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Humbling, Frightening, and Exalting
Author(s) -
Harvey Tenibac S.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
anthropology and humanism
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.153
H-Index - 17
eISSN - 1548-1409
pISSN - 1559-9167
DOI - 10.1525/anhu.2006.31.1.1
Subject(s) - maya , ethnography , atonement , experiential learning , sociology , interpersonal relationship , aesthetics , anthropology , psychology , art , social psychology , epistemology , philosophy , pedagogy , theology
The field research presented here on K'iche' Maya healing in highland Guatemala is a work of ethnography and to a lesser (though not an insignificant) extent a work of linguistic anthropology. In this ethnographic retelling of an experiential acquaintance with Maya healing, we examine in intimate detail one specific therapeutic encounter and focus on K'iche' conceptions and experiences of kyeb awanima (being of two hearts) and of achi lib al (companionship) as they relate to healing. These ethnographic intimations seek to avoid autometric descriptions, offering instead something like near‐life experience and a kind of socio‐scientific atonement to experience that ever follows but never fixes the indeterminacies and lubricities of experience.