ABSTRACT
It's the soul that plunges us into the heart of the mimetic world. In notes made in the early 1930s on Cuna notions of purba, which he hesitantly translated as "soul," Baron Nordenskiold tried to sum it up as being a mimetic double—an "invisible replica" he called it, of one's body. Less diffident than the Baron Nordenskiold, former United States Peacecorpsman Norman Chapin writes: The world as it exists today has a dual nature: it is composed of what is termed 'the world of spirit' and 'the world of substance'. The purpa of a man with one leg, for example, also has only one leg." With regard to the word purpa, in its meaning of 'soul' or spiritual counterpart of everything that exists, he writes, "The Cuna believe that all plants, rocks, animals, rivers, humans, houses, and villages have purpakana, which are spiritual 'doubles' of their material forms."
