Anthropology as a literary work | Dimensión Antropológica

Witold Jacorzynski *Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS) del Sureste. (Research and Graduate Studies Center in Social Anthropology (CIESAS for its abbreviation in Spanish) of the Southeast). English translation by Denisse Piñera Palacios.

With this article I would like to propose a phenomenological argument to sustain the idea evoked by several authors about anthropology having an interpretative character. This position may be defined as a set of two theses. The first thesis enunciates that culture can be read as a text (or texts). The second one admits that ethnography is a text (or texts) about texts. The first assumption defines the interpretative character of culture; the second one alludes to the descriptive character of ethnography. I will refer to the first thesis as the textual thesis, while I will call the second one the metatextual thesis. In the first part of my article I want to clarify said theses and show their limitations. In the second part, I will present the Polish phenomenologist Roman Ingarden’s theory of the literary work. In the third part I will use his theory to reintroduce the idea of interpretation in the textual and metatextual aspect; I will discuss the basic objections against the idea of considering anthropology as a literary work and I will show ways to refute them. In the fourth part, I will use the Ingardenian concepts to interpret two cultural phenomena I have chosen: a clandestine cult of Saint Simon in Zinacantán, Chiapas, and the Nahuas’ perceptions about the arrival of the Spaniards in Mexico in the XVI century. I will conclude that the Ingardenian theory provides viable basis to validate interpretative anthropology.

Textualism and metacontextualism

Let us begin with the metatextual thesis, since this one is less dubious than the textual thesis. The metatextual thesis, in fact, is formed by two statements: the first one is a tautology that admits that ethnographic texts are texts. Ethnography is traditionally conceived as the set of all the descriptions, true or false, correct or incorrect, of ethnic phenomena. Understood this way, ethnography does not enunciate theories, although it is based on them. Good anthropology is made of ethnography plus the enunciated theories; bad anthropology is made of ethnography plus the hidden theories. Due to the fact that the ethnic phenomenon (regardless of our concept of ethnicity) is a social phenomenon, both ethnography and anthropology are social sciences. The argument I will present will therefore be valid not only for anthropology, but also for all social sciences. The second part of the metatextual thesis states something about the object of these texts. Said object is formed by other texts. Since the first part of the thesis is tautologically true, the validity of the thesis now depends on the validity of this statement. Is it perhaps true that anthropology is a set of texts about texts? Certainly, there are trivial cases in which said affirmation is obviously valid. Let us take as an example any analysis of tales, myths, songs, jokes, gossiping or diaries, that is, written sources or those that can be written down. Apart from these texts par excellence, there are other cultural phenomena that are not texts in the literary sense. To these phenomena belong historical events and ritualized and non-ritualized actions. The validity of the metacontextual thesis now depends on the validity of the textual thesis, which affirms that culture may be read as a text or texts.

At first sight, the textual thesis appears as an eccentric and even absurd affirmation. We know that contrivances – clay pots or brooms- belong to culture; telling a student “Read this broom” would be, for him or her, barely understandable. Hence the first conclusion: the textual thesis cannot be understood literally but metaphorically. We do not read brooms in the same way we read a book. However, of what does the metaphor consist? For now, it would be enough to say that “reading” rather means the act of understanding something by means of its interpretation. The broom in our example has a place that is analogous to a letter of the alphabet or to a word out of the context of the sentence which, on its own, lacks meaning and cannot be interpreted until we have more information about it: for instance, until we see it on a drawing as an attribute of a witch that rides it taking off at night. Meaning is only manifested in the contextual use of the sign. Ludwig Wittgenstein devoted to the justification of this idea the brilliant treatise Philosophische Untersuhungen. As he affirms in note number 431: “Jedes Zeichen scheint allein tot. ¿Was gibt ihm Leben? – Im Gebrauch lebt es. Hat es da den lebenden Atem in sich? Oder ist der Gebrauch sein Atem?” Every sign by itself seems dead. What gives it life? In use it is alive. Is life breathed into it there? Or is the use its life?1

This explanation may motivate two objections. Some might say: things do not have meaning, words and sentences do. The word “broom” means broom, but the broom as an object does not mean anything. If someone asks us: “what is a broom?”, we can point at the thing and say “that is a broom”. I do not think this argument can be harmful to the textual thesis. It is true that things differ from words, but there is no reason why we cannot treat things as if they were words. Let us note that the textual thesis does not implicate us in the discussions about the ontological status of culture. We do not affirm that culture is a text, but only that it can be read as a text or texts. This assumption is methodological and not ontological. The second objection seems to be much more serious: if the idea of a text forms a model for anthropology or even for all the social sciences, what is a text? Normally, we do not think that a letter or two or three of them make up a text. What about a single word? For instance, does “Resist!”, uttered by a trainer or a boxer during the last episode, constitute a text? We might say: yes, “resist” used in this context has a meaning, which is intentionally sent out and understood by the recipient; in other words, it constitutes a message. Let us imagine a teacher pronouncing the letter “a” at a kindergarten in front of a group of children. Does “a” have a meaning in this context? What is the minimal unit of meaning? How many words or sentences do we need to talk about a text? The simple answer to these questions would be to affirm that the text is coextensional to the message. But if this were the case, remaining silent can also be a message. For instance, if during a marriage ceremony the priest asks the bride: “do you take this man to be your… etcetera?”, and she only blinks without saying anything. It is easy to imagine situations in which silence would constitute a message. However, can we consider silence to be a text? We are searching in the concept “text” a model to better conceive reality but, in this case, the model becomes more imprecise than reality itself. I agree with John B. Thompson, who affirmed that the concept of text has been the source of the “considerable doubts about any attempt to consider culture en masse as “a collection of texts”.2 In the following paragraphs, instead of conceptualizing the “text” in general, I will discuss a type of text: the literary work in Roman Ingarden’s sense, and I will try to build an analogy between the literary work and culture and/or ethnography.

Roman Ingarden’s theory of the literary work

Imagining contemporary aesthetics without Ingarden is imagining a rose without the flower. Ingarden was Edmund Husserl’s collaborator, the father of the phenomenological movement of our century. Ingarden applied, among many other things, the main phenomenological distinctions and intuitions to aesthetics, that is, the philosophy of art. From the small amount of Ingarden’s texts that have been published in Spanish, I have chosen a classic article “Concreción y reconstrucción” published in Spain in an anthology.3 This work expresses the main ideas about the constitution of the work of art and the aesthetic object alluded in his multiple aesthetic works published in Polish, German and other languages before and after the Second World War.4 In this article, Ingarden summarizes his theory in eight points.

1. Any literary work is constituted by different layers: a) layer of verbal sounds, phonetic formations and phenomena of superior character; b) layer of semantic units: meanings of propositions and meanings of groups of propositions; c) layer of schematized aspects in which appear objects of various types presented in the work; d) layer of represented -and also presented- objectivities, in the intentional relationships conveyed by the phrases.5

2. In fact, the layers constitute a whole and they exist only as theoretical entities conceptually extracted from the work. From the matter and form of the individual layers results an essential internal connection between the various layers, thus generating the formal unity of the work.

3. Apart from the stratified structure, the literary work is known for having an ordered sequence of parts (phrases, groups of phrases, chapters, etcetera). As a consequence, the work has a peculiar quasi-temporary “extension” from beginning to end.

4. In contrast with a preponderant majority of propositions of the scientific work, which are genuine judgments, the declarative sentences of a literary work of art are not genuine judgments, but only quasi-judgments. Their function lies in attributing to the represented objects a mere aspect of reality, without marking them as authentic realities.

5. Each of the layers of a literary work can have valuable qualities of two types, depending on whereas they correspond to artistic or to aesthetic values. The latter are present in the work itself in a peculiar potential state.

6. The literary work differs from its concretizations, which emerge from individual readings of the work (or also from its presentation and view by an audience).

7. Differently from its concretization, the literary work itself is a schematic formation. Some of its layers, especially the layer of represented objectivities and the layer of schematized aspects, contain “areas of indetermination”. These areas are partially eliminated in concretizations.

8. The areas of indetermination are eliminated in individual concretizations so that a major or minor determination takes their place, or in a way, it “fulfills them”. This “fulfillment” is not sufficiently determined by the defining characters of the object, therefore the concretizations may be different in essence. The literary work is a purely intentional formation which has its origin in the creative acts of conscience of its author; its physical foundation exists in the written text or in another physical means. By virtue of the dual layer of its language, the work is intersubjectively accessible and reproducible, so that it becomes an intentional intersubjective object, relative to a community of readers. In this way, it is not a psychological phenomenon, but it transcends all the experiences of conscience, both of the author and the reader.

The language used by Ingarden is not easy to understand and it needs to be clarified. Let us proceed by commenting, first of all, the points that will help to build the analogy between the literary work, on one hand, and culture and/or anthropology on the other. In order to do this, we will briefly comment points 1, 2 and 3, to then go to points 6, 7, 8. At the end we will explain why we must ignore points 4 and 5.

Points 1, 2 and 3 introduce us to the main concepts and distinctions of Ingarden’s theory. Layer a) is nothing but the material substratum of any work, the physical object (sequence of phonemes, material of the painting, plaster of a relief). Layer b) refers to the semantics of the work. In the case of a novel or a theater piece, it is the content. Layer c) alludes to the characteristics or general aspects mentioned by the characters, events or situations mentioned in the work which, however, are always open to the interpretation of the readers.6 For instance in Hamlet, Shakespeare implies that Hamlet is a young Danish prince who searches for justice or revenge for his father’s death, killed by his current stepfather. Based on these very general characteristics, we can imagine Hamlet in different situations described in the work: Hamlet talking to Yorick’s skull, Hamlet killing Polonius, Hamlet rejecting Ofelia. Layer d) refers to the objects of our imagination, product of the synthesis of the general characteristics and of the “fulfillment” of gaps or “areas of indetermination” in the description of the author, using our imagination. Points 6, 7 and 8 help to clarify the position of the areas of indetermination. In the case of Hamlet there are many areas of indetermination. Shakespeare does not say if Hamlet is tall or short, thin or fat, if he has blue eyes or not. This is a key part of the theory: in order to create our “concretization” of Hamlet we have to eliminate “in our own way” the areas of indetermination. It is clear that “the concretization of the work is also schematic, but less so than the work itself”.7 But, what does “in our own way” mean? Ingarden offers an enlightening answer: “The reader completes the general schematic aspects with details that correspond to his/her sensitivity, his/her habits of perception and his/her preference for certain qualities and quality relationships. As a consequence, these details vary from one reader to the other. In this process, the reader often refers to his/her previous experiences and imagines the represented world under the aspect of a world image he/she has built during life”.8

The Ingardenian theory and anthropology

Some “postmodern” authors could accept this comment as their manifesto. Due to the fact that interpretation is ingrained in the individual human life and that it is socially built, the way of understanding the world is also socially built. In this way, the analogy between the structure of the literary work mentioned in Ingarden’s points 1, 2, and 3 is analogous to the world perceived by the actors and the works of the writers on the world perceived by the readers. They all fulfill the areas of indetermination with their own theories, prophecies or metaphysical assumptions about the world -in the case of cultural phenomena (textual thesis)- or with hypotheses, explanations or symbologies they build -in the case of the texts about cultural phenomena (metatextual thesis). It seems that signs become symbols; they are always open to all the possible individual interpretations. “The symbol –says Garagalza following Gadamer- is not explained once and for all, in the way that happens with a mathematical formula. It rather resembles a musical score or a theatre play, which do not exist but in their successive interpretations”.9

Hermeneutics and the different versions of relativism that emerge from them have become the object of criticism of one of the most brilliant minds of our century, Ernest Gellner.10 Not only did this author accuse this current of being logical in general, but also of containing multiple frauds: among others, “pharisaism”, “contradictions”, “hidden condescendence” and even “criminality”.11 Gellner’s criticism is substantial, short and overwhelming. Let us try to summarize it briefly.

The relativist, according to Gellner, is the person who admits that the understanding of the world is socially built, due to the fact that all cultures are equally valid, efficient or correct. Therefore a relativist, according to Gellner, falls into a double contradiction. On the one hand, he/she articulates his/her own relativistic position in an anti-relativistic language (all cultures are equally valid); on the other hand he/she comes against his/her own position. Let us suppose there are cultures that contradict relativism and admit that not all cultures are equally valid. Thanks to the same relativistic position, they would be right. If all cultures are equally valid, the one that assumes that not all cultures are equally valid becomes valid. “If the truth can only exist within a culture and its rules, in which interstellar or intercultural void does our relativist articulate his/her position?” –asks Gellner. 12 Gellner’s second argument is addressed against hermeneutics itself and, therefore, against the textualist thesis. According to this anthropologist from Cambridge, the explanation of the cultural world in terms of meanings is a serious mistake because “the changes produced in a political structure may occur so quickly that it is absurd to suppose that the system of meanings can change at the same rhythm […]. Most of all, meanings are a problem and not a solution “. 13 If Gellner’s two arguments are correct, the relativists and the hermeneutical should reject their academic positions and look for another job. Our question now is the following: Are Gellner’s arguments correct? In my opinion, the first one is, whereas the second one is rather ambiguous. There is no doubt that relativism in its cultural or interpretative version is an internally contradictory position. Due to the fact that we are not put in jail when we commit a contradiction, contradictions keep generating like mushrooms within the confines of the academy. In fact, the second argument is based on the antihistoricist assumption addressed once by Popper against the Marxist doctrine: changes in the political or technological life happen in a rapid and unpredictable way while meanings do not. Whereas this assumption is right or not, the only thing it shows is that the process of interpreting and the process of happening are two different or even independent processes. Not all perception is interpretation. Not all object of anthropology can be read as a text. Culture, that is, the ways of communication, may be, as British anthropologists used to admit, only a reflection of the social structure. As to social anthropology, the important thing is to know who or what codifies information and why.

Now then, Ingarden and other phenomenologists could answer in the following way: although interpretation and perception are two different processes, the interpretation of events is a necessary component of each perception. Even at the level of perception, we do not see all the sides of the observed object, although we always think of it as a complete object or, in Ingarden’s words, we have a “natural inclination to consider things and individual persons as completely determined “.14 Although anthropologists are allergic to the word “natural”, there is no doubt that an experiment of observing at the same time all the sides of reality concludes either as a manifesto of cubist art or as a disease of Jorge Luis Borges’ Funes the memorious. “We, in one glance, can perceive three cups on a table – writes Borges-; Funes, all the leaves and tendrils and fruit that make up a vine. He knew the forms of the southern clouds at dawn on the thirtieth of April eighteen eighty two and he could compare them in his memory with the whirls on a book bound in Spanish leather that he had looked at once and with the lines of foam raised by an oar in the Rio Negro during the battle of Quebracho. […] He told me: I have more memories in myself alone than all men have had since the world was a world. And again: My dreams are like your vigils. And again, toward dawn: My memory, sir, is like a garbage disposal”.15 If Funes the Memorious was an anthropologist, he would be called Funes the deconstructivist. The object of his deconstruction would be the conceived world.

Thanks to the phenomenological theory of perception and to the aesthetic theory, Ingarden succeeds in passing by the Scilla of naïf realism and in saving the contextualist thesis. However, does he manage to escape at the same time the Charibdis of relativism? When is an interpretation valid and when is it not so? The first answer originates in Ingarden’s phenomenological ontology. Neither the literary work nor the aesthetic qualities may be identified to the objects of the readers’ acts of conscience. Hamlet is still the same play, regardless of the ways we can read it. The artistic and aesthetic qualities create some sort of quasi-ideal entities and they wait for the sensitive readers to discover them.16 Other answers come from the normative disciplines such as aesthetics and literary criticism. Ingarden proposes several validity conditions for the interpretation of the literary work. Let us mention only some of them. First of all, we have to carefully distinguish all the areas of indetermination from their “fulfillments” or, in other words, what is given to us in perception from what results from our interpretation. Secondly, we have to distinguish the significant areas of indetermination from the less significant ones. In our case, we have to know what is worth knowing and what is not so about the ethnic phenomena. As Ingarden affirms: “Deciding what the significant areas of indetermination are, is not an easy task, and it presupposes a good understanding of what is effectively explicit in the linguistic layer of the work”.17 Third, our concretizations cannot be in conflict with the text of the work. We cannot concretize Hamlet as a woman or an elder man. In the case of anthropology, we can treat in this way the empirical and statistical generalizations or not, corroborating them with cases that contradict them. One example of an invalid generalization would be Freud’s affirmation that the Oedipus complex is a universal fact, because ethnographic data show that, among the Hopis or the Trobriand Islanders, there is no manifestation whatsoever of said complex. Concretizations cannot get into conflict with the text or, in our case, with the observed data, and they must also help us to understand the work. At the same time, one way of concretization can change the work into something superficial, another one can accentuate its depth and originality. Not all admissible concretizations are equally advisable.18 Can we imagine Hamlet as a dwarf or an idiot? Even if this “fulfillment” does not contradict any schematic circumstance offered by Shakespeare, the tragedy of Ofelia killing herself after being rejected by an idiot would seem a mockery, or it would turn into the story of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and not Hamlet. Fourth, the variation of the possibilities to fulfill the areas of indetermination is limited by the need to take into consideration the “context” that determines them. This limit may be considered in two different ways: a) regarding only the determinations of the areas of indetermination, without taking into consideration the widest context and the other areas of indetermination or b) regarding the limitation of the fulfillment variation of the relevant areas of indetermination, which narrows each time. “This narrowing –adds Ingarden- may be considered in the first place as the result of avoiding inconsistencies and contradictions in the outline of the literary work, which is neutral, aesthetically speaking”.19

The last comment makes us remember the main objective of Ingarden’s literary work molded in point 5. The purpose of the process of creating complete concretizations by means of schematic characterizations is to actualize the aesthetic values that only exist potentially, established on the structure of the work, and the artistic qualities (for instance, the composition of the work, the action, coherence, brevity, clarity). Aesthetic quality is an encounter of the objective elements of the work (material and semantic layer, schematic characteristics, artistic qualities) and the subjective elements (detection of the significant and less significant areas of indetermination, their actualization, and concretization from the schematic qualities, etcetera). Now then, at this point concludes our analogy. The creation of aesthetic qualities is not generally the main objective of the interpretation of the world (textual thesis) nor is it the creation of the anthropological work (metatextual thesis), therefore the role of the areas of indetermination and the validity of their fulfillment will be different in both of them. We have to confess that it would be difficult to determine with complete certainty the objective of perceiving and interpreting the world. Several authors have provided their own answers: adaptation to the environment, coherence towards the main patterns of culture, curiosity, survival. The objective of anthropology and social sciences seems more tangible and is reduced to the understanding and, sometimes, -as in Marx’s eleventh thesis about Feuerbach- to the transformation of the social world. This difference between the literary work and the scientific work was considered by Ingarden in point 4. The propositions of the scientific work are “genuine” judgments, whereas the propositions of the literary work of art are “quasi-judgments, whose function consists in attributing the represented objects a mere aspect of reality”.20 We understand now why critics such as Gellner had good reasons to get angry at the hermeneutic like Geertz or Clifford. While Geertz, the cautious master, admitted that both culture and anthropology were texts and that anthropologists were writers,21 Clifford, his rebellious student, thought that anthropological texts looked more like science fiction rather than descriptions of reality.22 Ingarden does not make this mistake and he admits that scientific texts differ from poetry, drama, historic novels and other types of epic literature. The judgments of the scientific work preach about something existing, whereas the judgments of the literary work equip the characters with a “mere aspect of reality “. Science describes facts, art makes them up.

However reasonable this idea might appear, I don’t think this is the strongest side of the Ingardenian theory, because it engages us in metaphysical speculations about the nature of reality and, besides, it assumes the Aristotelic and Thomist theory of the truth as adectuatio rei et intelectus. Besides; what shall we say about a historic novel or a biography, or about a field diary?, are they scientific or literary works? Is Levi- Strauss’ book Les Tristes Tropiques a work of art or a scientific work? It seems that the border line between science and the literary work is more difficult to trace than Ingarden thinks. A better way to distinguish the anthropological work from other literary works would be through the concept of the area of indetermination. As intelligently observed by Ingarden when referring to his studies completed in Lvov in 1934 and 1935, the role of the areas of indetermination is of great importance to lyrical poetry, in which “more remains unsaid”.23 As we have already said, although in anthropology we cannot totally divest ourselves of the areas of indetermination and avoid “fulfilling” them with uncorroborated hypotheses, symbologies, etcetera, the ideal would be to eliminate them absolutely. The same may be said about the perception of culture as a text. Less areas of indetermination in the perceived world and more actual and severe criticism of our “fulfillments”, less possibility of subjectivized projections, egocentric and ethnocentric prejudices by the part of the researcher.

Textualism and metacontextualism vindicated: study of cases

Interpretative anthropology based on Ingardenian aesthetics may be successfully used as a methodological tool in the criticism and analysis of the perceptions of cultural phenomena, as well as in the criticism and analysis of anthropological texts. We will present two cases: one is the story of a clandestine cult of Saint Simon in Los Altos de Chiapas, and the other is the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards in the XVI century.

Case 1: Don Pancho and Saint Simon

Let us try to use the Ingardenian categories to analyze the case of a clandestine cult I observed in 1998-1999 during my work in Xulvo’, one of the spots of Zinacantán, Chiapas. The first question we have to answer relates to the type of data from which we have taken our message. These are the reports of Maryan, who served the office of presirente de la eklexia, president of the church, Petul, the bilingual teacher and his daughter Xunka, and other members of both families. They were all members of a mutual support group of seven families organized under Petul’s leadership. The organization was established in order to xchamunel tak’in chich’ tojbel sjol, that is, lend money to get it back with interests and, incidentally, provide support to the Zapatistas. Another type of data was my own observations of some facts that happened in Xulvo’ when I was visiting Petul’s family. We assume that the tale I was told constitutes a symbolic message and we will take into account two types of readers: my aforementioned informants from Petul’s group and the hypothetical ethnographer.

Which were the schematic aspects revealed by the discourses of my informants and by participative observation? When I visited Petul’s family on December 12, 1998, I witnessed an argument that had spontaneously arisen. The men were speaking “loudly” and all at the same time. The matter was embarrassing to all: a man yakub sjol, had gotten drunk and jatav ta te’etik, had fled to the woods without fulfilling his obligation of junta. The junta organizes people, goes find a music band, asks for the cooperation of people, accompanies the musicians during the party, invites the members of the party to his house, feeds them. The disputers tried to find another junta, who was to receive the members of the party into his house, and planned a possible punishment for the offender. After the party I stayed and talked to Petul and his family about the case. Since then, over and over again I heard the stories of don Pancho, a man of 45, Petul’s nephew and neighbor, who ran away from the party without fulfilling his obligation of junta.

Petul told me how the problem that had started on December 12 ended. A few hours before the party, don Pancho fled to the woods. The following day, he came back at noon. First of all, he came to the house, asking for forgiveness and he claimed he did not know what had gotten into him. “Don Pancho yan xelan xvinaj, looked very weird – continued Petul-. Petul insisted that it was all due to the figure of a saint that Pancho had bought some time ago. Smantalnan San Simon ti jatav ti don Panchoe -said Petul- Saint Simon ordered don Pancho to flee. Since there was no jail in this place, don Pancho was imprisoned in a kindergarten bathroom and spent two days and two nights there. When he got out of prison, he was told lok’eso ta ana li San Simone, Take Saint Simon out of your house! He was given one hundred pesos to gather the authorities and offer them soft drinks. However, not only did don Pancho not take Saint Simon out of his house, but he also bought soft drinks and drank them all by himself. Don Pancho was a member of Petul’s group, but he “was expelled”, because people started calling all the other members of the support group “saint-simonists”. When I asked Petul why they wanted to take Saint Simon out of don Pancho’s house, he told me that it was a demon, dangerous to the whole community. Both Petul and Xunka, his daughter, mentioned another reason for don Pancho’s exclusion from the group. According to them, Don Pancho sk’an ch’och ta ajualil ta paraje, wants to be a leader in the community; he wants money. Nowadays, two years after don Pancho fled to the woods without fulfilling his obligation of junta, he has entered a group of Evangelicals in Nachij. He is their leader.

In Zinacantán, Saint Simon is not very well known. He is not considered a saint, the partner of the other santoetik. Saint Simon skrontasbaik schi’ uk yano santoe, does not get along with other saints of the church, therefore he cannot live in the house of God Kajualtik. Saint Simon dresses as a mestizo, wears a red tie, has a hat and a black outfit. Artemio, Petul’s eldest son, who had studied high school, told me that Saint Simon “looks like Chaplin”. You must give him cigarettes in the mouth and much pox. In exchange of the pox, cigarettes and sexual services he receives, he can grant “dirty money” to the person who takes care of him. This money is stolen from other houses. The person who has this saint “does not need to work”. In fact, Don Pancho built a new house and people say it was thanks to Saint Simon’s money. But Saint Simon is chopol, evil, because tsokbe sjol krixchanoetike, he spoils the heads of people. Don Pancho has changed since he bought the demon, he looks “different”, irrational, he does not say hello to anyone. The community does not speak to him either. He has been left alone.

As Xunka recalls, the role of Saint Simon in the Zinacanteca community has always been ominous. She remembers that a man at jteklum, municipal downtown, had three sons and several single daughters. All of them shared the same house. They said they were Saint Simon’s children. Two sons were married and one was single. One of them got a position in the church. When he entered the church to pray, he fainted and died. The other son hanged himself in his house. The daughters got pregnant though they had no husband. They said they were Saint Simon’s children. The other son also got a position in the church but nothing happened to him because they removed Saint Simon from the house first.

Xunka explained to me that Saint Simon tries to settle in those homes where the man has two women, so that he can “go to bed” with one of them, the one the man can spare. Some think that li skoxtak Panchoe ja’ nan skox li San Simone, some of don Pancho’s sons are Saint Simon’s. don Pancho had two women, who were sisters, with whom he had ten children. Although they used to live all together in his mother’s house, afterwards they quarreled and split. The youngest of the wives lives ta akol, upstairs, the eldest ta olon downstairs. Don Pancho splits his time between the two houses. According to the two families I researched, he did not get along with either one of them, he drank, he did not fulfill his obligations. The worst is that sk’ an smilsbaj chim velta, he tried to kill himself twice: Once he tried to hang himself at home; the other, don Pancho drank the liquid, or herbicide. His wife took him to the rural clinic; that is when don Pancho jutuk mu cham, almost died.

The tale of Maryan, the presirente of the church in 1998 and 1999, does not contradict Petul and Xunka reports. Maryan did not mention, however, the sexual motive of the story about don Pancho and Saint Simon, and he focused on the religious and economic aspect. According to Maryan, don Pancho did not know who his skrontae, enemy was. It was Saint Simon, who was in his house and was very kuxul, powerful. The first night after he bought it, don Pancho placed him next to the Virgin Mary. But the next day vok’emla sta, he found her broken into pieces. Ja’ nan p’ajesvan li San Simone, maybe Saint Simon threw her. It was also Saint Simon who told Pancho to hang himself and to flee from this obligation. Maryan suspected that drunkenness was not the only reason why Pancho fled to the woods on December 12: ike no’ox ech’el, he was taken there, muk bu yai k’usi batuk, he did not know how he left, kuxul li bat, he left sober but ja’ smantal ti San Simone, yech iloke, xi’ik, Saint Simon gave him an order, that is how it happened, they say. When he came back from the woods, don Pancho yich utel, was scolded, yich’ jakbel, and questioned. Maryan repeats the dialogue don Pancho had with the authorities.

¿Munuk me oy k’usi ach’abio, munuk me oy k’usi ta ana? xutik, is there maybe something you look after, something in your house? – they said-.

Oy jmano jun Saint Simon xi’, I have a Saint Simon I bought, -he said-.

Pero kayojtik mu ono’ox xtun k’ucha’al li Kajualtik Jesu Kristo, skrontasbaik, xutik. But we have heard he (Saint Simon) is not useful as our God, Jesus Christ, and that he is his enemy –they said Mu ono’ox buch’u sna xchabi San Simone, No one knows how to take care of Saint Simon.

Maryan showed me a book in Spanish that don Pancho had started to distribute around his vicinity among his neighbors, who are far from being bilingual. The book has drawings and treats of the appropriate ways to take care of babies. Ja’ te yabtel o’staoj le’e, spas kanal ta u’, Don Pancho found a job, gets his monthly wage – said Maryan. ¿Ali libroe xtun? And, does this book work? He asked. Mu xtun, It does not, he answers. Li k’oxetike ta ono’ox xch’i, yech’ ono’ox chi’emik ti krixchano más vo’ne k’oxetike. Children are raised by themselves, they are raised as before. Li libroe mu ono’ox k’usi ta xmak’linvan. A book does not feed a child. Ja’ no’ox li sk’an ta sa’ yamtelike. Ja’ yech’ ti Pancho He only looks for his job. That is how don Pancho is.

Now then, let us try to highlight the most important schematic characteristics of Don Pancho’s perceptions, let us try to find the areas of indetermination and fulfill them with the assumptions of the primary readers, that is, the three informants, and with the possible theories and hypotheses of the secondary reader, that is, an ethnographer. For the three readers we mentioned in the first place, don Pancho is a suspicious person, although each of them seems to focus on a different aspect of the story. The most important area of indetermination for these three is the question: Why is don Pancho a persona non grata? They all assume, of course, that Pancho is a doubtful person. They are horrified by the facts that constitute their “fulfillment” or view of things: Pancho tries to receive his monthly pay without working honestly, he does not fulfill the socially required obligations and he tried to kill himself twice. They all agree with the fact that the true guilty one is the evil Saint Simon with his sins: it is he who smokes, drinks, changes the personality of his owner, steals money, and rejects the saints of the church. Now then, the three of them try to concretize don Pancho in their own way. Petul is ashamed because Pancho belonged to his support group for the Zapatistas, fact that held him to be an honest and charismatic leader and not a “saint-simonist” who looks for his own financial benefit on the sly and at the expense of others. Although Petul also profits from the loans, he does so in a socially accepted and ideologically justified manner: it is a way to help the Zapatistas. Don Pancho also wants to make money, but since he is not fit to do so, he has to do it with supernatural help or with the help of the government. These two ways seem to be equally inappropriate. Don Pancho is, in Petul’s opinion, a competitive and ambitious person who used the group to launch himself as a leader but failed as a person. He became a black sheep of the community and, therefore, he is a disgrace for the group.

To Xunka, who has always taken his father’s side and has actively participated in political activities, don Pancho constitutes a threat to his father’s and his family’s leadership. But, differently from Petul, she sees in Saint Simon a threat to the wellbeing of the family and to the honest relationships between the couple. Don Pancho has two women, accepted fact among the Chamulas, but not so much among the Zinacantecos. The Chamulas constitute in many aspects an anti-ideal to the Zinacantecos;24 the fact that Pancho has two women means that he is at a morally bestial level. He showed his irresponsibility twice when he tried to kill himself and leave his two families without an income.

Maryan emphasizes the religious aspect of Don Pancho’s misfortune. It is he who does not fulfill his obligation, misled by a deity that is kuxul and, therefore, dangerous to the person that does not know how to take care of it. Saint Simon is an anti-god that does not get along with the officially acknowledged gods. On the contrary, Maryan, as a good presirente of the church, is in charge of keeping good relationships between Kajualtik Jesu Kristo and his Zinacanteca beneficiaries. Pancho is a doubtful person because he does not respect the official religion and the tradition of the ancestors.

According to the point of view of a hypothetical symbolic ethnographer, the areas of indetermination call our attention: the symbolic role of Saint Simon and the reasons for don Pancho’s social ostracism. Let us begin according to the aforementioned order. Saint Simon dresses like a mestizo civil servant (uniform and red tie) with foreign traits (Charlie Chaplin) and he is identified with the pukuj, the devil who promises wellbeing at the expense of the reduction of everybody else’s wellbeing. Simon is hostile not only because he does not get along with other saints but because he steals money from other families and, as a former seducer, he steals the woman of his client. Hence, a first “fulfillment” from the part of the symbolic anthropologist: Saint Simon symbolically represents the mestizo of the city, a kaxlan civil servant or banker who has money without working and who promises money to whom he wants: pox, cigarettes and women. The sexual act through deceit refers us to the real relationships of power in which the landlord, not indigenous, owns everything, including the children. Saint Simon is an enemy of the traditional peasant life; he is a foreign deity that demoralizes the people, stirring in them the feared but desired characteristics of a new happy world: money, luxury without effort, power, sexual freedom, religious licentiousness. The second fulfillment: Saint Simon is a social matter, not a personal one. In fact, none of the aforementioned informants has ever seen the figurine of Saint Simon at don Pancho’s house. Maryan’s report, for instance, is made of rumors about don Pancho’s interrogation and ends up with the words xi’ik (they said), xi (he said). In this way, Maryan emphasizes that the related statements were told to him. His tale is a rumor about rumors about Saint Simon. What really matters in don Pancho’s tale is not the truth, but what the community thinks about the truth. Third fulfillment: Saint Simon is an excuse used by society to keep under control the disobedient individuals, “the black sheep”, the rebellious against tradition, and the individualist in the mestizo or foreign style. Fourth “fulfillment”: The role played by Saint Simon in the supernatural dimension is analogous to the role played by don Pancho in the daily social dimension. Saint Simon does not get along with the saints of the church; don Pancho with his neighbors. The symbolic scheme of the conquest is replicated: the conflicts of the people are presided by the conflict of the gods. Saint Simon steals money, don Pancho works as a mestizo for a monthly wage. Saint Simon is a threat to his owner because he wants to annihilate him; don Pancho is a threat to the community because he destroys their values and provokes envy. Saint Simon is selfish and wants to enjoy life, don Pancho is lazy and potentially suicidal and he would rather die than work. The analogy of the roles is precisely the term on which the symbolic anthropologist builds his/her definition of the symbolic. Symbols, as affirmed by Skorupski, are characterized as designators that “represent the thing on whose place they are positioned”.25 The action, state of things or event represents something only when and if the symbolized thing plays an analogous role to that played by the symbol in the symbolic action “.26 From this theory follows the concretization of our characters: Saint Simon is the symbol of don Pancho.

This identification shows at the same time the weakness and the strength of the community. Is it the wish of the religious authorities to control the lives of the members of the community? Or is hatred, so to say, symbolically transferred from don Pancho – who does not share the values of the group-, to Saint Simon, who does not share the space and vocation with the saints of the church? But, why would the authorities have to codify this hatred and not simply force don Pancho out of the neighborhood? Don Pancho’s persecution is not a judicial one, but one of moral and customary character. The most viable strategy from the community’s point of view is not the search for justice in the town council, or the lynch, or don Pancho’s physical expulsion from the community, but internal ostracism. Don Pancho does not admit his fault, nor does he know what he is losing, he remains irrational, changed, and silent. He does not speak with anyone. As a collaborator of the enemy, he is excluded from the group.

Case 2: The arrival of the Spaniards in Mexico

The second example is known as the drama of the Conquest, not in its military sense, but in a cultural and psychological one. The conquest of Mexico was a success not only due to the military superiority of the Spaniards, but due to the Mexica vision of the Spaniards’ arrival. Let us try to articulate this question in Ingardenian terms.

It would be very advantageous in this context to resort to Epictetus of Hierapolis’ old stoic parable, life as a drama of theatre and, instead of talking about the arrival of the Spaniards in Mexico, we should treat this as a drama interpreted by the Mexica readers. What was the material substratum of this drama? The answer would have to assume an ontological theory of the perceived world and, therefore, it would assume one or another metaphysical doctrine. What is the cause of the sensations or of the furniture of the world? If Epicurus, La Metrie and Marx are right, the world and, therefore, the Spaniards, are nothing but the combinations of material atoms. If Plato, the Fathers of the Church and Descartes are right, the Spaniards were made of body and soul. But if we follow Spinoza and Bertrand Russel, the Spaniards were neither material nor spiritual, but composed of a neutral substance. With Kant we would say that the Spaniards were dingen an sich, things in themselves, but with the first Wittgenstein, that they were positive facts submerged in the logical space. On the contrary, with the subjective idealists like George Berkeley we would say that the Spaniards did not exist in reality but they existed in as much as they were perceived. The fact that these answers appear to the reader to be out of context constitutes a better proof of their irrelevance to anthropology. The anthropologist does not ask: what is the world?, as a philosopher with metaphysical ambitions, but: how do the members of a given society perceive the world? Besides, if we learnt from the lesson the phenomenologists taught us, we would say that the indigenous people, apart from perceiving the Spaniards, also interpreted them somehow. Their appearance constituted a message, that is, a system of the senses.

The Spaniards, the dramatis personae to the Aztec audience, had certain “schematic aspects”, and their arrival was anticipated in many prophecies, dreams and omens, which to the Mesoamerican people communicated the will of the supernatural world or the future. Nezahualpilli, the king of Texcoco, was known as a sorcerer who could read the future; he said to Moctezuma: “our cities will be destroyed and devastated, we and our children will die and our vassals will be humiliated and annihilated”27 and all this “by permission of the Lord of the High Heavens, of day and night and of the air […]”.28 The Spaniards that came with Grijalva and Cortés were associated to these omens due to their “schematic aspects”: they were white “as if made of lime”, had “yellow” beards and moustaches, and their food looked as “human food: large, white, light as if made of straw”; they had their dogs with them: “enormous animals […] of large hanging tongues ” and “yellow” eyes that “spread fire […] and they are spotted like tigers”.29 The foreigners came by sea from the East, in houses or great floating mountains,30 “their clothes were strange”31 covered by tepuztli, that is, copper or bronze, they had lightning and thunder under their command and they had black people with them,32 they walked with the large deer that ate the ground, these beings wanted gold, slept on their clothes and enjoyed pleasures although they had no women with them.33 Their nature was much different from that of the indigenous people: they came “intrepid and spirited, with such authority and daring, as if all the others were their vassals”.34 As it is well known, these characteristics brought about panic to Moctezuma. When he heard the terrible omens, according to Durán, he decided to “hide” or disappear in a cave called Cicalco together with two hunchbacks,35 and according to Sahagún, he had this intention when he heard that the “gods” “wanted to see his face”.36

The attitude of the sovereign of Tenochtitlan was determined by his different interpretations of the Spaniards’ arrival. In Ingarden’s words, Moctezuma undertook the task of fulfilling the areas of indetermination “in his own way”. The areas of indetermination regarding the bearded dramatis personae were various and focused on the identity of the Spaniards and the objectives of their visit. It seems now that in the period previous to Cortés’ conquerors arrival in the coast of Veracruz and to the conquest of Tenochtitlan, Moctezuma developed several hypotheses as to the identity of the foreigners and tried to verify them empirically. Among the various “fulfillments” the Mexica offered to understand the drama, there were different beliefs, legends, cultural prejudices and cosmogonical concepts. Why did the Spaniards arrive by sea from the East? Why were they white, accompanied by black men, etcetera? According to Sahagun’s informants, the sea, that is, ilhuicaatl or the water that met with the sky, or teoatl, that is, divine water, constituted the limits of the human world conceived as a flat island.37 The sphere that was beyond was conceived as the dwelling of the gods. Anáhuac, or the world surrounded by water, was opposed in this way to what was outside the earth. In Náhuatl they said tlalticpac, “on earth”, as opposed to in topan, in ilhuicac, in mictlan, “above us”, in heaven, in the world of the dead.38 Tlalticpac, was the empirical and phenomenal dimension whereas in topan in mictlan, was what surpassed the empirical world.39 These two worlds were inhabited by very different entities: on the one hand, humans, on the other, gods. According to one of the versions about the origin of civilization, the ancestors of the Tolteca of Tollan and the Mexica had arrived in Panutla from the East, crossing the sea.40 According to another one, they were Olmeca and Xicalanca, the inhabitants of the world during the third age or third sun, who had arrived in Potonchan (nowadays State of Tabasco) on their “ships or boats […] from which they started to populate the place “.((Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxóchitl, Obras históricas, 1975, vol. II, p. 7.)) The Eastern part was the dwelling of the Sun par excellence: “the Sun comes out in the morning and moves until noon and then it goes back to the East”.41 The Spaniards came from the world inhabited by the gods, from the easternmost part of the sky and came to one side of the sea. The eastern sea was related to another account spread in Mesoamerica: the flight and promised come back of the God-Man Topiltzin -Quetzalcóatl, the sovereign of Tula. Quetzalcóatl was responsible for the creation of the present human beings, the inhabitants of the fifth age or fifth sun. During the previous four ages, Quetzalcoatl competed with Tezcatlipoca. Each of the four suns, as convincingly shown by Tomicki, lasted on its model version 676 years and ended with a cataclysm.42 The first sun, Ocelotonatiuh, associated to Tezcatlipoca, was inhabited by giants, who were eaten by jaguars on the fourth day ocelotl. The second Sun, Ehecatonatiuh or the Wind sun, was associated to Quetzalcóatl and was destroyed by a hurricane on the same day of the destruction of the first sun. At the end of this sun, men became monkeys. The third sun, Quauhtonatiuh, or the Sun of the Rain of Fire was associated to Tlaloc. In this sun, men perished due to the fire that fell from the sky, and some of them became birds. The fourth sun: Atonatiuh, the sun sponsored by Chalchuitlicue, Quetzalcóatl’s wife, ended by a deluge during which men became fish. The fifth sun, or Ollintonatiuh, the present one for the Mexica, was associated to Tonatiuh and was prophesized to end by earthquakes and general starvation.43 These destructions were provoked, among other things, by the sins committed by living men. According to the Legend of the Suns,44 Quetzalcóatl was the creator of this last Sun. He descended to Mictlan, stole the bones and ashes of men that had lived in other ages and took them to Tamoanchan, where the gods dwelled. There, with the help of other deities, Quetzalcóatl spilled his blood and with it brought the ashes back to life. Blood was identified with the vital energy that maintained the cosmos. Since the gods offered their blood to bring life to men, men must feed the gods in exchange. Tamoanchan, located East, is identified by several researchers with Omeyocan, “The place of duality” where dwelled Ometeolt, the Father-Mother of the gods and giver of the life of men.45 On the contrary, Topiltzin was one of Quetzalcoatl’s incarnations, who lived in Tula in splendor but who, intoxicated with Pulque by Tezcatlipoca, committed incest with his sister Quetzalpétlatl. Filled with shame, he fled East, arrived to the place Tlillan tlapallan, “the place of red and black”, burned himself on a bonfire and appeared nine days later on the Eastern sky as Venus of dawn. Before he disappeared, he promised he would bring back to this land “the children of Quetzalcóatl, and that they were to possess it and to come back and retrieve what was formerly theirs, and what they had left hidden in the hills, mountains and caves of the earth”.46

Other “areas of indetermination” mentioned above also had their “fulfillments” in terms of the cosmogony of the Mexica. The color of the conquerors’ hair and skin: white, red and yellow, were associated to the sun; the easternmost part of the sky, to Quetzalcóatl, to the demons tzitzimime and cihuateteo, who appeared at the end of each sun to eat the people, and also to death. While white children among the Tolteca were sacrificed,47 among the Mexica there was a room in Moctezuma’s palace where he “kept men and women and children who were white since birth in face and body and hair and eyebrows and eyelashes.”48 Not only white, but also deformed and in some other way “strange” bodies were considered to possess a vital force or teotl. The skin of the black men that came with the conquerors found a similar explanation: it was interpreted by some Nahuas as the attribute of the tlaloque gods, who accompanied Tláloc represented as painted in black. The Mexica priests, the papahuaque, had the habit of painting their skin black. Ryszard Tomicki, “Poza spoleczenstwem, w poblizu boskosci. Przyczynek do rozwa- zan nad symbolika wlosow”, in Polska Sztuka Ludozva, 1987, pp. 169-176.))

These and other elements of the Mexica Weltanschauung, which served to complete “the schematic aspects” presented in the drama of the foreigners’ arrival in Mexico, led to the concretization of the dramatis personae in different ways. The “concretizations” of the Spaniards performed by Moctezuma and other representatives of the Náhuatl culture, based on the indigenous Weltanschauung, were actualized and corroborated while the drama continued. Since the beginning, the Spaniards were considered to be divine beings called teteo, gods, or supernatural beings. Of the Spaniards, it was said they were teteu ilhuicac vitze, the supernatural beings who came from heaven.49 During Grijalva’s expedition, the Spaniards were perfumed: “And those priests came to perfumed us with the same smokes they did their Tescatepuca, (…) and we did not allow them to perfume us.”50 Surprisingly, this idea persisted years after the Conquest, and as affirmed by Fra Motolinia, it was very difficult for the brothers until they managed to make “the Indians understand there is only one God “.51 But here ends the common interpretation. The reports about the nature of the teteo start to differ remarkably. First of all, the prophecies about the identity of these “beings to come” are too ambiguous. Moctezuma lacked good reasons to accept them once and for all. Secondly, prophets in Mesoamerica were not considered infallible. The prophecies could have been manipulated and so they constituted a powerful ideological weapon.52 Although Moctezuma even accused some sorcerers of being “tricksters” and “deceivers”,53 he did too, in the meantime, make another rather common mistake of the political class: he was too selective and partial in his judgments. The prophets who saw the temple of Huitzilopochtli on fire and a large river entering the palace were imprisoned and starved to death; others who predicted the arrival of a “prodigious and admirable thing ” or of “those who are to take reprisals for our insults”, were divested of their houses, fortunes and families.54 “With this fear- writes Durán- no one dared to speak or declare their dreams, afraid of the cruel and atrocious deaths Moctezuma gave them, when the dreams did not serve his purpose”.55 Third, different Nahua peoples had their own concretizations of the Spaniards, conceived as teteo. In Cholollan, Tollan and Cuitlahuac, peoples with the presence of a Tolteca tradition, the Spaniards were identified with Quetzalcóatl, with their God from before, who was going to support them in the fight against the Mexicas and their god Huitzilopochtli, but with the pass of time, the Cholultecas denied that the Spaniards were really “their god” and said they were many different gods.56 To the Tlaxcaltecas, the following elements were crucial: a) the fact that among the conquerors there were black people or “dirty divine”,57 identified with the tlaloque or their priests, and b the power of firearms conceived as control over lightning. These points proved they were the gods or demons tzitzimime related somehow to Tlaloc and the tlaloque, who came to devour people and to end the current age in the year 1 acatl.58 Moctezuma himself changed his mind about the identity of the gods at least on three occasions.

The first hypothesis he took into account when he consulted the different prophets, elders and painters of Tenochtitlan, Chalco, Malinalco and Marquesado aimed at the possible identification of the Spaniards with monsters tzitzimime that descended from heaven to end each age. Some showed him paintings with “men with one eye on the forehead “, others showed him monsters that “had no more than one foot”, others showed him “men who were half-fish”, others the “half-men half-snakes”.59 Several among them had the characteristics of the beings that had lived in previous ages. The Spaniards, regardless of what was said about them, did not have these characteristics. The second hypothesis referred to the identification of Cortés as Quetzalcóatl himself.60 In favor of this hypothesis was the strange temporal and spatial coincidence of the arrival of the expedition in the year 1-acatl, the year devoted, in the repeated series of 52 years, to Quetzalcoatl of the Eastern sky-sea.61 The proof attempted by Moctezuma consisted in offering them gifts and food: “I really want you to know – said Moctezuma to his messenger Teuctlamacazqui when explaining the mission to him- who their Lord and the main among them is, to whom I want you to present all you carry; and I want you to know from the start if he is the one our ancestors named Topiltzin, and also Quetzalcóatl with another name, of whom our legends say he promised, when leaving this earth, that he or his children would reign this earth again and possess the gold and silver and jewelry he left locked in the hills, and all the other wealth we now possess”.62 While precious stones and feathers were traditional offerings to the gods, the food of the region served to prove if the Spaniards could eat it: “See if he eats it- advised Moctezuma to his messenger- because if he ate and drank, it would be true he is Quetzalcoatl, because he already knows the food of this region and it was he who left it here and now comes back because he craves it (…)”.63 In exchange, Teuctlamacasqui brought back to his master a little bit of food from the Spaniards and some beads. Moctezuma investigated these gifts and ordered the food be buried in Tula under the temple of Quetzalcoatl and the beads be placed “at the feet of Huitzilopochtli”.64 Another proof to which the tlatoani of Tenochtitlan subjected the Spaniards, in the meantime, was the proof of blood, taken by Hernán Cortés when he arrived to the shore. There are different versions of what happened. According to Durán, Moctezuma sent ten slaves “to be sacrificed before the Marquis so that the hearts of the sacrificed could be presented to him, as one does to god.”65 According to Sahagún, Moctezuma “sent captives to be sacrificed: who knows if they will want to drink their blood.”66 The reaction of the Spaniards was negative. Durán mentions two reports: either “Marquis and his men impeded it” or they even killed the executors of the sacrifice.67 On the other hand, according to Sahagún’s informant, the Spaniards “were disgusted […]. And, in repugnance, they got rid of the food that was stained with blood; […] as if it was rotten blood “.68

Both the fact that the alleged gods did not want the food that corresponded to them and Cortés’ statements claiming he was the vassal of the most powerful lord of the world suggested Moctezuma the third hypothesis: the Spaniards were Quetzalcoatl’s messengers or “sons”. This idea was strengthened when he consulted the elders of the peoples acknowledged to be the inheritors of the Tolteca tradition: Cuitlahuac and Mizquic. This was the version that admitted the bearded ones were “Quetzalcóatl’s sons”, who were to possess the earth and “come back to retrieve what was his before.”69 When Grijalva’s “floating mountains” disappeared, Moctezuma recovered his will, convinced of the fact that the end of the world had not arrived. According to Torquemada, Moctezuma wanted to give back to “Quetzalcóatl’s sons” the treasures that, according to the prophecies, Topiltzin of Tula had left before he fled Tula.70 The Spaniards were definitely not tzitzimime and they were indeed Quetzalcóatl’s sons, they accepted the gifts that belonged to them and left.71

Moctezuma’s last two hypotheses in which the Spaniards were identified with Quetzalcóatl or his “sons” or with messengers, were tested many times but they were never proved wrong absolutely. When Cortés arrived in 1519, Moctezuma “acted as if he was dead, without being able to utter a word.”72 His last ideological weapon was to send sorcerers who were supposed to use their magic against the Spaniards.73 This fact was proof that Moctezuma changed his mind about the Spaniards. Sometimes he thought of them as gods, some others as priests or messengers of Quetzalcóatl and as such, as vulnerable beings. It is only within this context that we understand the statement of Moctezuma’s messengers who, when entering the ship of the conquerors, declared that their master was Moctezuma, Hernán Cortés’ substitute.74

Can we be sure that Moctezuma’s reactions and other events described by the various indigenous and Spanish sources corresponded to reality? Of course, several of the aforementioned comments -for instance the insinuations of the informants from the Tolteca and Tlaxcalteca traditions about the regrets and fear Moctezuma felt, convinced that Quetzalcóatl had come to punish him for his sins-, are rather the concretization that the historian’s informants had made about the ideas Moctezuma had created. This is a key point, because it allows us to place our analysis at an unexpected level. The Ingardenian theory, applied to historical cases, has to assume more than one reader. In our case, it would be almost impossible to know with complete certainty which the areas of indetermination detected by Moctezuma were, since the description of the attitudes of Huey Tlatoani of Tenochtitlan is known to us, so to say, secondhandly, and it is rebuilt from Spanish and indigenous documents, written by different historians located in different cultural, ethnic and temporal contexts. However, the task is not impossible. Determining the areas of indetermination in the perception and interpretation of the Spaniards by the part of Moctezuma seems viable in as much as we have undertook the comparative criticisms about the different historical sources.

Here we go back to the most important point from the phenomenological perspective: any perception is intertwined with interpretation. In our case, as in that of all historical descriptions, we stumble at least with a double interpretation: first of all, Moctezuma’s perception intertwined with his interpretation of the schematic aspects observed in different acts of the drama of the Spaniards’ arrival and, secondly, the interpretation of historians about Moctezuma’s perceptions and interpretations. To these two interpretations we might add a third one: the interpretation of modern researchers about that of historians as to the interpretations (intertwined with the perceptions) of Moctezuma, the Tlatoani of Tenochtitlan in the XVI century. The explanations to the aforementioned events in terms of a complot of certain elites in Tenochtitlan against Moctezuma and his policies75 or the impossibility to acknowledge the otherness of foreigners,76 or the psychological mechanism of self-fulfilling prohecy, seen in the attitudes and decisions of Huey Tlatoani,77 constitute the determinations or “fulfillments” of the second readers, that is, of historians, about the first readers, (the historical actors of the original Conquest drama). Our analysis, based on Ingardenian aesthetics, does not exclude an almost infinite series of interpretations, metainterpretations and meta-metainterpretations. Reader A interprets drama X, but another reader A’ interprets not only X but also A while A considers X. Then reader A” interprets A’ looking at A looking at drama X. Although the way of interpretation, from this perspective, is always the same (message, schematic aspects, detection of areas of indetermination, “fulfillment”, concretizations) the content of said variables will be different. Thanks to these reflections we can understand more easily the difference between the textual and the metatextual theses in the following chart:

Conclusions

I have tried to show that Roman Ingarden’s aesthetic theory is the most adequate contribution to interpretative anthropology. I have defined the latter as the conjunction of two theses: the textual thesis and the metatextual thesis. I tried to defend both the interpretative position in anthropology and the Ingardenian theory against some objections by the part of Gellner. I also applied some Ingardenian concepts to the study of two cases: the clandestine cult of Saint Simon and the arrival of the Spaniards in Mexico in the XVI century. Finally, we have to note some advantages of the Ingardenian theory applied to interpretative or symbolic anthropology. First of all, acceptance of the Ingardenian theory allows us to avoid the hiatus between relativism and absolutism, between subjectivism and objectivism. As we have already seen, interpretation in Ingarden’s sense is a combination of the objective elements (layers a, b and c) and the subjective ones (layer d). Construction is always a reconstruction from the schematic aspects. And secondly, the Ingardenian analysis assumes and enables a critical and rigorous attitude of the ethnographic material, allowing an analytical separation, description or view of the world of theoretical projections of the readers.

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____________, “Concreción y reconstrucción” in Estética de la recepción, Madrid, visor, 1989, pp. 35-53.

Jacorzynski, Witold, “En busca del paraíso perdido: el otro en la mirada desde Chiapas”, in Estudios Sociológicos, vol. XVIII, num. 52, Mexico, El Colegio de Mexico, pp. 85-124.

Merton, Robert K., Social Theory and Social Structure. United States, Glencoe, 1949.

Motolinia, Toribio, Historia de los Indios de La Nueva España. Relación de los ritos antiguos, idolatrías y sacrificios de los Indios de La Nueva España, y de la maravillosa conversión que Dios en ellos ha obrado, Mexico, Porrúa, 1995.

Muñoz Camargo, Diego, Historia de Tlaxcala, Mexico, Universidad Autónoma de Tlaxcala, 1998.

Sahagún, Bernardino, Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España, A. Ma. Garibay K., (ed.), Mexico, Porrúa, 1975.

____________, Florentine Codex. General History of the Things of New Spain, vols. I-XII, translation Náhuatl-English A.J.O. Anderson and Ch. E. Dibble, Santa Fe, United States, 1950-1969.

____________, Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España, first integral version in Spanish of the manuscript known as Florentine Codex, Mexico, Alianza Editorial Mexicana.

Seler, Eduard, Gessamelte Abhandlungen zur Americanischen Sprachund Alterthumskunde, vols. I-V, Berlin, 1902-1923.

Skorupski, John, Symbol and Theory. A Philosophical study of theories of religion in Social Anthropology, Cambridge, Mass., Cambridge, University Press, 1976.

Thompson John B., Ideología y cultura moderna. Teoría crítica social en la era de la comunicación de masas, Mexico, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, 1993.

Todorov, Tzvetan, La Conquista de América. El problema del otro, Mexico, Siglo XXI, 1996.

Tomicki, Ryszard, “Estructura de Las épocas del mundo en la mitología náhuatl: el problema de la llamada versión canónica de Tenochtitlan” in Ethnologia Polona, vol. 11, 1985, pp. 45-73.

____________, “Poza spoleczenstwem, w poblizu boskosci. Przyczynek do rozwazan nad symbolika wlosow” (Out of society, near deity. Prolegomena to the considerations about the symbology of hair), in Polska Sztuka Ludowa, t. 41, num. 1-4, 1987, pp. 169-176.

____________, Ludzie y Bogowie. Indianie Meksykanscy wobec Hiszpanow we wszesnej fazie konwisty (Men and Gods. The Mexican Indians before the Spaniards during the first stage of the Conquest), Warsaw, Wydawnictwo Polskiej Akademii Nauk, 1990.

Torquemada, Juan de, Monarquía Indiana, 3 vols., Mexico , Porrúa, 1969.

Torquemada, Juan de, Monarquía Indiana, Miguel León Portilla (ed.), 7 vols., Mexico, UNAM, 1975-83.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Investigaciones Filosóficas, Barcelona, Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas, Crítica/Grijalbo, 1988.

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 1988, p. 309. [↩]
John B. Thompson, Ideology and Modern Culture: Critical Social Theory in the Era of Mass Communication, 1993, p. 148. [↩]
Roman Ingarden, “Concreción y reconstrucción”, in Estética de la recepción, 1989. [↩]
See mostly his book in German Das Literarische Kunstswerk (The Literary Work), of 1927, and his version modified by the author in Polish, O Dziele Literackim (About the literary work), 1960. In 1998 the translation into Spanish of the former was published: La obra de arte literaria, translated by Gerald Nyenhuis H. [↩]
Roman Ingarden, op.cit., 1989, pp. 35-53. [↩]
Ibidem, p.36. [↩]
Idem. [↩]
Ibidem, p.42. [↩]
Luis Garagalza, La interpretación de los símbolos. Hermenéutica y lenguaje en la filosofía actual, 1990, p. 52. [↩]
See his works, Cause and Meaning in the Social Sciences, 1973; Relativism and the Social Sciences, 1985; Postmodernism, reason and religion, 1994 and Anthropology and politics. Revolutions in the Sacred Grove, 1997. [↩]
Ernest Gellner, op.cit., 1997, pp. 19-45. [↩]
Ibidem, p. 22. [↩]
Ibidem, p. 40. [↩]
Roman Ingarden, op.cit., 1989, p.38. [↩]
Jorge Luis Borges, “Funes el memorioso”, in Artificios, 1993, p. 14. [↩]
Roman Ingarden, O dziele literackim. Badania z pogranicza ontologii, teoríi jezyka i fijozofii literatury, 1960, pp. 29-44 y 453-457. [↩]
Roman Ingarden, “Concreción y reconstrucción”, op.cit., 1989, p. 46. [↩]
Ibidem, p.39. [↩]
Ibidem, p. 46. [↩]
Ibidem, p. 35. [↩]
Clifford Geertz, The Anthropologist as Author, 1989. [↩]
James Clifford, The Predicament of Culture. Twentieth-century Ethnography, Literature and Art, 1995, pp.39-78. [↩]
Roman Ingarden, op.cit., 1989, p.38. [↩]
Witold Jarcorzynski, “En busca del paraíso perdido: el otro en la mirada desde Chiapas”, in Estudios Sociológicos, 2000, pp. 94-95. [↩]
John Skorupski, Symbol and Theory. A Philosophical Study of Theories of Religion in Social Anthropology, 1976, p. 122. [↩]
Ibidem, p.123. [↩]
Diego Durán, Historia de las Indias de Nueva España e Islas de la Tierra Firme, 1967, vol. I, p.479. [↩]
Ibidem, p. 491. [↩]
Bernardino de Sahagún, Historia general de las cosas de la Nueva España, 1975, p. 766. [↩]
Diego Durán, op,cit., 1967, vol. II, p. 506. [↩]
Toribio Motolinía, Historia de los indios de la Nueva España, 1995, p. 275. [↩]
Bernardino de Sahagún, op.cit., 1975, p. 826. [↩]
Juan de Torquemada, Monarquía indiana, 1975, vol. II, pp. 91 y 106. [↩]
Toribio Motolinía, op.cit., 1995, p. 115. [↩]
Diego Durán, op.cit., 167, pp. 515-524. [↩]
Bernardino de Sahagún, op.cit., 1975, p. 768. [↩]
Ibidem, p. 699. [↩]
Ryszard Tomicki, Ludzie and Bogowie. Indianie Meksykanscy wobec Hiszpanow we wszesnej fazie konwisty, 1990, p. 101. [↩]
Ibidem, p. 101. [↩]
Ibidem, pp. 610-614. [↩]
Ángel María Garibay, Teogonía e historia de los mexicanos, 1996, p. 27. [↩]
Ryszard Tomicki, “Estructura de las épocas del mundo en la mitología náhuatl: el problema de la llamada versión canónica de Tenochtitlan”, in Ethnologia Polona, 1985. [↩]
Ángel María Garibay, op.cit., 1996, pp. 23-25. [↩]
Anales de Cuauhtitlan y Leyenda de los soles, 1945, pp. 120-121. [↩]
See Eduard Seler, Gessamelte Abhandlungen zur Americanischen Sprach-und Altert-humskunde, 1902-1923, vol. 4, p. 26; Ryszard Tomicki, op.cit., 1990, p. 104. [↩]
Diego Durán, op.cit., 1967, vol. II, p. 12. [↩]
Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxóchitl, op.cit., vol. I, 1975, p. 279. [↩]
Hernán Cortés, Cartas de Relación, 1992, p. 91. [↩]
Florentine Codex. General History of the Things of New Spain, 1950-1969, p. 21. [↩]
Bernal Díaz del Castillo, Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España, 1992, p. 43. [↩]
Toribio Motolinía, op.cit., 1995, p, 115. [↩]
Ryszard Tomicki, Ludzie and Bogowie. .., op. cit., 1990. [↩]
Diego Durán, op.cit., 1967, vol. I, p. 528. [↩]
Ibidem, p. 480. [↩]
Ibidem, p. 527. [↩]
Juan de Torquemada, op.cit., 1969, vol. II, p. 51. [↩]
Bernardino de Sahagún, op.cit., 1975, p. 767. [↩]
Diego Muñoz Camargo, Historia de Tlaxcala, 1998, P. 179; Ryszard Tomicki, Ludzie y Bogowie…, op.cit., 1990, pp. 131-132. [↩]
Diego Durán, op.cit., 1967, vol. II, pp. 11-12. [↩]
Bernardino de Sahagún, op.cit., 1975, p. 761. [↩]
Ryszard Tomicki, Ludzie y Bogowie…, op. cit., 1990, pp. 188-189. [↩]
Diego Durán, op.cit., 1967, vol. II, p. 5. [↩]
Ibidem, p. 6. [↩]
Ibidem, p. 9. [↩]
Ibidem, p. 19.’ [↩]
Idem. [↩]
Idem. [↩]
Bernardino de Sahagún, op.cit., 1975, p. 766. [↩]
Diego Durán, op.cit., 1967, vol. II, p. 12. [↩]
Juan de Torquemada, op.cit., 1975, vol. II, p. 71. [↩]
Ryszard Tomicki, Ludzie, y Bogowie…, op. cit., 1990. [↩]
Diego Durán, op.cit., 1967, vol. II, p. 15. [↩]
Ibidem, pp. 20-21. [↩]
Bernardino de Sahagún, op.cit., 1975, p. 764. [↩]
Ryszard Tomicki, Ludzie y Bogowie…, op.cit., 1990. [↩]
Tzvetan Todorov, La conquista de América. El problema del otro, 1996. [↩]
Robert K. Mert, Social Theory and Social Structure, 1949. [↩]