EL TEMASKALI: MÉTODO SIMBÓLICO-MITOLÓGICO-MÁGICO DE HABITAR

Abstract

Ritualities of pre-Hispanic origin allow us to comprehend the perspectives from which the world and its inhabitation are constituted within a complex symbolic system called cosmovivential. Therefore, the objective of this study is to: describe the temaskali as a way of inhabiting the world, from a symbolic-mythical-magical perspective, in order to understand it as an interpretive structure of the lived experience of human beings. For this purpose, this reflection inquires how the temaskali fosters an interpretation of the lived experience of habitation from a symbolic-mythical-magical dimension? The main hypothesis of this paper is that the lived experience of the temaskali allows an interpretation of the human being as an erratic being, or in constant enlightenment, who inhabits the world. This proposal is the result of participant observation of this practice and of the hermeneutic approach, which assumes that all experience in the world is experiential, and therefore, it requires both presence and participation, to dialogue between the ritual event and the understanding of the way of life that allows this sense of existence. This reflection results from the Temaskali practice in the UIEM and five testimonies from several participants of them. To reflect on the above, three moments are articulated: first, the process of the temaskali in a municipality in the State of Mexico is described; then, the symbolic-mythical-magical event of this ritual that fosters habitation is presented; finally, the relationship between that event and the erratic mode of being implied by existence (nemili in the Nauatl language) is proposed. All the discussion cames from an interpretative wave where links the testimonies with the hermeneutic topics. As a main result we considered the temaskali allows an habitability fourfold, called in nauatl tlojke nauajke, the close and beside, condition who allows a permanent transit or nemili-existensy.