Abstract

MENDEZ SANCHEZ, Juan. The hunter, the prey and the Ownerof the Animals: The Nahua hunting complex. Trace (Méx. DF) [online]. 2020, n.78, pp.43-66.  Epub Apr 28, 2021. ISSN 2007-2392.  https://doi.org/10.22134/trace.78.2020.738.

Hunting is a complex scenario that allows to configure the relationships between humans and non-humans. These relationships have been observed, through ethnographic fieldwork, between the Nahuas of San Martín Mazateopan, a community located in the southeast of the state of Puebla. Hunting in Mazateopan is not only a means of subsistence, but a means of communicating with the owner of the animals, the Tepechane, who will hand over his «daughters», the deer, to the hunters. To achieve this, they carry out a series of activities whose objective is to dissociate them from the human community, to allow them to acquire specific ontological qualities and to enter the jungle in a more secure way when they are identif ied by those who inhabit and own them. Therefore, what is proposed in this document is that the ritual procedures practiced by the «good» hunters respond to the structure of the Nahua cosmos and aim to (re) temporarily configure the continuity between them and the owner of the animal. The above in order to conduct the hunting activity safely and thus achieve its objective: access to bushmeat.

Keywords : hunting; Nahuas; feeding; hierarchy; alliance.

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