SOCIETY

On the Pathways Of Indigenous Chiapas

Mario Humberto Ruz* l e i t n o M

e i s l E

o say “Chiapas” is above all to invoke indigenous or Indian Mexico. The Mexico which has fortunately not completely abandoned us despite continual governmental and ideo logi - Tcal efforts to forget it. The Indian-ness, outmoded for some, creaky with age for oth ers, is at the root of a large part of everything we might consider our own. However, it does not reside only at the very base of today’s Mexico, but continues to flourish, bearing fruit in different ways, since “what is Indian” is not a mere anchor in the past, but at the same time a program for the future. 1 Chiapas is the voice that breaks into innumerable voices and has expressed itself in numer ous ways. Despite the frequency with which the first peoples of the state tend to be homogenized into a single entity, each of them has been the artifice of specific forms of expression and a subject capa - ble of forging personal and community pathways through their history. The region is an ecological cornucopia that includes everything from cold mountain high lands to high tropical jungle landscapes, from valleys sandwiched between mountains, cloud forests and warm depressions along the Grijalva Basin, to broad temperate plains, lake and swamp

* Researcher at the UNAM Institute for Philological Research’s Center for Mayan Studies.

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regions or coastal salt estuaries. Since the Chiapanecs intermingled physical - At the end of the twentieth century, ancient times, it has been inhabited b y ly and culturally; and there were also the ethnic variety broadened out even representatives of at least four well dif - those who, like the coastal Nahuas, di - more when thousands of Mayans and ferentiated Mesoamerican groups: the sappeared because of the exploitation mestizos from Guatemala took refuge Zoques (of the Mixe-Z oque-Popoluca they suffered at the hands of their new in Chiapas fleeing the civil war plaguing linguistic group); the Chia pa necs (of overlords (the area was rich in cacao). their country. Many of them are still the Oto-Mangue family); the Nahuas Those who lived in the jungle had to there. (of the Yuto-Aztec branch); and a multi - endure the Spaniards’ new population But not only did new groups appear hued variety of peoples and languages policies. Thus, the Pochutlas were gath - and others vanish. Over the almost five from the Mayan family. ered around Oco singo and the origina l centuries since the violent encounter We know that when the Spaniards Lacandons ended their days in the area with the Spanish conquistadors, Chi a - arrived they found the Chiapanecs in of Escuintenango, near Comitán , or in pas inhabitants’ mobility has prompted the very heart of the territory they would Retalulheu, Guatemala. It would not a profound rearrangement of territor - later call the “higher mayoralty of Chia - be until the eighteenth century that tha t ial patterns. It is impossible here to go pa,” the Zoques in the mid-Northwest, area would be populated again, first by into all of the processes that brought the Nahuas on the Socunusco coast people from Pete necté on the shores of about these changes, but we can say that, regardless of the endogenous or exogenous causes of these phenomena , Since ancient times, Chiapas has been inhabited by representatives the indigenous peoples have been fle x - of at least four well differentiated Mesoamerican groups: ible and strong enough to survive them the Zoques, the Chia pa necs , the Nahuas and a multi-hued variety as specific social and cultural entities of peoples and languages from the Mayan family. when they have put their minds to it (since it should not be denied that on occasion, they have freely opted to assi - and the Mayans in the entire eastern the Usumacinta, then by settlers from milate into the hegemonic culture, aban - half. Of the Mayans, the Ch’ols were lo - around Palenque and, finally, by Yuca - doning their primary ethnic ties). cated in the northern mountains, bor der - tecans from San José de Gracia. 2 It is clear that if anything can be ing on Tabasco; the Central Highlands Small groups of Spaniards and Afri - called a constant in Chiapas indigenous were populated by Tzotzils and Tzeltals , cans and later the mestizos born of the daily lives, it is the diversity of their both extending to the central depres - different mixes were added to the na - historic experiences and the changing sion; the Tojolab’als, gathered around tive populations during the colonial pe - ways in which they have lived them. Balún Canán (or Comitán), were lords riod. After independence, new groups This diversity can be seen first as a reac - of the low mountains, hills and inter - would appear in Chiapas, and others tion to the Spanish conquest, and goes mediate valleys that open up onto the would increase their numbers tempo - from a more or less bellicose confron - jungle region; the Pochutlas and La can - rarily or definitively, like the Cakchi - tation (the Chamula Chiapanecs and dons lived in the jungle bordering on quels , the Kanjobals and the Ja caltecs , Tzotzils in the sixteenth century and the what is today the Guatemalan Petén; who year after year emigrated from Gua - Lacandons in the seventeenth), to col - the Mochós and Cabil were settled on temala to pick the coffee planted by laboration with the recent arrivals, even the skirts of the Sierra Madre moun - Germans in the Sierra Madre moun - accompanying them on their incursions tain range; and some towns where the tains, or the Chujs who came down from into Central America (the Tzotzils from Mam language was spoken were neigh - the mountain to settle in the border Zinacantan in the sixteenth century). bors to the Nahuas on the eastern-most region of La Trinitaria and Guate mala. The Spaniards implemented a new coast. And we must not forget the families form of organization in the land they With the passage of time, things of Arab descent settled in Tuxtla and conquered to facilitate religious indoc - changed. Some groups left their orig i- environs, or the Japanese who arrived trination and the collection of tribute nal location; others, like the Cabils and in Soconusco more than a century ago. from the indigenous as the new “vas -

20 SOCIETY

sals” of the king. Once “congregated”, prised at the outbreaks of armed resis - thing the Spaniards tried to avert argu - they instituted the new political-legal tance, much more numerous than tra - in g that it was a sign of paganism. This division of the pop ulation into the so- di tional history leads us to believe. I resistance was linked to another indi - called two republics: that of the “In - would just point to some of the more ge nous strategy of using the scribes’ dians” and that of the Spaniards. 3 It bloody uprisings: the Zoque riot in Tux - difficulties in writing their original name s would not be too long before the autho - tla in May 1693 (when two prominent to argue that they were not the ones re- rities realized that they had not fore - In dians and the mayor of the pro vince, gistered on the lists of tribute-payers seen the emergence of “a third repub - a voracious Spanish “distributor”, were and refusing to pay. lic” fed by all kinds of racial mixtures: stoned to death), 4 the revolt of the in - They also used legal mechanisms that of the mestizos (indigenous mixed hab itants of Soconusco and Provincia found in Spanish law itself. Many do - with Spaniard ), pardos or “dusky ones” de Los Llanos (Comitán) in the early cuments testify to indigenous persis - (indigenous mixed with black), mu lat - eigh teenth century 5 and the rebellion tence in denouncing aggressions agains t tos (Spaniard and black) and those who by nu merous towns in the highlands, them, hiring defenders, taking up col - worked in Spanish houses or ranches parti cularly Tzel tals and Tzotzils, in lections ( derramas ) to finance trips by (na boríos and laboríos , respectively), 1712, considered the most important their authorities to Guatemala to make whose historical importance has not in the Guatemala Audience. 6 They were complaints before the Audience. As yet been duly weighed. In old or new settlements, the indi - genous were ferociously controlled The Spaniards implemented a new form under the encomienda system, which of organization in the land they conquered to facilitate sought to ensure punctual payment of religious indoctrination and the collection of tribute from tribute, whether in cash or kind de pend - the indigenous as the new “vassals” of the king. ing on market price variations, money owed the Catholic Church, obligatory service to the Spaniards and a variety all put down by the sword and drowned their demographic recovery made it im - of community services (called tequio ), in blood. perative, the peoples resorted more and in addition to being subject to the vo- We should not believe, however, tha t more frequently to legal measures, with racity of uncounted officials who armed rebellions were the only forms better or worse results depending on through the system called “forced dis - of resistance. Perhaps even more impor - their size and the economic resources tribution” obliged them to acquire un - tant were the many tactics used in all at their disposal, resources that they necessary tools or advanced them money spheres of daily life: both individually sometimes used to buy land for their that they had not requested but had to and collectively running away tempo - children and at the same time block pay back with interest. rarily or definitively; retreating into com - the entry of the Spaniards. After the initial missionary fervor munal systems or their ancient beliefs Christianity was a different story had passed, some religious joined the or imagining a thousand and one strate - altogether, as the indigenous adopted group of exploiters, charging unscru pu - gies to escape oppression, like, for exam - it enthusiastically. However, parallel t o lously for saying mass or administering ple, hiding young couples in extended the continual and growing adherence the sacraments, inventing new forms families at the same time that the young to Catholic liturgy and para-liturgy, re - of alms (like having to pay to kiss the people did not marry in the church to signified time and again, they openly priest’s maniple or for the “privilege” of avoid being put on the list of “entire” or, usually, clandestinely, maintained helping a bishop get off his horse, called tribute-payers, which meant paying dou - ancient cults based on a centuries-old the “stirrup right”), and, especially, exact - ble the tribute and contributing fully to world view. Many of these practices di - ing payment for presiding over commu - communal labor. Others resisted leaving sappeared fairly rapidly, like those car - nal or private devotions. behind their indigenous first and last ried out in honor of Nandadá, the god If we add up this rosary of day-to- names and using the ones they were of water; Nombobí, the Sun; Moho tove, day exploitation, we should not be sur - baptized with by the Westerners, some - the patron of fertility; or Nemí, who

21 VOICES OF MEXICO • 72 l e i

7 t helped people to die well. But many n o M

e lasted down through the years, in caves i s l and mountains, or in the shadow of ins- E titutions created by the new religion, such as the case of the brotherhoods, benevolent associations whose rituals were adopted enthusiastically by the indigenous who saw in the worship of saints a way to maintain the intense ritual life they had had in the pre-His - panic era. 8 Under the aegis of the brother - hoods, curious pairs of saints and pre- Hispanic deities even appeared (Cha - wuk/Saint Barbara; Kisim/Saint Pas cua l Bailón; Owner of the Mountain/Saint Anthony Abad; Ixchel/Saint Anne); images on st raw mats were paraded about and fed with copa l and flowers, if not animals’ blood, just as had been done with the ancient gods. And som e iconographic emblems were even taken the crops, and to the life’s breath of As may well be ima gined, this had a as familiars or nahuales of the saints plants and animals. number of consequen ces for those who (Saint I nés’s sheep; Saint Domingo’s dog; Others opted to become cultural - continued living in the towns since the Santiago’s horse ; Juan’s eagle; Mark’s ly mixed to escape the heavy work that absence of many community members lion and so many others), which made went along with being considered in - made its existence even more precar - them be considered more powerful. dig enous. They sought out jobs on sugar ious than it already was because of the The variety of strategies used to plantations, grain farms or cattle ranch - exploitation of their labor, natural dis - survive in the new situation and at the es to avoid the communal workload, asters and the growing appetite of non - same time remain faithful to the old forced distribution of goods and the indigenous for indigenous lands. ways was enormous. So, at the same urgency of paying tribute, since these Almost all the indigenous efforts to time that Biblical writings were adapt - payments were made by their land - keep, recover and even increase their ed to incorporate them into the indi - lords. lands were shown to be fruitless after genous historical vision, 9 towns like In exchange, they met with other independence with the passage of the Ocozocuautla rioted when the priest forms of exploitation and the loss of Reform Laws, which, underhandedly announced his intention of cutting down their communities, but they trusted that classifying them as goods “in the hands the sacred ceiba or silk cotton tree in the long run they would be able to of the dead,” placed the communities’ (1722). Others like the Tzeltals from shirk off the man tle of being indige - and brotherhoods’ lands in the sly hands Copanaguastla and Oxchuc hid their nous, since once they were far away, of the Chiapas liberals. 10 Later, the ancient gods in the churches them - they mixed with the other castes, im - “surveying companies” commissioned selves, walled up behind the saints, and proved their Spanish and adopted His - by the government to legalize title to certain Chol and Tzeltal communities panic habits, all of which made it dif - the lands, launched an offensive against went en masse to worship the hills, con - ficult to identif y them biologically and what little the Liberals had left behin d, sidered deities linked to the fertility culturally. Thanks to this, the second even the land that had already been of their surroundings, to atmospheric generation managed to avoid being clas - “denounced”. In particular, they turned phenomena like the rain, which fed sified as “tribute- paying indigenous”. their eyes to the jungles, rich in tropical

22 SOCIETY

the messages from outside to their own Time and again the indigenous of Chiapas have shown day-to-day lives —whether they be po - their cultures’ profound intelligence and adaptability, l itical, legislative, economic and even which have allowed them to adjust and to endure as peop les, religious— and turn them into a renewed singular and always contemporary. struggle to endure as peop les, singular and always contemporary. They hav e offered us an unceasing lesson of the mo dernity of their traditions, which are woods like ceder and mahogany and Revolution did not trouble them overly perpetually changing in order to endure. in products like chicle and caucho. much. In the region, the revolution con - For this reason, though it may seem In 1897 alone, the Chiapas Land sisted of clashes between the inhabi - paradoxical, few things in Chiapas are and Colonization Company managed tants of Tuxtla and San Cristóbal, who as modern as its indigenous, those sup - to legalize title to 1,807,369 hectares. 11 mobilized the Chamulas in their sup - posedly “traditional” indigenous. By 1903, “around 6,794 farms and port, promising to free them of taxes, ranches had been registered as ha cien - and between the different groups that das or ranches and 1,571 as unclassified emerged from the conflict (Carran ci s - properties, covering more or less 3 mil - tas , Villistas, Pinedistas and Mapaches), lion hectares, or 44 percent of the total who fought a veritable civil war. 14 It area of the state.” 12 Eleven years later would not be until 1936 to 1940 under NOTES “only 3.67 percent of the places regis - President Lázaro Cárdenas that the in - tered maintained the category of towns , digenous peoples would recover part 1 while 87.84 percent were registered a s of their lands and be freed from the Using data from the 2000 National Census, the Com mission for the Development of Indi - 13 farms or property.” oppressive debts they owed the ha cien - genous Peoples reported that in 2002, of the At the same time, their land stolen da owners. total population of Chiapas of 3,920,412 inha - bitants, 1,117,597 considered themselves indi - from them, the indigenous joined the In the second half of the twenti - genous (this figure does not include chil dren ranks of the “freed” labor market. The eth century, the galloping population under five). Of that figure, 843,966 speak one of the state’s indigenous languages: 37.5 per - Chiapas government itself reported in growth and the depletion of the land cent are monolingual in the indigenous language 1885 that of the 472,694 inhabitants after so much exploitation caused new and 62.5 percent are bilingual (their native lan- guage and Spanish). http://cdi.gob.mx/index. of the state, only 8,125 lived in a hun - migration, spurred by people’s moving php?id_seccion=91 dred towns, while 236,347 lived on into the jungle areas encouraged by th e farms and hamlets and the rest con - government (a disjointed colonization 2 The people today known as Lacandons are the centrated in the few cities and villas . effort with a brutal environmental cost) ; descendents of Yucatecan Mayas who settled in the ancient Lacandon territory, becoming And to those trapped by hereditary debt religious and political conflicts lead - confused in people’s minds with the original was added at times the work force lib - ing to the expulsion from their com - inhabitants. erated by the 12 villas, 102 towns, and munities of not a few indigenous con - 3 About the first century of the “Indian Repu blic ” 17 river- bank communities: another verted to Protestant or para-Protes tant see Gudrun Lenkersdorf, Repúblicas de indios. 166,607. Three years before the dawn faiths; the attraction of the urban areas Pueblos mayas en Chiapas, siglo XVI (Mexico City: of the twentieth century, the 36,512 ser - (Tuxtla, Villahermosa, Cancún); the Centro de Estudios Mayas- IIFL -UNAM , 2001). vants living in 5,858 rustic farms owed possibility of obtaining land in ne igh - 4 Murdo J. MacLeod, “Motines y cambios en las their bosses no less than 3,017,012 pe - boring states (Tabasco, Campeche and formas de control económico y político. Los sos. If we take into account that a day’s Quin tana Roo); and the 1994 Zapatis - acon tecimientos de Tuxtla, 1693,” J.P. Vi quei - ra and M.H. Ruz, eds., Chiapas: Los rumbos pay was no more than 30 cents, every ta uprising. de otra historia (Mexico City: UNAM -CIESAS - peon owed 276 days’ work. Time and again the indigenous of CEMCA -Ude G, 1996), pp. 87-102. Without a doubt, the century began Chiapas have shown their cultures’ 5 well for property owners. So well, in profound intelligence and adaptabili - María Carmen León, Un levantamiento en nom - bre del rey nuestro señor (Mexico City: Centro fact, that the outbreak of the Mexican ty, which have allowed them to adjust de Estudios Mayas- IIFL -UNAM , 1988).

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6 The most complete and intriguing study about incarnation of the Holy Tri nity and charged a chase the land they worked with the supposed this is by Juan Pedro Viqueira, Indios rebeldes fee in the towns for “facilitating” miracles. aim of fostering small holdings, in practice th e e idólatras. Dos ensayos históricos sobre la rebe - land was concentrated among the few with lión india de Cancuc, Chiapas, acaecida en el 9 Francisco Núñez de la Vega, Constituciones enough money to buy it. año de 1712 (Mexico City: CIESAS , 1997). dio ce sanas del obispado de Chiapa (1702) , cri - tical edition by M.C. León and M.H. Ruz (Mex - 11 Alicia Hernández Chávez, “La defensa de los 7 About the first two, see Mario Humberto Ruz, ico City: Centro de Estudios Mayas- IIFL -UNAM , finqueros en Chiapas,” Historia mexicana “Amarrando juntos: la religiosidad maya en la 1988). XXVIII (3) 1979, p. 349. época colonial,” M. de la Garza and M.I. Ná- 12 jera, eds., Religión maya (Madrid: Editorial 10 The law was designed to confiscate the Catho - Carlos Tello, La tenencia de la tierra en Mé - Trotta, 2002), pp. 247-282. About the last two, lic Church’s excessive land holdings and those xico (Mexico City: UNAM , 1968), p. 105. undoubtedly the best source, though limited to of the indigenous peoples: to do so, it refused the case of the Zoque peoples, is Dolores Ara - to recognize any legal standing of either the 13 Ca rl Tannenbaum, quoted in Jean Meyer, “Ha - moni’s Los refugios de lo sagrado (Mexico City: church or the municipal governments that ciendas y ranchos, peones y campesinos en CNCA , 1992). owned the land that had been received as “royal el Porfiriato. Algunas falacias estadísticas,” grants” or “viceregal grants” during the colo - Historia mexicana XXXV (3) 1986, p. 495; and 8 There were even some illegal brotherhoods, such nial period. They were called “goods in the Hernández Chávez, op. cit., pp. 342-343. as the one in which the Suchiapas parodied hands of the dead” because they could nei - the Twelve Apostles and “ went out at night, going ther be sold nor given away, so they were out- 14 Se e the excellent analysis of the period in three from hill to hill and from cave to cav e, holding side the circuits of trade or the market. To classic texts: Antonio García de León, Resis- their meetings and consultations under the cover bring them back into the market, t he denuncio , tencia y utopía (Mexico City: ERA , 1985); of religion, practicing their rites and the cult of or denunciation, was instituted, whereby those Thomas Benjamin, El camino a Leviatán, Chi a - the Devil.” (Pedro de Feria, “Carta de fray ... who knew of the existence of these kinds of pas y el Estado mexicano, 1891-1947 (Mexico obispo de Chiapa al rey don Felipe II, remitién - goods de nounced them and the government City: CNCA , 1990); and “¡Primero viva Chia - dole un memorial de lo que en aquella provi n ci a auctioned them off to the highest bidder, pas! La revolución mexicana y las rebeliones pasaba. 26 de enero de 1579,” Cartas de In - paying the denouncer a commission based on locales,” J.P. Viqueira and M.H. Ruz, eds., dias 1 [Guadalajara: Aviña Levy, 1970], pp. 451 - the value of the goods. Although the law auth o - Chiapas los rumbos de otra historia (Mexico 459.), while some Tzeltals pretended to be the rized share-croppers and rural renters to pur - City: UNAM -CIESAS -CEMCA -Ude G, 1995).

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