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. 19 VOICES OF MEXICO • 72 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.