ABSTRACT
This chapter brings intersubjective personhood into focus by analysing how the Maya relate to nonhumans. The absence of supernatural/natural, sacred/profane and divine/secular distinctions in many Indigenous cosmologies and languages invites an exploration of alternative thinking modes. Maya ontological difference permits this by its granting of affordances to everything and the resulting efforts to relate to the world as subjects interacting with other subjects. Exploring ontologically different affective qualities demands that we produce not so Cartesian interpretations. Many religious conceptual troubles stem from researchers’ non-clarity. Instead, relational ontologies emphasize knowing the world through sensory experience. How a people perceive the world is inherent in their linguistic concepts and terms. However, diversity of experience and language requires caution not to create a one-size-fits-all personhood meta-theory. Thus, this chapter focuses on three points concerning Maya ontologies: first, how they relate to potentially sentient object-things; second, how personhood is conceived; and third, how these notions may (with care) extend to Mesoamerica and Indigenous America at large.
