Geopolitics of the underworld. Determinism and psychic causalityamong the Otomi ancestors

Abstract

This article will examine the geopolitics of the Otomi ancestors in the south of the Huasteca region of Mexico, more precisely, how they managesimultaneously the collective endemic violence that prevails in the underworld and that also constitutes part of their relationship with the living.Based on shamanic doxa supported by abundant iconographic material (the “idols”), it is possible to decrypt the native conception of cognitivemechanisms responsible for the production of local worldviews, by examining how links are established between neurophysiological processes andmental images. Or, put more succinctly, how the destiny of cultural representations (i.e. those collected by the anthropologist through an extensiveprocess of transference and counter transference) is being negotiated through the modus operandi of psychic causality which, in Otomi terms, refersto the omnipresence of nzahki, the universal force. This force acts as a dynamic process that makes possible the distribution of mental images andis responsible, in final analysis, for the complex articulation between percepts, affects and concepts. At the same time, it sheds light upon how theOtomi people conceptualise determinism and the limits of freedom experienced by humans.