Abstract

PAGE PLIEGO, Jaime Tomás. Between Falling Ill, Healing the Casting of Evil (ak’bil chamel), and the Extermination of its Agents. Rev. pueblos front. digit. [online]. 2025, vol.20, e706.  Epub Feb 14, 2025. ISSN 1870-4115.  https://doi.org/10.22201/cimsur.18704115e.2025.v20.706.

This text discusses how the Tsotsils of Chamula and Chenalhó, as well as the Tseltals in Oxchuc -all municipalities in Chiapas, Mexico- conceived and confronted the risks and causes that led individuals to become subjected to ak’bil chamel or ak’chamel (the casting of evil) in the late 1990s and during the early 2000s. It analyzes, on the one hand, the strategies employed by the j-ak’chameletik (those who cause harm) and, on the other, the actions carried out by people capable of diagnosing and eliminating ak’bil chamel; these were the j-iloletik (in Tsotsil) and ch’abajeletik (in Tseltal) (those who can see, hear, and feel blood). Furthermore, it examines the secrets that people commonly need to know in order to avoid, neutralize, and exterminate the j-ak’chameletik.

Keywords : indigenous ontologies; strategies for harm and help; cosmology; Tseltals; Tsotsils.

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