Nanuu Maria Gets Hit by Lightning: People and Their Selves

1. Nanuu Maria Gets Hit by Lightning: People and Their Selves Nanuu Maria Lopez ?

2. Coessential animal… The Mixtec believe that an animal and human born at the same time will share life experience, are often said to have a single soul, and will, at times, share a consciousness. Nanuu Maria’s kitinuvi was the coatimundi, at some time in her life determined by divination. The coatimundihad been hit by lightning.

3. Nuyoopersonhood involves a “coessential animal” born at the same moment • - the “coessential animal” could be any species • - it lives in the forest while you live in society • - things that happen to it affect you, and things that happen to you, affect it • - you can understand yourself (or others) in terms of your coessential animal • - it explains your talents, interests, luck, dreams, status and role in life, etc.

4. The person in society is based on the culture’s notion of the constitution of the self. What does the self consist of? Is it two parts, a conscious and an unconscious self? Is it a human and an animal? Every culture has some conception of how the self is made. • The Dou Donggo for example; personhood is determined in part by social relations… • - identity is made up of membership in a criss-crossing set of social groups • - kin groups, residential groups, etc.

5. - Elder to La Ninde (the guy who supposedly assaulted Ina Mone in the case earlier) • - “You think you belong to yourself, but you don’t! You are owned by your parents, you are owned by your kinsfolk, you are owned by your village, you are owned by God. You can’t just do as you please!” • - Dou Donggo persons are not autonomous individuals, but rather persons that are nodes in networks of relationships… • In North America now our concept of personhood is more ‘egocentric.’ We generally think that persons are autonomous individuals responsible for themselves alone. (And that is how many people act…as if they have no family!)

6. Culturally constructed, culture-bound • By stating that something is culturally constructed we mean that ideas about the world and the people in it that seem quite obvious and ordinary to the members of a culture are in fact the products of a specific historical tradition and differ from one culture to another (Monaghan and Just) • The culture-bound syndrome…a combination of psychiatric and somatic symptoms that are considered to be a recognizable disease only within a specific society or culture.

7. A culture-specific syndrome is characterized by: • categorization as a disease in the culture (i.e., not a voluntary behaviour or false claim); • widespread familiarity in the culture; • complete lack of familiarity of the condition to people in other cultures; • no objectively demonstrable biochemical or tissue abnormalities (symptoms); • the condition is usually recognized and treated by the folk medicine of the culture.

8. Medical Anthropology… • Medical anthropology, as a subdiscipline of general anthropology, is concerned with the study of human disease and illness and folk medicine. • Medical anthropology makes a general distinction between disease and illness. • Disease is an objectively measureable pathological condition of the body. • Illness, by contrast, is a feeling of not being normal and healthy. It may be the result of disease but generally refers to the individuals perception of their health. Perceptions of illness are very much related to culture while disease is usually not.

9. Naturalistic vs.Personalistic Explanation… • Much of the non-western world traditionally accepted a personalistic explanation for illness.  Today, it is mostly found among people in small-scale societies and some subcultures of larger nations.  For them, illness is seen as being due to acts or wishes of other people or supernatural beings and forces.  There is no room for accidents.  Adherents of personalistic medical systems believe that the causes and cures of illness are not to be found only in the natural world.  Curers usually must use supernatural means to understand what is wrong with their patients and to return them to health.  • Typical causes of illness in personalistic medical systems include: • 1.  intrusion of foreign objects into the body by supernatural means • 2. spirit possession, loss, or damage • 3. bewitching

10. Condition… Causes… Susto-found among some Hispanics in the United States and Latin America. Literally means fright or sudden fear in Spanish. The fear is of losing one's soul. Susto results from incidents that have a destabilizing effect on an individual, causing the soul (espiritu ) to leave the body.  Typical incidents that can cause susto include: 1.   the sudden, unexpected barking of a dog 2. being thrown from a horse 3. tripping over an unnoticed object 4. sharing a hospital ward with a patient who has died during the night 5. having a nighttime encounter with a ghost who keeps your spirit fromfinding its way back into your body before you wake 6. being socially impinged upon by society (e.g., being forced to dosomething that you do not want to do) 7. being in a social situation that causes you to have fear or anger

11. Koro… …the person has an overpowering belief that his penis (or vulva or nipples in females) will retract and disappear. Psychosexual conflicts, personality factors, and cultural beliefs are considered as being of etiological significance to koro. Sexual promiscuity, guilt over masturbation, and impotence.

12. Pibloqtok…Arctic hysteria Symptoms can include intense hysteria (screaming, uncontrolled wild behavior), depression, coprophagia (involves poop!), insensitivity to extreme cold (such as running around in the snow naked), echolalia (senseless repetition of overheard words) and more. possibly linked to vitamin A toxicity (hypervitaminosis). The native Inuit diet provides rich sources of vitamin A and is possibly the cause or a causative factor. The ingestion of organ meats, particularly the livers of arctic fish and mammals, where the vitamin is stored in toxic quantities, can be fatal. But the condtion may not even exist at all!

13. Other examples of culture-bound illness include… • Amok; (Malaysia)as in running amok. • Ghost sickness; native American, symptoms related to close contact with a corpse • Shen-k’uei; (China)illness attributed to excessive loss of semen • Zar; (North Africa, Middle East), spirit possession leading to apathy and withdrawal