The Concept Of Soul Among The Raramuri Of Chihuahua, Mexico: A Study In World View.

Abstract

The concept of soul is one of the central concepts in the world view of the Raramuri (or Tarahumara) people, who live in the southwestern portions of the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua. In this study, I first explore how the members of one Raramuri community employ their ideas about souls to understand various aspects of their existence and then address the problem of variations among the ideas of different individuals. After providing background information on the history, economy, social organization, and cosmography of the Raramuri, I discuss the general features of the relationship the Raramuri envision between a person's body and his souls. I detail in particular the contribution that an individual's souls make to his existence and emphasize the connection the Raramuri propose between a person's actions and his thinking, which is performed exclusively by his souls. On the basis of this association, notions of morality and sanity become inextricably entwined. Next I turn to the manner in which the Raramuri employ the concept of soul to explain the occurrence of certain physiological, emotional, and mental states, specifically sleeping, dreaming, inebriation, illness, and death. In the process, I discuss the significant role that dreams play in the Raramuri's lives, the nature of Raramuri drinking behavior, their notions of illness and the actions they undertake to preserve and restore good health, their ideas about sorcery, and their thinking on the fate of souls after death, the nature of the world of the dead, and the relation between the living and the dead. In the course of the discussion, I indicate that on some points within the concept of soul most or all people maintain the same ideas while on others there is a wide diversity of opinion. To determine more precisely the distribution of individual variations within the concept of soul, I outline a model of the structure of this concept. I propose that the various ideas the Raramuri maintain about souls can be arranged hierarchically according to the degree to which each presupposes or is presupposed by the others and that the principal relations among them are ones of contingency, suggestion, and mutual reinforcement rather than logical implication in the strict sense of the term. In terms of this framework, the greatest diversity of opinion can be seen to occur at the lower levels of the hierarchy, the least at the higher levels. I suggest that individual variations can emerge only where the opportunity to choose among alternative ideas exists and that this pattern of agreement and disagreement reflects the fact that people are more restricted in their choices among ideas at higher levels of the hierarchy than at lower levels. I propose several factors related to the nature of the ideas that constitute the Raramuri concept of soul and to the relations among these ideas which affect the availability of choices at these different levels and then examine several exceptions to the general pattern. In the process of examining the problem of individual variations, I isolate and then discuss certain features of the approach the Raramuri adopt in constructing their concept of soul and their view of the world in general. Finally, I suggest that, when evaluating an idea or set of ideas, the Raramuri are concerned less with the criteria of truth and consistency than with considerations of goodness and beauty, an emphasis that reflects the preeminently moral and aesthetic orientation they assume toward their existence as a whole.