Abstract

RODRIGUEZ CEJA, Gabriela. “Hacer maldad” to Produce Harm or Illness. A Phenomenological Approach to Witchcraft in a Chol Town. Estud. cult. maya [online]. 2017, vol.50, pp.219-248. ISSN 0185-2574.  https://doi.org/10.19130/iifl.ecm.2017.50.863.

Phenomenological perspective leads to an approximation of the way in which witchcraft can impact Chol people’s health, throughout everyday experience of the living body. This is possible because of the concordance between the cultural logic of the world they live in, and what they perceive, since there is correspondence between the social conflict built around the envious person, the actions accomplished to provoke damage, and the experiences of the inflected people at the time they perceive the harmful consequences. The idea guiding this article is that cultural differences can generate not just diverse ways of thinking, based in different concepts or symbols, but they can produce experiences from distinct corporeal perceptions (Ots, 1990). Between the Chol from Calakmul there is a particular person-world relation that generates people to have experiences related with witchcraft, which can actually conduct them to illness.

Keywords : Chol culture; witchcraft; body; emotions; phenomenological approach.