Snakes in the Ladies' Room: Navajo Views on Personhood and Effect

In the summer of 1994 snakes were sighted in a public restroom facility on the Navajo reservation. In this article I analyze the reactions of Navajo involved in this incident in order to illustrate the philosophical principles governing Navajo views of the cultural construction of the human body, self, personhood, and effect. The philosophical system, which provides a cultural context for explaining this disturbing event, is in part based on the principle of synecdoche--the premise that parts of the body (hair, fingernails) and bodily secretions (saliva, blood, skin oil, urine) retain lifelong influence and can thereby affect the well-being of the individual from whom they originated for a long time after their detachment or expulsion. This analysis of the Navajo case contributes to broader disciplinary concerns about the opposition of "self" and "person" found in classic anthropological discourse. [self, the human body, personhood, effect, Navajo, Native America]