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Don Patricio’s Dream
There is a very real sense, then, in which the fate of the soul in sor-
cery-provoked soul loss precisely mirrors the bizarre and threaten-
ing qualities of asociality intrinsic to the culprit’s kjoaxíntokon or
“envy” and from which the anomic state of the victim is believed ul-
timately to derive. The disjuncture between the soul and body of the
afflicted is analogous to that between the hidden intentions of the en-
vious neighbor and his outward gestures extended toward others; both
are implicated as divided selves in a situation of estrangement from
positive participation in the lives and society of others. Thus the cur-
rent re-elaborations of Mazatecs upon the age-old theme of soul loss
or capture can be understood as the magnifying refractions of those
ever-more-profound fears and apprehensions now permeating their
social experience.
Caught Between Two Shamans:
Ambivalence, Dilemma, and Dream
The possession of special knowledge is the defining characteristic of
Mazatec shamans. The Mazatec word or phrase for shaman is chjota
chjine, literally, “person who knows.” What they know, for exam-
ple, are varieties of divination techniques and healing rituals, and de-
tails of cosmological reference and principles necessary to their effi-
cacy. They may also control dangerous knowledge about deadly ritual
methods of sorcery, something allegedly acquired not through prac-
tice but through visionary investigation of attacks on victims whom
they attend as patients.
All shamans claim that their special knowledge comes to them di-
rectly from the deities and spirits in the course of their own individual
visionary experience. Ordinarily, this knowledge is jealously guarded
from rival practitioners. I was often told by shamans that each first
acquired his or her healing knowledge during initiatory ritual ordeals
that culminated in being presented by either God or the spirits with
his or her own Libro de Conocimiento, or “Book of Knowledge.”^3
The phrase neither refers to a literal object of printed leaves sewn and
bound together, nor is merely a figurative expression; instead, it attests
to the revelation of a kind of supernatural entity—typically addressed
in Mazatec by many names, as in the lilting repetitive sequence in this
