Abstract

CERVERA MONTEJANO, María Dolores. El hetsmek' como expresión simbólica de la construcción de los niños mayas yucatecos como personas. Rev. pueblos front. digit. [online]. 2007, vol.2, n.4, pp.336-369. ISSN 1870-4115.  https://doi.org/10.22201/cimsur.18704115e.2007.4.224.

I approach the cultural construction of the idea of person in the first years of life among the Yucatec Maya through the relationship between parental ethnotheories and worldview. I focus in the hetsmek’ ceremony and suggest that it may be seen as the expression in parental ethnotheories of the role played by souls and human society in the formation of children. Parents and godparents symbolically contribute to open the infant’s road in order to develop the abilities that will define the concept of understanding. These evoke the characteristics of human beings modeled from corn as described in the Maya genesis. Among them, responsibility and awareness relate to ik’. Together with ool, they refer to the attributes that allow the individual to engage in the world and which require further investigation into their multiple meanings and relations if we are to better understand the construction of the person among the Maya of Yucatan.

Keywords : Children; parental ethno-theories; spiritual entities; Yucatán.