Abstract

DUQUESNOY, Michel. Talokan: the "Word-other" of the Nahua Indians´ Shamanistic Cosmography in the Sierra Norte of Puebla, Mexico. Andes [online]. 2015, vol.26, n.1, pp.00-00. ISSN 1668-8090.

Talokan, a very typical space of the infraworld, is clearly the most important point of the Nahua Indians´ cosmographic discourse in the Sierra Norte of Puebla, Mexico. Their conception of the word is very complex. The world looks like a sphere with several spaces, most of them occupied by "extrahuman" entities, frequently hostile toward human beings. Human beings live in one of them.  Talokan explains this world and the "world-other". This conception has basically one explanation: a kind of agreement of equilibrium between each space and their respective forces. Going through a wrong space generates chaos in the cosmos and illness in humans and animals. It will be the shamans´ (curandero) responsibility to regulate the contract. The shaman goes to Talokan to rescue his patient. There he begins great and difficult negotiations with some entities. Today Talokan is, in fact, a singular reminiscence of the ancient Mesoamerican Tlalocan, Tlaloc´s post mortem pleasure palace, which he reserved for his victims. This essay explains how the actual shamanistic conception inherits its foundations from the Mesoamerican view about the cosmos, without losing its power to explain disease or well being.

Keywords : Talokan; Nahua Indians; Cosmography; Shamanism; Disease.

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