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Social Science Cultural

The Hot and the Cold

Ills of Humans and Maize in Native Mexico

by (author) W. Andrés (Sánchez) Bain & Jacques M. Chevalier

Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Initial publish date
Apr 2003
Category
Cultural, Alternative Therapies, Philosophy & Social Aspects
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780802036919
    Publish Date
    Apr 2003
    List Price
    $123.00
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442681460
    Publish Date
    Mar 2003
    List Price
    $121.00

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Description

Pre-Hispanic notions of heat and cold continue to shape native Mexican ideas about health and illness in humans and food plants. In The Hot and the Cold, Jacques Chevalier and Andrés Sánchez Bain examine indigenous worldview and myth, and challenge the prevailing notion that hot-cold reasoning in Latin America is a product of the Hippocratic humoral doctrine brought by the Spaniards in the sixteenth century.

Based on extensive field work in southern Veracruz, this innovative study details folk tales and stories of illness from indigenous people, and provides explanations that emphasize the close connections between healing practices, milpa cultivation, and corn mythology. These close connections reveal that human health and the life cycle of the corn plant are governed by the same principles founded on native concepts of the hot and the cold. Notions of what is frío and what is caliente pervade the ways in which the Nahuas and Zoque-Popolucas of the Sierra de Santa Marta think about their relationship with the land and all entities that surround them, including fellow humans, plants, animals, and spirits. By revealing the connections between ethnomedicine, agriculture, and mythology, Chevalier and Sánchez help clarify puzzling aspects of Mesoamerican religion and symbolic thought, and lead the way towards better understanding of indigenous worldview in the modern world.

About the authors

W. Andrés Sánchez Bain is a Program Officer at the International Development Research Centre.

W. Andrés (Sánchez) Bain's profile page

Jacques M. Chevalier is Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Carleton University.

Jacques M. Chevalier's profile page