Cancuc, the locus of this book, has proved a difficult community to study, but Pedro Pitarch has succeeded where others before him have failed. This volume, a revised version of the book first published in Spanish in 1996, benefits from the author's continuing involvement with that region of Mexico. Souls in the context of daily life are the main theme – these are given at birth and are not malleable, unlike the body, which is opaque, solid and exists in the everyday world. How the body is cared for and dressed, for example, is totally indigenous, an expression of an individual's cultural identity. Souls, on the other hand, are considered to come from the ‘other side’, from the sacred, and the difference between the two realms is ontological. Souls (ch'uleletik) exist predominantly outside the body while within they are only present as ‘fragments’, and can number up to 16 per person (although I wasn't convinced that Deleuze's idea of the fold really helped here). They are highly unstable, the most vulnerable being the ‘bird’ of the heart, which has a propensity to be flattered and when all of a flutter can be easily stolen. Once outside, it is usually trapped by a demon, tossed in the air and carried off to be cooked and eaten. If salt has been added, the person invariably dies. The thief, known as a pale, is just one of another type of soul known as a lab. Lab are inherited patrilineally (and shamans can have up to 13 of these). Predominantly they take the form of birds (such as hummingbirds, especially one known as the kaxlan ts'unam) or animals (such as jaguars), both of these being found some distance away in the lowlands, and of natural phenomenon such as lightning bolts or rainbows. Water lab are rather different, being freshwater snakes with metal heads and bodies that resemble mestizo tools such as the machete. Other lab are even more non-indigenous, being European in appearance, such as the spirits of Catholic priests (pale), Castilian scribes (eskiribano) or school teachers and more recently evangelical musicians. Pitarch's thesis is that all these – even those that are apparently natural phenomena – take a caxlan form, a word that clearly comes from castellano and which in the realm of the ch'ul is linked to power. Both the jaguar and the priest of the book's title are lab, bearers of alterity – the first more positive than the second. The latter are believed to bring illness, much of which is still believed to be a result of the invasion of Mexico by the Spaniards (in the 1500s). Prayers known as Kuxlejal are offered to protect the household, crops and the various souls of the inhabitants – few know how many of each they have – thereby ensuring good health. Shamanic ritual generally and curing in particular consists of ‘working with history’, not just an individual's recent history that they carry inside themselves, but that of the European past as well.

One of the curer-shamans with whom Pitarch worked utilised 43 different prayers to deal with soul loss, some of which addressed those parts of the ch'ulel outside the human body. These reside in a number of mountains linked to the four lineages known as the ch'iibal. Each aspect of the soul is duplicated and as Pitarch indicates, each time a baby is born its double appears simultaneously on one of the mountains, each of which contains a pyramid-like edifice that has 13 levels (as do the ancient Mayan and Aztec cosmologies). Described in various ways, some indicated that the life of the mountain is ordered but harsh, others that it is a place of abundance and constant partying with industrial goods, modern buildings with revolving doors, ‘windows’, ‘chambers … stairs and storerooms’. Cars are kept at the lowest level, while humans in ascending age groups live on the top three, the highest being inhabited by the Great Mother (who is more powerful than any man) and who cares in the first instance for the babies. It is a place of many colours, plants and the delicious odours of flowers which in the everyday world are the candles shamans use in curing: it is, as Pitarch indicates, a greenhouse of souls! But it also has many institutions similar to those found in this world, such as a courtroom full of books where the justice meted out is very mestizo in style and leans towards punishment rather than settlement. What is surprising to me about these descriptions is that until very recently most Cancuceros lived in simple huts with dirt floors and would have known little about ‘chairs with arm rests’, let alone garages. Pitarch does indicate that all of this is imagined by the lab (that is, probably by those who have had greater contact with the outside world). This does show however that the idea of how the ch'iibal is structured is not unchanging.

The prayers used in curing are less amenable to rapid change: one mentions only wooden chairs and stools! In chapter 8 of the book, Pitarch provides a complete transcription of an initial curing prayer (poxil). Although various herbs are used, the real poxil (medicine) are the words, which are uttered as the patient, quite often prostrate, has his pulse taken to gauge the movement of the blood while alcohol (pox) is consumed by all. Many of the words are caxlan places or things that are believed to enter the patient and help to locate which lab of the pale type is causing the problems. Pitarch points out that Cancuceros have an unusually high anxiety about illness, which comes from the need to cope with the ‘burden … of the castilianess’ that is within them. One shaman even joked that life is an almost constant healing ceremony.

What is clear about this cosmology is how private it is, probably being known fully only to shamans. It touches very little on the overt festive cycle celebrated in the church (which in Cancuc is not Catholic, although in most other communities in Chiapas it is). Much ethnography in this region has focused on these rituals, which are highly elaborate (and in which many Christian entities appear, such as Jesus and Mary as well as various saints) but for which there is very little exegesis. Despite this, many who care for the saints in the church (the cargo holders) sense themselves to be very much in touch with the sacred, although they are certainly less otherworldly than the shamans involved more directly with the ch'ultatik. Taking a cargo gives a man and his wife a chance to eat and drink with others – the only time that traditionally Tzeltal people ‘eat out’ and can escape the comparative isolation of their daily lives. Their enjoyment is perhaps analogous to the partying that is said to go on in the teetotal ch'iibal, but with lots of alcohol supplied! Pitarch frequently uses the term ‘Tzeltal’ when he appears to be referring specifically to Cancuceros. The implied message here is that other Tzeltal communities have very similar beliefs. Finally, Pitarch never uses the word ‘mestizo’ but rather ‘Castilian’, perhaps because this study is in part his exploration (as a Spaniard) of what the Spanish did to indigenous Mexico in the past. This is an excellent addition to the literature on the area.