the two maya bodies: an elementary model of tzeltal personhood

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The Two Maya Bodies: AnElementary Model of TzeltalPersonhoodPedro Pitarch aa Historia de América II, Facultad de Geografiae Historia, Universidad Complutense, CiudadUniversitaria, Madrid, 28040, Spain

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The Two Maya Bodies: An ElementaryModel of Tzeltal Personhood

Pedro PitarchHistoria de America II, Facultad de Geografia e Historia, Universidad Complutense, Ciudad Universitaria, Madrid,28040, Spain

abstract The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to the indigenous Maya-Tzeltal distinction between two types of human bodies: a carnal body, shared withanimals, and a specifically human phenomenological body. This distinction, in turn,is equivalent to the indigenous distinction between two souls: a soul in a humanshape and a soul in a non-human shape, generally that of an animal species. Theparallelism between bodies and souls leads me to propose a reorganisation of theindigenous concept of the person in terms of a quaternary model, which remains essen-tially binary (body/soul) yet permits the integration of elements which are differentfrom each other, like the two bodies and the two souls, and yet mutually necessaryto make up the person.

keywords Bodies, personhood, shamanism, Maya-Tzeltal, Mesoamerica

In this paper, I outline a Maya-Tzeltal model of the person constructed onsomewhat different bases from those used conventionally in Mesoamericanethnology. What prompted me to develop it was the discovery of the dis-

tinction the Tzeltal make between two types of body in humans. On the onehand, there is a ‘flesh-body’, the union of flesh and bodily fluids making up awhole that is divisible into parts, an object that is sentient, though lacking thecapacity to relate socially to other beings, and that represents the substantialhomogeneity between humans and animals. On the other hand, there is a‘presence body’, an active subject capable of perception, feeling and cognition,committed to an inter-subjective relationship with bodies of the same species.Such a ‘dissociation’ of the body is equivalent to what I define as an elementarydistinction of Mesoamerican souls: one type of soul with the figure of a body

ethnos, vol. 00:0, ifirst 2011 (pp. 1–22)

# 2011 Routledge Journals, Taylor and Francisissn 0014-1844 print/issn 1469-588x online. doi: 10.1080/00141844.2011.590217

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and another with a non-human form, generally that of an animal. It is preciselythis homology between bodies and souls that leads me to propose a modifi-cation of the concept of the indigenous person in terms of a ‘quaternary’model made up of four elements: a substantial shape (‘presence-body’), a sub-stance with no shape (‘flesh-body’), an unsubstantial shape (‘human-soul’) andunsubstantiality with no shape (‘spirit-soul’). Such a model, while still essentiallybinary (body/soul), nonetheless permits integration of the parallel schema oftwo bodies and two souls making up human beings, at the same time as itdescribes their ontological relations of continuity and discontinuity withanimals on the one hand and spirits on the other.

This work can be seen as a contribution to the field of study on Amerindian‘ontologies’ from a particular angle of Mesoamerican ethnography. This is anarea that has been under-represented in recent discussions on this topic, bothfrom an empirical and a conceptual point of view. It is well known thatstudies on indigenous ontologies in both the Amazonian region (Descola2005; Taylor 1996, 1998; Viveiros de Castro 2002a) and North America(Ingold 2000) have not only inspired studies on other ethnographic regions(Pedersen 2001; Willerslev 2007), but have also led to renewed interest incontemporary anthropological theory. Nonetheless, in this case my interestlies not so much in discussion on Mesoamerica with respect to such conceptsas animism, totemism, perspectivism and the like, but, more specifically,in understanding the relations of continuity and discontinuity between thecorporeal and spiritual principles in beings, an understanding that lies at thevery essence of discussion on Amerindian ontologies (Viveiros de Castro2009:48–9).

Indeed, I believe that in order to make the most of these concepts in Mesoa-merican studies, we should first try to define the relations between body andsoul, having previously established what constitutes a ‘body’ and what constitu-tes a ‘soul’. There is no doubt that it is the body that is the less understood ofthese two aspects. Generally speaking, in Mesoamerican ethnography, thebody has tended to be seen as a relatively natural object and therefore notnecessarily problematic in terms of its cultural description; if souls are con-sidered to belong to the field of cultural variation, the body, in contrast,forms part of the field of objective facts. In keeping with this convention, theethnography of Mexico and Guatemala details the presence of a remarkableplurality of souls (partly as a result of interest in the so-called ‘nahualism’),while the body has been considered as something singular. The classic studyby Lopez-Austin (1980), who pioneered studies on the body in Mesoamerica


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and greatly influenced their subsequent evolution, is mainly concerned withanatomical parts of the body, with souls and with the relations betweenthese aspects and the rest of the cosmos. Indeed, with certain exceptions,1

Mesoamerican ethnography mainly consists of studies on ethnoanatomy andits relation to the cosmos (Stross 1976; Villa-Rojas 1990; Ruz 1996; RomeroLopez 2006), or, in a different sense, of studies on cognitive linguistics thattake the body as the preferred object description (Leon, Loufdes de 1992;Levinson 1994), presumably under the assumption that it is a common objectand therefore more apt for linguistic comparison. In other words, the archivesof Mesoamerican ethnography contain a considerable amount of data onwhat an indigenous body looks like, but little on what it actually is. But, asElkins (1986) points out, with regard to the discipline of the art, for the fieldof study of the body to evolve, there must first be a devaluation of the academicstudy of anatomy.

The Maya-Tzeltal speakers number about 400,000 and are found in thestate of Chiapas in Southeast Mexico. They are mostly peasants who workon small plots of maize and beans, and other crops, such as coffee, for export.I began doing field work in this region some 22 years ago in the Cancucvalley area, paying special attention to ideas about souls (Pitarch 1996, 2010).Since then, I have carried on working almost continuously on such mattersas personhood, shamanism and indigenous medicine. Nonetheless, it was notuntil I embarked upon the translation of an extensive corpus of shamanicchants about 10 years ago that I began to look more closely at the indigenousbody. In fact, it was during the actual translation of the chants that I becameaware of the existence of two bodies for the first time. Although thisdistinction is recognised by all Tzeltals, it is in the context of shamanism andtherapeutic practices where it is put to use in a more systematic and deliberatefashion.

The nature of this paper is, therefore, more intensive than extensive. Insteadof basing it on a comparative study with other indigenous groups in Mexico andGuatemala, I have preferred to focus on my own ethnographic data on theTzeltal. The reason for this is that it is not easy to extrapolate the data anddistinctions described here to other written ethnographies based on differentquestions; neither does the highly particularistic nature of Mesoamericanethnography facilitate comparative generalisations. Therefore, rather thanmake systematic comparisons, I attempt, where possible, to make brief excur-sions – mainly in the form of footnotes – to other Mayan and Mesoamericangroups in a broader sense. It is my belief that this distinction between two


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bodies – and two souls – is something that is probably relatively common inMesoamerican languages.

The ‘Flesh-body’I translate the Tzeltal word bak’etal as ‘flesh-body’. In a literal sense, it alludes

to ‘flesh as a whole’, and its root – bak’et – means ‘flesh’, both human flesh andanimal flesh, whether alive or a piece of meat to be eaten. In his sixteenthcentury vocabulary of the Tzeltal language, Ara (1986 [1571]) translates bak’etalas ‘body, fleshly thing’.

The flesh-body comprises the human body as a whole, with the exception ofbones, head hair, body hair and nails. This is because no blood circulates inthese parts and blood is the essential element that defines the flesh-body.‘Blood gives life to the flesh; if you cut flesh, it bleeds’. The flesh-body is‘where blood flows, where it (the flesh) receives air, where it breathes’. TheTzeltal ideas on the body’s internal organisation are highly imprecise, but theidea that the cardiovascular system and respiratory system are one and thesame prevails. The air we breathe, which is indispensable for life, and thefood that nourishes us go straight to the heart and stomach, and from thereto the blood to be carried to the rest of the body. Naturally, no blood flowsto the bones, hair and nails. ‘Cutting them does not hurt’. The pain associatedwith spilled blood is another characteristic of the flesh-body. Flesh hurts if it iscut or opened up in a wound; limbs hurt, as do the head, joints and entrails.Muscles, fat, veins, skin, the head, ears and limbs are generally consideredpart of the flesh-body. In fact, as we shall see, one feature of the flesh-body isthat it is made up of ‘parts’, easily distinguishable discreet fragments susceptibleto being harmed by enemies.

For the Tzeltal, it is evident that plants do not have a flesh-body becauseplants and trees ‘have no blood, do not breathe’. All other animals, however– land and aquatic animals and birds – have a flesh-body. As with humans,fur, bones, claws, feathers and beaks are not part of the flesh-body. While it istrue that, unlike in humans, such ‘adornments’ may represent a considerableportion of the entire body, they nonetheless do not modify the animals’ appear-ance because, in fact, the flesh-body is not what gives an individual a specificshape. This body is not defined by its shape, but by the substance of which itis made. A synonym of the body – kojtol – refers to this. Kojtol comes fromthe term kojt, which means ‘on four legs’, in a quadruped position, and it isalso the classifier used to enumerate animals but not humans.2 In otherwords, it designates a posture and not a body shape. Does this mean that the


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flesh-body is animal flesh, or the animal nature of the body? Not exactly, in myopinion. Rather, it seems to be an element shared by both humans and animals,a primeval domain we could call ‘substance’ (‘anything with no definite shape ofwhich another physical thing is made’). And that substance is, essentially, fleshand blood.

A revealing fact in the understanding of this kind of body is that the foetus,while still in the womb, lacks a flesh-body, although it does have the secondtype of body, a presence-body. This is because a baby is part of its mother’sflesh-body until it is born. It can live in the womb, thanks to its mother’sblood; the foetus breathes and is nourished through her. The menstrual flowis interpreted as blood for the foetus which is simply expelled and wasted ifthere is no pregnancy. The foetus, therefore, lacks an independent bloodsystem, which is, as we have seen, the main criterion defining the flesh-body.In fact, a baby’s heart does not beat until it is born; only just after birth doesthe newborn becomes a flesh-body itself. Even then, the new flesh-body isnot fully independent, however, for the baby still has to ‘breathe’ through itsmother. For this reason, cutting the umbilical cord is delayed for as long as poss-ible and the baby will need to be nursed, for its mother’s milk transmits air aswell as nourishment. Even during the long period in which the baby iscarried on its mother’s back, in a sort of transferred breathing, the state of herblood (warm, cool . . .) will continue to gestate the baby.

Thus, certain ordinary spatial and temporal conditions, guaranteed by thesun’s light and warmth (Gossen 1974), are required for a flesh-body to takeshape; it needs to be ‘in this world’ and ‘at this time’. A foetus, however, isnearer to the ‘sacred’ state while it is in the cold darkness of the womb.Devoid of a flesh-body and nourished by blood alone, by nature it resemblesthe spirits more than it does human beings. Though the Maya do not sharethe Bolivian Quechua’s extreme idea that a foetus is a little devouring devilfrom pre-solar times that, nourished by blood, gradually consumes its motherduring pregnancy (Platt 2001), the foetus undoubtedly needs to be nourishedby its mother’s blood. This is so because the foetus has no blood of its ownand, therefore, no carnal body. It does not seem too forced to assume thatflesh, and human blood in particular, hold an extraordinary attraction forMesoamerican sacred beings – openly in pre-Columbian times, throughhuman sacrifices, and covertly today, through the ritual killing of animals andother euphemistic analogies – precisely because they themselves do not haveany.3



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The ‘Presence-body’The second body, winkilel, comprises the entire human body, including hair,

nails and bones. My informants stress that this body is formed by ‘all’, includingthe inside of the body. From their descriptions, however, it can be inferred thatthis body is characterised by its visibility, not so much the part of the body thatis visible, but insofar as a body exists to be seen and perceived, and, in turn, toperceive; in other words, a body involved in inter-subjective relationships withother similar bodies. It is in this sense that I translate winkilel as the ‘presence-body’. The presence-body is the figure, the body shape, the face, the way ofspeaking, of walking, of dressing. If I see someone from a distance, I can saythat the figure looks like the winkilel of Peter, although it may turn out to besomeone else. It is what reminds us of a deceased person, or the premonitionof what a baby will be like before it is born.

We can try to clarify further this idea of ‘presence’ by paying attention to theterm’s root – win-, whose meaning is ‘to appear’, ‘to become visible’ (Laughlin1975). The morpheme has a wide semantic field in Mayan languages. It is foundin the word winik, which is commonly translated as ‘human being’, ‘body’, or‘person’.4 It also means ‘corpulence’, something that is a key datum, for,unlike the flesh-body, which is defined by the substance of which it is made,the presence-body is characterised by the volume it occupies, in the sense ofres extensa: its extension in length, width and depth. I suspect the term winwas borrowed from Mixe–Zoquean languages, where it appears to be associ-ated with power (the capacity to do things), the face, the eye, the body,surface, oneself (the reflexive form of the personal pronoun), facade, wrappingand also mask. In other words, it is something seen, but it also serves to seethrough. Moreover, the indigenous identification of the self with a mask, thatis, with something that is outside the carnal body, reminds us that in theWestern tradition too – as we learned from Mauss’s (1979) famous essay –the mask is found in the origin of the primitive notion of the person, which isan intriguing coincidence. Finally, we also find the root of the term for the pres-ence-body in winal, each of the 20-day ‘months’ of the Mayan solar calendar,and in the number 20, to the extent that Tedlock (1993) defines the Quicheterm winak (‘human being’) as ‘vigesimal being’, a contrived translation,perhaps, but one that expresses well the constitutional nature of 20 digits. Allof this has extensive implications that we cannot develop here, but which, inany event, demonstrate that Wagner’s (2010: XV) observation that the Mayanever invented the wheel, ‘but only because it had invented them’ should betaken literally.


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What sorts of beings have a presence-body (winkilel)? Certainly not plants, asin the case of the flesh-body, but animals do, because they ‘walk, play, work, livein houses and have children’. Now, animals have a presence-body only insofaras they relate to members of their own species. A rabbit only has a presence-body if it is seen (perceived) by another rabbit, or, more precisely, having thepresence-body of a rabbit is what enables it to establish a relationship withother rabbits. To human beings, on the other hand, and to all other animalspecies, rabbits essentially have a flesh-body, and vice versa. The presence-body, therefore, can only be perceived or become fully ‘present’ when it isamong beings of the same species. Consequently, whereas the flesh-bodyfunctions as a trans-specific matter, the presence-body only becomes actualintra-specifically. In the Tzeltal language, the numeral classifier for the ‘pres-ence-body’ among humans is tul, which denotes a standing position and acharacteristically human figure, whereas the numeral classifier for the flesh-body is kojt, which, as mentioned above, indicates a four-legged posture. Inshort, whereas the flesh-body has no precise shape, the presence-body has aspecific human shape.5

As Taylor and Viveiros de Castro (2006) have so lucidly pointed out withregard to the Amazon region, from an indigenous point of view, each speciesmakes up a society, and each society represents a species. The same is true inTzeltal: a species is defined and its extension limited by its ability to establishrelationships through its presence-body. The Tzeltal term that most closelyresembles the European concept of ‘Indian’ or ‘Indigenous’ would probablybe swinkilel lum, literally meaning the ‘presence-body of the place’. Thismeans that each type of presence-body is associated with a specific place: theIndians live in their villages, Europeans live in cities or on ranches, andjaguars live in the jungle. Each type of presence-body ‘owns’ or dominates (inthe sense of occupying) a domain or a specific territory. This domain,however, is not so much physical but ontological: each type of presence-body has a cultural ecosystem that does not interfere geographically with thecultural ecosystems of other species and is the one that best suits it.

Nonetheless, the separation between species and communities is not absol-ute, but rather a matter of degree. A certain amount of overlapping betweenspecies and divisions within species takes place, as demonstrated by the caseof humans. In principle, from an indigenous point of view, Europeans are suffi-ciently sub especie humana, but this recognition is not automatic, simple or com-plete. The fact that Europeans do not speak the same language and do not sharethe same customs reveals a partially different presence-body, which prevents



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fluid social intercourse. Sociological differences imply corporeal ones, and viceversa.

Between Europeans and indigenous people, certain bodily aspects literallybecome invisible for each other, and to the extent that the presence partiallyfades, what emerges – likewise only in part – is the common carnal body.The crucial question here is whether a being with a partially different pres-ence-body can be made pregnant in order to have children (Crocker 1992),since the impossibility of producing offspring is in effect what delimits aspecies-society. Hence, the widespread indigenous suspicion that mixedrelationships between Europeans and indigenous peoples – and also betweenindigenous groups with different languages and customs – will produce chil-dren with deformities, idiots or albinos. It also explains the strong associationbetween the presence-body and sexuality, the ability to produce offspring andhuman reproduction, to the point that, in many Mayan languages, winkilelalso designates the genitals (sometimes only the male genitals, and sometimesthe female genitals as well), as though they represent the presence-body meto-nymically.

Finally, if the body is the aspect of the person that must be fabricated inAmerindian cultures, since the soul is the given principle (Viveiros de Castro2002a), is it possible to recognise a different degree of artificiality between thetwo Tzeltal bodies? There is no doubt that both bodies constantly need to bemade up. On the one hand, the flesh-body is the direct result of nourishment(food is literally incorporated as flesh and blood) and environmental conditions(temperature in particular); on the other, the presence-body is the fruit of socialhabits of the species/culture (social etiquette, language, gestures, clothing, andso on). Both processes – food and social code –are required to achieve singlebio-moral development (Pitarch 2008). However, in accordance with Wagner’s(1981) thesis, whereby ‘tribal cultures’ invert the innate and the conventional, theflesh body (contrary to our common sense) is the more artificial, less innatebody. As mentioned above, the latter only begins to be made after birth,whereas the presence-body already begins its development in the maternalwomb (that embodying chamber). Indeed, of the two bodies, it is the fleshbody that is the more malleable, therefore the more susceptible to modificationthrough human activity. Consequently, any desired modification of the pres-ence-body must be preceded by a change in the flesh-body. For instance, asany Tzeltal parent knows, before a child can become a schoolteacher – andthus receive a salary from the government – the primary and most importantrequirement is to substitute the corn and bean diet with bread made with


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flour, beef and store-bought products. It is precisely this kind of food that willliterally make the child speak Spanish and learn to read and write.

The Bodies in Shamanic SongsIf we examine the two body differences in a more orderly fashion, we will

find that they can be organised into at least two contrasting pairs: divisi-bility/totality and passivity/activity. The flesh-body is characterised by aunion of parts and a passive nature; the presence-body is an integrated, activewhole. The distinction is most clearly noticeable in shamanic healing chants,which are classified into two main categories (poxil and ch’abatayel) accordingto the (implicit) criterion that the former are intended for the flesh-body andthe latter for the presence-body. Both bodies are susceptible to illness, but indifferent ways: whereas spirits prey on the former, the latter is a victim of thespirits’ emotions.

The songs that address the flesh-body give the impression that a part of thebody has been attacked, rather than the entire body being ill. Thus, a conflictarises between a part of the body and an invading pathogenic object, and thecure consists of removing the object from the affected body part. In fact, thechants rarely refer to the flesh-body (bak’etal) as a whole. The fragmentbelow, for instance, is from a song intended to cure a certain type of dementia(chawaj). The disease – the voice we hear in the text – has entered the flesh-body in the shape of words, and the words have settled in certain places: theheart, ear, chest and liver (diseases are usually concentrated in one or twoplaces, although madness tends to be more pervasive). The rest of the body,however, is not necessarily diseased:

nakalon yo’tik I have moved inpejtsajon xiatwan I have attached myselfta yolil sni’ yo’tan xiatwan to the centre of the tip of his heartta yolil sejkub yo’tik xiatwan to the centre of his liverta yolil sti’ xmoch yo’tik to the centre of his chestnajkajon ta xujk xchikin xiatwan yo’tik I have settled on the edge of his earjich ajulon ta chij and so I have reached his veinjulon ta bak’et so I have reached the fleshjul jk’opon chij I have managed to talk to the veinjul jk’opon bak’et I have managed to talk to the fleshjich anajkajon xiatwan that is how I have become lodgedjich apetsajon xiatwan that is how I have attached myselfjich la kich’ kisim yo’tik xiatwan that is how I have rooted myselfjich la jkich’ jlop’ yo’tik xiatwan how I have extended my rhizome



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Chants of this nature give a list of certain parts of the body, along with a detaileddescription how the disease attacks them mercilessly. In contrast, specific partsare not mentioned in the chants intended to cure the presence-body. The pres-ence-body presents a singular form. The fragment below, for instance, is from asong to cure a presence-body affected by the resentment of a person recentlydeceased (‘the dead bones, the dead hair’). In this case, the disease affects thewhole body or, more precisely, the body as a whole:

manchuk me yak’beyiktel ta swinkilel may they not infect his bodymanchuk yak’beyiktel ta yo’tan may they not infect his heartanima baketik yo’tikoni the dead bonesanima tsotsetik yo’tikoni the dead hairmame tey xyak’bonix stukel may they not infect him withbalumilal sikil yokike the deadly cold of his feetbalumilal sikil sk’abike the deadly cold of his handsbalumilal sti’tombail with their immense resentmentbalumilal skuchtombail with their immense bitternessak’olok me jajchel yo’tan may his heart be liftedak’olok jajchel swinkilel may his body be liftedmanchuk ja’uk xanix ay stsa’nelali may he be cured of diarrhoeaay xanix sk’un k’aaleli of the light feveray xanix sikil swinkileloni of the cold in his bodyay xanix sikil sti’ik yo’tikoni caused by the icy wordsay xanix sikil sk’opik yo’tikoni by the icy speechanima baketetik yo’tikoni of the dead bonesanima tsotsetik yo’tikoni of the dead hair

As for the second contrast – passivity/activity – the flesh-body functions as anobject, as opposed to the presence-body, which functions as a subject.6 In fact,the shamanic chants represent the flesh-body, or its parts, as a defenceless preywithout a voice, the mute victim of disease and the passive object of theshaman’s ritual manipulation. The presence-body, on the contrary, makes itspresence felt by taking an active part in the song’s dialogue: lamenting, provid-ing information, accusing, describing.

In the end, this is what defines the presence-body: the ability to do things. It‘works’, ‘walks’, ‘plays’, ‘speaks’. When the songs mention specific parts to curethe presence-body, the parts are bodily actions rather than body parts. Theactions are stated in the form of semantic parallels. The ‘heart/lips’ tandemexpresses the function of language, in line with indigenous theory that words


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emanate from the heart and rise to the mouth, where they are pronounced bythe lips to produce appropriate speech. The ‘gaze/face’ tandem refers to thesenses (sight, hearing, and taste/smell) associated with the presence-body.Undoubtedly, the most important parallel is the ‘hands/feet’ tandem, or their‘arms/legs’ equivalent (a total of 20 digits, which ordinarily function as a synec-doche of the presence-body), referring to the articulated human movement andtherefore the ability to work. This aspect is one of humanity’s salient traits, asMesomerican ethnography has frequently pointed out.

At this point, we may introduce an additional, but revealing ethnographicdetail. In Tzeltal, the presence-body washes the flesh-body: atinan te abak’etal,‘wash your flesh-body’, children are told. However, owing to its non-agentivenature, the flesh-body cannot wash the presence-body. It is not the presence-body that needs to be washed, however; every Tzeltal I asked found the ideaof washing the presence-body absurd, that is, washing themselves. In otherwords, if the flesh-body is viewed as an object and the presence-body is experi-enced as a subject, these positions are not reversible. In a well-known passage,Merleau-Ponty asserts that what defines the body (that is, the European idea ofbody) is its reversibility. Our right hand never touches the left hand when theleft hand touches the right hand; when one is the subject, the other is theobject. Even so, ‘when one hand touches the other hand, the world in eachhand opens up to the world in the other hand, because the operation is option-ally reversible’ (Merleau-Ponty 1970:175–6). The constant potential for reversi-bility confirms that a single body is involved. Yet, there is no potentialreversibility between the two indigenous bodies, the subjective body and thecarnal body. Whereas my hand, as part of the whole presence-body, cantouch my flesh, my flesh (my muscles, skin and veins) cannot touch my hand.

With respect to this passive/active contrast, one final conjecture should bemade concerning the scant interest shown by the indigenous people in theorganic functions of the body. This is something that has often been noted inthe ethnography of this region: indigenous anatomy pays very little attentionto the internal composition of the body and there does not appear to be any-thing similar to a ‘physiological anatomy’. This has been explained as a conse-quence of the absence of surgical practices (Berlin & Brent Berlin 1996:55). Yetindigenous people who, over several generations, have moved to the cities,where they are constantly exposed to images of the inside of the body, seemto continue showing as little interest in this aspect as the more traditional popu-lation. I rather think the reason for this lies in the distinction between the bodies.One consequence of distinguishing between a passive, divisible body and an



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active, integrated body is precisely that it prevents the idea of an organic body.An organ is a discrete part of the body that fulfils a function. Insofar as theorgans are parts, they should belong to the flesh-body (divisible, inactive) but,since they have functions, they should belong to the presence-body (anactive whole). Consequently, there is no room for the notion of organ. Therecan be inactive parts or an agentive unit, but not a combination of both. It isperhaps because of this that shaman practice (which, as I already mentioned,is where the distinction between the two bodies finds its maximum expression)displays greater indifference towards the inside of the human body and its poss-ible functions, to the extent that in theory shamans must never manipulate thebodies of their patients.

Clearly, we are faced with an idea of the human body that is far removedfrom the European notion of the body as an organism. At bottom, the distinc-tion between the two bodies discards the opposition of an inner being/outerbeing which, in turn, implies rejection of the notion of a subjective innerbeing. This opposition governs, as we know, the entire European concept ofcorporeality, which gives rise to the notion of an inner being that by definitioncontains and yet conceals a person’s essence: awareness, emotions, traumas, andeverything that is kept ‘inside’ and only surfaces occasionally. We may remem-ber that the origin of this European psychological ‘inner’ has an organic basis, asin the case of the Hippocratic theory of the humours, for instance, for it ulti-mately ensures the union between the somatic and the subjective self. TheEuropean notion of the body as an organism is what makes the body an indi-visible unit that prevents it from being viewed as two separate bodies.

The Two SoulsLet us leave Tzeltal bodies aside for a moment to take a look at souls. In this

case, we are apparently faced with the opposite problem to that of the bodies. If,as I mentioned at the beginning, the ethnography of the Mesoamerican areaassumes the existence of one single body, by contrast it provides an extremelyextensive and particularistic repertoire of souls, a repertoire that in turn isexpanded by the fact that souls can easily divide or multiply, so any oneperson may contain any number of these beings. Nonetheless, if we focus exclu-sively on the type of ‘body’ that souls have, we may drastically simplify thiscomplexity to the point of distinguishing two basic types: (a) a soul in theshape of a human body, and (b) a soul associated with an animal, atmosphericphenomena or any other being in a non-human shape.


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What I am suggesting, in a nutshell, is that the distinction between the twosouls corresponds to the distinction between the two bodies: an exclusivelyhuman body defined by its shape, and a body substantially equivalent toanimals. Thus, the souls would be in the same opposition to each other asthe bodies, but as the immaterial obverse of the latter. Before we go into thishomology, however, we should take a closer look at the nature of the twotypes of soul.

In Tzeltal, these are named ch’ulel and lab (Pitarch 1996, 2010), but to simplify,I will call them the ‘human-soul’ and the ‘spirit-soul’, respectively. The former,which resides in the heart, is described as a shadow with exactly the same shapeas the human body in which it is lodged, even down to the hair and clothes – itsexact image, yet an image that, paradoxically, is invisible to humans underordinary conditions, when it wanders outside of the body during sleep or drun-kenness. It can be seen in certain states and moments, however, normally atdusk, when it is perceived as a shadow moving lightly and silently, suspendedabout one metre above the ground. This soul is the seat of personal character,memory and speech. The other type of soul –the spirit-soul – is not human inshape. It has the form of an animal of any species, of atmospheric phenomenasuch as wind, lightning and rainbows, or of ghosts, as described below. Aperson’s heart may lodge up to 13 versions of this soul, which means that ahuman being shares the destiny of the animal or other beings from which ithas taken its shape. The key issue for our current purpose is that this soulhas no given corporeal shape, although (or, to be more exact, because) it canassume any bodily shape from the beings in the ordinary world (with the excep-tion of the human shape). It is probable that it has no shape inside the humanheart, and only adopts a specific shape when it leaves the heart to enter theordinary, solar world, as when these souls are expelled through the mouth atdeath and become visible to humans for an instant, in the form of an animalor meteoric phenomenon.7

From this point of view, spirit-souls behave like any other sacred being orspirit, which is, after all, what they are. Spirits have no particular form orstable identity while in the sacred state. It is a state of ‘absence’, a virtual exist-ence that is only manifested when they venture into ‘this side’ of the world.Unlike human beings, however, whose presence-body is attached to theflesh-body – which gives us a relatively constant identity– spirit-souls mayadopt different presence-bodies or simply recombine the parts of which theyare made. In my opinion, it is not a metamorphosis in the literal sense, since



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no change of shape takes place, but rather the adoption and abandonment ofpre-existing body models.8

Spirit-souls’ preference for adopting animal body forms implies a limitedability to affect humans, owing to the above-mentioned fact that the pres-ence-bodies of different species can hardly interrelate. Nonetheless, one cat-egory of spirit souls, known significantly as ‘illness-givers’ are capable ofentering into direct communication with humans to inflict disease, and ulti-mately death. This requires them to make a temporary human body for thatpurpose. It is not an Indian body, however, for, to my knowledge, these arenever adopted by souls of this nature. Rather, they adopt strange Europeanshapes such as Catholic priests, government employees, schoolteachers andranchers. This transitory presence-body differs from the one of humans,however, insofar as it only consists of clothes, accessories and adornments;there is no physical body under the clothing. Some particularly aggressivespirit-souls adopt the outward appearance of Catholic priests with a black orwhite habit (or a brightly coloured habit in the case of a bishop), blackpatent leather shoes, a crucifix hanging from the neck, tonsured hair, and soon. The spirit must stuff the clothes with paper from bibles and other religiousbooks so it can stand up. In short, such presence-body figures serve as tempor-ary instruments that allow the spirit-soul to have relations with human beingsbut, once used, the ‘body’ is dissembled and the clothes are kept in a safeplace in the forest or simply discarded. The spirit-soul that made the bodyceases to have a presence-body and can no longer affect humans (Pitarch 2000).

A Quaternary Model of the PersonThus, souls reproduce the original opposition of bodies: on the one hand, an

intra-specific soul (with human shape, among humans) and, on the other, a trans-specific soul (with animal forms that are alternately taken and left). What are theimplications of this parallel schema between bodies and souls if, as I proposed atthe beginning, we are to understand the relations of continuity and discontinu-ity between these principles and the rest of the beings?

With regard to the connection between the presence-body and the human-soul,we find that what the two principles have in common is a specifically humanfigure and, moreover, an individual, not a generic figure. Both entities representa differentiating principle, each in its own dimension: they make a distinctionbetween the human species and other animal species (and between the latterwith each other) and also between individual humans. However, whereas thepresence-body occupies a volume (‘corpulence’), the human-soul is a shadow


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without a body, a thing that is flat, with no extension. In turn, what the flesh-bodyand the spirit-soul have in common is the absence of a specific shape. (We haveseen how the spirit-soul, insofar as it can adopt virtually any shape, whetheranimal or otherwise, is defined by its potential ‘multi-corporeity’, that is tosay, by its lack of a given specific shape). Therefore, they both represent anundifferentiated continuum: the principle of homogeneity and continuitybetween species and individuals. However, whereas the flesh-body is definedby the substance of which it is made – flesh and blood – the spirit-soul is charac-terised by being unsubstantial, by having no carnal matter.

In the indigenous person, we can, therefore, distinguish four elementaryaspects: a substantial shape (presence-body), a substance with no shape (flesh-body), an unsubstantial shape (human-soul) and an unsubstantiality with noshape (spirit-soul). This implies that, instead of an exclusively binary body/

soul opposition, we encounter a relational configuration that is quaternary, afield that mirrors the original opposition and at the same time opens it up.We can represent these relations visually, using the ‘semiotic square’ developedby Greimas (Greimas & Courtes 1991:96–9), which permits us to make a kind oftranscription of ethnographic data relative to Tzeltal bodies and souls, withoutlimiting ourselves to either/or binary logic.

In the semiotic square, signification occurs by marking off the logical possi-bilities contained in an oppositional relationship and their framework of nega-tion and assertion. Thus, for instance, the opposition ‘white’ and ‘black’ wouldgive the following field of signification:

where ‘white’ and ‘black’ are opposites but do not contradict each other, in thesame way that ‘not-black’ and ‘not-white’ are opposites without contradictingeach other. Contrarily, the relationship between ‘white’ and ‘not white’ is con-



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tradictory: to negate the one is to assert the other and vice versa, just as ‘black’and ‘not black’ are contradictory in the same way. Finally, ‘white’ complementsor implies ‘not-black’ but the reverse is not true: ‘not-black’ does not imply‘white’ and, likewise, ‘black’ implies ‘not-white’, but not the other way round.

In terms of the Tzeltal person, the original opposition between two types ofbody generates – by contradiction and complementarity – two types of souls:

Here the presence-body is in opposition to the flesh-body in the sense thatthe former is defined by its shape, whereas the latter is defined by the substanceof which it is made. In this relationship of contrariety, however, one body doesnot exclude the other. The categories are concomitant rather than contradic-tory; the relation of contrariety, as underlined by Greimas and Courtes(1991:94), is one of ‘reciprocal presupposition’, for each one takes the other asthe basis for its semantic existence. In fact, the two bodies need each other tomake up a human being with an ordinary body. Without the presence-body,my informants never failed to stress, the flesh-body would merely be ‘flesh toeat’. Without the flesh-body, the presence-body would be a ghost consistingof clothes with no body inside them (or a fleshless skeleton with long hairand nails, that is, a dead person, as portrayed by narrative and shamanicchants). With regard to the square’s bottom axis, human-soul and spirit-soulalso oppose and presuppose each other: the former has a human shape andthe other does not. But, whereas the top axis is characterised by ‘presence’,this axis is on the plane of ‘absence’; the souls are purely negative terms: the‘other’ of the bodies.

Conversely, the diagonal relationship between presence-body and spirit-soulis one of contradiction, for the two categories are mutually exclusive. If there is‘presence’ – that which introduces discontinuity, the discrete – there can be no


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spirit-souls, that is, the continuous, bodies without a break in continuity (withthe above-mentioned exception, where certain spirits adopt a presence-bodyfor a malefic purposes, in which case they could be said to embody their nega-tion). Likewise, the human-soul (a shadow with a human shape) is in a relationto contradiction to the carnal-body (matter without form). If there is substance,there is no subtle form; if there is subtle form, there is no substance (i.e. neitherflesh nor bodily fluids).

Finally, the presence-body and the human-soul on the one hand, and theflesh-body and the spirit-soul on the other, complement each other. The pres-ence-body implies the human-soul, for the latter can only develop its skills if thesoul is in the body. Otherwise, the body would lose its strength and appetite, beunable to work, become ill and fall in a faint, which means in a horizontal pos-ition, in other words, the opposite of the erect, two-legged position that definesthe human presence-body’s human condition. Conversely, the human-souldoes not imply –that is, does not need to be complemented by – the pres-ence-body, as occuring during sleep, for instance, when the soul wandersaway from the body. In fact, it is the body, not the soul that suffers from the sep-aration. In turn, the spirit-soul does not need the flesh-body, but the latter doesneed to be animated by a spirit. To put it in Merlau-Ponty’s (1970) words, thebody has an ontological depth; to come into being, it needs non-shape andnon-substance, the invisible and intangible.

ConclusionAm I not exaggerating when I speak of two indigenous bodies, when it could

simply be said that they are two different ways of referring to the same thing?We are not dealing merely with a matter of metaphor, however, in the caseof the Maya-Tzeltal – unlike, for example, in medieval English politicalthought, where the ‘King’s two bodies’ represented a particular idiom (Kantor-owicz 1957:21). The use of two different terms to refer to what Europeanlanguages refer to simply as the ‘human body’ suggests that the lexical distinc-tion also implies a conceptual one. The terms bak’etal and winkilel have differentmeanings, are used in different circumstances, and the one is not included in theother. If we accept that physical experience is moulded by the linguistic context– that language is not merely a function of expression – it can be assumed thatthe latter has a certain perceptual meaning.

Curiously, we find a similar distinction in Melanesian ethnography. ThePaiela of the Papua New Guinea Highlands, explains Aletta Biersack, recognisea ‘working body’ – a ‘subject-driven body’ – whose ‘movement and functioning



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are voluntary and purposeful’, and a second body – ‘the stationary body’ –which functions involuntarily and is ‘subjectless’, ‘neither intelligent nor intelli-gible’. The working body draws its vitality from the day, when the sun allowswork to be done; the stationary body, which does not think, speak or act, butmerely grows and consumes, belongs to the night and is associated with themoon (Biersack 1996:6–9). The difference between an active and a passivebody – even though, as Lambek (1988:111) points out, the author does notprovide specific lexical terms for the contrast – is clearly reminiscent of the dis-tinction I traced for the Maya.

In any case, the issue, of course, lies not in determining whether there are twobodies or one, but rather in acknowledging what this distinction is pointing out:the overall indigenous tendency to dissociate – or rather, to not unite – thesomatic aspects from the phenomenological aspects of the human body. Aperson composed of two bodily dimensions and two spiritual dimensionsinduces us to substitute the binary body/soul opposition with a relationalmodel that allows the ‘coexistence of opposites’ (Greimas 1989:147) withoutlosing the binary principle. It is not my intention to suggest that the body/

soul opposition is not relevant. A distinction of this sort, however imprecise,seems elemental (Lambek 2005, Descola 1988). With reference to the Tzeltalin particular (Pitarch 1996), it provides a fundamental polarity in terms of ‘us’(the body) and the ‘others in us’ (souls that are spirits, the dead, Europeans,past events and so on). Moreover, given that any semiotic system is hierarchical(Greimas & Courtes 1991), the relation of contrariety between two bodies andtwo souls in turn establishes a relation of contradiction, whereas the comp-lementary relation between bodies and ‘their’ souls establishes a relation of con-trariety. In other words, in hierarchical terms, body and soul contradict eachother, whereas form and substance presuppose each other.

But it is true that a quaternary model of the person complicates and qualifiesthe sharp body/soul categorisation. I am thinking here of the brilliant formu-lation by Viveiros de Castro (2002a), according to which, contrary to Europeanlogic, the soul in Amerindian cultures is the element that integrates humans,animals and other beings into a single category, whereas the body is what dis-tinguishes humans from all other beings. In Maya-Tzeltal terms, this principleshould be clarified somewhat to recognise that the person’s two dimensions– corporeal and spiritual – have the capacity to integrate and differentiate atthe same time, depending on whether it is applied to animals in the ordinaryworld, or to spirits and divinities and other beings in the sacred, virtual state.Whereas the presence-body differentiates humans from animals and spirits,


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the flesh-body integrates humans with animals and differentiates humans fromspirits. The human-soul, for its part, differentiates humans from animals, andassociates humans with spirits, whereas the spirit-soul integrates humans withanimals and spirits alike.

Thus, the human being – in a kind of escalation of the notion of internaldifference – contains within itself the potential relations of connection and dis-junction with the rest of beings. The Maya person is internally integrated by itsexternal relations with non-humans, as well as extended through those relation-ships. It is an ontological scale of the world. This is, as I understand it, whatWagner (1991:163) calls a ‘fractal person’: ‘an entity with relationship integrallyimplied’. Or, in the words of Michel de Montaigne (1958:244): ‘And there is asmuch difference between us and ourselves as between us and others’.

AcknowledgementsI wish to thank Jerome Baschet, Johannes Neurath, Peter Mason, Gemma Orobitg PerigPitrou, Lydia Rodrıguez, Alexandre Surralles, Anne-Christine Taylor, as well as twoanonymous ethnos readers, for their clarifying comments on this paper.

Notes1. One of the main exceptions is without a doubt the brilliant study on the body and

Otomı cosmology by Galinier (1990).2. The verbal root kojt indicates the position adopted by ‘four-legged’ animals and

feathered bipeds (Levinson 1994:838), and also the little traditional indigenousbench shaped like an animal (generally an armadillo).

3. With regard to the meaning of pre-Columbian human sacrifices, it can be conjec-tured that what was offered to the gods was just the flesh-body and not the pres-ence-body. The Aztecs cut their victim’s hair from the crown of the head, andchildren sacrificed to the rain god had only their nails pulled out, as though tooffer only carnal matter and blood. If ritual cannibalism is intended to assimilatethe subject in the victim, and hunting requires the de-subjectification of the prey,then Mesoamerican human sacrifices would be closer to the latter than to theformer. If, moreover, we consider that certain parts of the body offered were alsoeaten by the sacrificers, the individual sacrificed had conceivably become an‘animal’ (unspecific) prey that was to be shared in communion by humans and gods.

4. An examination of contemporary and colonial Mayan language dictionaries showsthat the distinction I make between presence-body and flesh-body is common tothis linguistic family. Apart from winik and its cognates for translating “body”and/or “person” (Kaufman 2003), there are other terms, in this case, very differentfrom each other, that designate the carnal body, as can be inferred from themeaning of its root: ‘flesh’ in each language. The Nahuas of the Sierra de Pueblaprovide another sign of this distinction by recognising a carnal body (nacayo: flesh,muscles) and second body called nequetzaliz, which means ‘standing up’, ‘with ahuman shape’ (Lupo 2009:5).



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5. Taylor (1996:205) and Surralles (2003) both point out that, among the Jibaro groups,what distinguishes one species from another is their physical appearance.

6. I am simplifying here, for the Tzeltal language is ergative, and therefore a distinctionbetween a transitive and an intransitive body would be more accurate. I am indebtedto Lydia Rodrıguez for calling my attention to this point, which needs to be studiedin greater depth.

7. In Hultkrantz’s (1953) study on North American Indians, in general, two types ofsouls can be recognised: one soul with the same outline as the human body inwhich it is lodged – a ‘double’, commonly called a ‘shadow’ or ‘image’ – andanother that appears in a number of non-human shapes, mostly of animals, butoccasionally of trees, flowers and even rivers, bones and stones (pp. 256–8). Likewise,for the Amazonian area Viveiros de Castro (2002b) notes: ‘I think a basic distinctionshould be made between the concept of the soul as a representation of the body andthe concept that does not refer merely to an image of the body, but to the body’sotherness’ (p. 443).

8. In fact, the human-soul is given the same numeral classifier (tul) as the presence-body, a biped form, whereas the numeral classifier for spirit-souls is kun, whichBerlin (1978:201) defines as ‘large piles of individuated objects with maximal horizon-tal extension’, that is, objects that are not enumerated by their shape but by theircontiguity. Hultkrantz (1953) also observed in North America how the second soulchanges between forms: ‘We have already stressed the fact that the many extra-physical forms in which the free-soul is manifested do not occur simultaneouslybut alternately, so that they exclude one another’ (p. 248).

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the two maya bodies: an elementary model of tzeltal personhood

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