ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the World View of the contemporary Mazahua Indians from El Nopal in terms of a theoretical construct or a model. This model will be useful not only for a descriptive account of the outlook on life of these specific people, but for cross-cultural exploration of various other world views as well. It cannot be emphasized strongly enough that in their daily lives human beings, whether they are educated or not, never think in terms of exactly the same abstractions as those proposed by a social scientist who studies their experiences. Robert Redfield's hypothesis about four universal conceptions characteristic of all human cultures may serve as a starting point for building a model of "world view". According to Redfield, in all known cultures exists a conceptualization of environment in terms of distinctions between universe, supernatural, self and society. The chapter further talks about non-systematic cultural orientations toward the environment and systematic, scientifically, ideologically, artistically elaborated cultural orientations.
