La endoalteridad y su tratamiento / Acerca de los consanguíneos depredadores en el México oriental

Abstract

Among the Otomi of the eastern Sierra Madre mountain range, the question of alterity addresses the status of antagonistic beings interacting within the social space of the native community which encompasses both the ecosystem of the living and the domain occupied by the dwellers of the underworld. We emphasize the contrast between an exoalterity concerning all the foreign alteri, i.e. unknown people, and an endoalterity that includes threatening enemies originating from the very circle of commensality. Among the latter are the witches, some of whom are kin to those in the circle of commensality, on a quest for blood entailing the sacrifice of newborns, assimilated to the progeny of the Devil, in order to satisfy the predation of this vital substance, assimilated to semen, which is the preliminary condition leading to the revitalization of the cosmos, as expressed in a spectacular way by the octava ritual at the end of Carnival time.