The Dogs Bark Names You Don’t Understand

My grandmother’s claim of seeing a nagual—an ambiguous spiritual presence tied to the land—in the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca guides this project. I return to the village to trace what persists between myth, belief, and lived experience.

My grandmother claims to have seen a nagual in the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca, and her certainty guides this project. From her account, I returned to the village to accompany her in this search, to listen to other voices, and to follow the traces of a presence that blends into the landscape.

The nagual is an ambiguous figure within the Mesoamerican imagination. For many communities, certain people are born accompanied by a spiritual double capable of manifesting as an animal or as a natural phenomenon. It is not understood merely as a power of transformation, but as a presence that connects the individual to the natural, the human, and the divine. With colonization, this relationship was reinterpreted through a Christian lens and labeled as witchcraft, loading the nagual with fear, suspicion, and silence.

In Oaxaca, this presence remains alive. It is not perceived as a distant myth, but as something that inhabits the territory and appears through scattered signs: an animal approaching without reason, a lightning bolt cutting through the night, a voice crossing the forest, or the gaze of someone who swears they have seen it. The nagual embodies both protection and danger, companionship and threat—an ambiguous force that mingles with clouds and trees.

I do not seek to explain it or to represent it fully, but rather to acknowledge its existence within memory, spoken word, and nature. This project is, at once, an investigation and an act of trust in what persists—unseen—among the living.