What is 'kama muta', the emotion that tightens our throat when we read?
BarcelonaWhen I was little, one of my favorite books was The island of the blue dolphins, by Scott O'Dell (published by La Galera, translated by Josep Vallverdú (with illustrations by Isidre Monés), an adventure book that tells the story of Won-a-pa-ley, a Native American girl who lives on an island off the coast of California. Otter hunters exterminate her tribe, and the survivors are taken away on a boat. Her little brother, Ramo, is accidentally left on the deck. When she realizes this, she jumps into the sea and swims back to be with him.
I'm an only child, and therefore I don't know what it's like to love a sibling. But that gesture (jumping off the boat without thinking of the danger so as not to leave him alone) touched me deeply. And, when later on, the little boy turns up dead and she has to survive alone on that island, my throat tightened:I spent the entire night keeping vigil over my brother's body, unable to sleep. I promised myself I would return to kill all the wild dogs in the cave. I thought about how I would do it... but, above all, I thought about Ramo, my brother."I cried so much that I couldn't continue reading until I calmed down."
Love moves us
This very physical reaction (the throat tightening, the sudden crying, chills) has been described by anthropologist Alan Page Fiske and his team with the concept of kama muta"Love-stirring," a term derived from Sanskrit and translated as "moved by love," is an emotion that arises when a bond intensifies suddenly or when its loss becomes acutely felt, in reality or fiction. It is not merely sadness or empathy, but a bodily response to the force of a "we" that emerges or breaks down. Literature, like film, music, or rituals, the author argues, has a special capacity to evoke this relational upheaval. And it is no coincidence that these cultural practices persist: they persist precisely because they are capable of generating this intensification of the bond.
Won-a-pa-lei keeps his promise to kill the wild dogs, but when he injures the head of the pack, he decides to take him to the cabin and nurse him back to health. Rontu ends up being his faithful companion for many years, until we read:He slowly walked to me and fell at my feet. I placed my hand on his chest. I heard his heartbeat, but he only baptized twice. Two slow, strong, muffled beats, like the waves on the beach... And no more. I buried him on the headland, using a stick I threw to him, which he would run to catch. I covered him with small stones of different colors that I collected on the shore."
Even now, after so many years, when I reread it, it moves me just the same. Not because the scene is especially tragic (O'Dell had a special talent for evoking emotion through restraint, without histrionics or emotional manipulation), but because it reawakens that experience of intense connection and irreparable loss. kama muta It does not depend on novelty, but on the ability to remind us of a "we" that matters, even if, as is the case, it is a fictional story.
Perhaps that's why we return again and again to the books, songs, and films that move us: because they make us feel part of a relationship and, even if only for a few moments, we are not alone. And that's why it's so valuable. kama muta And with this concept, literature: one of the first cultural practices in which we learn the intensity and fragility of bonds, even before we have the words to explain it.
