Tojolabal (Chañabal, Comiteco) Language: Tojolabal Language Family: Mayan Kanjobalan-Chujean Chujean (1)
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Description 1.1 Name of society, language, and language family: Name: Tojolabal (Chañabal, Comiteco) Language: Tojolabal Language Family: Mayan Kanjobalan-Chujean Chujean (1) 1.2 ISO code: ISO 639-3, TOJ (1) 1.3 Location (latitude/longitude): Chiapas (16.756932, -93.129235) Margaritas (19.012328, -98.215379) Altamirano (16.734299, -92.036222) (1) 1.4 Brief history: The Tojolabal were first mentioned by eighteenth century Spanish chronicler Francisco Ximenez in his book, Historia de la Provincia de San Vincente y Guatemala. He cited Comitan as the capital and that the area was inhabited by the indigenous population of Chaneabal. Within the century, Carlos Basuri, a member of the first expedition into the region sponsored by Tulane University, provided a brief ethnographic, linguistic and physiological description of the Tojolabal. Comitan was again recognized as the economic, political and religious center. Following the Mexican revolution, the majority of Tojolabal were put in nucleated ejido settlements, which forced many to become indentured laborers causing tense relationships with government. Despite the lack of territorial rights to this day and influxes of refugees, the Tojolabal have maintained ethnic identity and integrity (2.) 1.5 Influence of missionaries/schools/governments/powerful neighbors: Tojolabal is the major means of communication. It is a dialect of the Spanish language, but the Tojolabal people have been influenced by the long-term, increasing contact with the Spanish. This has resulted in wide spread bilingualism. Men are more likely bilingual because of the need to interact in the community and market. Women with good control of Spanish are those that attend school or work for Ladinos. The Tojolabal have struggled for land controlled with the government of Mexico for at least eight decades. The lack of available, fertile land as relegated many Tojolabal to subsistence living. For example, only 20 percent of households grow enough to last the entire year so villagers must have multiple income strategies including marketing livestock and cutting wood. The Tojolabal are one of three distinctive Maya-speaking groups occupying the central highlands of Chipas. The Tzotzil and Tzeltal border the Tojolabal to the northwest and south respectively (2.) 1.6 Ecology: The Tojolabal live in what has been traditionally known as the Lacandon rainforest. The area is prime finca (private ranch) land, and until the mid to late 1930s, the Tojolabal were attached to numerous fincas dispersed throughout prime valley lands. The fincas are generally fertile valley lands while villages are in rocky, less fertile mountainous areas. Because of the recent population increases, the Tojolabal occupy land ranging from a highland temperate zone, which can exceed 10,000 feet in elevation, to a low-lying tropical forest zone. The only major river in the region is the Rio Grande de Comitan, which passes through the southlands (2.) 1.7 Population size, mean village size, home range size, density: The Tojolabal live primarily within three municipal cities. Comitan has the largest urban concentration with a population of more than 84,000 and a density of 62 people per square kilometer. Las Margaritas has a population of 28,000 and a density of 6.6 people per square kilometer and Independencia has 5,000 inhabitants and a density of 4.8 people per square kilometer. Scattered amongst the municipalities are 439 villages, fincas and small land holdings that contain 36,000 Tojolabal as of 1990 with 7,700 monolinguals, down from 12,703 in 1970. An average community is around 200 people with families peaking around ten members (2.) Economy 2.1 Main carbohydrate staples: Corn 2.2 Main protein-lipid sources: Chickens and turkeys 2.3 Weapons: The Tojolabal raise livestock such as cows, horses, donkeys, goats and sheep and don’t rely on hunting and gathering food. The Tojolabal do however practice slash and burn agriculture, concentrating on corn, beans, squash and chilies as primary staples. 2.4 Food storage: The Tojolabal do store some food, but long term preservation or foods with preservatives aren’t a staple of the diet (2.) 2.5 Sexual division of production: Men working alone or with sons or other close family are the basic unit of production. The men are the main source of wages for families so a significant injury or illness can derail a single family’s financial well-being. Women are in charge of all agricultural labor at home, except for plowing, as well as looking after the children (4.) 2.6 Land tenure: The Tojolabal have usufruct rights to plots of land that are communally owned. Individuals do not rent additional lands for cultivation; rather, they are solely dependent on the lands granted to them through the ejido process. Under Mexico’s land reform program, the Tojolabal, unlike their neighbors were able to retrain a number of former finca lands as ejidos (communal holdings.) Currently, lands adjacent to most ejidos are either lands belonging to other ejidos or are private ranch lands that have already been reduced to legal size. Therefore current land pressure and the prospect of future shortages are problems that are both real and apparent (2.) 2.7 Ceramics: The Tojolabal potters produce for domestic purposes such as jars to carry water as well as for economic purposes. The neighboring Tzeltal Maya of Chanal won’t buy the perfectly adequate water- carrying jars though; rather they buy their vessels from the Tzeltal center at Amatenango. The Tojolabal have specialized firing areas for their pottery and even test pits (3.) 2.8 Specified sharing patterns: One must serve the community through donated labor and goods. Example, one does not offer to help build a house, unless invited to do so. Nor does a Tojolabal woman await delivery of a piece of a relative’s slaughtered hog; she arrives at the relative’s door, bowl in hand, to request the meat due. One also doesn’t not expect to repay a loan until requested to do so (2.) 2.9 Food taboos: Sharing food with an enemy would be considered taboo (2.) 2.10 Canoes/watercraft: The Tojolabal live near the Rio Grande de Comitan, so watercrafts and canoes are a popular form of transportation for those down by the river (2.) Anthropometry 3.1 Mean adult height (m and f): Females: 4 feet, 7 inches. Males: 4 feet, 9 inches. The Tojolabal are one of the shortest ethnic groups. They are significantly shorter than people in Mexico City and distinctly shorter than the Cholula, Zapotecs and Mayas of Quintana Roo. By comparison, the average Mexico City male is 5 feet 6 inches, while females are 5 feet, 3 inches (2.) 3.2 Mean adult weight (m and f): Females: 92 pounds. Males: 103 pounds. The Tojolabal also ranked lighter than all four of the aforementioned groups throughout their lifespans. For example, the average Mexico City male is expected to weight 145 and females, 125 pounds. (2.) Life History, mating, marriage 4.1 Age at menarche (f): On average, 13 years old (2.) 4.2 Age at first birth (m and f): The Tojolabal consider 15 years old to be the beginning of the productive period in people’s lives (2.) 4.3 Completed family size (m and f): The average family is ten people, including the mother and father. The family number may fluctuate lower than ten because more than 35 percent of children don’t make it to age 10 and 20 percent don’t make it to age 20. The distribution of men and women is generally slanted more towards males. In Niwan Witz, the community is 53 percent men. In Tajaltik, it is 52.6 percent men and in Yijel K’ul, it is 48.5 percent men (2.) 4.4 Inter-birth-interval (f): Women are considerable to be in their reproductive period from age 15 to 35. The average woman, due to the lack of contraception and high mortality rates, will give birth to eight children, not including unreported stillbirths. Thusly, the average woman is having a child roughly once every 2.5 years (2.) 4.5 Age first marriage (m and f): Males and females are first married during the middle of their teenage years. Because life expectancy is so short, maximizing the number of children a family will have is of great importance, though occasional premarital sex is permitted (2.) 4.6 Proportion of marriages ending in divorce: There are marriages that end in divorce amongst the Tojolabal, but the percentage is relatively low because of the difficultly in climbing the socio-economic ladder (2.) 4.7 Percent marriages polygynous, percent males married polygynously: Polygamy is rare because of the vast poverty amongst the Tojolabal. At one time, if a man could provide equally for multiple women, the act would not be deemed socially destructive. The number of polygamous marriages is limited by the Tojolabal’s integration into society because the government of Mexico has made the practice illegal (2.) 4.8 Bride price: Husbands are expected to pay for a bride and usually dependent on their fathers help them make the payment. After marriages sons are expected to repay their fathers by continuing to contribute their labor within the household for several years. Only after this period of service does a son establish his own independent household consisting of his wife and any children they may have had (2.) 4.9 Inheritance patterns: Inheritance is passed done from father to son. For example, when starting a family, the son’s ability to purchase a home and material goods will depend largely on how much he has inherited upon leaving his father’s residence. It is the youngest son though that will inherit what is left of the father’s