Abstract
George Foster's model of ‘personalistic’ and ‘naturalistic’ disease theories is employed in the present analysis of fright-sickness among Cakchiquel villagers in highland Guatemala. Field data from Panajachel and San Antonio Aguas Calientes suggest that pronounced intrasocietal competition favors personalistic interpretation, with sorcery cited as the ultimate source, rather than naturalistic interpretation, which emphasizes chance or destiny. Village differences in subsistence ecology and internal competition apparently underlie variations in both the social function and assumed etiology of fright-sickness.
Similar content being viewed by others
Bibliography
Aberle, D. F. 1962 A note on relative deprivation theory as applied to millenarian and other cult movements. In Comparative Studies in Society and History. S. Thrupp, ed. pp. 209–214. The Hague: Mouton and Co.
Adams, Richard N. 1952 An Analysis of Medical Beliefs and Practices in a Guatemalan Indian Town. Instituto Indigenista Nacional: Publicaciones Especiales No. 17. Guatemala: Instituto Indigenista Nacional de Guatemala.
Carrasco, Pedro 1960 Pagan rituals and beliefs among the Chontal Indians of Oaxaca. Anthropological Records 20: 87–117.
Clark, Margaret 1959 Health in the Mexican-American Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Douglass, William 1969 Illness and curing in Santiago Atitlan, a Tzutujil Maya community in the Southwestern Highlands of Guatemala. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University.
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1937 Witchcraft Among the Azande. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Fabrega, Horacio and Daniel Silver 1973 Illness and Shamanistic Curing in Zinacantan: An Ethnomedical Analysis. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Fortune, Reo 1932 Sorcerers of Dobu: The Social Anthropology of the Dobu Islanders of the Western Pacific. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Foster, George M. 1951 Some wider implications of soul-loss illness among the Sierra Popoluca. In Homenaje a Don Alfonso Caso, pp. 167–174. Mexico.
Foster, George M. 1965 Peasant society and the image of limited good. American Anthropologist 67: 293–315.
Foster, George M. 1972 The anatomy of envy: a study of symbolic behavior. Current Anthropology 13: 165–186.
Foster, George M. 1976 Disease etiologies in non-Western medical systems. American Anthropologist 78: 773–782.
Gillin, John P. 1945 Moche: A Peruvian Coastal Community. Smithsonian Institution, Institute of Social Anthropology. Pub. No. 3. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Gillin, John P. 1948 Magical Fright. Psychiatry 11: 387–400.
Guiteras-Holmes, C. 1961 Perils of the Soul. Glencoe: The Free Press.
Herbruger, A. and E. Diaz Barrios 1956 Metodo para Apprender a Hablar, Leer y Escribir Cakchiquel. Guatemala: Tipografia Nacional.
Johnson, Fredrick 1940 The Linguistic Map of Mexico and Central America. In The Maya and Their Neighbors. Hay, C. L., ed. pp. 88–114. New York: Appleton, Century, Crofts.
Kelly, Isabel T. 1965 Folk Practices in Northern Mexico. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press.
Kiev, Ari 1968 Curanderismo: Mexican-American Folk Psychiatry. New York: The Free Press.
León, Carlos A. 1970 El ‘Espanto’: sus implicaciones psiquiatricas. Abridged translation by Clarissa Scott. In Medical Anthropology Newsletter 2, 6: 19–22.
Lieban, Richard W. 1960 Sorcery, and social control in a Philippine municipality. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 16: 127–143.
Lieban, Richard W. 1962 The dangerous ingkantos: illness and social control in a Philippine community. American Anthropologist 64: 306–312.
Madsen, Claudia 1965 A study of change in Mexican folk medicine. Middle American Research Insitute. Pub. No. 25. pp. 89–138. New Orleans: Tutane University.
Mak, Cornelia 1959 Mixtec medical beliefs and practices. American Indigena 19: 125–150.
Martinez, C. and H. W. Martin 1967 Folk diseases among urban Mexican-Americans. Journal of the American Medical Association 196: 147–150.
Messing, Simon D. 1975 Health care, ethnic outcasting, and the problem of overcoming the syndrome of encapsulation in a peasant society. Human Organization 34: 395–397.
Miller, John 1970 Mexican ‘soul’ therapy works. Knight-Inquirer News Service.
Montalvo, A. S. 1967 Sociocultural change and differentiation in a rural Peruvian community. An analysis in health culture. Unpublished Doctoral dissertation. Cornell Univeristy.
Nadel, S. F. 1952 Witchcraft in four African societies: an essay in comparison. American Anthropologist 54: 18–29.
Nash, June 1972 Devils, witches, and sudden death. Natural History 81, 3: 52–59, 82–83.
O'Nell, Carl W. 1970 (Response to Seijas). Medical Anthropology Newsletter 2, 2: 1–2.
O'Nell, Carl W. 1972 Severity of fright and severity of symptoms in the susto syndrome. International Mental Health Newsletter 14, 2: 2, 4–5.
O'Nell, Carl W. 1975 An investigation of reported ‘fright’ as a factor in the etiology of susto, ‘Magical Fright’. Ethos 3: 41–63.
O'Nell, Carl W. and Henry, Selby 1968 Sex differences in the incidence of susto in two Zapotec communities: an analysis of the relationships between sex-role expectations and a folk illness. Ethnology 7: 95–105.
Parsons, Talcott and Renee, Fox 1952 Illness, therapy and the modern urban American family. Journal of Social Issues 8: 31–44.
Press, Irwin 1969 Urban illness: physicians, curers and dual use in Bogota. Journal of Health and Social Behavior 10: 209–217.
Press, Irwin 1978 Urban folk medicine. American Anthropologist 80: 71–74.
Reminick, Ronald A. 1974 The evil eye belief among the Amhara of Ethiopia. Ethnology 13: 279–291.
Richardson, Miles and Barbara, Bode 1971 Popular Medicine in Puntarenas, Costa Rica: Urban and Societal Features. Middle American Research Institute. Pub. No. 24. New Orleans: Tulane University.
Rubel, Arthur J. 1960 Concepts of disease in Mexican-American culture. American Anthropologist 62: 795–814.
Rubel, Arthur J. 1964 The epidemiology of a folk illness: susto in Hispanic America. Ethnology 67: 1151–1173.
O'Nell, Carl W. 1966 Across the Tracks. Austin: University of Texas Press.
O'Nell, Carl W. 1970 (Response to Seijas). Medical Anthropology Newsletter 2, 2: 2–3.
O'Nell, Carl W. 1977 ‘Limited Good’ and ‘Social Comparison’: Two Theories, One Problem. Ethos 5: 224–238.
Sal y Rosas, F. 1958 El mito del jani o susto de la medicina indigena del Peru. Revista de la Sanidad de Policia 18: 167–210. Lima.
Saunders, Lyle 1954 Cultural Differences and Medical Care: The Case of the Spanish-Speaking People of the Southwest. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Scott, Florence J. 1923 Customs and superstitions among Texas Mexicans. Publications of the Texas FolkLore Society 2: 75–85.
Seijas, Haydee 1970 Algunos aspectos de la ethnomedicina de los Sibundoy de Columbia. Abridged translation by Clarissa Scott. In Medical Anthropology Newsletter 2, 1: 9–10.
Seijas, Haydee 1972 El susto como categoria etiologica. Acta Cientifica Venezolana 23, Suplimento 3: 176–178. Caracas.
Tax, Sol 1953 Penny Capitalism: A Guatemalan Indian Economy. Smithsonian Institution, Institute of Social Anthropology, Pub. No. 16. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Tschopik, H. 1951 The Aymara of Chucuito, Peru: magic. Anthropological Papers of The American Museum of Natural History 44: 133–308. New York.
Uzzell, Douglas 1974 Susto revisited: illness as strategic role. American Ethnologist 1: 368–378.
Whiting, Beatrice B. 1950 Paiute Sorcery. Viking Fund Publication in Anthropology No. 15. New York: Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research.
Woods, Clyde M. 1968 Medicine and culture change in San Lucas Toliman: a highland Guatemalan community. Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation. Stanford University.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Logan, M.H. Variations regarding Susto causality among the cakchiquel of Guatemala. Cult Med Psych 3, 153–166 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00052966
Received:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00052966