Acta MesoAmericana

Acta MesoAmericanaVolume 23

Christian Isendahl and Bodil Liljefors Persson (editors)

Ecology, Power, and Religion in Maya Landscapes

11th European Maya ConferenceMalmö UniversityDecember 2006

VERLAGANTON SAURWEIN

2011

ISBN: 3-931419-19-X

Copyright Verlag Anton Saurwein, Markt Schwaben, Germany, 2011All rights reserved

Layout: Daniel Karlsson, Prinfo Grafiskt Center, Malmö, SwedenPrinted in Germany

Wayeb Advisory Editorial Board

Alain BretonAndrés Ciudad RuizElizabeth GrahamNikolai GrubeNorman Hammond

Die Deutsche Bibliothek – CIP Einheitsaufnahme

Ein Titelsatz dieser Publikation ist beiDer Deutschen Bibliothek erhältlich

Contents

Introduction

Christian Isendahl and Bodil Liljefors PerssonIntroducing Ecology, Power, and Religion in Maya Landscapes 9

Water and Climatic Phenomena

Stephen Houston and Karl TaubeThe Fiery Pool: Water and Sea among the Classic Maya 17

Patrice BonnafouxWaters, Droughts, and Early Classic Maya Worldviews 39

Nicholas P. Dunning and Stephen HoustonChan Ik’: Hurricanes as a Destabilizing Force in the Pre-Hispanic Maya Lowlands 57

Lorraine A. Williams-BeckRivers of Ritual and Power in the Northwestern Maya Lowlands 69

Exploring Power in the Landscape

Alexandre TokovininePeople from a Place: Re-Interpreting Classic Maya Emblem Glyphs 91

Estella Weiss-KrejciReordering the Universe during Tikal’s Dark Age 107

Laura M. AmrheinXkeptunich: Terminal Classic Maya Cosmology, Rulership, and the World Tree 121

Ritual and Boundaries

Christopher T. MorehartThe Fourth Obligation: Food Offerings in Caves and the Materiality of Sacred Relationships 135

Bodil Liljefors Persson“Ualhi Yax Imix Che tu Chumuk”: Cosmology, Ritual and the Power of Place in Yucatec Maya (Con-)Texts 145

Kerry HullRitual and Cosmological Landscapes of the Ch’orti’ Maya 159

Andrés Dapuez Untimely Dispositions 167

Lars FrühsorgeMemory, Nature, and Religion: The Perception of Pre-Hispanic Ruins in a Highland Maya Community 177

Valentina Vapnarsky and Olivier Le GuenThe Guardians of Space and History: Understanding Ecological and Historical Relationships of the Contemporary Yucatec Maya to their Landscape 191

Integrated Landscapes

Christian IsendahlThinking about Landscape and Religion in the Pre-Hispanic Maya Lowlands 209

Elizabeth GrahamDarwin at Copan 221

Untimely DispositionsAndrés Dapuez

John Hopkins University

Abstract

Beyond the anthropological paradigm called “historic particularism” and the theological individualism that the notion of the “self ” entertains, in this paper I analyze cargo or kuch festivals using the concept of “disposition.” As inherently social self-other stances, cargo dispositions depend upon empathy to authorize ritual participants and to frame social and natural phenomena under the principle of reciprocity. Without entering into symbolic analyses, this paper describes some of the socio-psychological mechanisms of “buying life” from numinous entities through the communication of these cargo dispositions.

Resumen

Más allá del paradigma antropológico denominado particularismo histórico, y el individualismo teológico que la noción de “sí mismo” evoca, propongo en este artículo, analizar los festivales de cargo o kuch utilizando el concepto de disposición. Como vínculo inherentemente social, la disposición de cargo depende de momentos de empatía para autorizar a los participantes rituales y para articular fenómenos sociales y naturales bajo el principio de reci-procidad. Sin entrar en análisis simbólicos, este artículo describe mecanismos socio-psicológicos de “compra de vida” a entidades invisibles por medio de comunicación que estas disposiciones de cargo proponen.

Nor must any synechist say, “I am altogether myself, and not at all you.” If you embrace syn-

echism, you must abjure this metaphysics of wicked-ness. In the first place, your neighbors are, in a meas-ure, yourself, and in far greater measure than, without deep studies in psychology, you would believe. Really, the selfhood you like to attribute to yourself is, for the most part, the vulgarest delusion of vanity. (“Im-mortality in the light of Synechism,” Peirce 1998: 2)

Introduction

Xocén, Yucatan, Mexico, was one of the villages where Caste Wars and the “new religion” (Bricker 1981) of Cruzo’ob initiated in the 19th century. Now-adays it is a village of around three thousand persons. Nine miles from Valladolid, approximately 90% of its population denominate themselves as Catholic. In the late 1980s, when electricity and running water came to town, Pentecostals were also allowed by au-

thorities to regularly visit Xocén. The turning point in the relationship with Protestantes was the con-version of the son of a comisario, or the communal Mayor. However, the elite of the village still openly resists and distrusts Pentecostals. Guardians of the Cross, maestros cantores, shamans, and ritual experts called “elders” speak out against them. According to the general opinion, Protestantes endanger and deny local traditions. Authorities are constituted by 15 sargentos primeros who lead opinions, and take decisions in po-litical matters. Among the political authorities there is also a comandante who presides over meetings and assemblies, and takes care of various duties includ-ing, among other things, writing acts, taking hear-ings, and prosecuting ordinary crimes. Every adult male must serve as a soldier or soldado on a rotating basis under the authority of one sergeant, or sargento primero. Soldados clean up the main square, guard the main building, incarcerate wrongdoers, and perform other related duties. The Mexican law created the of-

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fice of comisario. A comisario comunal intervenes in all political issues but his authority depends on the comandante and sargentos primeros, and more formal-ly, on the village’s assemblies. Most of all, he repre-sents the village in issues concerning the commune or municipio of Valladolid. There is also a comisario ejidal, who according to the Mexican constitution takes care of communal lands issues.

Annual Festivals

Xocén has many festivals a year. Political authorities, headed by the commandant or comandante and the comisario, organize some of them. They are public ceremonies for the wellbeing and—of course—en-tertainment of the people of Xocén. At four calendar dates, select individuals organize and support feast-ings, dances, processions, and prayers with the help of some acquaintances. Participants in these rituals are typically relatives and friends of the sponsors. The main sponsor is called “kuch,” cargo holder or “inter-esado.” “Kuch” means burden but also to carry or to hold up (Stross 1988). However, Bolles (1997) notes than an additional sense of the word kuch is locus, “site, or the place of residence of an object.” Sponsors bear the cost and the effort entailed in organizing a complex set of ceremonies (see also Redfield 1964, 1960, 1941; Redfield and Villa Rojas 1962; Price 1974; Pohl 1981; Villa Rojas 1987; Fernandez 1994; Hervik 1999; Eiss 2002; Loewe 2003, 1995). Kuch sponsorships are also related to Wayeb ceremonies. In particular, year bearer’s impersonators address differ-ent sets of ceremonial arrangements according to the year commencement (e.g., Thompson 1934, 1958, 1970; Tozzer 1941; Coe 1965; León-Portilla 1988; Vogt 1976; Bricker et al. 1997, 2002; Farriss 1984; Love 1986, 1991; Taube 1988; Vail 1997; Bill et al. 2000). In Xocén, 2003’s kuch sponsored festivals took place on: » May 3 to 4: “Fiesta de la Santísima Cruz Tun” or

the Festival of the Sacred Cross Tun. » July 23 to 24: “Cambio de traje del Santo Cristo,”

the change of the dress of the Christ. » July 31 to August 7: “Corridas” or “Fiesta del

Pueblo,” the village festival (with a new host eve-ryday).

» February 14 to 18: “Gremios” or guilds. For in-stance, the agricultural guild of Xocén holds its ceremonies—sponsored by a “kuch” and his help-ers—on February 14.

Kucho’ob (plural of “kuch”) report that they sponsor and organize these celebrations “for their own ben-

efit.” They spend around $3000 US dollars to sup-port a day of corridas, for example. These festivals are intended “to buy life and rain” for the sponsor’s house. In a transactional logic represented in other ritual contexts as loh-nah, loh-corral, and, k’ex (house redemption, farmyard redemption, and exchange) the arrangement is imagined as an exchange between a person who makes the expenditure and some in-dexed but invisible powers. These powers, “own-ers,” “winds,” or deities are addressed though the iconic manifestations of Catholic saints and, mainly, through the village’s cross-shaped idol called Santísi-ma Cruz Tun. Xocenences also express these sacred transactions in the Catholic terminology of promesas or promises and compromisos or engagements (compromiso may be understood in Yucatec Mayan as “mookthan,” mean-ing fastening or agreement). The typical story I was told states a person who makes a promise to the cross, for instance for the health of her animals. She pledges a novena to it, or some other service that implies ex-penditure. However, if this person forgets to perform it, “the cross will remind her she has an unsettled compromiso with it.” That reminder frequently means that an illness will sicken her, or her animals. If the person does not go to a shaman to “see” what is the reason of the illness she, or her animals, could die. The shaman will give advice about how to pay the debt or to comply with the compromiso. In Xocén, as well as in other Yucatec communi-ties, unfortunate events tend to be interpreted by eschatological narratives. The end of any life cycle is also a reminder that “this world” is going to end soon. Hurricanes, illnesses, famines, and other per-sonal misfortunes indicate “punishments” and rein-force the apprehension of the proximity of final de-cay. In this sense, many people in Xocén conceive of ritual sponsorships as fundamental to the effort to thrive and to avoid “punishments.” By dealing with numinous entities, one may reverse the economic or natural decadence which their punishments imply. Future blessings and “miracles,” or “punish-ments,” show up also as logical outcomes of the spon-sor’s performances. Interesados or “kucho’ob” try to secure divine favors by sponsoring ceremonies with “faith and commitment.” With the help of ritual ex-perts, called mayores or nohoch, which means in Maya and in Spanish “elders,” “ancestors,” as well as “big,” they learn how to transact with the sacred-natural realm which such powerful forces inhabit, and, in the village, with the persons who are going to help them to finance and sponsor these celebrations. Promises and engagements manifest their relative success in

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the productivity of field plots, in the wellness of the kuch’ob’s houses, and in the sufficiency of means of living. Wellness, health, wealth, and wellbeing can be read as signs of a sponsor’s authority insofar as they are taken to signal that he has mastered the correct disposition and thus successfully addressed the gods. On the contrary, “if you have made a promise and you do not fulfill it, you will get a warning,” they say. For example, if a pig dies before it has been slaugh-tered for the feasting, this is taken as a very bad omen for the sponsor. In other cases, illness, fever, and pain are taken as signs of an unsettled compromiso. I was told that “if you cannot solve the problem with a physician you go with the h-men and he will tell you: ‘you have a compromiso, here. You must accomplish it. You promised—for example—a glorious mystery at the Santa Cruz chapel and you have not fulfilled it, yet.’”

Cargo and Fiesta Sponsorships

Mesoamerican ritual sponsorships have been un-derstood under exchange paradigms by numerous ethno graphers and ritual practitioners. Most analysts, following Tax (1937), Wolf (1955, 1957, 1986), and Foster (1965, 1966, 1988), take cargo and fiesta systems to be ideological manifestations of highly conservative economic structures—“closed corpo-rate peasant communities” or “limited good models.” Generations of analysts have interpreted cargo rituals in terms of their functioning within such economic structures (Cancian 1965, 1967, 1992; Carrasco 1961, 1990; Chance 1990, 1994; Chance and Taylor 1985; DeWalt 1975; Dow 2001, 2005; Early 1983; Freidlander 1981; Wasserstrom 1980; Rus and Wass-erstrom 1980). Dependent on homeostatic schemas, ritual transactions are generally considered modes of economic redistribution (Polanyi 1944). While such studies have significantly contributed to our under-standing of ritual practitioners’ political economies (including the redistribution of wealth, transforma-tion of economic surplus into prestige or authority, etc.), many aspects still remain critical and critically under-examined. In a context in which life is considered fragile and threats to it believed to represent divine “punish-ments,” it is understandable that sponsors want to regenerate their families, plants, animals, friends, and field plots. That I for the moment have left aside the symbolic aspects of Mesoamerican rites of renewal does not mean I consider these to be irrelevant. By

describing the production of social practices which cargo rituality implies, and the engagement they produce, I am looking for a new definition of trans-action. Examining these cargo holders’ narratives, I suggest that cargo holders transact for renewals by cultivating a particular religious disposition that em-powers and authorizes them.

Discussing the Supporters’ Religious Dispositions

According to Talal Asad (1993) the anthropological definition of religion has been inflected by Christian traditions. The idea that religion is a universal cate-gory of humankind, which Asad finds for example in the influential work of Clifford Geertz (1973), itself presupposes the assertion of 17th and 18th century Christian premises. Geertz defines religion as:

(1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long lasting moods and mo-tivations in men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic (Geertz 1973: 90, my emphasis).

In this general definition, Geertz establishes a uni-lateral agency. A system of symbols acts upon the inert matter of moods and motivations. The logic could not be reversed in Geertz’s terms because the preeminence of the symbolic would be broken and the hermeneutical enterprise immediately finished. What would happen if the moods and motivations could also act upon the system of symbols? Or, to what extent could “moods and motivations” dif-fer from a set of “conceptions of general order of existence”? To posit such questions using Geertz’s terminology, symbolic practices inscribe themselves into moods and motivations. But in Geertz’s work, these moods and motivations seem to lack the capac-ity to modify the whole system of symbols with the same power. A general understanding of how sense is made, mainly through writing and reading signs, biases and determines the systematic of the whole set of symbols, as well. What makes a set of symbols a system is, above all, the hermeneutical interpretation of the ethnographer. According to Asad, these assumptions construct religion as a “mater of symbolic meanings linked to ideas of general order (expressed through either or both rite and doctrine)” (Asad 1993: 42–43). From

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Asad’s point of view, this highly conceptual perspec-tive for defining religion precludes the understand-ing of religion as a set of concrete practices. What most interests Asad is the historical importance of “practical contexts” (Scott and Hirschkind 2006: 7) by which the understanding of symbols is made pos-sible in a given tradition. These practical contexts are closely related to the generative power of the body, gestures, “embodied aptitudes” (Scott and Hirsch-kind 2006: 8), discourses, and practices of argumen-tation, also called “authorizing processes.” Asad’s notion of authorizing process particularizes any universal definition of religion. More specifically, Asad objects to the subordination of dispositions un-der the power of concepts and gives priority to the practical constitution of religious phenomena:

The argument that a particular disposition is religious partly because it occupies a conceptual place within a cosmic framework appears plausible, but only because it presupposes a question that must be made explicit: how do authorizing processes represent practices, ut-terances, or dispositions so that they can be discur-sively related to general (cosmic) ideas of order? In short, the question pertains to the authorizing process by which “religion” is created (Asad 1993: 36–37).

Depending on particular authorizing processes, a dis-position is built up ritually and its main goal is to produce authorized subjects. Therefore, a disposition could be preliminarily defined as a social mechanism interiorized in the self which allows further concep-tualization, and, in the particular case of the Xocén’s ritualists, a specific regime of engagement. In these terms, kuch sponsorships build up a religious disposi-tion only when sponsors consider themselves as com-mitted persons. However, commitment does not end in self-discipline, trustworthiness, and humility, but also in recognizing an automatic “other” in the “self.” Below the limits of the self, this burdening disposi-tion confirms a common ontology. According to Hent de Vries (2008: 75) the Foucaultian rediscovery of the “dispositif” has been related by Agamben (2006) to the “theological trope of disposition.” These dispositions designate the “his-torical element, with all the weight of rules, rites, and institutions” posited and imposed on individuals “due to an external force, but which also finds itself, as it were, interiorized is systems of belief and senti-ments” (Agamben in de Vries 2008: 75). It is worth-while to refer to the theological notion of dispositio not only because it historicizes Foucault’s and Asad’s historical enterprises but, more generally, because

this notion is also intended to bridge the gap between “ontology” and “praxis.” According to de Vries,

Theologically, it involves the justification of the Trin-ity, of divine providence, and of Christ’s incarna-tion. Suffice it to note that the Greek oikonomia was rendered by the Latin Fathers as dispositio and that, for Agamben, it inaugurates a distinction—indeed, nothing short of “schizophrenia”—between God’s “being” in and for himself (his “nature” or “essence”), on the one hand, and his “action” in the world (his “operation,” “governance,” and “administration” of creaturely affairs), on the other, and hence between “ontology” and “praxis” (de Vries 2008: 75).

What most interests me is not only to recognize the theological underpinnings of Asad’s and Foucault works but also to craft a possible use of the notion of “disposition” in the analysis of kuch sponsorships, in the light of “la tradición,” or Xocén’s ritual tradi-tion. By isolating the kuch disposition from the au-thorizing processes that produced it, I do not mean to remove it from its particular “history.” My claim is that these dispositions are religious even though they do not automatically convey “symbolic mean-ings linked to ideas of general order” (Asad 1993). Instead of assuming that a set of symbols could de-termine or modify a disposition, I am assuming here Asad’s critique of Geertz (1973), and exploring the influence of apparently meaningless dispositions on symbols and conceptions. Sponsors’ practices enter into a constant relationship with symbols but they do not always depend on symbolic interpretations to be transmitted. In the process of learning how to successfully sponsor these annual festivals, sponsors assimilate with their ancestors in a tradition of ritual practices. Through ceremonial preparations and divine and sol-emn transactions, ritual experts or “elders” instruct the kuch in the proper ritual manners. Preparations for the day-long rites start months ahead of time. Elders guide the kuch and his partners in the various duties they must face. For example, a particular elder advises the kuch as to who should be approached for contributions of money, food, or service for the festival. In these cases, the elder also witnesses the arrangement between two men, one asking a contri-bution, the other either pledging himself or compro-metiéndose to give it, or rejecting the request. In the process, let me say, of pledging, or better comprom-eterse with a potential helper, the kuch always pays his visit accompanied by an elder and a bottle of liquor.

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The elder testifies to and remembers the agreement reached by the kuch and potential helper. A shot of liquor precedes the transaction. Ritual drinking predisposes everybody’s mood. It also transforms promesas into compromisos. Since alcohol affects both parts of the transaction, a positive inclination tends to arise. Once the kuch has recruited his helpers, his involvement becomes, in Peirce’s terminology, less symbolic and much more indexical. Indications or indices, “show something about things, on account of their being physically con-nected with them” (Peirce 1998: 5). As Peirce puts it, an indexical sign stands in a relation of “dynamic coexistence” with its object. Co-presence and conti-guity are characteristic of indexical relationships, too. Brought many times to the language of cause and ef-fect, indexical semiotics might be better expressed in terms of affections. Peirce (1998: 35) uses the extreme example of the sun and the sunflower: he considers the flower’s phototropism as a semiotic relationship. As one is affecting the other, it follows that there is an object and a sign, in some sort of continuity. In other example he gives, the sound of thunder affects a per-son who does not know what is happening at that moment. After a while, the individual could relate the sound with a previous, and maybe unseen, flash of lightning. In both cases a conscious acknowledg-ment, or a conceptual representation, does not start or stop the indexical force. The person affected by the sound of thunder reacts. Her or his idea of what that thunder is comes later. Contrariwise, contract-like agreements among ritual practitioners, elders, and helpers in Xocén are only the start of the kuch sponsored ceremonies. Pacts among men are the initial stages of a more profound understanding. Compromisos go from symbolic rep-resentations of exchange (how many pesos to con-tribute for the feasting, for example) towards an in-dexical participation between partners. Later, on the festival day, elders supervise food preparation, serve ritual drink, or other duties that entail solemnity and right gestures. Ritual experts or elders, therefore, possess know-how, mainly transmitted by imitation. By perform-ing different duties with the kuch, the elders super-vise and authorize him to transact with ancestors and partners “in the same way that their ancestors did it before.” However, imitation does not just trans-fer a discrete quantity of information from one set of individuals to others (or from one generation to another). In the process of imitating both, sponsors and ritual experts, enact a scene in which empathy is a crucial element for the whole ritual. Non-verbal

acts transmit this ritual knowledge, along with the tradition in which it is embedded. It is my main hy-pothesis here that instead of a transmission, the kuch disposition articulates a particular self-other locus. From entering into sponsorship-contracts to cor-rectly executing dances and gestures, ritualists de-pend on the elders’ advice. Elders are persons who have sponsored these ceremonies many times and know “how to do it.” Elders serve alcohol, cook, wit-ness economic transaction among helpers and cargo holders, and suggest who could help the cargo holder with music, bulls and other items. But more impor-tantly, elders are there to be imitated in all of these tasks. In other words, the elder-like preparation of these festivals assures their success. As in many other human activities, elders cannot transmit their know-ledge more than in doing what they know to do. Conceptually poor, the “right way” or the right man-ners must be learned by trial and error, or in Xocén’s terms, by miracles and punishments. Authority comes at last when the sponsor becomes reliable, humble, and most of all committed to the village’s traditions and its ancestors. In few words, commit-ment and authority arise through imitation. Imitation implies a complex set of neurological phenomena. Vittorio Gallese has studied F5 neural systems in monkeys and its counterpart in humans. F5 system is composed by “canonical” and “mirror” neurons. Canonical neurons fire when a certain type of action is performed, but they are also triggered by perception of objects that afford such actions. Mir-ror neurons activate when a certain type of action is performed, but also when another agent is observed performing the same type action (Hurley and Chater 2005: 3). In the mirror system, Gallese analyzes the possibility of imitation as an intertwined set of ac-tion, perception, and cognition oriented towards a goal. By looking at someone else doing a determined goal-oriented action or whenever the subject is per-forming the same action, mirror neurons discharge. The exact neurons, thus, fire when a hand grasps an object or when one sees someone else grasping it. These neural facts allow us to consider imitation as prior to any subjective representation of other’s ac-tions. According to Gallese, matching other’s behavior allows us to share a common intersubjective stance behind conscious representations. The phenomena related to imitative neuronal processes are directly connected to a social, multimodal and “shared in-tersubjective space” that founds any human self in a constitutive commonality. In Gallese’s (2005: 105) words:

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…this relation is established at the very onset of our life, when no subjective representation can yet be en-tertained by us, because there is no yet a conscious subject of experience. The absence of a subject does not preclude, however, the presence of a primitive self-other space, a paradoxical form of intersubjectiv-ity without subjects. The infant shares this space with lifeless objects as well as with living others, which are internalized by the infant because they are projection of the control strategies governing the interactions they are part of.

The shared manifold hypothesis establishes that this “self-other identity is a driving force in the cognitive development of more articulated and sophisticated forms of intersubjetive relations” (Gallese 2005: 114). The lack of this presubjective stance, accord-ing to him, condemns the subject to autism. How-ever, beyond infancy, this “shared manifold” is also the condition of possibility for any further symbolic behavior and provides the foundations for any par-ticular “self ” development. In other words, beyond any particularities of the self resides an irreducible social stance that supports it. In my study, I identify what can be named a “will of infancy” of ritualists, expressed through a voyage from linguistic pacts to-wards mimetic and silent enactments. I interpret it as an effort to find a common ground for learning how to act correctly in a very difficult arena where life and death intermingle. Elders, closer to death than the initiates, teach and mediate in transactions that are discrete purchases. However, these transactions are also understood to extend past and ancestor-like ac-tions into the present. By mirroring ancestors’ deeds, current sponsors hope for the continuity of their acts into the future.

Conclusion

To represent how important automatism and em-pathic bindings are to ritualists—who have very dif-ferent aims to those of historians—I have taken a detour from my anthropological discourse to refer to some cognitive studies. Less than a phenomenologi-cal embodiment (Csordas 1997), or habitus (Mauss 1979; Bourdieu 1990), doing kuch through com-mitted actions, and regulated by a tradition of ritual doers, seems to imply a political-religious pledge, or compromiso, that presupposes a pre-subjective stance or a particular self-other disposition which has to be learned and mimetically reproduced in order to keep authority developing. In a similar way, we saw

that kuch ritual performances depend on imitation, as a very precise mode of transmission, of informa-tion that is very difficult to conceptualize. Beyond the easy and not incorrect comparison between in-fants and kucho’ob, and their elders, the conditions of possibility of transactions depend on a pre-subjective self-other stance. After some contract-like interactions, kucho’ob’s duties seem to replicate their ancestors’ postures. To become an elder, a nohoch, is also to be able to pro-duce ancestor-like and god-like gestures. Compromi-so, then, seems to entail an involvement more com-plex than that of punctual deals. Compromiso implies an indexical participation with gestures, actions, af-fections, or what I call dispositions. To some extent, these dispositions look like indexical bindings, not symbola, which produce transactions and reciprocity with ancestors. Relational in its nature, this self-other standpoint bridges the gap between the present and the past justifying the mere existence of a committed disposition such as the kuch’s in its own generative powers. In a paragraph about field rituals, which can be experimentally extrapolated to Xocén, Vogt (1976: 55)—discussing what I would like to tentatively de-nominate the “embodied aptitude” of maize—says: “After the kernels are planted, the cobs from the seed maize are hung up in trees to rest, for they are be-lieved to be exhausted from having carried the bur-den of the seeds.” While one may be tempted to read this, at first, as an anthropomorphization of maize, I suggest that it may be useful to recognize it as an invitation for humans to mimetically reproduce the action of the corn. Without the necessity of imagining a “way” transformation (supporters becoming maize cobs), a sort of commonality arises between the plant-god and the community supporters of economic life. Maize and kucho’ob carry burdens indispensable to reproduce life. Both are affected by the heaviness of their bundles. Both work to renew life. From consid-ering transactions as “interactions which are system-atically governed by reciprocity” (Barth 1981: 38), into the more definitive continuity of affections, this common embodied aptitude arises as a force which traverses man, corn, and other beings in a true trans-action. In Xocén, interconnectedness among beings appears as the ontological proof of how divine au-thority transverses discrete bodies in perfect syn-echism.

Acknowledgements. I would like to mention the hos-pitality I enjoyed from different people of Xocén.

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First of all, the many kucho’ob who invited me to their houses at different festivals. Second, the pleas-ant conversations I maintained with Florencio May May, Lázaro Kuh, the comandante and the comisa-rio comunal, Andrés Dzib May, a highly sophisti-cated intellectual and politician. I also would like to thank Veena Das, Jane Guyer, Marcel Detienne, and Fenella Canell who read and commented parts of this paper. It would not be readable without the editing of Cristin Ellis and the editors of these proceedings. Finally, many thanks to the organizers of the 11th European Maya Conference at Malmö University, Sweden, especially to Bodil Liljefors Persson.

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