Comunidad tzeltal, ecositema cultural y juego simbólico

Abstract

In this article I define a diversity of mechanisms that are helping to integrate the Tzeltal communities in the Estate of Chiapas, in the frame of its cultural ecosystem, meaning, its ecology interpretation by its own culture and the context of their social life. Here are presented symbolic games formulated in Tzeltal language, that are working as forms to integrate communities. At the same time, those forms mark clues and orient practices to define and interact with their ecosystem. A fundamental instrument to analysis will be the comprehension of a diversity of syntactic structures of this language. The symbolic games will let us see clue elements to construct their cultural ecology, together with sui generis modalities of courtesy, identity, in contrast with the otherness. I will approach ways to refer to the ancestors, to environment, to Mother Earth, and other key subjects to conform a community oriented –as Robert Nisbet has said– to personal intimacy, emotional deepness, moral compromise, social integration, and time continuity (1990:71).