Evidential mastery

Master speakers In Zinacantán, a Tzotzil [Mayan] speaking community in highland Chiapas, Mexico, there are various kinds of specialists in talk, many of whose roles are lexically labeled. Consider, for example the j`ilol, ‘curer, lit., seer’ who cures (and occasionally gives) illness by means of ritual offerings and prayer; the jmeltzanej-k’op, ‘dispute settler, lit., maker of words’ who helps people resolve conflict by ordering their words, either in the household or at the courthouse; the jk’opojel, ‘talker (for one)’, a person whose skill in speech makes him an appropriate “mouthpiece” in dealing with authorities both within the community and in the wider world; or the totil-me`il ‘ritual adviser, lit., father-mother’ who guides ritual officeholders through the procedures of their years in office, most notably instructing them in how to speak appropriately with both human and superhuman interlocutors. In this paper I try to characterize one aspect of “speech skill” in Zinacantán, in the context of a wider study of Zinacantec linguistic virtuosity. In particular, I concentrate on the spectacular communicative prowess of my compadre Mariano, an octogenarian now almost deaf and blind. To focus the discussion, I introduce a series of Tzotzil evidential devices and locate part of mol (‘elder’) Mariano’s masterful speech in his deployment of them for different interactional ends.