r I f^i n iiiáil ZAPOTEC-MIXTEC SOCIO-POLITICAL CHANGE 1400-1970 by MARK OTTO GLADE, B.A. A THESIS IN ANTHROPOLOGY Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Tech University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS AoDroved Accepted May, 1980 Ac 193Ú C^C^Á, ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Completion of this thesis required input from many indivi- duals. My family, friends, colleagues, and professors have assisted throughout the preparation of this thesis. I am most indebted to Dr. Evelyn Montgomery, the chairman of my thesis committee. She provided the necessary criticism and encour- agement which resulted in significant improvements over the draft copies. Dr. Nancy Hickerson and Dr. James Goss, my other committee members, also gave valuable suggestions and their assistance is gratefully acknowledged. A special thanks is owed to Richard Salzar who, through his enthusiasm for anthropology, influenced my decision to get a degree in the field. I am also indebted to the many different persons who have helped me in my field trips to the Oaxaca Valley and made this thesis what it is. TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS vi I. INTRODUCTION 1 Oaxaca Valley 4 Acculturation 7 II. PEASANTS 11 Peasants vs. Tribal . ( 14 Peasants vs. The Larger Whole 15 Corporate Peasant Communities in Mexico. .16 Types of Relations Between the Peasant and the Larger Whole 19 The Process of Integration within Peasant Society 21 Examples of Integration within a Peasant Community 23 Summary 25 III. PRE-CONQUEST 25 The Zapotecs 26 Social Structure and Political Organization of the Zapotecs 31 Dominant Themes of Mesoamerican Culture 31 Zapotec Political and Social Organization Just Prior to Conquest 32 i i i The Mixtec 33 Mixtec Social Organizational Structure 33 Mixtec Urban Development 36 Mixtec Religious Life 37 Mixtec Warfare 37 Political Structure of the Mixtec up to the Conquest 38 IV. THE VALLEY OF OAXACA AT CONTACT BY THE SPANIARDS 39 Spanish Arrival in the New World 39 The Cacique 41 Capulli 42 Indian Revolt 43 Theocractic Period in Mesoamerica (Mexico). ... 44 Spanish Outlook in Mexico 45 Spanish Crown Policy Toward Mexico 47 Historical Look at Zapotec and Mixtec Spanish Contact 50 V. CONTINUITY OF TRADITIONS AND ECONOMIC SYSTE.MS POST-CONQUEST 5^ Mixtec Post-Conquest 55 The Catholic Church and the Mesoamerican Religious Cults 56 Similar Reaction Among the Mixtec 58 VI. CIVIL-RELIGIOUS HIERARCHY 61 Description of the Civil-Religious Hierarchy ... 62 Functions of the Civil-Religious Hierarchy ... 64 Social Evolution of the Religious Hierarchy ... 67 iv Civil-Religious Hierarchy Differentiation Zapotec vs. Mixtec 68 VII. SOCIAL iRELIGIOUS HIERARCHY 20th CENTURY 69 VIII. ATZOMPA 73 Atzompa Government 1970 74 Cargo Economic Limitations 75 Changing Cargo System in Atzompa 75 Cargo Avoidance 78 Recent Change in Atzompa 79 Summary 80 IX. CONCLUSION 84 Acculturation 35 Substitution 85 Syncretism 36 Addition 87 Deculturation 87 Origination 88 Rejection 89 GLOSSARY 92 BIBLIOGRAPHY 94 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1. Archeological Sequences of the Oaxaca Valley .... 28 2. Traditional Civil-Rel igious Organization 66 3. Mixtec Political-Religious Structure 83 Map 1 . State of Oaxaca 3 2. Mixtec and Zapotec Region 35 3. Regional Divisions of the Mesoamerican Culture Area 52 VI CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION This thesis will examine the process of change in the socio- political system of the Mixtec and Zapotec Indians of the Oaxaca Valley (see Map 1) in Southern Mexico from A.D. 1400-1970. Many studies have been made of change in political structure, but they have tended to concentrate on the politico-administrative superstructures of colonial origin, to the exclusion of the indigenous political and social structures. It is important, when looking at a socio-political system, to recognize that for a complete understanding, it is necessary to examine the his- torical and cultural record. Political scientists interested in the study of developing nations have been criticized for failing to realize the advantages of using the historical frame- work for a study of change. Among writers who have commented on this is Sathyamurthy (1973:557, 563). This thesis will attempt to show that the way in which the peasant relates to his political system, within small com- munities in the Oaxaca Valley, has not changed since pre-conquest times. Instead (see Fallers (1955), Nash (1967), and Nader (1969)) the personal relationship of the peasant to his poiitical system remains the same: it is just that some of the structure has been 1 MAP 1. State of Oaxaca Map from Handbook of Middle American Indians Vol. 3, p. 963 °^3tíU3no rechanneled. The basic question is: what caused this static element to be retained within a changing society? To achieve this goal one must examine the structure in v^hich a peasant, in the Oaxaca Valley, operates and how he maintains this static attitude through the changes that have been operatinq upon him, through his culture and the outside culture, from pre-conquest" times to the present. Oaxaca Valley To come to a more complete understanding of the personality of the area which the peasants of this study occupy, an intro- duction by Eric Wolf (1959) adds a bit of poetic examination of a subculture within a larger culture: South of the Balsas and Palaloapan lies the southern highlands where veritable mountains of the moon fall off in great forbidding ridges to the Pacific Ocean and the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. The Mexican balladier sings with longing about this jaded and disected country but the mountains are poor and arid, and dusty villages cling to the mountainside with the tenacity of the cactus and the prickly pear striving to survive against the odds of uncertain rainfall and denuded soils. Only in the Valley of Oaxaca, in a basin located at 5,000 feet above sea level, is there enough level land to allow more plentiful crops and clustered settlements. Geological activity in Tertiary times created this valley and dammed its waters into a lake, now drained almost entirely by the river Atoyac that flows southward to the sea. But the lake is still there, just below the surface, and water can be had by digging a few inches into the ground: a boon to the irrigation farmer but also a threat to the roots of his crops. Today all roads of this region lead to Oaxaca City (Huaxyacac in Nahuatl, 'the spur of the acacias') (Wolf 1959:10). The range of climates, as described by Paddock (1966) is enormous although most of the region is relatively arid: Most of the region is also both hilly and at a fairly considerable elevation. There are true tropical forests as well as cool, damp mountain pine forests; there are low valleys where coffee and bananas thrive and high ones where wheat is grown. In fact, there is almost ewery possible combination of altitudes from sea level to 10,000 feet; rain falls from 2-100 effective inches per year; and lands from bare rock to deep alluvium may be found within the state. In such a region man has had a great variety of environmental opportunities and to whatever extent habitat may affect human development we should expect this variety to begin. In Oaxaca, the physical world man needed at every stage of development has always been within a few days' walk (Paddock 1966:88). Marcus Winter has set up several stages of development within the Valley from 10,000 B.C. up to the beginning of Monte Alban. The first: from 10,000 B.C. to 1500 B.C. is labeled: Hunting and Gathering and Preceramic. It appears that these crude gatherers of seeds and fruits began producing a simple and tentative plant domestication as early as 7,000 B.C., working with members of the squash family. Long before 4,000 B.C., along the present border of the states of Oaxaca and Puebla, south of Tehuacan, the economic basis of Mesoamerican civilization had begun to take shape with the domestication of maize. The next phase is that of village formation and well-watered alluvial lands from 1500-600 B.C. This period roughly coincides with that of the Early Formative and the sites of Tierras Largas and San Jose'. The next phase Winter labels as the Urban Formative 600-400 B.C. and is associated with the Middle Formative period in the Valley. 6 It is at the end of the Urban Formative at 400 B.C. that Monte Alban I begins. The Valley of Oaxaca was the crossroads of cultural influences passing between the valleys of Chiapas, Veracruz, Tabasco, the Guatemalan Highlands, Guerrero, and the Maya lowlands. The socio-political system which is of interest for this paper is that which, in present terms, can be described as a peasant municipal government, in the state of Oaxaca in Mexico. This study will center on the change that has occurred within the system over a period of approximately 500 years: or ore- conquest to the present. The reason for the 500-year time span is that in this area of Mesoamerica, although there were chanqes in the political structure throughout its history, it is con- venient to start the time period just prior to the coming of the Spaniards, due to the fact that this is the time period for which there is reliable documentation to cover the political change: change within a small community. The socio-political system to be examined is that of the Mixtec and Zapotec cultures and has been classified as a civil- religious hierarchy. The Zapotec have lived in the Mexican state for more than two thousand years. In the last five hundred years, (owing to both internal and external factors), the rate of change within these cultures has been increasing and can be directly related to the contact of the Spanish and Mexican societies Even in the present day, the constant bombardment that these 7 communities receive, from near-by radio and television stations, is accelerating the rate of change within the community.