intensity have been loosened or abandoned, thus avoiding a level of complexity presenting 'the human mind with problems of learning and storing, retrieving, and passing on to others data that can be dealt with only [sic]with the aid of writing' (Foster 1994,181). Complex variations in humoral degrees have given way to gross categorization (an approach that precludes individual foods or remedies being double- or triple-loaded with multiple tasks and values). Fourth, staple foods have been left out of a hot-cold nomenclature no longer aspiring to taxonomic comprehensiveness. By exempting basic foods from calculations of humoral balance, the housewife's task of culinary planning has been greatly simplified. Food is a constant source of nourishment for the body, whereas remedies have variable properties that make them fit for treatment obtained through cooling or heating (Foster 1994, 80,114-15,120,125-6,132-3,153^8,181-4). The humoral diffusion model attempts to answer a difficult question: Why is it that hot-cold reasoning is observed in so many culturally diverse areas of the New World, from communities of greater European descent to mestizo communities and indigenous populations alike? The Old World origin argument is nonetheless flawed for several reasons. To begin with, it does not make a convincing case for mechanisms of top-down cross-cultural diffusion in remote areas of native Latin America. Indigenous communities have been profoundly affected by the imposition of Spanish and Mexican rule but not to the

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point of being fully integrated and assimilated into elite Spanish culture. Studies that make a case for extant cultural elements and practices of indigenous inspiration, including studies in our own geographic area (Chevalier and Buckles 1995; Olavarrieta Marenco 1977), are simply too many to be merrily ignored. Whether the hotcold dichotomy contains a Mesoamerican legacy is a complex question that cannot be answered through sweeping statements covering the entire history of native culture during and after the colony. To be sure, native populations and cultures have suffered a great deal over the past five hundred years, to the point that anthropology will do history no service by maintaining romantic illusions of pre-Hispanic traditions well preserved. But this is no reason for granting western culture an unlimited capacity to transform all life-worlds in its own image, let alone denying native cultures some amount of resistance and vitality that should continue to attract anthropological attention. The bulk of Foster's ethnographic data on the hot-cold system comes from Tzintzuntzan, the capital of the Tarascans, the most powerful centre of political and cultural activity in west central Mexico at the time of the Conquest. This capital was occupied by the Spaniards in 1522, and since then 'the community has been subject to substantial and continuing Hispanic influence' (Foster 1994, 17). It is not surprising then to find in Tzintzuntzan strong remains of Spanish humoral medicine. But it is very unlikely that the same influence could exercise itself with equal impact throughout the whole of Mesoamerica and South America. It certainly did not in the Sierra Santa Marta where Foster did his field research for his doctoral thesis in 1940 and observed the hot-cold syndrome in passing. 'While doing doctoral research among the Popoluca Indians of Southern Veracruz State in 1940 and 1941, I noted that some foods were considered to be, metaphorically speaking, "hot" or "cold," but I gave no thought to the matter. Had I remembered the appropriate pages from Redfield and Villa Rojas I would have known to enquire further' (Foster 1994, xiii-xiv). It is unfortunate that Foster did not further explore the matter at that time. He would have found very different concepts of health and disease compared with those reported in his study of Tzintzuntzan. As previous chapters have shown, there is among the Nahuas and Popolucas of the Sierra strong evidence of an indigenous, spiritually oriented hot-cold tradition resisting medical practices brought in by the Spaniards and later developments in western medicine. According to Foster, the Latin American hot-cold syndrome is

250 The Hot and the Cold

essentially a simplified version of humoral theory, a system conveniently stripped of the classical language of fourfold humours, the wet-dry dichotomy, and formal degrees of intensity. These critical elements of European humoralism were preserved by gatekeepers of medical learning (universities, priests, doctors, pharmacists) diffusing the ancient doctrine during the colony. They kept reappearing in the popular medical guides circulating during the three centuries that followed (Foster 1994,157). But they never made their way into the Latin American folk version of humoral medicine. As Lopez Austin (1980, 309-10) remarks, it is hard to understand why these central ingredients should have sunk so systematically into oblivion after crossing the Atlantic. It is difficult to envision a process in which the gatekeepers and disseminators of humoral precepts would accept radical simplifications of this sort, modifications that transform the system beyond recognition. What is even more intriguing is that different cultures spread over an incredibly vast area should arrive at exactly the same modifications. So much uniformity begs the question: Are cultural simplifications carried out in a complete vacuum, without people having a strong health theory of their own, one in which the hot-cold pair may already play a significant role? Could it be that pre-Hispanic traditions contained a particular conception of the hot and the cold, one that may have created ideal conditions for the apparent homogenization of medical thought across the boundaries of both class and culture? In this regard Foster's appeal to the cognitive virtues of simplicity amongst the illiterate is not convincing. In the end the need for simplicity may be a feature of Foster's model, not of folk and native medicine in Latin America. Foster's psychology of rote learning is even more disconcerting. It is difficult to find satisfaction in the notion that people simply repeat knowledge that is passed on from one generation to the next. Nor is it easy to reconcile the rote learning argument with the idea that folk medicine is essentially empirical, a fundamental point in Foster's thesis. When combined, the two arguments beg the question: Do folk people learn by observation or by memory, or is it a combination of both? What happens if observation contradicts received knowledge? Furthermore, if rote learning is so effective, why should people fail to memorize the explanations that come with humoral attributions? Why can't people learn that 'a fish is cold because it lives in water' in addition to the simpler statement 'a fish is cold'? The mechanical rote learning thesis is condescending in that it sets the

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common folk radically apart from literate thinkers who can be credited for their initial empirical discoveries and related explanations transmitted to their followers. It also sets them apart from later anthropologists who succeed in reflecting on people's docta ignorantia, academics who can be persuaded by explanations founded on evidence and logic. Like the educated Spaniards and their Hippocratic mentors, anthropologists constitute an elite exempt from the rule of rote learning. Classificatory Logic Let us return to the parallel thinking thesis as an alternative to Foster's top-down diffusion model. Could it be that Madsen (1955) was right after all - that a parallel between the Hippocratic system and Aztec dualism involving hot-cold beliefs has created a structural opening for a syncretic form of humoralism? Could this explain the fact that humoral-like beliefs and practices extend over a vast super-cultural area, across boundaries separating cultures of the pre- and postHispanic era? Foster rejects the hypothesis and does so for two basic reasons: (1) the absence of well-developed hot-cold polarities and nomenclatures in native belief systems and (2) the tendency for indigenous medical systems to violate key tenets of humoral logic, including the principle of opposites and the secular perspective on illness and health. Given these reasons, Foster opposes Colson and Armellada's (1983) thesis of an Amerindian derivation for Latin American Creole illnesses and their treatment. In his view, their account of healing among the Venezuelan Akawaio-Pemon points to a shamanic tradition, not mainstream humoral medicine. The tradition in question involves ritual healing ceremonies and the intervention of spirit masters and game animals and plants, to which is added a thin hot-cold veneer possibly of European origin. Furthermore, some remedies contravene the principle of opposites, and the way that medication is actually prepared (e.g., boiled, roasted, baked) matters more in determining the quality of the medicine than the intrinsic quality of the ingredients. The case study is therefore of no value in explaining the origin of humoralism in Latin America (Foster 1994,167-8,178-80). The same objections are extended to the Aztec-centric approach propounded by Lopez Austin and Ortiz de Montellano. Lopez Austin is particularly criticized for his notion that the ancient Nahua hot-cold polarity played a central role in a binary world view embracing the

252 The Hot and the Cold

whole of reality, including matters of health and illness. The author also failed to reflect on the Aztec predominance of cooling remedies and the notion that heat should be vanquished by heat, two violations of the humoral principle of opposition. Nor did he distinguish between a shamanic tradition and contemporary humoralism, which according to Foster (1994,176) is essentially secular in nature. In our view, sweeping statements proclaiming the irrelevance of spiritual thinking in humoralism and hot-cold reasoning in native cultures are rather surprising. In this regard Lopez Austin's contribution to our understanding of the ancient Nahua conception of body and illness is critical and should not be dismissed off-handedly. Our own analysis of material collected among the Nahuas and Popolucas of southern Veracruz supports Lopez Austin's view, one that assigns a central role to the hot-cold dichotomy in native thought concerning the body and agriculture as well. But we hasten to add that by native thought can be meant one of two things: either logic in the classificatory sense or local reasoning performed across a plurality of loose systems and modes of thinking. Foster's assumption is that humoral thinking is a closed system of the classificatory sort. Humoral thinkers classify illnesses and their remedies along the hot-cold axis and seek therapeutic connections between the two nomenclatures. The system works provided that most ailments and treatments are adequately categorized. The more exhaustive the inventory is, the more sophisticated the system will be (while allowing for some empirical flexibility and adaptability at the same time). These assumptions, firmly built into Foster's field work methodology and interpretive analysis, do no justice to folk medicine or science for that matter. Foster reduces logic to taxonomy - analytic pigeonholing, one might say. In doing so he neglects the power of complex reasoning, which may implicate a variety of calculations and considerations that go beyond systematic nomenclatures founded on a single dichotomy. The notion that an entire medical system can be reduced to a single axis, say the hot-cold polarity or continuum, is a straightjacket version of both science and logic. To give an example, the Mexican Gulf Nahuas have a soil taxonomy consisting of soils that are either black (pistiktal). half black (media pistiktal). red (tatahuiktal). yellow (gostiktal), white (istaktal}, rocky (teposhakio). sandy (xaltal. xalnelijtok). muddy (gonsogik), or black muddy (pistiksogik). Four colours (black, red, yellow, white) and three textures (sandy, rocky, muddy) are combined to produce nine soil

Diffusion and Syncretism 253

types. The logic is relatively simple, applies to soils only, and is most useful in determining agricultural potential. The simplicity and closure of the system, however, are more apparent than real. A taxonomic approach to soil assessment misses the point: when evaluating soil potential native campesinos take into consideration a multiplicity of factors and their interaction. Soil type is one consideration, but so is exposure to wind and rain, slope inclination, current vegetation, past use, walking distance, protection from predators, and so on. Each factor may consist of a limited set of possible values that never add up to a full-blown classification system, let alone an exhaustive world view. The combinations and permutations of these factors generate complex soil conditions that can be assessed without being slotted into fixed types. When interviewing campesinos on matters of soil, anthropologists should adjust their methodology accordingly. Asking innumerable questions of the classificatory sort (regarding, e.g., kinship terms, body parts, things hot or cold) will not only bore any sane informant to death. It will also push all things in a Linnaean direction - towards monomaniacal classification as the key to all understanding. The Linnaean bias is central to Foster's thesis. In his view, a system that lacks a fully developed hot-cold nomenclature can never aspire to the humoral title. Beliefs that grant a central role to the hot-cold distinction constitute a true system only if they rely on the logic of methodical naming and classifying. But why must we use classical humoralism as the model for logic and reasoning? This Old World doctrine may have attempted to incorporate all aspects of reality under its own fourfold scheme and related permutations. Yet there is no reason to think that all systems containing a hot-cold axis must do the same. In our view, the hot-cold axis can play a central role in the belief system of a particular culture without becoming an overarching principle under which all things can be classified and subsumed. This is true of the hot-cold distinction in ancient Nahua conceptions of the body as studied by Lopez Austin. It also applies to our own analysis of agricultural and medical belief systems currently at work in the Sierra Santa Marta. Previous chapters have shown the central role that the hot-cold dichotomy plays in the physiology and morphology of human bodies and food plants as conceived by the Nahuas and Popolucas of southern Veracruz. However, while generating classifications of many sorts (ailments, remedies, plants, growth stages), notions of temperature and humidity have been discussed in the broader context of concepts

254 The Hot and the Cold

of anatomy, rules of social conduct, human ethics, farming practices, seasonal and climatic cycles, and so on. These notions have also been understood in the context of speculative and moral forms of reasoning that do not lend themselves to classificatory thinking alone - reasoning of the mythical or narrative kind that will raise fundamental questions such as 'What if?' and 'Why?' Questions of this kind are many. Why is it that humans can count on the forces of nature to water their maize seed and food plants year after year? Why must humans and plants die in the heat of the sun one generation after the next? What if they indulged in blessings of the good life through acts of gluttony and sex, thereby keeping themselves forever 'in the cool'? Though informed by hot-cold thinking, basic questions such as these cannot be answered through simple nomenclatures and related exercises in classificatory logic. Towards a Theory of Syncretism According to Foster, humoralism is comprehensive and consistent. It constitutes a closed system that shows little tolerance for indetermination or the sloppiness of cross-cultural patchwork. Thus, a hot-cold nomenclature that leaves out too many things cannot be truly humoral. The same can be said of a hot-cold pseudo-system that lets itself be influenced by too many external considerations, such as spirituality or social politics. It cannot be humoral. Having said this, Foster's model leaves room for an important exception to these rules: humoralism will coexist with forms of knowledge derived from observation or conventional ideas passed on through rote learning. The resulting model is a syncretism of a particular kind, a collage between humoral logic and everything that falls into the domain of arbitrary experience or custom (learned and retained with or without humoral ratification). Other forms of syncretism are dismissed. Folk medicine in Latin America is either shamanic or humoral, but never the two simultaneously. Discrepancies between the two systems are too many. Indigenous systems do not abide by the principle of opposites, nor do they advocate a secular perspective on illness and health. Foster's discussion of such inconsistencies is somewhat surprising. As already demonstrated in Chapter 2, his account of the New World hot-cold syndrome is not really consistent with the Hippocratic tradition. If so, why should we be overly concerned about discrepancies between humoralism and native medical systems? Why should the violation of the principle of

Diffusion and Syncretism 255

opposites be acceptable when operating in the area of illness prevention (as Foster claims) but not when observed in shamanic systems? Why should the essence of humoralism include secularism but not the drywet dichotomy, the inclusion of foods, or the conceptual apparatus of humours? Why can we not extend Foster's reasoning concerning empirical learning acquired independently of humoral theory to religious considerations intervening in medical thinking? Could we not treat the incorporation of religion as yet another credit to humoral flexibility and adaptability rather than a violation of the original doctrine? In any case, how does Foster know which are the birds of different feathers that can fly together and which can't? With Foster we are impressed by the extent to which hot-cold beliefs are widespread over the whole of Latin America. We are equally impressed by the fact that many culture-bound illnesses and remedies of native American origin have survived and linked up with the humoral system, despite inconsistencies across the two traditions. In our view, what prevails over the whole of Latin America is not humoralism simplified for the illiterate masses, but rather a variegated collage or mestizaje of hot-cold beliefs and practices of mixed European and pre-Hispanic origins. Consider the story of a case of anemia recorded in the Sierra Popoluca during our fieldwork. Juan is the son of the village health worker, a knowledgeable and respected man in the community. Through his father's teachings, he has been exposed for three decades to the germ theory of disease transmission. We talked one day about stomach worms and their effect on people. In his view the cause of anemia is related to stomach worms and dietary habits. He believes that people get worms because they have poor hygiene practices. Yet he is also of the opinion that worms cause problems because they elicit a craving for soil among women. This affects the diet of women by curtailing their desire to eat tortilla. Without this essential food, women become lethargic and pale (conditions considered cold). Unless they eat maize, their blood will turn into water (another cold symptom) and no treatment will be able to save them (for similar connections between corn food and blood thickness, see Troche 1993, 309). Juan is fully bilingual (Spanish and Popoluca), literate, and familiar with basic concepts of western medicine. His level of exposure to health principles transmitted through modern institutions and means of communications is far greater than it was for his forefathers. In spite of this, Juan holds on to local beliefs. He links up germ-related ideas of

256 The Hot and the Cold

illness with an older logic he still deems to be valid. In his mind old and new concepts can coexist and interface. There is no reason to assume or expect that this did not happen in past centuries. What we observe throughout Latin America is a hotcold model adapted not for the simple-minded and the illiterate but rather for settings of considerable cross-cultural complexity. For Old World medicine this has meant an accommodation process which mattered more than the humoral model in its original form. The adaptation was made necessary by a combination of two critical factors: the alienation of the poor from elite medical learning and, what is equally important, the resiliency of indigenous cultures of the New World, especially in remote areas of Latin America. The analyses presented in previous chapters are a contribution to understanding this resiliency phenomenon. This book does not tackle the issue of syncretism. We nonetheless recognize that indigenous medicine (applied to humans and maize) does not exist in isolation from other influences, those of biomedicine (or modern agrochemistry) and an older European tradition. As elsewhere in Latin America, healers of southern Veracruz and their patients constantly move between frames of reference involving local traditions, biomedical diagnosis and treatment, pharmaceutical prescriptions (medicina de patente), and rituals of Christian or European inspiration. Diffusion operating in all directions appears to be the rule (see Alvarez Heydenreich 1987,231-40). Eclecticism is displayed by populations of various class and cultural backgrounds, yet the actual interest in doing so varies greatly from one population to another. Thus, when indigenous healers incorporate biblical and pharmaceutical references into their own practice, they do so with legitimization typically in view. Syncretism becomes a means to counter religious and scientific attacks against native ignorance and superstition. By contrast, rural mestizo campesinos and the urban poor have been good candidates for the diffusion of native medicine for reasons pertaining to problems of poverty - alienation from biomedical learning and services dispensed through universities, hospitals, private medical practice, and the pharmaceutical industry. This is to say that eclecticism lends itself to different tactics. Three principles strategies have marked the history of folk medicine in Latin America. The first syncretic tactic is typically found among indigenous people and may be called open nomadism. The rule is: absorb as much as need be and ignore or deny the differences and incompatibilities

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that may exist between the indigenous system, humoralism, biomedicine, spiritual healing, and the Christian faith. The rationale underlying this overtly nomadic tactic is one of survival under adverse conditions, those of destitution and cultural oppression. Cultural resiliency is combined with adaptive capacity, to produce a life-world of pervasive hybridity, or appearances to that effect. This does not preclude occasional conflicts, as when hospitals recommend to women that they eat fruit, vegetables, or meat considered to be cold and harmful in the opinion of local healers. Nor does it mean that European beliefs will be accepted wholesale and that healers and patients will adhere fully to the premises of the Christian faith when they perform religious gestures or those of medical science when they visit clinics, hospitals, and pharmacies in search of treatment for their illnesses. What it means rather is that differences and tensions seldom turn into open confrontation or conflict between systems. Coexistence, eclecticism, and pragmatism seem to prevail. Accordingly, beliefs that are shared, if only superficially, are to be emphasized where they can be found. Those that are not may be compartmentalized into complementary systems.1 A radically different tactic, more typical of the colonial regime, consists in co-opting fragments and structures originating from subaltern cultures and doing so with utmost discretion. By discretion we mean a denial of the similarities and commerce that tie the culture that does the capturing to the foreign system it co-opts into its own service. The rule can be stated as follows: absorb as much as you possibly can but do not admit to it and take measures to distort or denigrate whatever material is being forced into serving foreign rule. Old World history is full of examples of so-called pagan beliefs and rituals being absorbed into European and Christian culture through the back door and with hegemony in view (Chevalier 1997). All indications are that humoral medicine in the New World has adopted this hegemonic strategy from the early Contact period up until the rise and spread of medical science in the nineteenth century. Olavarrieta Marenco remarks correctly that Catholicism itself has a long history of syncretic appropriation of belief systems otherwise denounced by the Church. Non-Christian influences were already built into European Christianity and belief systems brought to the New World. They ranged from astrology to cartomancy, divination, powers vested in amulets and talismans, and cleansing by fire. Beliefs of nonChristian origin were passed on through recipes of herbal medicine,

258 The Hot and the Cold

love filters, or women using red cloth as protection against lunar eclipses. Magical powers were commonly assigned to different days of the week and the Christian calendar, or to prayers, scriptural formula, and sacred texts. The system also paid attention to foreign divinities, converting them into demons condemned together with all heretics following into their footsteps. Practices of pagan origin were treated accordingly. They included sex orgies, pacts with the Devil, black masses, sorcerers flying at night and transforming themselves into animals, or the black candles, needles, chickens, and toads used in sorcery. Beliefs in the Devil fed into syncretic processes, permitting heterodox practices to survive despite (or by virtue of) struggles to eradicate idolatry from the Christian world (Olavarrieta Marenco 1977, 230-1, 241-2). Globalization makes relatively few concessions to subaltern practices, at least when compared with earlier hegemonic tactics which not only tolerated foreign ideas but also tried to actually incorporate and subjugate them. Current processes of economic and cultural globalization are bringing about yet another syncretic regime, perhaps the most insidious of all: a discourse that glorifies the plurality of life-worlds and appearances to that effect. Despite its positive resonance, the tactic has a perverse effect, which is to deny the misappropriation of cultural differences and the profound inequalities that make a mockery of plurality and diversity. Eclectic globalization rhetoric hides the fact that biomedicine deploys hegemonic control over material and institutional resources and is accessible primarily to those who can afford it. It ignores the ruling system's insensitivity to non-scientific perspectives on illness and the strong influence it exerts at the same time on folk healing built into centuries of local culture and history. When interacting, these tactical variations on eclecticism (native, colonial, global) account for a wide range of multiple-therapy and vertical-compartmentalization phenomena observed throughout the history of Mexico, such as among the Nahuas of Cuetzalan (Troche 1993,379-80) and inhabitants of the Tuxtlas (Olavarrieta Marenco 1977, 179). As Menendez (1986) points out, syncretic incorporation strategies initially served the hacienda economy, at least up until the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Since then scientific medicine has achieved hegemonic position but without eliminating older practices of indigenous and colonial origins, leaving them a role of complementary structuring and maintenance adapted to the needs of subaltern groups. The same reasoning applies to marginal, pseudo-scientific therapies of

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urban origins ranging from chiropractic to homeopathy and spiritual healing. They too represent no serious threat to the hegemony of biomedicine. This tentative outline of a theory and history of syncretic politics does away with notions of authentic systems of this or that, recognizing social history for what it is: the site of constant exchanges and conflicts occurring across social and cultural boundaries. The proposed theory recognizes inconsistency as part of cultural reality and history. It also gives structure to the concept of syncretism, a notion supported by countless anthropological observations yet generally confined to a gradual acculturation process, or the mere coexistence of traits originating from different cultures (e.g., Troche 1993, 303). Last but not least, the model accounts for what Foster argues to be a central feature of the hot-cold syndrome: its widespread distribution over a supercultural area spanning the whole of Latin America. Syncretism is founded on the law of equivocity shared by all parties concerned - the law whereby things said or done mean strategically different things to each party. This presupposes the existence of a common terrain within which disputes can develop and battles of interest be pursued. We suggest that the Latin American hot-cold syndrome is one such terrain, a shared arena within which cultural differences and conflicts play themselves out. Medical practices mapped along the hot-cold axis constitute one possible arena for cultural histories to both link up and clash. Anthropology has yet to reflect on these issues and shed light on the full complexity of folk medicine in Latin America.

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Notes

Introduction 1 Numeral systems, calendric codes, religious ideas, and agricultural practices spread along commercial routes and battlefields extending all over Mesoamerica. The area covered most of what is today Mexico and was bounded on the North by the Sinaloa, Mayo, and Yaqui rivers and in the East by the Panuco river. The southern region included what is now Belize, Guatemala, and El Salvador, as well as Western parts of Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. Some of the main groups the Spaniards encountered in sixteenthcentury Mesoamerica included the Aztecs, Mayas, Nahuas, Mixtecos, Zapotecos, Huastecos, Totonacos, and Purepechas (Lopez Austin 1975, 7-12). 2 Munch Galindo (1983,23) notes that the Popoluca spoken in Texistepec and San Pedro Soteapan is similar to the Zoque, while that spoken in Sayula and Oluta is closer to Mixe. Chapter 2 Balance and Movement 1 The Tonalamatl was the book of destiny, strips of amate paper (ficus petiolaris) on which were drawn signs of calendar-based divination. The calendar was divided into twenty signs of thirteen numerals (days) each. In it were registered the celebration dates for the different gods. Experts also consulted it to determine the destiny that awaited every newborn child. According to mythology, this calendar was invented by Oxomoco and Cipactonal, the first human couple created by the gods (Fernandez 1992, 161). Lopez Austin (1975,32) adds that this divine calendar determined the occurrence of illnesses and their cures, in a succession of favourable and unfavourable periods reflecting the influence of particular gods.

262 Notes to pages 31-6 2 The term Chichimeca refers to nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples of different linguistic affiliations that began to arrive from the north into the Mesoamerican region as early as the sixth century. Between 700 and 900 AD they made significant intrusions into the south as the great political and cultural centres of Teotihuacan, Cholula, Monte Alban, el Taj in, and Bonampak declined. During this period, these newcomers from the north occupied vast zones of Mesoamerica, adopting many of the beliefs and practices of the existing agricultural societies. Among the Chichimecas were the Nahua ancestors of the Toltecs and the later Aztecs (Lopez Austin 1975, 7-12). 3 Pulque is a traditional fermented drink made from the sap of the maguey, an American agave plant. 4 The Mexicas are the Nahuatl-speaking people generally known as the Aztecs, the dominant civilization that was in power in the Mexican central plateau at the time of Conquest. Their forebears included the renowned Toltecs, followers of the Feathered Serpent, the religious leader who lived in Tula in the ninth century and took the name of the Mesoamerican deity Ouetzakoatl. symbol of wisdom in ancient Mexico (Leon-Portilla 1993, 41-2). 5 Around the year 1427 Tlacaelel began his quest to transform the Aztecs into a warrior people. He was then a young advisor to king Itzcoatl. He initiated and supervised the burning of manuscripts in existence at the time and ordered the recording of a new history of his people and the Mexica gods. A new vision was implanted portraying the Fifth Sun as an age threatened by cataclysm. The Mexicas were to become the chosen people, and their mission was to help the sun-god Huitzilopochtli survive through the offering of human sacrifices. It was this new vision immersed in mysticism and war that propelled the Mexicas into war activities spanning from sea to sea and as far south as Chiapas and Guatemala. Tlacaelel apparently never wanted to be king (he was offered twice this position) and preferred to act as the power behind the throne. He exercised power as an adviser, first to king Itzcoatl. and then to his two successors, Motecuhzoma Ilhuicamina and Axayacatl. His orders were always diligently followed during these three reigns. He died around 1480 (Leon-Portilla 1987,92-105). 6 Toci was also known as Teteoinnan Tonantzin. our divine grandmother and mother of all gods and heart of the earth. She was the goddess of midwives and healers and probably the goddess of cultivators of flowers and medicinal plants. The trade of yerbatero (medicinal plant healer) seemed to have been inherited from the Toltecs who were regarded by the Mexicas as the inventors of medicine (Gonzalez Torres 1985,145; Fernandez 1992,159).

Notes to pages 35-43 263 7 Qchpaniztli. or the sweeping of roads or paths (barrimiento de caminos), was the eleventh month of the Aztec year. This was the month in which the celebration to Toci took place. A month preceding this celebration, a woman was selected to represent the goddess. During the ceremony the woman was dressed as Toci. with a headdress consisting of long locks made of cotton and ears of corn decorated with cotton yarn. In one hand she carried a broom. Her destiny was to be sacrificed on the day of the celebration. After this sacrifice, a war ritual took place, with the warriors eventually putting aside their weapons and exchanging them for brooms. Before dawn, all the main streets and temples of the city were swept. The macehualli (common folk) also swept their houses. This ceremony was linked to notions of purification and was concluded with ritual baths (Fernandez 1992, 84,159). 8 People were not allowed to eat young ears of corn until sacrificial offerings had been made to Xilonen (Gonzalez Torres 1985,148; Fernandez 1992,37, 170). 9 Panquetzaliztli was the fifteenth 'month' of the Aztec year. During the first days of this 'month' a celebration marking the divine birth of Huitzilopochtli took place. This was also the occasion when the greatest number of human sacrifices were offered by warriors and merchants. Figurines were made of dough from wild amaranth (tzoalli. Amaranthus hibridus) and blood from sacrificed children, with branches from acacia simulating the bones. These figurines were worshipped and the king and priests sacrificed them (together with many slaves), using a dart to break them, extracting the heart to feed the god, and distributing the remains to priests. It was on this occasion that Huitzilopochtli was named Teocualo. the eaten god (Gonzalez Torres 1985,134, 200-2; Fernandez 1992, 96-7). 10 Leon-Portilla (1983,130) ties this imagery to the oath-taking ceremony described by Sahagiin: 'And then [he] would touch the earth with the fingers taking them to the mouth and licking them in this way, eating the soil [while] making an oath.' Chapter 3 Solar Life, Birth, and Diarrhea 1 Excerpt of interview with a Popoluca campesino, Field note 20/10/94. 2 Tonalelot is a green ear growing in the dry season. Something that grows in the summer used to be called tonallacayotl. To the Aztecs, a summer fruit was tonaltzapotl. tonalxocotl. or tonalxochiqualli. Closely related words produce a vision of earthly fertility and abundance (tonacati), life in a garden of delights (Tonacaquauhtitlan. food forest).

264 Notes to pages 43-60 3 Boege 1988,142,173,184; Sandstrom 1991,247f., 258,276; Lopez Austin 1980,172, 223-26,230,236. 4 In pre-Hispanic times, the act of casting seeds of corn (tlaolchayaua^l was a way of determining men's lot on earth. 5 Similar connections made explicit by the Nahuas of Puebla are discussed byTaggart(1983,58ff.). 6 Viesca Trevino 1986, 65; Klor de Alva, 1993,184-5; Olavarrieta Marenco 1977,168; Lopez Austin 1980,224-5,243. 7 Similar associations are reported for the Quiches by Neuenswander and Souder (1980,147) and for the Nahuas of Hueyapan, Morelos, by Alvarez Heydenreich (1987,113-14). 8 Popoluca campesino, Field note 11/06/94. 9 Jose, Popoluca medicinal plant healer, Field note 10/06/94. 10 Lopez Austin (1980, 295) cites other evidence confirming that pulque was considered a cold beverage. He also mentions that sexual arousal had to be avoided for four days prior to the making of pulque so as to prevent it from becoming sour and losing its inebriating properties. 11 Cipactli was a monstrous alligator that wandered the universe before the gods introduced order. From the head of this monster were formed the thirteen skies, the earth was formed from its middle, and the nine planes or surfaces of the underworld were made from its tail (Fernandez 1992, 38). 12 Codice Florentino, IV-V, 2, Biblioteca Laurenziana, Florencia (Microfilm), cited in Lopez Austin (1980, 294-5; our translation). 13 The Aztecs believed that premature sexual activity could slow down a young person's physical and mental growth (Lopez Austin 1980, 244, 334). 14 Munch Galindo, e.g., notes that 'it is thought that menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, sexual abstinence, the spirit and the other world are Hot' (1983, 200-1; our translation). 15 On this point, see also Lopez Austin (1980,297-8). 16 See Lopez Austin (1980, 290), Mak (1959,142), and Neuenswander and Souder (1980,147,161). 17 Notes from interview with women of Santa Marta (Field note 26/11/94). According to Elson and Gutierrez (1995), nucuts6yay denotes the higuerilla plant, from tsoy, medicine, venom, remedy, ay, leaf, and nucu, arriera ant. Totso ay is from tots, for tongue. Pooixcuy is from pooyix, to menstruate, and cuy, a stick or tree. 18 Interviews with local midwives: Georgina 11/06/94, Felicia 15/06/94; and campesina woman (Field note 26/11/94). 19 Interviews with local midwives: Juliana 09/06/94, Felicia 15/06/94; and

Notes to pages 60-87 265

20 21 22

23 24

25

26 27 28

campesina women (Field note 26/11/94); Troche 1993, 327, 330; Lopez Austin 1980,290. All questions and answers were translated by Maria to and from Popoluca during our conversation; notes taken during interview (not taped). Interview: Felicia 15/06/94; see also Leon-Portilla (1983,124) and BaezJorge (1973,115). See Fernandez (1992,47,159,170-3) and Gonzalez Torres (1985,138-9,1456,269-72). Atlatonan was the mother of Huitzilopochtli. the sun god of the Aztecs. She stood for Chalchiuhtlicue. the goddess of terrestrial waters and spouse of Tlaloc. and also Coatlicue. the goddess of the earth, 'the great birth giver, mother of all gods, of creation and destruction, synthesis of life and death.' These connections are made explicit in contexts of plant germination imageries featuring Tlaloc. the god of rain and the earth (Fernandez 1992, 27,42; Gonzalez Torres 1985, 271). Interviews: Juliana 09/06/94, Felicia 15/06/94, Jose 10/06/94, Pedro 20/ 03/94; Gonzalez Cruz et al. 1983,11; Lopez Austin 1980, 233. Interviews: Pedro 20/03/94,27/11/94, Juliana 09/06/94, Georgina 11/06/ 94, Felicia 15/06/94,29/10/94, Juan 20/10/94, Maria 19/10/94, Jose 21/ 11/94, 02/12/94; see Troche 1993, 325; Mak 1959,133; Lopez Austin 1980, 178,250. Interviews, Maria 02/03/94,19/03/94, Juan 19/03/94, Pedro 20/03/94, Francisco 05/04/94, 27/10/94, Juan 20/10/94; see Troche (1993), Viesca Trevino (1992, 85) and Alvarez Heydenreich (1987,115). Rodriguez Hernandez n.d.b, 3; Interviews: Pedro 20/03/94,08/06/94, Juan 04/04/94,11/06/94,20/10/94, Francisco 05/04/94, Felicia 29/10/94. On the parallel between worms and fetus, see Lopez Austin (1980,337). Interviews with elder midwives: Georgina 11/06/94, Felicia 15/06/94, 20/ 10/94, Ines 03/12/94. See also Mak (1959,139).

Chapter 4 Lovesickness and Fear of the Dead 1 Other sources place the reign of Huemac one century after Ouetzalcoatl was expelled from Tula (Leon-Portilla 1987, 383; Sodi 1987,115). 2 The Spanish expression is muy buena, a translation of cenca qualli. meaning she was very good. The expression is currently used to refer to a very attractive woman (Leon-Portilla 1980, 383). 3 The text reads in Spanish: como sintiendose pobre del pdjaro. Leon-Portilla (1980,383) notes the use of the Nahua word itotouh. meaning his bird, his phallus. It is the possessive form of totol. for bird. 4 The text reads in Spanish: le ha metido elfuego, le ha metido el ansia.

266 Notes to pages 90-127 5 Interview with a Popoluca community leader (19/03/94; reproduced from notes taken during the interview). 6 Interview with a Popoluca community leader 19/03/94. 7 The story was reconstructed from field notes taken during the interview with an anonymous community leader, interview 19/03/94. All the names in the story are pseudonyms. 8 Field note 13/06/94; interview with campesina woman, story reconstructed from a taped interview. 9 Field note 20/03/94, interview with campesino Pablo, story reconstructed from a taped interview. 10 Field note 10/06/94, interview with medicinal plant healer, story reconstructed from a taped interview. 11 The Popoluca word jfxi means a thought or an idea; icujispa is to suspect or imagine. 12 Interviews with local healer Jose 23/10/94 and midwife Georgina 11/06/94. Chapter 5 Frights and Chanequcs 1 Leon-Portilla (1983,394), Garcia de Leon (1969,283), L6pez Austin (1980, 359), Interviews with anonymous sorcerer. 2 Interviews with anonymous campesino 20/03/94, fright healers Amparo 01/11/94, and Jose 10/06/94. 3 Field note 21/11/94 (Jose), taped interview. 4 Weenie in Popoluca is the word used for a common wasp and tsuts means a dead body or cadaver. Elson and Gutierrez (1995, 3, 4,10, 93) translate avispa negra (black wasp) as caarjactsa, a word that may include ca, to die, anaca, to fight, and/or actsa, testicle (from tsa, stone). 5 Interview with anonymous Popoluca campesino 20/11/94. 6 Culturas Populares 1982d, 25; Aramoni Burguete 1980; Beaucage 1990; Mak 1959,127-8; Alvarez Heydenreich 1987,38,103,130. 7 Interview with fright healer Amparo 11/01/94. See also Munch Galindo (1983,199). 8 See previous chapter and interview with Jose, the medicinal plant healer (17/10/94). 9 Some claim nonetheless that certain cold foods such as chocolate, apple, cabbage, pork fat, and mustard can be eaten by fright victims. 10 Interviews with anonymous sorcerer (Field notes 1984-6, pp. 9,126), Garcia de Leon (1969, 290,292,294,299; 1976, 77; 1966,16), Culturas Populares (1982a, 23), Foster (1945,181), Munch Galindo (1983,174f.), Sedeno and Becerril (1985,169ff., 186ff.).

Notes to pages 127-46 267 11 See Winfield Capitaine (1991,14-18) and Soustelle (1983,33,43,47, 53). Studies of Olmec culture would stand a lot to gain from a closer look at this richly textured symbolism. 12 Culturas Populares (1982c, 24,30), Hernandez et al. (1981,24), Interviews with anonymous sorcerer (Field notes 1984-6, pp. 15,32-3,90), Interviews with Pajapenos, Garcia de Leon (1969,292,299; 1976,10, 79,84), Foster (1945,181), Munch Galindo (1983,160,173ff., 298ff.), Sedeno and Becerril (1985,32,165), Beaucage (1990). On pre-Hispanic images of Tlalocan inhabited by Tlaloque gods, see Garcia de Leon (1969,294) and Leon-Portilla (1983,131,135,206ff.). In Chiapas mythology (Lopez Austin 1990,104-5), chthonian spirits are responsible for converting gold obtained from the sun into sun-coloured grains of corn. 13 See Garcia de Leon (1969,283), Interviews with anonymous sorcerer (Field notes 1984-6, p. 59), Alvarez Heydenreich (1987,125). 14 Culturas Populares (1982a, 19-20), Garcia de Leon (1969,294), Lopez Austin (1990,162; 1980,279). 15 Culturas Populares (1982a, 13-14,17,45, 55), Culturas Populares (1982d, 32), Lopez Arias (1983), Garcia de Leon (1976,32,78), Interviews with anonymous sorcerer (Field notes 1984-6, 81,110,133,136), Foster (1945, 181), Munch Galindo (1983,178,199ff., 230,279-93), Beaucage (1990). 16 Culturas Populares (1982c, 7-11,24), Interviews with Pajapenos. 17 Culturas Populares (1982a, 14, 23, 55), Culturas Populares (1982d, 43), Garcia de Leon (1969,289,296; 1976, 78), Munch Galindo (1983,199ff.), Boege (1988,170-3). The classical Nahua term telpochtli denotes a youth (Leon-Portilla 1983,389; Lopez Austin 1980, 232). 18 Munch Galindo (1983,206) reports similar obligations of fasting and sexual abstinence to be met before the collection of medicinal plants. The healing virtues of medicinal plants are a stake. 19 Interview with local healer Jose 15/06/94; cf. Rodriguez Hernandez 1994,1. 20 Garcia de Leon (1991, 30), Culturas Populares (1982d, 24-7, 31, 40, 56, 62, 65, 71-2), Culturas Populares (1982a, 24,43), Interviews with anonymous sorcerer (Field notes 1984-6 p. 65), Lopez Austin (1980,249). Offerings to the chaneques have also been reported by Foster (1945,201). For similar ritual practices observed among the Mazatecs, see Boege (1988,118,143-6). 21 Conversation with Estela 15/06/94, reproduced from field notes. 22 Field note, interview with fright healer Amparo 11 /Ol /95. 23 Field note, interview with snakebite healer Mauricio 11/01/94. 24 Several authors report similar beliefs about black dogs helping the souls of the dead cross a river of blood (Baez-Jorge 1973,103,114-15; Munch

268 Notes to pages 146-53 Galindo 1983,136, and also interview with Pedro 20/11/94). Baez-Jorge (1973,115) traces these beliefs to the Mexicas and their Toltec ancestors. 25 Ouetzalcoatl is the great benefactor of humankind, symbol of wisdom and self-sacrifice. Tezcatlipoca is the black Yayauhqui god, instigator of wars and hostility among people (Fernandez 1992,137-8) 26 Interviews with Amparo, the elder salmera (11 /Ol /95), and an elder campesino (08/06/94). 27 Interview with Mauricio, the snakebite healer (13/06/94). 28 Interview with Amparo 11/01/95. 29 Among the Nahuas of Cuetzalan (State of Puebla, Mexico), healers must travel in their dreams to the place where spirits captured their clients' souls (Aramoni Burguete 1980, 69). Similarly, among the Nahuas of Hueyapan (State of Morelos, Mexico), a state of fright considered dangerous requires that the afflicted and the healer go to the place where the fright accident took place and perform the healing ritual on site (Alvarez Heydenreich 1987,188). 30 Interviews with a Popoluca campesino (08/06/94) and an elderly health worker (11/06/94). Olavarrieta Marenco (1977, 85-8) reports for the neighbouring communities of the Sierra a smoking and sucking procedure used for fright from water, chaneques. and the dead. The healer takes a mouthful of sherry wine and introduces in his mouth some grains of black corn (maiz morado) and then proceeds to suck the patient's pulses located in the wrists, temples, elbows, knees, and ankles. 31 All three terms contain the root Qmi, meaning the owner (dueno) or boss (patron). The prefix-suffix cu ... Ay is used in Popoluca to convey an idea of everything or wholeness (see Elson and Gutierrez 1995,12), suggesting an offering to the owner of everything. 32 Interview with Amparo, the fright healer (11/01/95). See also Gonzalez et al. (1983, 30-1) and Lopez Austin (1980,410). 33 Interview with Amparo, the fright healer (11/01/95); and interview with elder health worker 11/06/94. 34 Interview with elder health worker 11/06/94; Munch Galindo (1983,200). 35 Munch Galindo (1983,199) also mentions the need for patients and healers to fast during the seven-day period. Olavarrietta Marenco (1977,87-8) reports dietary restrictions in neighbouring communities of the Sierra as well. 36 Interviews with local healers Amparo 11/01/95 and Jose 12/02/94. 37 Interview with healer Jose 12/02/94. 38 Interview with healer Amparo 11/01 /95. 39 Interview with healer Amparo 11 /Ol /95.

Notes to pages 157-78 269 Chapter 6 Milpa Medicine and the Lunisolar Calendar 1 Interviews with healer Jose 17/10/94, campesinos Manuel 29/11 /94 and Pedro 20/11/94. 2 Interview with healer Jose 03/04/94. 3 Interviews with campesinos and local healers: Georgina 11/06/94, Maria 19/10/94 and Jose 17/10/94. 4 Chayote seems to be an exception to rules of the lunar agricultural calendar. The plant is said to be highly sensitive to problems of excessive dampness and should therefore not be sown under a new moon. When the moon is full, chayote plants are actually pulled by the head seven times so as to encourage their growth. See Interviews: Jose 03/04/94,10/06/94, 23/10/ 94, Juan 11/06/94, Juliana 21/11/94, Pedro 27/11/94; Rodriguez Hernandez 1994,1,2,4; Rodriguez Hernandez and Ramos Vasquez 1993,4; Olavarrieta Marenco 1977,132. 5 Interviews with Maria 19/04/94 and healer Jose 17/10/94. 6 See Munch Galindo (1983, 247-8) and Baez-Jorge (1973,205-7) 7 Interview with healer Jose 15/06/94. 8 See Lopez Austin (1980, 456-9) 9 See Gonzalez Torres (1985,267-76) and Fernandez (1992,84,159). 10 Interviews with campesino Juan 11/06/94 and Pedro 27/11/94. 11 Pedro in interview with Juan and Pedro 27/11 /94. 12 See Lopez Austin (1980, 291-92). Also interview with healer Jose 03/04/94. 13 Interview with healer Jose 03/04/94. 14 Field note 10/01/95. 15 Culturas Populares (1982d, 32), Munch Galindo (1983,206,244,253), Garcia de Leon (1969, 284). Chapter 7 Corn, Water, and Iguana 1 The spelling Homshuk was the first form used by Ben Elson in 1947, many years before developing his orthographic conventions and dictionary of Sierra Popoluca. Jomxuc is the current spelling (Elson and Gutierrez 1995). 2 Variant recorded in interview with Francisco, an elderly village health worker (11/06/94), and also by Rodriguez Hernandez (n.d.a, 2). 3 Source: Rodriguez Hernandez n.d.a, 4. The word may come from £r}a, to fight, tsuts, dead, or tots, tongue. 4 The narrative material examined here is based on Garcia de Leon's Nahua spelling and Spanish translation of the myth. 5 The classical Nahua term achcautli signifies a high priest, a supreme judge,

270 Notes to pages 178-97 a chief, a first son, or anything deemed to be superior. Teachton is someone's past, and achtoitoani. the one who spoke first (a prophet). In Pajapan, the expression teachto pano refers to what happened first. For an interesting discussion of the ach motif as used by the Nahuas of northern Puebla, see Beaucage 1987. 6 Interview with Popoluca campesinos Juan and Pedro (27/11/94, 7). 7 Among the Gulf Nahuas, totolteksis means a turkey egg. For other mythical references to the bird-rock association, see Foster (1945,196). 8 The word actsa means a testicle and tsa, a stone. See Elson and Gutierrez (1995,3,33). 9 In Pajapan, the words bauit (quauitl) and tzinbayo (tzinquauhyotl) denote not only the phallus but also a tree, a beam, a stick used for beating. Derivative terms suggest the act of beating someone on the head (bauitegui) or stabbing him with a stick (bauia). If done from behind (tzinbauia). the gesture produces a reprimand and evokes anal sex. According to Simeon, quauhtilia means to have an erection (baguetza to the Gulf Nahuas, for wood stick standing) or to show firmness when inflicting punishment. 10 The imagery is reminiscent of the ancient ritual head-washing (bategui) of the newborn child (Lopez Austin 1990,104; 1980,160). 11 The act of weaving may evoke reproductive activity, as in quauhtlatla^a. an erect man whirling and twisting a stick with his feet. According to Simeon, the word is a derivative of quauhtla^a. to have frequent intercourse with a woman, and also to fell trees. The verb quauilacatzoa. to play with sticks or to interlace plants, has similar connotations. The term comes from quauitl. a stick, and ilacatzoa. to coil round a tree trunk. Cognate meanings can be attributed to a woodland viewed as a planting field (quauhtica). a web of scrubs, thorns, weeds, vines, and other creeping plants (quauhmatlatl. bauizmegat} interwoven and forming a huge trellis (quauhtecpantli) of life. 12 On the pre-Hispanic notion of altepetl. see Lockhart (1992,14-28). 13 Note that the xinachtia imagery can be put to virtuous usage. The word can be used to evoke the act of putting seed apart for future need so that parent plants may reproduce. 14 The terms listed are taken from Stuart (1978,150) and have been checked and corrected with the assistance of Nahua-speaking informants. 15 Interviews with Jose (17/04/94) and Pedro (20/11 /94); similar information is also reported by Rodriguez Hernandez (1993,9-10). 16 The mulch created by crop residues nonetheless attracts corn-eating insects. Birds tend to be a problem as well. 17 This soil classification is based on Gutierrez Martinez (1991) and Stuart (1978) and interviews in Pajapan. With the exception of the red and yellow

Notes to pages 197-209 271

18

19

20

21

22 23

24

25

26

27 28 29

soils, this taxonomy parallels the zones identified by Gutierrez Martinez (1991; Table 5.1). Cold plants include arnica, encino, papaya, ajojonli, palo de agua, papachote, and cocuite. Hot plants comprise mulato, nancho, and mango (Rodriguez Hernandez 1994,4; Interview: Jose 03/04/95). The black iguana is locally known as bauisbinti. It is smaller than the green baguetspalin (or quauhcuetzpalin) and lays its eggs in tree holes. In Nahuatl, the cayman alligator is called acuetzpalin. the water lizard. We shall see that mutilated ears can be turned to advantage. The imagery can serve as a sign of sacrificial conduct, as among the Aztecs (cf. Gonzalez Torres 1985,102). Tauiltia is to set fire (tai in the case of a maize plot). On these ancient associations between redness, water, the alligator, and the east, see Leon-Portilla (1983, 111, 122). When the first syllable is pronounced with a short vowel (indicating a negative prefix), the word amigui denotes immortality. Classical Nahuatl expressions echoing the Gulf Nahua solar imagery are tonatiuh iaquian and tonatiuh iqui^ayan. Similar expressions are used by the Nahuas of Puebla (Taggart 1983, 57). The root word can be used to denote the act of advising, informing, befriending, or talking with someone. Tenonotztli is a story and nonotzalalizmachtia. the art of speaking, an art which the iguana does not truly possess. This paradox and the sexual implications of this scene of shame (as they relate to tepinauiz. the shameful parts) point to a man who mixes and has too much sex with women (ciuauia. ciuanotza). thereby becoming subject to exhaustion (ciuanotzaliztli) and the loss of his male energy and virility. A Gulf Nahua verb that could be used to describe the reproachable behaviour of the iguanas is cahcayah (cayaua). to entertain and seduce but also to lie and deceive. In Simeon's dictionary, the action of letting words escape (by way of rumour) is tlatolchitoniliztli. Mockeries, lies, and faulty interpretations are tlatolpinauhtia. tlatolpictli. and tlatolpapacplli (or tlatolcuegaliztli). In Cuetzalan, a kuamegat is distinguished from xiut (grasses) and kuouit (trees). These three classificatory families constitute 81.2% of all reported plant genera (Beaucage 1987). The Popoluca word for tail is tuts, while penis is tutu. WichQmo is wife, from wi, good, and ch^mo, old woman. Ichaywatpa is to make rope (hacer mecate), and ichayap is to have another woman. When combined with water, the cui motif (atlacui. atabi in Pajapan) signi-

272 Notes to pages 209-11 fies to take or steal water out of a well, a spring, or a fountain. But when applied to the male sex, the act of taking water implies castration or mutilation, hence atecui. literally the removal of water-stones (see Simeon). 30 This is to say that water can generate life but also cause its destruction if poured beyond measure. The native term for water (g£) reflects the paradoxical aspects of things fluid: it can denote the origin of life (water, semen), but it can also evoke its final destination understood as pure waste, i.e., food and fluid consumed and transformed into urine. 31 Although the iguana indulges in frivolous language, the conversation the corn god entertains with his grandfather (gitahtaguetskeh) takes the form of the ancient tlatlaquetzalli. a tale but also a jest, from quetzalli or guetza, terms that illustrate the powers of Gulf Nahua speech. The root verb, guetza. implies narrative elegance and the telling of a tale (tataguetza) designed to set an example. The word evokes the powers of seduction embodied in the nahuat language, an idiom resembling a dance (naua) performed with a sense of rhythm and harmony. Native utterances sound (nauati. nauatilia) as clever as the speech of a diviner or a sorcerer (naual). a cunning thief (tenaualpoloani). or a spy (nauallachiani). Words uttered in this idiom involve a good measure of enchantment and seduction but also prostitution, concealment, and deceit. The language also implies humour, as in naualaua. laughing at the imperfections of others. Given these derivations (see Simeon), anyone embracing (naua. nauatequi) or mastering the language can be suspected of laying a trap for his enemy, waiting for his victim like a viper coiled up (naualihtoc) in a lair, an evil wind, or a sorcerer transformed into a tiger and about to descend on its prey. For more on sorcerers, winds, and tigers in Gulf Nahua culture, see Munch Galindo (1983, 190 ff., 202), Garcia de Leon (1969,287) and Olavarrieta Marenco (1977, 166). On ancient nahual sorcerers, see Leon-Portilla (1983,86) and Lopez Austin (1980,427-8). 32 In Pajapan, tzinguetza is to bow down, to have anal sex. Talguetzal is feather of the earth, a grass commonly used for thatch. 33 For the money-excrement connection, see Culturas Populares (1982b, 9). 34 On the connection between excrement and laziness, see Lopez Austin (1980,216). 35 The iguana may be suspected of indulging (auia) in the consumption of fresh (auic) food that tastes (auiac) and smells good, excessive drinking (auiliuinti). frivolous words (auillatoani). carnal lust, and related services procured from prostitutes (auianiti) trained to seduce (auilpauia). All of these are vain (auillatoani) pleasures that will lead the beast to vice and corruption (auilquicaliztli). self-degradation (auiloa. auilqui^a). and self-

Notes to pages 211-19 273

36

37

38

39

40

destruction (auiliui). On auil as wastage, see Beaucage (1990). On the relationship between playing and making fun, see Boege (1988,115) and Lopez Austin (1990,161). Current and ancient verbs denoting the cutting of a tail are tzintegui. tzinteponoa, cuitlapilana. or cuitlapiltequi. Tzinpostegui (cuitlauitequi. cuitlapuztequi. cuitlapantli) is to break a creature's back, shoulders, or loins. The corresponding words are cuitlacuepa and mauiztlaloa. The animal suffers from the kind of terror that causes bowel movements (mauhcaaxixa^ or even disembowelment (cuitlatzayanH. The connection between tail and tongue is made explicit in the Popoluca story of a hunter who pretends to admire the tail of an alligator and then throws a stone in the mouth of the careless animal and cuts off its tongue (Foster 1945,199). In Cuetzalan, the Nahua plant-hair imagery points to the concept of taktson. any life form that has roots and matures until it dries out and produces the seed of new growth. Thus, unlike mushrooms, the offspring of maize, grasses, and humans are always harvested one generation after the next (Beaucage 1987). Unlike faena work, tapakwi denotes cooperative labour between relatives, neighbours, and friends.

Chapter 8 Ants, Turtles, and Thunder 1 Popular belief holds that three statues of Christ were commissioned by Felipe II in the year 1595. The first was given to a marquis residing in Santiago Tuxtla, near Lake Catemaco. The second went to Chalma in the highland Papaloapan Valley, and the third to Esquipulas in Guatemala. The imdgenes were given indigenous features, i.e., dark skin, almond-shaped eyes, and oriental traits, after the pre-Columbian god of merchants, Yiacatecuhtli. In 1931 conflicts between the Church and the state caused an incident involving the Christ of Otaritlan: the head was cut and an attempt was made to burn it, without success. The head was eventually recovered and placed at the foot of the original statue. The Christ of Otatitlan is related to six 'images' of the Lord of Health (Senor de la Salud) worshipped in Santiago Tuxtla, Oteapan, Mecatepec, Pajapan, Coacotla, and Cosoleacaque. In Pajapan the mayordomia of the Virgen del Carmen is in charge of organizing pilgrimages to both Catemaco and the Cristo Negro de Otatitlan (Garcia de Leon 1976,137; Munch Galindo 1983, 255ff.). 2 The Virgin, protector of seamen and women in labour, is said to have appeared to an Indian fisherman on the shore of Lake Catemaco. Like

274 Notes to pages 219-25 pilgrims bathing in the Papaloapan River, those who visit the Catemaco shrine purify and rejuvenate their body in waters of the lake (Munch Galindo 1983,244-64). 3 Thieves and seducers (tecochtecani) lull their victims to sleep with the use of charm or sorcery (cochtlaqa). On death and dreaming see Leon-Portilla (1983,204). 4 See Garcia de Leon (1969,294). The classical Nahua term for tebani is lequani (see Leon-Portilla 1983,105). 5 See Garcia de Leon (1966,5). In Pajapan, the hair-pulling imagery is synonymous with soul theft (Garcia de Leon 1969,290). For classical Nahua expressions of this imagery, see tzoncotona in Simeon. The word means to cut or harvest, to kill or sacrifice something, reducing it to bare bones, making it thin as bone. Closely related words include tzontepeua. tzontepoloa. and tzontlaca. According to L6pez Austin (1980,243), men who used to occupy positions of authority could not wash or cut their hair lest they should lose tonal strength. 6 These connections (and related associations between head-vessel and water-blood-fluid imageries) are made explicit in Popoluca stories about a man who got angry at his brother, cut his head, and planted it in his milpa. The field became invaded with watermelons filled with bloodlike juice and toothlike seed (Interview: Jose 03/04/94; Rodriguez Hernandez 1994,14). See also Alvarez Heydenreich (1987, 89). 7 In Cuetzalan, the upper and lower parts of the body (separated by the belt) are considered hot and cold, respectively; see Troche 1993, 300). 8 Tlacouia. tlacoitta. tahcotzayana. and tahcotzononia are synonyms of the Gulf Nahua tahcotegui motif. In Pajapan, tahcouia is to carry something on the shoulder. 9 To use the older Nahua hair-and-head rhetoric, the humble and the meek should bow to the noble ftetzon) who attain peaks of power (tzonyotl. tzonixua) lest they should lose everything they cherish. By definition humility is a virtue that goes against the vice of disobedience and stubbornness associated with heads and hair hard as rock (tzonteti. tzonteyotl. nacatzontetl). The humble know better than to rebel against those forming the head (tzontecontia. tzontegontia in Pajapan) of the body social. 10 Through self-mutilation, the corn god obtains the kind of string or snare (tequammecatl. tequammatlatD required to catch the devouring beast. For more on the Nahua concept of middleness, see Lopez Austin (1980,202). 11 See tzintlan. tzintlantli. and tzintli in Simeon. 12 Narrated by Pedro, a Popoluca storyteller, Field note 08/06/94 (See Sanchez Bain 1999, 280-3).

Notes to pages 227-57 275 13 The version transcribed by Lopez Arias (1983,6) begins in a similar fashion. In his version, however, the mother puts the remains of the child inside a rebozo cloth, shawl, or head covering and throws it into the river. God then transforms the child's remains into an egg and puts it on a liana above a watering place. 14 Anonymous healer, Field note 03/04/94; Rodriguez Hernandez 1994,1. 15 On pre-Hispanic connections between death and the cold north, see LednPortilla (1983, 111, 122). 16 Alternatively, a wind-cutting machete standing up can be placed in each corner of one's house, thereby protecting corn plants sleeping at night (Culturas Populares 1982a, 8,19; Interview. Manuel 29/11/94). 17 In the story of Homshuk, ants are assigned a similar role and are said to carry the egg-child out of the ant hill (up to the watering place where Homshuk's life begins). Chapter 9 Diffusion and Syncretism 1 Parallels between colonial ideas and indigenous knowledge systems created common grounds that were particularly useful in this regard. According to Olavarrieta Marenco (1977), these parallels included common beliefs in the therapeutic virtues of herbs; illnesses caused by evil eyes and evil winds; the use of eggs for purposes of divination; the thermal categorization of things either hot or cold; love potions or curses involving menstrual blood; the use of effigies and corpses in sorcery; the ill-ominous role of night-time and owls; the association between death and dogs; powers granted to particular sites such as road intersections, forests, and caves. By contrast, illnesses that are exclusively traditional and may be the object of native specialization include ailments caused by a child's falling fontanel; harelips resulting from lunar eclipses; soul thefts; the intrusion of foreign bodies; and fright provoked by snakes and thunderbolts. Healing practices of purely pre-Hispanic inspiration range from gestures of blowing and sucking to burying the placenta and the umbilical cord, and the use of maize, eggs, herbal baths, and copal for therapeutic purposes. The Edenic connotations of caves and the underworld and connections made between pregnant women and objects coloured red also appear to be distinctively indigenous.

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References

Alvarez Heydenreich, Laurencia. 1987. La Enfermedad y la cosmovision en Hueyapan, Morelos. Serie de Antropologia Social No. 74. Mexico City: Institute Nacional Indigenista (INI). Andrews, J. Richard. 1975. Introduction to Classkal Nahuatl. Austin: University of Texas Press. Aramoni Burguete, Maria Elena. 1980. Talokan Tata, Talokan Nana: Nuestras Rakes. Mexico City: Direction General de Publicaciones, Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes. Baez-Jorge, Felix. 1973. Los Zoque-Popolucas, Estructura Social. Mexico City: Instituto Nacional Indigenista, Secretaria de Education Piiblica. Beaucage, Pierre. 1990. Le bestiaire magique: categorisation du monde animal chez les Indiens maseuals (nahuats) de la Sierra Norte de Puebla (Mexique). Recherches Amerindiennes au Quebec 20(3^1): 3-18. - 1987. Categories pratiques et taxonomie: notes sur les classifications et les pratiques botaniques des Nahuas (Sierra Norte de Puebla, Mexique). Recherches Amerindiennes au Quebec 17(4): 17-36. Boege, Eckart. 1988. Los mazatecos ante la nation: contradicciones de la identidad etnica en el Mexico actual. Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno. Campos, J. 1982. La herencia obstinada. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Economica. Castaneda, Xochitl, Cecilia Garcia, and Ana Langer. 1996. Ethnography of Fertility and Menstruation in Rural Mexico. Social Science and Medicine 42(1): 133-40. Chevalier, Jacques M. 1997. A Postmodern Revelation: Signs of Astrology and the Apocalypse. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Chevalier, Jacques M., and Daniel Buckles. 1995. A Land without Gods: Process Theory, Maldevelopment and the Mexican Nahuas. London: Zed.

278 References Colson, Audrey Butt, and Cesareo de Armellada. 1983. An Amerindian Derivation for Latin American Creole Illnesses and Their Treatment. Social Science and Medicine 17:1229-48. Cosminsky, Sheila. 1975. Changing Food and Medical Beliefs and Practices in a Guatemalan Community. Ecology of Food and Nutrition 4:183-91. Cruz Martinez, F. 1991. Pajapan: El litigio por su tierras. Cosoleacaque, Veracruz, unpublished manuscript. Culturas Populares. 1982a. Rituales y creencias de los Zoque-Popolucas. Cuadernos de Trabajo 9. Acayucan: Unidad Regional de Acayucan, Direccion General de Culturas Populares. - 1982b. Historia de los ires hijos. Cuadernos de Trabajo 14. Acayucan: Unidad Regional de Acayucan, Direccion General de Culturas Populares. - 1982c. Leyendas Nahuas. Cuadernos de Trabajo 17. Acayucan: Unidad Regional de Acayucan, Direccion General de Culturas Populares. - 1982d. Medicina tradicional. Cuadernos de Trabajo 27. Acayucan: Unidad Regional de Acayucan, Direccion General de Culturas Populares. Elson, Benjamin. 1960. Gramdtica del Popoluca de la Sierra. Xalapa, Mexico City: Biblioteca de la Facultad de Filosofia y Letras, Universidad Veracruzana. - 1947. The Homshuk: A Sierra Popoluca Text. Tlalocan 2(3): 193-214. Elson, Benjamin, and G. Gutierrez. 1995. Diccionario Popoluca de la Sierra, Veracruz. Tucson: Summer Institute of Linguistics. Fernandez, Adela. 1992. Diccionario ritual de voces Nahuas. Mexico City: Panorama Editorial. Foster, George M. 1994. Hippocrates' Latin American Legacy: Humoral Medicine in the New World. Gordon and Breach. - 1986. La salud y el equilibrio. In La Medicina invisible, Introduccion al estudio de la medicina tradicional de Mexico, Xavier Lozoya and Carlos Zolla, eds., 62-72. Mexico City: Folios Ediciones S.A. - 1978. Hippocrates' Latin American Legacy: 'Hot' and 'Cold.' In Contemporary Folk Medicine, R.K. Wetherington, ed., Colloquia in Anthropology, vol. 2, 3-19. Dallas: Fort Burgwin Research Centre. - 1976. Disease Etiologies in Non-Western Medical Systems. American Anthropologist 78: 773-82. - 1945. Sierra Popoluca Folklore and Beliefs. American Archaeology and Ethnology 42(2): 177-250. - 1942. A Primitive Mexican Economy. Monographs of the American Ethnological Society, A. Irving Hallowell, ed., no. 5. University of Washington Press. Garcia de Leon, A. 1991. Paraiso perseguido. Ojarasca 2. Mexico City: Pro Mexico Indigena.

References 279 - 1976. Pajapan: un dialecto Mexicano del Golfo. Coleccion Cientifica 43. Mexico City: Institute Nacional de Antropologia e Historia. - 1969. El universe de lo sobrenatural entre los nahuas de Pajapan, Veracruz. Estudios de Cultura Ndhuatl 8:279-311. Mexico City: UNAM. - 1968. El dueno del maiz y otros relates nahuas del sur de Veracruz. Tlalocan 5(4): 349-57. - 1966. Semana Santa en Zaragoza, Veracruz. Veracruz. Mexico City, unpublished manuscript. Gonzalez Cruz, G., et al. 1983. Ciclo de vida de los Nahuas. Acayucan: Direccion General de Culturas Populares. Gonzalez Torres, Yolotl. 1985. El sacrificio humano entre los Mexicas. Mexico City: Institute Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, Fondo de Cultura Economica. Gutieras-Holmes, Calixta. 1961. Perils of the Soul. New York: Free Press. Gutierrez Martinez, R. El media fisico en la tierra de Santa Marta: caracterizacion regional. Xalapa. Mexico City: Proyecto Sierra de Santa Marta. Hernandez, E., et al. 1981. Los Nahuas y la muerte. Acayucan: Unidad Regional de Acayucan, Direccion General de Culturas Populares. Hernandez, H., and Isidro Bautista. 1983. El miedo, el espanto y el ensalmo. In Medicina Tradicional. Acayucan: Unidad Regional de Acayucan, Direccion General de Culturas Populares. Karttunen, Frances. 1983. An Analytical Dictionary ofNahuatl. Austin: University of Texas Press. Kelly, Isabel, et al. 1956. Santiago Tuxtla, Veracruz. Cultura y salud. Mexico City: Edicion mimeografica. Cited in Marcela Olavarrieta Marenco. Magia en los Tuxtlas, Veracruz, 72-3. Mexico City: Institute Nacional Indigenista. Klor de Alva, Jorge. 1993. Aztec Spirituality and Nahuatized Christianity. In South and Meso- American Native Spirituality: From the Cult of the Feathered Serpent to the Theology of Liberation, G.H. Gossen, ed., 173-97, vol. 4 of World Spirituality: An Encyclopedic History of the Religious Quest. New York: Crossroad. Law, H. 1957. Tamakatzi, a Gulf Nahua Text. Tlalocan 3(4): 344-60. Leon-Portilla, Miguel. 1993. Those Made Worthy by Divine Sacrifice: The Faith of Ancient Mexico. In South and Meso-American Native Spirituality: From the Cult of the Feathered Serpent to the Theology of Liberation, G.H. Gossen, ed., 4164, vol. 4 of World Spirituality: An Encyclopedic History of the Religious Quest. New York: Crossroad. - 1987. Los antiguos Mexicanos a traves de sus cronicas y cantares. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Economica. - 1983. Lafilosofia Nahuatl estudiada en susfuentes. Mexico City: Institute de Investigaciones Historicas, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico.

280 References - 1980. Toltecdyotl, aspectos de la cultura Ndhuatl, Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Economica. Lockhart, J. 1992. The Nahuas after the Conquest: A Social and Cultural History of the Indians of Central Mexico, Sixteenth through Eighteenth Centuries. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Lopez Arias, Marcelino. 1983. El espiritu del maiz y La muerte de Juan el brujo. In El espiritu del maiz y otros relates de los Zoque-Popolucas. Cuadernos de trabajo no. 25. Acayucan: Unidad Regional de Acayucan, Direction General de Cultural Populares. Lopez Austin, Alfredo. 1990. Los mitos de tlacuache. Mexico City: Alianza Editorial Mexicana. - 1986. La polemica sobre la dicotomfa frio-calor. In La medicina invisible, Introduccion al estudio de la medicina traditional de Mexico, Xavier Lozoya y Carlos Zolla, ed., 73-90. Mexico City: Folios Ediciones S.A. - 1980. Cuerpo humano e ideologia, Las concepciones de los antiguos Nahuas, 2 vols. Mexico City: Institute de Investigaciones Antropologicas, UNAM. - 1975. Textos de medicina Ndhuatl. Mexico City: Institute de Investigaciones Historicas, UNAM. - 1969. De las enfermedades del cuerpo humano y de las medicinas contra ellas. Estudios de Cultura Ndhuatl 8: 51-122. Madsen, William. 1960. The Virgin's Children: Life in an Aztec Village Today. New York: Greenwood Press Publishers. - 1955. Hot and Cold in the Universe of San Francisco Tecospa. Journal of American Folklore 68:123-39. Mak, Cornelia. 1959. Mixtec Medical Beliefs and Practices. America Indigena 19(2). Menendez, Eduardo L. 1986. Recursos y practicas medicas tradicionales. In La medicina invisible, Introduction al estudio de la medicina traditional de Mexico, Xavier Lozoya y Carlos Zolla, ed. Mexico City: Folios Ediciones S.A. Munch Galindo, Guido. 1983. Etnologia del Istmo Veracruzano. Mexico City: Instituto de Investigaciones Antropologicas, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. Neuenswander, Helen, and Shirley D. Souder. 1980. El sindrome caliente-frio, humedo-seco entre los Quiches de Joyabaj: Dos modelos cognitivos. Guatemala Indigena 11:139-70. Olavarrieta Marenco, Marcela. 1977. Magia en los Tuxtlas, Veracruz. Mexico City: Institute Nacional Indigenista. Perales, Hugo. 1992. Caracteristicas y valorization del autoconsumo en la agriculture de los Popolucas de Soteapan Veracruz. Master's thesis, Colegio de Postgraduados Montecillo, Mexico.

References 281 Ramirez, Ignacio Pablo. 1972. Creencias sobre los Chanecos. In Rituales y Creencias de los Zoque-Popoluca. Acayucan: Unidad Regional de Acayucan, Direccion General de Culturas Populares. Rodriguez Hernandez, Alejandro. 1994. Notas de campo: 31 Marzo - 4 Abril & 27-29 Julio. Unpublished field report. Xalapa: Proyecto Sierra de Santa Marta. - n.d.a. Homshuk: la genesis del maiz en la tradicion oral Popoluca. Unpublished field report. Xalapa: Proyecto Sierra de Santa Marta. - n.d.b. Redaction preliminar sobre el maiz y sus implicaciones culturales. Unpublished field report. Xalapa: Proyecto Sierra de Santa Marta. Rodriguez Hernandez, Alejandro and M.E. Ramos Vasquez. 1993. La historia de la tierra no esta en las letras, esta en las palabras. Unpublished field report. Xalapa: Proyecto Sierra de Santa Marta. Sanchez Bain, W. Andres. 1999. Allegories about Health and Sacrifice in Traditions of the Zoque-Popoluca. Master's thesis, Carleton University, Ottawa. Sandoval, Juana. 1994. El estado nutricional en Ocotal Chico y Soteapan, Sierra de los Tuxtla. Unpublished field report. Xalapa: Proyecto Sierra de Santa Marta. Sandstrom, A.R. 1991. Corn Is Our Blood: Culture and Ethnk Identity in a Contemporary Aztec Indian Village. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Sedeno, L., and M.E. Becerril. 1985. Dos culturas y una infancia: psicoandlisis de una etnia en peligro, Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Economica. Simeon, R. 1977. Diccionario de la lengua Nahuatl o Mexicana. Transl. by J. Oliva de Coll. Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno. Sodi M., Demetrio. 1987. Las grandes culturas de Meso-america. Mexico City: Panorama Editorial S.A. Soustelle, J. 1983. Los Olmecas. Transl. by J.J. Utrilla. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Economica. - 1940. La pensee cosmologique des anciens mexicains. Paris: Hermann et Cie. Stuart, J. 1978. Subsistence Ecology of the Isthmus Nahuat Indians of Southern Veracruz, Mexico. Doctoral dissertation, University of California. Taggart, J.M. 1983. Nahuat Myth and Social Structure. Austin: University of Texas Press. Tedlock, Barbara. 1987. An Interpretive Solution to the Problem of Humoral Medicine in Latin America. Social Science and Medicine 24(12): 1069-83. Troche, Viviane. 1993. Le syndrome diarrheique chez les enfants nahuas du Mexique: une approche culturelle, dietetique et medicale. Doctoral dissertation, Universite de Montreal. Viesca Trevino, Carlos. 1986. Medicina prehispdnica de Mexico - El conocimiento medico de los nahuas. Mexico City: Panorama Editorial S.A.

282 References Villegas, Daniel Cosio, et al. 1975. A Compact History of Mexico. Mexico City: El Colegio de Mexico. Winfield Capitaine, F. 1991. Las Culturas del Golfo. Xalapa: Graphos.

Index

abnegation: and healing, 126; and illness, 31; and megat stringbelt-imagery, 214; and pilgrimage, 219. See also sacrifice acahual, 98

accident, xii, 29,117,121,147; and chaneque, 130-1

acculturation, 245, 259 adultery, and mal amor, 95 age: and hot-cold attribution, 21-2, 26,42-3, 82; and humoral value, 6, 14,17; and strength, 44 Age of the Fifth Sun, 26, 33, 36, 47, 237, 240 aging, 30, 47; and heat, 23, 43; and heat emanation, 99; and life renewal, 24 aguardiente: and chaneque, 142; and fatigue, 152; in fright healing, 151, 153; and heat of dead, 101,104; and hot-cold attribution, 102; and pulque, 152. See also alcohol agui. reproductive imagery, 45 alcohol, 52, 69, 76,102,125; in fright healing, 151-2; offering, 137; and postpartum, 59; and snakebite, 108-9; in sowing rituals, 160

alligator, 205; and chaneque. 126-7, 129 Alvarez Heydenreich, Laurencia, on fright, 120 amate tree, 126,128 anemia, 50,58; and diarrhea, 70,90; as organic imbalance, 56; remedies, 78; sexual, 55; and soil, 51,71; and syncretism, 255; weakness, 56; and work, 24 anger, 11, 62,131, 246-7; and diarrhea, xii, 73; and gods, 35; ihiyotl. 46; and placenta, 61 ant hill, 63,185, 221,227,234. See also ants ants, 63,113,171; and corn growth, 226; in corn mythology, 174,21925, 235-8; and milpa production, 237; predator, 160 anus: and chick beak, 140-1; and chicken broth, 55; and eggs, 55; ihiyotl. 141 anxiety: and brain heat, 69; hunger, 52; snakebite, 105; and sowing rituals, 161 appetite, 90,147,149,188, 204; loss, 117,121,130; sex, 55

284 Index Aramoni Burguete, Maria Elena: on fright, 123; on hot-cold healing, 21 asceticism: Christian, 31, 37; and megat imagery, 218; pre-Hispanic, 38-9. See also sacrifice ashes, 59,76,132; and calabash, 190; and earth, 234; land cover, 193; and placenta, 61, 63-4; and toad, 175; and vagina, 182,190,198 at-risk state, Foster on, 6,7,10,12,17 authority, 151,161,172,228; and family responsibility, 178-9; and heat, 100; and maturity, 201; and mortification, 54; and sexual diet, 80; and subservience, 189 Baez-Jorge, Felix: on hunting prayer, 137; on sowing rituals, 156; on wake rituals, 103 balance, 12,16-17,43; and cyclic movement, 22, 80; and health, xv, 20,22,25,28-9,39,78,98,155,173, 179,240; homeostatic, 39; humoral, 4-5, 247-8; and illness, 27,47,79; in life, 41 bath, 6,18,24, 26,28,42,128,131, 141; Carnaval, 168; corn, 162,182, 190,226,233; in fright healing, 116, 125,152-3; and health restored, 104,152; infant, 70; and menstruation, 55-8; postpartum, 59; river, 139; sacrificial, 233-5,240; and snakebite, 108; in sowing rituals, 160; in wake ritual, 101-4,114 Beaucage, Pierre, on hot-cold healing, 21 belt, 208; and self-denial, 214-16, 223^, 239 birth, 30,39,41,140,179-81; corn god, 39,174,178,189-90, 219,226,

229-30; and drinking water, 75; goddess, 65; and heliotropic growth, 53, 79,118,161,241; and hot-cold attribution, xv, 56; and humoral value, 6,26; mueso child, 59; and placenta burial, 65; rituals, 67-8,184; tonalli. 32,119,124 blood, 7,51,70,90,112,146,158,160, 166, 232; black, 47-8; coagulated, 56-7; corn god, 63,185,227,234; energy, 123; fetus, 54,112,165; and food, 225; of gods, 240; and honey, 160; and hot-cold attribution, 223,32,43,79, 99,104; and humoral value, 4,17; of newborn, 42; offering, 33,35,37; penis, 237-9; pulse, 42,120,137-8; red, 47,55-6, 76; at rest, 49; semen, 53; snake, 105-9; strength, 56,75,110,121,170; teyolia. 46; thickness, 47, 56; thinning, 71,73, 75,78,113,118-24,136,255; of Thunderbolt, 223,225-6,239; and water, 23,47, 49-50; watery, 76, 77, 80,107; and work, 74 body, 16-17, 20-1, 30, 59, 69, 223-4, 231,252-3; fluids, 41,70,124,155, 180; and fright, 116-17,120-5, 153-4; heat, 31,44,52, 74,77-8,82, 85,98-100,114,161,170; and hotcold attribution, 22, 28,42; and humoral theories, xiv-xv, 3,4,7,911; laziness, 48; life cycle, 23,25-9, 43,47,49, 58,76, 80,113,118-19, 241; life forces, 46; orifices, 141; pregnancy, 71-2,165; refreshment, 50,53-4,135; sacrifice, 35-7; salvation, 37; and snakebite, 108-12; and soap, 160; solar, 45,81; and soul, 134,142,145,152; swelling, 122,126; tide, 164; tonalli. 31-2

Index 285 body temperature, 5, 6,10,24-5,47, 49, 73; Foster on, 16-18, 24; and humoral value, 13-14; and labour, 72; and mal amor, 93; and sight, 82; and work, 73 brain, 49,58,79,165,182,189; anxiety, 105-6; fever, 59; fluids, 69, 81,114, 127; newborn, 42,181; and placenta, 61; tears, 104; and tonalli. 46 breast, 60, 69, 70, 74-5, 77,181; gourd-vessel imagery, 182 breastfeeding: colostrum, 75; and diarrhea, 73; drying-up, 180; and hot-cold attribution, 20; and illness, xii; precautions, 60; sacred food, 74; twins, 187 breath, 52,100, 229; anus, 141; ihiyotl, 46,141 burial, 103; corn god, 174; and heat of dead, 101; placenta 60-5, 68-9, 81 burning, 20,24, 52,59, 70-2, 88, 100,108; and chahuistle. 160,195; incense, 35,156; and milpa cycle, 190,192^, 198-9; of placenta, 604,68,81; and reproduction, 45; and snakebite, 109,149 calabash: milpa, 181, 220; and sexual reproduction, 164,181-3,190,199 candle: offering, 136-8,152,156; as syncretic imagery, 258 caress, and mal de ojo, 84 Carnaval, 54,167-72; and sexual diet, 82 castration: and rnegat imagery, 21112; and moon, 164 cat, enchanted, 131 caves, 117,126,129,143,171; and hot-cold attribution, 31; and skin burial, 65,169

chahuistle: corn, 157,160; fog, 194-5; ice, 195; and maturation, 122; rotting, 58, 64, 90; and snakebite, 108; water-burning, 64 chamomile, 8; and infant feeding, 75; and swelling, 59 chaneque. 110-11, 210; and amate tree, 128; asexuality, 127,154; child, 127; and copal incense, 128,151-2; dog imagery, 146; Easter, 171; and exchange, 125,135-9,140-9,153, 158; floral imagery, 128,152; fright, 116-17,121,132; head imagery, 127; iguana-tail-whip imagery, 209; mistress, 98; nose, 127; offerings, 140-1,158,168,172; punishment, 118,130^, 153,157,209; and soul loss, 120-1,126,147; and sowing rituals, 160 chayote: and vagina, 199; vulva imagery, 45,182-3 chicken, 55, 74-5; black, 139; and corn god, 177,180; and maize, 139; and postpartum, 59; sacrifice, xii, 138,140-2,153, 216; as syncretic imagery 258; white, 139 child, 28,42-3,46,51, 58,69, 71, 74-5, 79; birth rituals, 66-8, 81, 141; fright, 116,149; and heat of dead, 101; and mal de ojo, 84-5; and snakebite, 111; placenta burial, 59-64, 67; severance imagery, 69 childbirth, 17; food restrictions, 58; heat emanation, 100; hot-cold attribution, 60; humoral value, 14, 26; and warm stones, 59 chipujo, 51; and fright, 149; laziness, 47-8, 76; and soil eating, 76; watery blood, 73

286 Index classificatory logic, 252, 254; Linnaean, 253 clearing: and milpa cycle, 193-4. See also cutting coitus, 46, 81; and energy balance, 155; and hot-cold cycle, 55 colostrum, and diarrhea, 75, 78 cooking, 11, 76,196; and hot-cold attribution, 20, 27 copal incense: in fright healing, 142, 151-2,160; and milpa, 158; offering, 35-8,128,136-8,153,168-9; in sowing ritual, 156 corn: and ant hill, 63; bath, 162,185, 190, 226, 228,233, 235, 240; blood, 63,185,227,234; boy, 199-208, 21112,214,216-18; chahuistle. 157,160; in childbirth rituals, 66-8,184; colours, 234-5; cycle, 190, 216; doubling, 166, 200; dry-season, 43; ear, 125,155; egg imagery, 178-9, 199,234; god, 29, 32,36,39,40,423, 45,63, 72,113,131,161,169,1723,190, 219-21, 224-8, 230, 232-3; growth stages, 191,193, 200; hair, 174, 214-15, 221, 223, 240; harvesting, 172; head, 228-9; head-water imagery, 185; and heliotropic growth, 240; hill, 225-6; loft, 194, 222,230; mythology, 29,39,49,174, 232; original, 240; prayers, 173; predators, 160; red, 21,109,112; refreshment, 52; as sacred food, 68; seed, 53, 204, 228; and severance imagery, 68; and snake, 109, 238; sowing, 156,160; streaked, 239; strength, 110. See also Homshuk; Sintiopiltsin Cosminsky, Sheila, on hot-cold attributions, 27

cosmology, 30; Aztec, 200; transactional, 39 cough, 8,11,195,207; and mal amor, 90,93 courage, 38,48,133; and mal amor, 97; military, 36; and self-denial, 212; and work, 50,121 covenant: divine-human, 32, 35-6, 147; reciprocity, 132. See also tlamacehua crossroad, 106,108 cuitlacoche. 195 cutting, 117,209,215,219-20,222-3; and milpa cycle, 68,190,192,196, 199; and moon, 166; and reproduction, 45,186; umbilical cord, 66,69, 81,114 cycle, 16-18,22,26,28-9,39,161,232, 254; agricultural, 35; astrological, 23,35-6, 70, 79; calendrical, 24; day, 41; Fifth Sun, 33; life, 24, 26-7, 29,42,44,53,68, 79,154-5,172-3, 231, 233; milpa, 189,190,192-4, 197-9, 216, 222, 232, 240; workrest, 49-51,121 darkness, 45,58,167,202; and Age of the Fifth Sun, 33 day: and cyclic movement, 30, 79-80; tonalli. 32 dead, 33,49, 77,82,92,103,144,199, 211, 228,233,237; heat emanation, 13,46, 99-104,114,116,241,246; and laziness, 48. See also death death, 46-7,49, 79,164,187,210, 215, 237,239; and Carnaval, 170; and chaneque. 127,146,153; and drowning, 69; and fright, 119,121,124, 149; and heat excess, 43,101,103; and hot-cold attribution, xv, 30;

Index 287 and life renewal, 23-4,26, 29,45, 189, 216; and mal amor, 97-8,100; and mal de ojo, 85; and placenta, 64; and plants, 108; and redness, 102; and reproduction, 44,113; and rotting, 55; and sacrifice, 173,188, 190,192,199, 203, 205-6,220-4, 232; and soul exchange, 138-9,141, 143-4,146; and sexual overheating, 80,114; and thunder, 224,22830; and water-burning, 55. See also dead deer, 136, 246; and corn mythology, 174-5 dehusking: and hot-cold attribution, 27; and penis, 215; and hairplucking imagery 223 destiny, 29, 85; and tonalli. 32 diarrhea: and anemia, 70, 90; and anger, xii, 73; and balance and pace, 79; and body heat, 74; and breast milk, 60; and colostrum, 75; and commercial milk, 74; and eating habits, 73-4; and envy, xii; as excess water, 58; and fetal tumour imagery, 71; and fright, 116-17; and heartache, 75; and hot-cold attribution, 21, 70, 77; and labour, 72; and laziness, 76; and mal de ojo, 83; and placenta, 63; postpartum, 60; pregnancy, 71; and quarrelling, 72-3; remedies, 77-8; shit-snake, 70; types, 70; and weather, 73 diet: Carnaval, 54; and cyclic equilibrium, 79; food, 154; health, 30; sexual, 80,82,98,142,144,154. See also sexual abstinence diffusion, 241, 244-51; and logical simplification, 248; multidirectional, 256; and pragmatic adapta-

tion, 246-7; and rote learning, 2456; and top-down transmission, 244-5 digestion: humoral value of, 14, 22; and health, 17 dog, 62,117,131,203; black, 103,1456; hunting, 138-9; and phallus, 90, 92; snake, 136 domination: and protection, 188; and subordination, 189 doubling: corn, 166, 200; and hotcold attribution, 27; and maturation, 220; and megat imagery, 214; and milpa cycle, 194; and rotting, 192; and self-sacrifice, 218 drowning, 54,138; and brain waters, 69, 81; and fright, 119; and heliotropic growth, 155,194, 202, 230; placenta, 63 drunkenness, 17; and brain imagery, 69; and tonalli. 46 drying, 53, 62, 68, 78, 81; corn, 194, 196, 200; corn god, 199, 218-20, 222; and death, 49,155,202; heat, 23; and heliotropic growth, 42-3; and hot-cold attribution, 24, 27; and milpa cycle, 166,190,192-3, 200,226; and sex, 54,80; womb, 59, 163. See also dryness dryness, 191; and hot-cold attribution, 21, 42; low-tide, 172; and strength, 118; upland, 202. See also drying earth: ashes, 234; freshness, 61,63, 66,196; and hot-cold attribution, 21,31-2; nourishment, 71; spirit, 106; strength, 166; tremors, 65; womb, 45 eclecticism, 257-8

288 Index eclipse, 167 egg, 55,102,182, 216; and birdwater-stone imagery, 180; and chahuistle, 160; corn mythology, 174,177-9,183-90,199-200, 202, 206, 208, 225, 227, 231, 234; and tonal. 125; and uterine-calabash imagery, 183 ejaculation, and drying, 53 elders: in corn mythology, 174; and fright, 153; and heat, 44,100; and hot-cold attribution, 43; and knowledge transmission, xi, xii, xxi, 38-9,88,190; and sexual diet, 80 Elson, Benjamin, on corn mythology, 174 energy, 18,116; emanation, 37,85, 100,103; and fright, 130,154; and self-denial, 54, 82,135,171; sexual, 98; solar, 31,41,46,116,118,138, 155,162,170, 241; and soul, 121, 136. See also heat ensalmo, 142; fright healing, 148-53; incantations, 149-50; mal amor, 98 envy: and diarrhea, xii; evil eye, 11; mal de ojo, 85 equilibrium: and age, 14, 22; Foster on, 6,14, 24; and health, xiv, xv, 17, 20-1,23,25,47,98; and heliotropic movement, 22,29,41,80; and hotcold dichotomy, 16; humoral, 4; and sex, 14; and social position, 22 equivocity, law of, 259 ethics: and health, xx; native, xv; sacrificial, 31; syncretic, 254 evil eye, 82-3, 89, 246; envy, 11. See also mal de ojo exchange: in corn mythology, 124, 205-6,231-2; and forgiveness, 132; payment, 136,142-3,146; and

power, 144; sacrificial, 37,39,205; soul, 132-3,137-40,144,147,1523; syncretic, 259; and unequal reciprocity, 34 excrement: in corn mythology 210; cuitlacoche. 195; and diarrhea, 70; and honey, 208; and laziness, 48 exercise: and health, 48,125; and hot-cold attribution, 20,28 eye: and desire, 89-90; heat emanation, 46,82-3, 85,125,165; heat build-up, 98; irritation, 82; and mal amor, 85,89, 90-1; red, 89; strong, 82; and tonalli. 46; weak, 82,89 family, 50, 52,140,142,149; domination and subordination, 178-9,186, 188-9,212; obligations and rights, 131,134,179; and soul exchange, 144-6; ties to land, 65, 67 fasting, 121,133; and Carnaval, 54, 168; life renewal, 34; pilgrimage, 219; and self-denial, 35,153,188; soul exchange, 143; sowing ritual, 59; strength, 135 father: and child, 204; resurrection, 224,228; solar, 45; and upland imagery, 202 fatigue, 47; and aguardiente, 152; and excess water, 58; fright, 117; and heat emanation, 99; and hot-cold attribution, 28, 50; and pulque, 52, 152; and rest, 123; tonalli, 49; work, 170 Feathered Serpent, 33,237. See also Ouetzalcoatl female: fluids, 55,179-80; hot-cold attribution, 31; reproduction, 188; vessels, 179,181-3 fertility, 35, 59, 67; birth, 177; in corn

Index 289 mythology, 118,180,183, 225; god, 66; goddess, 65; soil, 41,197-8 fetus, 112; blood, 54; and eclipse, 167; moon, 167; and tumour, 164 fever, 24; and egg, 165; fright, 116-17; and heat of dead, 101; mal amor, 83, 88,90, 92-4, 96, 98; remedies, 78; and strong sight, 82; and weather. 73 fire, 12,114,171; Carnaval, 168; fright healing, 152; and hot-cold attribution, 3, 20; and maturity, 44; and milpa cycle, 190,199; in Nahua mythology, 31, 33,35-7, 52, 65, 87; offering, 37 flowers, 39, 65,134,165; and chaneque. 128-9,152; and copal incense, 152; and fetus, 163; offering, 137 fluids: brain, 69, 79, 81; body, 32, 41, 58, 78,155,163; and body tides, 164,166,172, 231-2; female, 55, 80, 115,179-81; humoral, 4; of life, 153,165,177,180,190, 233; and mal amor, 91, 98; male, 179, 209; reproduction, 53, 55 fog, and chahuistle. 157,194-5 folk medicine: and Christianity, 30; empirical, 250; and humoralism, xiii-ix, 3, 7-9,11; in Latin America, 24, 244, 254, 256, 259 fontanel, 69, 246 food, 23, 25,30,42, 47; abstention, 54; in Age of the Fifth Sun, 33; and blood, 50; and chahuistle, 160; and chaneques. 98,131,135,139,143, 152,154; corn, 44, 51, 68-9, 74,110, 121,173; and corn mythology, 1879, 212, 215-16, 220,223,225, 230, 233-4, 238, 241; and energy bal-

ance, 155; excess, 53; and hot-cold attribution, 20, 22, 27; in humoral theories, 4-5, 7, 9,11,14-15,17, 245, 249; and illness, 52, 75-6, 90, 100; and mourning, 104; offering, 35,37; restrictions, 56-9, 73, 77-8, 80,114,125,160,162,172; and selfdenial, 39,156, 225; tonal. 43; tortilla, 51, 74; and work, 177-9 Foster, George M,: on corn mythology, 174; on empirical knowledge, 13; on health-equilibrium, 16-19; on hot-cold dichotomy, xiii, xv; on humoral diffusion, xiv, 244-51; on humoral medicine, xiii, 3-11, 30; on Lopez Austin, 251; on menstruation, 26; on placenta ritual, 60 freshness, 9, 49-50, 53, 56; of body tides, 172; earth, 60-3, 66, 81,1978; excess, 58, 78; and health, 11314; and heliotropic growth, 42-3, 118, 196; and hot-cold attribution, 21; and immaturity, 202; and mal de 070, 83; remedies, 102, 104; uterus, 59; water, 77,152-3; youth, 100 fright, xix, 11, 59,116-26; causes, 151; and energy, 154; healer, 120,141; healing, 138-9,148,151-3; from heat of dead, 101; and laziness, 125; remedies, 123; and snakebite, 105,149; tonalli. 46,123; water, 125; weakness, 130. See also pulse fruit, 21, 42, 45, 57,157,164-5,199; and chaneques, 126,128-9; and diarrhea, 74, 78; in corn mythology, 174,177-89; and hot-cold attribution, 21; and worms, 74 Garcia de Leon, A., on corn mythology, 174

290 Index gas, ihiyotl. 46,141 gaze: and desire, 90; strong, 83-9 gestation: and food restrictions, 58; and hot-cold attribution, 54 glans, and hair-stone-vessel imagery, 181 gluttony, 130,153, 231, 254 Gonzalez Torres, Yolotl: on human sacrifice, 35-7; on sacrificial skins, 65 gourd: calabash, 181-2,189,190; in corn mythology, 63,185,226; and procreation fluids, 180 grain, and fruit, 177-9,183 greed, punishment, 129-30 growth, 16, 39; cycle, 58; and heliotropic movement, 22-4, 28-9,41-3, 72,78-81,113,155,189,240; and hot-cold attribution, 27; and reproduction, 43; and tonalli. 118 hair, 39, 51, 87-8; and chaneque. 127; corn, 109,191; in corn mythology, 174,181-2,200-1,208,214-15,221, 223, 240; cutting, 59; and stringbelt imagery, 223 harmony, 26,35,42,47, 96,187,210, 247; and mediation, 200, 205; and milpa cycle, 240 harvest, 50, 68,131,156; in corn mythology, 161,204,214,216,21920, 223, 226,228-9; and hot-cold attribution, 27-8; and milpa cycle, 190,192,194,200; and moon, 166, 172 head, 62, 64-5; bowing, 89,90, 215, 219; in corn mythology, 32,176, 181-2, 203,209, 214, 223, 226,229, 234; and egg rub, 83; and placenta, 62, 67; and sowing ritual, 161;

and tonalli. 31,46,119,125; water, 69 headache: and fright, 116; and hotcold changes, 73; mat amor, 89-93, 96; and placenta, 63; and sexual inactivity, 98; and strong sight, 82 healing: and aguardiente, 102; and chaneque, 133,137,140-7,151-2; fright, 118,125-6,138-9,142,14853; and hot-cold balance, 21-2, 27, 60; and humoral theories, 8-10, 12-13; mal amor, 92, 95-7; mal de o/o, 83; power, 143,146,171; and self-denial, 114,134-6,148,151, 154; and sexual diet, 80,136; snakebite, 108-9; in Tzintzuntzan, 8 health, xi-xvi; and balance, 79; and birth rituals, 61-4, 67-8, 81; and blood, 120-1; and equilibrium, 1624,41, 56, 58,73, 78,80,113,155; equipoise, 46; freshness, 62,11314; and hot-cold dichotomy, 1214; of humans and plants, xiv, 27-8,161,173; and humoral theories, 4-10; and laziness, 47-9; and movement, 41,49,113; and sacrificial morality, 37, 39, 53, 216; and self-denial, 113-14,136,162,216 heart, 33; of corn seed, 195; and fright, 119-20,130; of newborn, 42; offering, 37,169; refreshment, 4950,53,68; rotting, 195; sacrifice, 33, 36-7; of soil, 197; stomach, 51-2, 71, 76; teyolia, 46 heartache: and diarrhea, 90; stomach, 51,75 heat: of dead, 13,46,99-104,106,114, 246; emanation, 13,44,46,82-3,85, 99-104,114,116,125,165, 241,246;

Index 291 of full moon, 164,166-7; mal amor, 89-93,96,98-9,114,241; mal de ojo, 83, 85, 89; menstruation, 60,113, 153,165,172; and self-denial, 135, 157,160,170; tonalli. 31, 44,136; snakebite, 106,108,111-12,115-16, 241; sexual, 54,123; solar, 82,118, 124,162,176,202-3, 216, 229,254; and work, 73-4, 76 heavens, 33,155; and hot-cold attribution, 31 hierarchy, and reciprocity, 178 Homshuk: egg, 160,174,177-9,18390,199-200,202,206,208,225,227, 231, 234; growth, 42; head, 124; and milpa, 158; and mountainearth-house imagery, 185; prayer, 156; and snake, 109-10; story, 17389; and thunder, 32,124. See also corn god; Sintiopiltsin honey: and hot-cold attribution, 160; and infant feeding, 75; and newborn, 164; and sex, 208; and women, 164 house, 38,45,68,101, 111, 152,157, 169; chan. 126; chaneque. 127-8,151; cleaning, 103^, 114,137,153; and mountain-earth imagery, 185-6; and placenta burial, 60-6, 81,184; and watery-stone imagery, 184 Huemac, 86-9, 95 Huitzilopochtli, 36, 85 humidity, and hot-cold attribution, 32 humoral medicine: Hippocratic, xii, 3-5; in Latin America, 5-11, 30, 248; Spanish, 249 humoral quality: diffusion and adaptation of, 246; thermal and metaphoric, 9-15

humoralism: Latin American, 5-11, 30,244-8; secular, 30,247, 251-2, 255 hunger, 38,47,167,172; and cyclic equilibrium, 53,79-80,118; and heat emanation, 100; and hot-cold attribution, 21, 52 hunting: and birth ritual, 66; and chaneque. 130-1,133,209; and fasting, 133; offering, 136,139; prayer, 137 ice, 195, 203; heat, 24; and hot-cold attribution, 10; and snake, 106-7; and snakebite, 108 iguana, 113; and chaneque. 127; in corn mythology, 129,174,199-203, 206-7, 211, 216-18; and mediation, 200,204-6; nest, 199; prey, 206; and sexual power, 213; and snake, 200, 209; tail, 174,199,206,208-10,212, 214, 218; tongue, 207-8 ihiyotl: anus-fart-breath imagery, 141; heat emanation, 103; vigour, 46 illness, xi-xii, 27; and balance and pace, 79; chipujo, 48; and crossroad, 106; and cyclic movement, 27, 49; and equilibrium, xiv, 5,10, 21, 47; heartache, 51; and hot-cold attribution, 14, 20, 23-4; of humans and plants, 27,156; ihiyotl, 46; and morality, 163; prevention, 60-5, 67-9; self-absorption, 104; and spirituality, 31-2; and wind, 73. See also diarrhea; fever; fright; mal amor; mal de ojo immaturity, 53,199, 214,218; and freshness, 202; and punishment, 201

292 Index intercourse: debilitation, 134-5; and drying, 54; and heat of dead, 104; and mal amor, 91-2, 95; and soul, 123; and umbilical cord, 67. See also coitus interpretive method, 173,176-7 irritation: eye, 82; and placenta, 61-2 jealousy, 146,246; and ihiyotl. 46 jonote worms, and excrement-reproduction imagery, 71-2 journey, corn god, 169,185,219-30 Kelly, Isabel et al., on fright, 123-4 Klor de Alva, Jorge: on chaneques and Christianity, 147; on ihiyotl. 103 labour, and hot-cold attribution, 54 lasso, and corn boy, 199,206,208, 212, 214,223,238. See also hair Law, H., on corn mythology, 174 laziness: chipujo, 47-8, 76; and cycle disruption, 49; and diarrhea, 76-8; and fright, 125; and illness, 47,80 leaders: and heat, 44; and mortification, 168; and sexual diet, 82. See also Carnaval Legend of the Suns, 232,235^0 leisure: and refreshment, 50; and soul, 123 Leon-Portilla, Miguel: on Age of the Fifth Sun, 34; on chromatic-compass associations, 240; on Legend of the Suns, 235-40; on Tohuenyo story, 85-8 lethargy, lovesickness, and soul loss, 56 life: and Age of the Fifth Sun, 42; cycle, 42,155,162,231, 233; as heliotropic movement, 23-4,26,

41-2,47; regeneration, 220; and spirituality, 32. See also growth lightning, 96,117,149,153,158,1634,190,215,239; god, 203,226,229 liver, 62,108; ihiyotl. 46 lizard: and chaneque. 126; strength, 205; tongue, 175-6,208. See also iguana logical simplification, 248,250 Lopez Austin, Alfredo: on chromatic-compass associations, 240; on food-refreshment imagery, 52; on Foster, xiii, 250; on fright, 123; on health-equilibrium model, 1621; on heat emanations from rulers, 168; on hot-cold dichotomy, xiii-iv, 31-2; on ihiyotl. 141; on mal de ojo, 85; on thermal-health imagery, 49 lovesickness, 82-100; fever, 83; as organic imbalance, 56. See also mal amor lowland, 220; wetness, 197, 202 Madsen, William, on Aztec-Hippocratic syncretism, 251 maize, 27, 30, 32; black, 125; in childbirth rituals, 66,68; as food of heart, 42; and hot-cold attribution, 51; nourishment, 50. See also corn mal amor, 82-99,114,241; and fertility, 118. See also lovesickness mal de ojo, 83-5,89. See also evil eye male, 65,81,163,180,211; corn, 179, 225; egg, 177,188-9; fluids, 55,179; and hot-cold attribution, 31; seed, 172,187-8; sun, 45,167; vessels, 179,181-3 masculinity: and hot-cold attribution, 82

Index 293 masturbation, as wastage, 55 maturation, 18; and fright, 122; as heliotropic growth, 79,118,121; and hot-cold attribution, 21, 42; and pilgrimage, 220. See also maturity maturity: in corn mythology, 199, 201-2, 214-15, 218,220, 230; and dryness, 42,100,202; and fire, 44; as heliotropic growth, 43; low-tide, 172; and reproduction, 53,167; and self-denial, 214-15; sexual, 55, 66; and sexual diet, 169. See also maturation mediation, 200; ascetic, 205-7; hedonistic, 205-7; and iguana, 205, 218 megat: and self-denial, 212-15; and sexual connotations, 209; stringdomination imagery, 208-9, 211 menstruation, 26, 47; and cyclic equilibrium, 79; and food restrictions, 57-8; and fright, 153; and heat emanation, 60, 100, 113; and hotcold attribution, 20-1, 54, 56, 60, 80; and humoral value, 14,17, 26; and lunar cycle, 70; and snakebite, 111; and sowing, 172 mestizaje, and hot-cold beliefs and practices, 255 midwife: and childbirth rituals, 60-9, 81,114,184; goddess, 104; and knowledge transmission, xi; and replacement chicken, 140-1 milk, 20; commercial, 74, 78; as fluid of life; 112,181-3; and hot-cold attribution, 108; remedies, 109; and snakebite, 108. See also breastfeeding milpa, xv, 25, 29,43,47,50, 53, 111; calabash, 181; Carnaval, 171;

chahuistle, 157; and childbirth rituals, 61,68; cycle, 33,189-99, 216, 240; eggs, 177-9,183,187; and hotcold attribution, 51; king, 174; and moon, 163,166; orphans, 204; and postpartum restrictions, 59; productivity, 53; protection, 158; and punishment, 129; and rest, 49,1968; and snake, 110; sowing, 156,159, 172; weeding, 186,190; and woman, 163—4 mistress, 89; and chaneque, 98, 209; and mal amor, 89; and tortilla, 131-2 moon, 32-3,36; and castration, 164; corn, 172; cycle, 45-6; heat emanation, 164,166-7; and harvesting, 166; and menstruation, 70; and sowing, 164; spirit, 32, 82; and women, 163,164 morality, xv, 30; Christian, 98; and illness, 163; and milpa cultivation, 199, 205; native, 98; sacrificial, 39, 212,233,238 mortification, 35,42; and chaneque, 133; and leaders, 54,168 mountain, 45,184-6, 202; chaneque, 126,143,171; and hot-cold attribution, 31; of sustenance, 235-8 mourning, 100,114,153; and heat of dead, 102^1 mouth, 52, 62, 69-70,181; and ihiyotl 141; and mal amor, 90, 96-7; and mal de ojo, 85; and soul, 119-20 movement: and Age of the Fifth Sun, 42; as heliotropic growth, 22-4, 289,41-3,53, 72, 78-81,113,155,189, 240; and sacrifice, 32 mucus: diarrhea, 70; dog, 138; mal amor, 89-90; mal de ojo, 85

294 Index Munch Galindo, Guido: on chaneques and Christianity, 146-7; on childbirth rituals, 66; on chromaticcompass associations, 240; on copal and flowers, 152; on enchanted beast, 132; on heat emanations from leaders, 168; on soul snatching, 120; on wake rituals, 103 mythology, xv; corn, 29, 39,49,17389; and health, 32; Nahua, 224; native, 205; Popoluca, 228,239. See also corn god Nahua, xvi-xix; Age of the Fifth Sun, 26; Cuetzalan, 21,123; hot-cold dichotomy, 21 Nanahuatzin, 33, 36 Neuenswander, Helen, and Shirley D. Souder, on health-equilibrium model, 16-20 newborn: anus-breath imagery, 141; bath, 141; and birth rituals, 60-9, 81,114,184; chick, 139^0; and honey, 164; and hot-cold attribution, 42 night, 22, 30; and cyclic equilibrium, 79; hot-cold attribution, 20; rest, 49 nightmare: fright, 117; and selfdenial, 153; and soul loss, 121 nose: chaneque. 127-8; and power, 178, 224 Ochpaniztli. 169 offerings, 30,35-6,42; alcohol, 151; chaneque. 140-1,158,168,172; copal incense, 136-8,151,168-9; heart, 169; life renewal, 26, 33^, 44; milpa, 156; New Fire, 36; of remains, 136; river, 152; slave, 37; soul, 142,

151; and Tohuenyo. 88; waterfall, 152. Bee also tlamacehua Olavarrieta Marenco, Marcela: on fright, 123-5; on hot-cold attributions, 28; on hot-cold healing, 9; on mal de ojo, 83 Ollintonatiuh. 33 owner: chaneque. 110,126,129,136, 141,147,151; of corn hill, 239; of death, 141 paleness: chipujo, 51; and fright, 119; and laziness, 47-8,80; and sex, 55 parasites: and fruit and sweets, 74; and lunar cycle, 70 pasmo, 22 passion, ihiyotl. 46 patient, 5, 77; fright, 120,125,136-9, 148-52; and self-denial, 133,135, 153; snakebite, 108-11 payment: chaneque. 142,144,146,157; chicken, 139; copal incense, 136-7; and corn god, 175, 230; healing, 126; hunt, 129; and power, 147; and sacrifice, 37; and sin, 133; soul, 133,141-8 penance, 32,38,171, 237-8; and fright, 154; and life renewal, 33. See also tlamacehua penis, 179-81; blood, 237,239; gourdvessel imagery, 182; husking device, 215; loss, 93,97; and Ouetzalcoatl. 33; and Tohuenyo. 86; and umbilical cord, 66,81; yearning, 88 pilgrimage: corn god, 174, 219-24; fathers, 219-21 pineapple: and hot-cold attribution, 25,47; and mal de orin, 73 placenta, 60-4,68, 81; and anger, 62;

Index 295 and auroral imagery, 64; and earth imagery, 67; and sacrificial skin, 66 planting: and cutting, 186; and hotcold attribution, 27; and selfdenial, 156-7; and weeding, 189 pleasure: excess, 53; and chaneque. 152; and sacrificial morality, 37, 136,154,156,205-6, 231 political authority, and hot-cold attribution, 21. See also Carnaval Popoluca, xvi-xix posole, 74; and mal amor, 91,96-7 postpartum, 56-60; food restrictions, 59; hot-cold attribution, 56; humoral value, 14, 26 power: chaneque. 118,130; healing, 135,143,154; and heat, 44, 82,100; of language, 207; and maturity, 201; and payment, 147; and sacrificial morality 32, 36, 39, 205, 223, 234; and self-denial, 80,169; and sexual diet, 169; tonalli. 46 pragmatic adaptation, 246-7 pragmatism, 257 prayer: fright healing, 147-9,151; hunting, 137; sahumar, 142; sowing, 156, 204, 225 predator, 111, 157-8; ant, 160, 220, 222, 224-7; and corn boy, 206-7; iguana, 113, 205-7, 224 pregnancy, 17,22, 26; and cyclic equilibrium, 79; and diarrhea, 71; and fetal tumour imagery, 71; heat emanation, 100,153,165,172; and hot-cold attribution, 20-1, 54, 56, 60,80; and humoral value, 14, 26; and mal de ojo, 83; and preventive care, 56-60; and snakebite, 111; and sowing, 166,172; and worms, 51

prestige, and sacrifice, 36-7 prey: and ants, 221-4; and iguana, 206-9, 211-14 Prince of Tides, 230-2 protection, and domination, 188 public office, and hot-cold attribution, 21. See also power pulque: abstention, 35; and fatigue, 52 pulse: chipujo, 48; fright, 116-17,149, 151; heart, 119; and maturation, 42; moving, 119-20; weakness, 120,122 punishment, 35; chaneque. 130-1,133; corn god, 176,211,218, 230; and immaturity, 201 quail offering, 35-7 quarrelling, and diarrhea, 73, 78 Ouetzakoatl. 36, 86,147,184,221, 235-7, 239 rabbit: ears, 175; horns, 230 rain: and growth, 189; and milpa production, 237; and sacrifice, 37; and spirituality, 32; and Thunderbolt, 225; and water-burning, 194 reciprocity, 204; divine-human, 40; and hierarchy, 178; tlamacehua. 38; unequal, 34 red: ants, 220; blood, 47,102; cloth, 163-4; corn, 109,112, 225; earth, 143,145,151; flag, 165; hair, 201, 208, 240; and hot-cold attribution, 32,102; power, 164; ribbon, 113, 164; and snakebite, 105,112; soil, 197; staff, 158; strength, 164-5. See also blood; redness redness: and hot-cold attribution, 32; and mal amor, 90; and milpa protection, 165; sacrificial, 239. See also red

296 Index refreshment, 50, 70,112,118; sexual, 80, 91,134-5; soul, 123 remains, and river, 139—40 remedies: alcohol, 108; boiled water, 108; chaneque, 125-6; fright, 117, 125; heat of dead, 102,104; mal amor, 88,91,95, 98; mal de ojo, 83-4; preventive, 59; self-denial, 135; snakebite, 108-9 renewal, 35; and death, 189; and life fluids, 190 replacement. See chicken; soul reproduction, 113; and destruction, 189; and hot-cold cycle, 43, 80; and sacrifice, 216; and self-denial, 216 respect, 54,65,133,154; and sexual diet, 169 respiration, and ihiyotl. 46 rest, 47-8, 50; and cyclic equilibrium, 79-80; and death, 49; excess, 53; and hot-cold attribution, 20, 26-8; and hot-cold cycle, 22-3, 41; and strength, 198 retribution, proportional, 211 ripeness, and hot-cold attribution, 43; and low-tide, 172 river: bath, 104,139; and Carnaval, 168; and egg, 165,182; fall, 116; fright, 129,149; offering, 142,152; payment, 144; and placenta, 61; and remains, 137; and wake rituals, 103 rock: in corn mythology, 174; and placenta, 61 rote learning, 245-6,250-1 rotting: chahuistle. 58,90,157; and death, 55, 79,119,195; and fright, 119,153; and immaturity, 201; and moon, 166; and placenta, 63-8, 81

sacrifice, xv, 22,32; and Carnaval, 170; and chaneque. 134; chicken, xii, 138, 140-2,153,216; communal, 35; corn god, 212; as economic transaction, 37,42; as exchange, 37,39, 205; and fright, 154; and health, 31; and hot-cold attribution, 30; individual, 35-6; life renewal, 24, 26, 33,162; and milpa cycle, 199; and movement, 38; and reproduction, 216; self, 40,148; soul, 143,146. See also self-denial; tlamacehua sadness: and hot-cold attribution, 59; and illness, 104; mal de ojo, 85 sahumar: and chaneque, 134; and copal incense, 142; and fright healing, 151,153; and mal amor, 97-8; and milpa, 159; prayer, 142 saliva: and mal amor, 91, 96-7; and mal de ojo, 84 salmera, and soul loss, xii. See also fright healer salt, 78; and chaneque. 127; and hotcold attribution, 245 San Juan Bautista: and devil, 147; and fright healing, 150; and medicinal plants, 171; and snakebite healer, 171 Sandstrom, A.R., on hot-cold dichotomy, 247 sapodilla fruit, 174 seed: fruit, 189; and maturity, 53; planting, 44; reproduction, 23; sowing, 59; strength, 54 self-absorption: illness, 59, 104; and snakebite, 110 self-denial, 205; energy, 135; healing, 135,143; and iguana-trap imagery, 207; and mevat imagery, 212-15; and power, 169-70; and reproduc-

Index 297 tion, 234; and sex, 133; and stringbelt imagery, 223, 238; and turtle imagery, 230-1. See also selfsacrifice self-mastery, 113; and corn journey, 234; and health, 31 self-sacrifice, 113; and authority, 161; and corn cultivation, 224; politics, 161. See also self-denial semen: egg-stone imagery, 180-1; exhaustion, 54; and hot-cold cycle, 55; and humoral value, 14; and mat amor, 95; rejection, 58; strength, 50, 75,157 sentiment, and ihiyotl. 46 sex: and cyclic equilibrium, 79-80; and feather-tail imagery, 210; and heat of dead, 100-1,104; and honey, 208; and hot-cold attribution, 53; and hot-cold cycle, 23; and humoral value, 6,11,14,17; and self-denial, 133-4. See also sexual sexual: abstinence, xiii, 35, 53-4, 80, 100,135,142,147,153,157,168-9, 172; anemia, 55; deprivation, 98; desire, 93,100; energy, 98; maturity, 55; organ, 90-1, 98; propriety, 95; refreshment, 91; relations, 99; yearning, 86, 90-1, 97-8,118. See also sex shade, and hot-cold attribution, 20 shadow, and tonal. 43 shame: and cycle disruption, 49; and mal amor, 97 shells, and blood, 32 sight, 82. See also gaze sin, 54,133, 209 Sintiopiltsin: growth, 42; story, 17389. See also corn god; Homshuk

skins: and cave, 65,169; sacrificial, 169 sky, 36,45,170; in corn mythology, 206,218, 226; and hot-cold attribution, 31 sleep, 14,17; chipujo, 47-8; in corn mythology, 221,224-5; and energy balance, 155; and equilibrium, 223; and renewal, 49; and self-denial, 134,143,161; and soul, 119,123; tonalli. 46 snake, 112; blood, 106; and chaneque. 131,136; and corn, 238; dog, 136; fright, 133; and Homshuk, 109-10; and hunter, 130; and ice, 106; and iguana, 200, 209; and milpa, 110; twins, 184; vomit, 108 snakebite, 104-12; anxiety, 105; chaneque. 131; fright, 105,149; healer, xi, 63,141,145-6; remedies, 107-11; and self-denial, 134,142; and sorrow, 105; spit, 111-12; and worrying, 106 snare, 188-9; and corn boy, 206, 2089,214 soap, 137; fright healing, 152; and heat of dead, 104; in wake rituals, 103 . social position, and hot-cold attribution, 21-2 softness, and hot-cold attribution, 21 soil: craving, 51, 255; erosion, 197; fertility, 198; freshness, 73; heart, 197; taxonomy, 197,252 son, 143^, 158,178,182; and lowland imagery, 202 sorrow: and placenta, 67; and snakebite, 105,110; and umbilical cord, 67

298 Index soul, xiii, 56; and chaneque. 121,132, 147; and death, 143; debilitated, 58; energy, 121; and heart, 119; heat, 100; and hot-cold attribution, 32, 79; and mouth, 120; payment, 133, 137,141-8; salvation, 37-8; and sleep, 123; strength, 85,117; teyolia, 46; theft, 116-17,123,125,130, 132,149,151,154; tonalli. 32,43, 118,124. See also exchange Soustelle, ]., on space and time, 29 sowing, 155-7,159-60,172; and milpa cycle, 193; and moon, 164; prayer, 204; and pregnancy, 166; and renewal, 162; and rituals, 158,161; and thunder, 163 space, 25,27-9,33,41,205-6,240. See also time spirit, 29; anger, 131; earth, 106; and health, 28; heart, 120; and heat emanation, 100; life force, 43; and moon, 82; and mouth, 119; and placenta burial, 65; and self-abnegation, 98; strong, 124; and sun, 32, 82; tonalli. 32; weak, 62,124 spirituality, xv, 22; Christian, 30; and hot-cold attribution, 30; pre-Hispanic, 38 spit, 111-12 spring: chaneque. 126,154; fright, 129 sterility, and cold exposure, 56 stomach: mouth, 52; worms, 51. See also heartache stones, 179; and corn god, 66,227-8, 233, 238; and drying womb, 59; and egg-testicle imagery, 179-87; and freshness, 109 strength, 23,48,112-13; adult, 53; blood, 121; corn, 110; and dryness, 44,118; earth, 190; and fright, 149;

and heliotropic growth, 42; and hot-cold attribution, 82; and redness, 164; and rest, 198; and sex, 55,157; soil, 186; solar, 116; and work, 51 string, 113; and corn boy, 206,208-9, 214. See also belt; hair subordination, and domination, 189 subservience, and authority, 189 suffocation, and placenta, 63 sun, 24, 29; Christ, 171; corn, 157, 159-60; cycle, 45-6; and hot-cold attribution, 20,32; movement, 33; tonalli. 31; and work, 41. See also energy; growth susto. See fright sweat, 22; and dryness, 62; and health, 76; and mal de ojo, 85; and placenta, 61-3, 81; and tonal. 125 sweepings: and fright, 137,153; and heat of dead, 101,103-4; and river, 61 sweets, and diarrhea, 78 swelling, 112; diarrhea, 73; snakebite, 111 syncretism, xii, 171,241,244,249, 254, 256-9 tagatauatzaloyan, 45,174,199, 200, 202, 217,219,224 tail, 113; decay, 211; iguana, 174,199, 206-12,214, 218; and laziness, 225; and reproductive power, 210. See also belt; hair tallada, 148. See also fright healing tapachole, 194,197

tears, and hot-cold attribution, 104 Tedlock, Barbara, on healing traditions of Quiche Maya, 154 tegui. 213,215-16

Index 299 testicle: birth-stone motif, 179-80, 183,185; rock, 185 teyolia soul, 46 Tezcatlipoca. 147 thunder, 82, 219; and corn god, 124, 175-6; and corn growth, 226; as father figure, 228-9; god, 32,165, 173, 203,225-6, 228-9, 233,235, 239; and milpa production, 237; and rain, 190; and sowing, 163. See also Thunderbolt Thunderbolt, 203,225, 227-9, 232^, 236 Thunderbolt Woman, 164 tides, 23; and cutting, 166; cyclic, 41; high and low, 166,172; Prince of, 230-2 time, 163,219; and Age of the Fifth Sun, 33; and cyclic equilibrium, 79; lunisolar, 32; and movement, 34; mythical, 239; narrative, 205; and space, 25, 27-9,33,41,205-6, 240 Tlaloc. 32,124,126 tlaloques. 32,124,126,236-7, 239 tlamacehua. 32-5,147, 237. See also covenant; sacrifice toad,and warts, 175 Tod, 36, 65,104,169 Tohuenyo. 86-8, 91,95 tonal: egg, 125; and fright, 117; soul, 118; sun-soul imagery, 43; sweat, 125. See also tonalli tonalli. 31, 43; and fright, 123; and growth, 118; and head, 119; soul, 124; vital power, 46. See also energy; tonal tongue, iguana, 207-8,211 tortilla: burial, 103; diet, 255; and hot-cold attribution, 20; and infant feeding, 75; and mal amor, 97-8;

and mistress, 131-2; nourishment, 50-1, 74,179; offering, 137; and postpartum restrictions, 59 tribute: divine, 36; sacrificial, 37. See also offerings Troche, Viviane, on hot-cold healing, 21 tumour, 71,112,115; and hot-cold attribution, 78 turtle, 219; back, 175,228-30; and vulva imagery, 230 twins: and mal de ojo, 83; and sex, 185; and sibling-egg imagery, 187; and snake, 83-4 umbilical cord, 61-4,68, 81; and corn, 184; cutting, 66,69, 81; and house, 66; and land, 64, 67; and liana-string imagery, 209; and twin-serpent imagery, 67 unconsciousness, and tonalli. 46 underwear: and mal amor, 91,93,95; and mal de ojo, 83-4 upland dryness, 202 urine: on chest, 174, 224; and mal amor, 91-3, 95-6 uterus, 58; drying, 59; head-gourd imagery, 181; and umbilical cord, 66-7, 81; water, 68 vagina, 180-1; ashes, 182; fluids, 55; obstruction, 58. See also calabash; chayote valour: and self-denial, 212; and string-belt imagery, 215 venom, 107; heat emanation, 112; and hot-cold attribution, 106. See also snake Viesca Trevino, Carlos, on ihiyotl. 103

300 Index vigil, 133; Carnaval, 54,168; and mortification, 35; and snakebite healer, 134; and soul exchange, 143; and sowing rituals, 160; strength, 135; and tonal. 170 vigour, 22,112; adult, 53; and ihiyotl. 46; and sexual diet, 157 virgin, and ritual tasks, 134 vomit, 5; and breast milk, 60; and chipujo, 51; and diarrhea, 73, 78; and excess water, 58; and lunar cycle, 70; mal de ojo, 83; snake, 108 vulnerability, postpartum, 59 wake: and heat of dead, 102-4; and tonal. 170. See also mourning water, 22,24,29,118,137; and blood, 32; and chaneque. 126; chlorinated, 77-8; and corn growth, 226; excess, 50; fetching, 200; first era, 42; freshness, 64; and fright, 116-17, 123,125,133,153; and hot-cold attribution, 32; and life, 177; and mal amor, 96; and snakebite, 108; womb, 189 water-burning: chahuistle. 64; and death, 55,113; and fright, 119; heat, 24; and infertility, 58; and snakebite, 106,108 waterfall: and Carnaval, 168; and chaneque. 126; offerings, 152; and wake rituals, 103 weakness, 113; anemia, 56; chipujo, 51; and cycle disruption, 49; fright, 119,123,130; and hot-cold attribution, 42; and laziness, 80; mal amor, 56,97; postpartum, 59; and youth, 53. See also soul theft wealth, and sacrifice, 36, 39 weather, and health, 73

weeding: milpa, 186,190, 222; and planting, 189 well: and chaneque. 154; and fright, 129; and mal amor, 97-8; and reproduction, 199 wetness: and freshness, 118; and heliotropic growth, 43,191; lowland, 202 whip: megat imagery, 68,209,214; and wind, 215 widow: and fright, 153; and heat of dead, 100,104 wind: bowing, 201; burning, 194; and cardinal points, 240; and corn growth, 215,226; evil, 58-9,112; fright, 133; and hot-cold attribution, 32; and illness, 73; and menstruation, 113; norte, 200, 202-3; and pregnancy, 113; surada, 202-3; and sweat, 49 wisdom, 129,171; corn god, 214,221; and maturity, 201 withering, and soul loss, 121 woman: and corn, 157,159-60; and honey, 164; and moon, 163-4; and snake imagery, 112; and snakebite, 111; and strong nature, 55; and weak nature, 56 womb: and cold exposure, 56; and corn, 163; earth, 45; fluids, 80; and gourd-vessel imagery, 182; and placenta burial, 65; water, 189 work, 17,22,47-8,51; and courage, 121; and cyclic equilibrium, 79-80; and diarrhea, 78; fatigue, 49; and food, 177-9; and heat emanation, 99; and hot-cold attribution, 20-1, 26; and hot-cold cycle, 22-3, 41 worms: and fruit, 74; and remedies, 78; and soil eating, 51

Index 301 worrying: and hot-cold attribution, 59; and pregnancy, 69; and snakebite, 106 wound, and heat of dead, 101 yellow illness, 47 young: and hot-cold attribution, 26,

42-3; and humoral value, 14; and old, 177-9,183; and water, 190 youth: and cyclic equilibrium, 79; and freshness, 100; and hot-cold attribution, 28; and respect, 169; and ritual tasks, 134; weakness, 54

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ANTHROPOLOGICAL HORIZONS Editor: Michael Lambek, University of Toronto Published to date: 1 The Varieties of Sensory Experience: A Sourcebook in the Anthropology of the Senses Edited by David Howes 2 Arctic Homeland: Kinship, Community, and Development in Northwest Greenland Mark Nuttall 3 Knowledge and Practice in Mayotte: Local Discourses of Islam, Sorcery, and Spirit Possession Michael Lambek 4 Deathly Waters and Hungry Mountains: Agrarian Ritual and Class Formation in an Andean Town Peter Gose 5 Paradise: Class, Commuters, and Ethnicity in Rural Ontario Stanley R. Barrett 6 The Cultural World in Beowulf John M. Hill 7 Making It Their Own: Severn Ojibwe Communicative Practices Lisa Philips Valentine 8 Merchants and Shopkeepers: A Historical Anthropology of an Irish Market Town, 1200-1991 Philip Gulliver and Marilyn Silverman 9 Tournaments of Value: Sociability and Hierarchy in a Yemeni Town Ann Meneley 10 Mal'uocchiu: Ambiguity, Evil Eye, and the Language of Distress Sam Migliore 11 Between History and Histories: The Making of Silences and Commemorations Edited by Gerald Sider and Gavin Smith 12 Eh Paesan! Being Italian in Toronto Nicholas DeMaria Harney 13 Theorizing the Americanist Tradition Edited by Lisa Philips Valentine and Regna Darnell 14 Colonial 'Reformation' of the Highlands of Central Sulawesi, Indonesia, 1892-1995 Albert Schrauwers

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