Harmful bugs, bearable predators and touchy allies
This paper describes and analyzes the representations and practices concerning « little animals » (okuiltsitsin) among the Maseual (Nahuat) people of the Cuetzalan area, in the Sierra Nororiental de Puebla, Mexico. It is based upon a vast fieldwork research on native zoological knowledge, made in collaboration with the Taller de Tradición Oral Totamachilis (« Oral Tradition Workshop ‘Our Knowledge’ »). Apart from being classified according to a morphological criterion, which distinguishes insects, arachnids and gastropods, small beings are ranked in function of their proximity with human society, which often corresponds to the material and spiritual benefits they bring: at one extreme, one finds pure predation, without counterpart, at the other, reciprocity stretching as far as « a shared essence » with the preferred insect, the native bee (Scaptotrigona mexicana). Entomological representations commonly resort to metaphor and metonymy.