San Jerónimo is a Catholic saint assimilated in highland Tzotzil belief as yahval chanul, 'owner of the animal-soul.' He pastures the wild animal companions — chanul or wayhel — that share each person's destiny, penning them within the sacred mountains, and illness and death follow when a companion strays or is loosed into the forest. Curers petition him to drive the errant soul back to its corral. Sources differ on how far his custodianship overlaps that of the ancestral fathers-mothers, with whom he shares the keeping of the mountain enclosures.