Naguales in Colonial Maya Populations. Beyond Substrate, Transfiguration, and Memory

Abstract

Through an integral perspective of longue durée, the present work centers on clarifying the role played by ritual specialists known as naguales in Maya populations during the colonial period. For this, it contemplates the prevalence of the phenomenon of opposition to Spanish dominion and the implementation of palliative mechanisms of cultural disarticulation, strategies that allowed the indigenous society to preserve the structural components of ancient belief. This process falls within a longer struggle that presents diverse nuances. On the one hand, it allows us to glimpse the form in which the Catholic representatives dedicated their efforts to the extirpation of the recurring manifestations of ‘idolatry’, yet on the other hand opens the possibility of glimpsing how native peoples, in their active response to this situation, assumed the task of preserving the primordial substrate of their traditions and ceremonial life.