Deeper Meaning

I agree with Katie that the topic of medicine, healing, and religion is really interesting. I'm not sure that I completely agree with it being similar to our methods, but I'm also sure there are some similarities if we look deep enough. I say that treatment methods are lacking in similarity simply because I feel as if a lot of times patients in this country are treated as such. There often seems to be no face or character attached to individuals. That is not to say that this is always the case, but there really seems to be a deeper recognition of the differences in people among the indigenous people of Tecpan.

What really stands out about this passage are the two terms k'u'x and anima meaning heart and soul respectively. I don't think that this country has such a deep connection between k'u'x and anima as the indigenous people of Tecpan do. I can see similarities arise when things such as the the size of k'u'x or heart are raised. In both societies, the bigger someone's heart is, the more qualities such as honesty, trustworthiness, reliabilty, and kindness is associated with that individual. If we were to flip the script and describe the exact opposite, a small k'u'x or heart would do the job to describe their lack of the aforementioned qualities. Furthermore, there are so many examples of how important and influential the anima is in an individual's life. For example, the little boy Kan had a very unique and unsettled anima that required special attention. The ritual performed for the young boy took all points such as k'u'x, anima, predispostions, and real world experiences into account in determining the right treatment. A lot of the descriptions used to describe k'u'x and anima definitely match up, but the meaning and significance of these descriptions seem to have so much more value to the indigenous people of Tecpan.

Lastly, I thought the explanation of their religion to be quite interesting. In general, when I think of indigenous people, I think of them worshipping all different types of articles such as the gods of the trees, the grass, the sky, or the water. The explanation of praying to God explaining why the tree was to be cut down gave a different perspective of praying and their religion. Just about every topic touched in this section made me think about our discussion of the K'iche language. There is such deep meaning in thoughts, words, and actions. This also makes me think about why it has proved so difficult to destroy the indigenous cultures of Guatemala. The foundations of these individual groups of people is so strong and deeply rooted. Everything they they do or say has a deeper meaning that serves to perpetuate their long standing history and culture.