El tonalli y el calor vital: algunas precisiones

Abstract

In his book Cuerpo humano e ideología (1980/1996), López Austin identified three main types of souls in the aztec world-view. Among them, the tonalli is the one that gives us the biggest amount of information. Nevertheless, since that time, a lot of ethnographic information about indian person’s images has been produced. So, the main intention of this work is to incorporate these new data up to bring an accurate definition of the concept of tonalli. First, we’re going to show that some of the most important aspects of the tonalli are also present in other indigene soul concepts. And secondly, we’ll try to explain how the tonalli is incorporated to the mesoamerican global image of soul.