Naguallism in South America and Mesoamerica

In Mesoamerica, a nagualli (or nahaulli) referred to a shamanic type who could shape-shift into an animal. Studies of shamanism in South America (particularly in Amazonia) likewise focus on the importance of shape-shifting. In this paper, I will suggest that we move the emphasis away from a particular social role – nagualli, shaman – and to the investigation of “naguallism” more broadly. Naguallism will refer to those practices related to the assumption of animal properties in which aspects of deity, animal, and human were interchangeable, encompassing a constellation of beliefs and practices around shamanic shape-shifting; the inextricability of “matter” (pelts, skins, feathers) and “spirit” (essences of preciousness, beauty, power, courage. etc.); and the instantiation of the divine through animal accoutrements. Nagual subjectivity presupposed absolute identification between subject and object and an understanding of subjectivity based not on the bounded, essential subject but rather entities comprised of the sum of their appurtenances. Drawing parallels between practices in Mesoamerica and Amazonia, the paper investigates the relationship between transitive animal properties and an amorphous and contingent subjectivity dependent on an identity between matter and essence.