Mesoamerican Indian

▪ people

Introduction

 member of any of the indigenous peoples inhabiting Mexico and Central America (roughly between latitudes 14° N and 22° N).

      Mesoamerican Indian cultures have a common origin in the pre-Columbian civilizations of the area. Most Mesoamerican peoples belong to one of three linguistic groups: the Mayan (or Macro-Mayan), the Oto-Manguean, or the Uto-Aztecan. Mayan peoples, with the exception of a northeastern enclave, the Huastecs (Huastec), live at the southeastern extremity of Mesoamerica. Oto-Mangueans (Oto-Manguean languages) are to be found in a wide area of Mesoamerica between Uto-Aztecan peoples to the north and east and Mayan and other peoples to the south. Oto-Manguean languages (now extinct) were spoken south of the Mayan area along the Pacific coasts of El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua; and one Oto-Manguean language, North Pame, spoken in the central desert of highland Mexico, is outside Mesoamerica to the north. The main branches of the Oto-Manguean family are Oto-Pamean, Amuzgoan, Popolocan, Chinantecan, Mixtecan, Zapotecan, Manguean, and perhaps Huave and Tlapanec. The Tlapanec and Chontal languages of Oaxaca, spoken on the Pacific coast of Mexico, are held by some scholars to be related to the Hokan Coahuiltecan (sometimes termed the Hokaltecan) languages farther north. As a result of the expansion of the Aztec Empire centred in the valley of Mexico, Uto-Aztecan (Uto-Aztecan languages) enclaves are found throughout the area. Tarascan, a language the filiation of which is still in doubt, is spoken in the highlands of Michoacán, Mexico. (See also Mesoamerican Indian languages.)

Traditional culture patterns

Settlement patterns

      The territorial unit that has prime importance for most Mesoamerican peoples is the municipio, a unit roughly corresponding to a county in Great Britain or the United States. Each municipio has a municipal centre where most civic, religious, and marketing activities take place. In the modern pattern, this centre is the largest settlement in the area. The usual elements, which vary according to the size and importance of the community, are laid out according to the standard pattern imposed by early Spanish administrators throughout New Spain: a plaza surrounded by public edifices (church or chapel, curacy, jail, perhaps a school, and a meeting place for civil authorities). Houses nearest the plaza are those of the principal persons. Larger communities are often divided into sociopolitical enclaves called barrios.

      An older pattern, still found in some areas (as among some Mayan peoples of the south and among the Huichol (Huichol and Cora) of the north), is for the municipio centre to be an empty town, occupied continuously only by civil and religious authorities and perhaps a few merchants. The bulk of the population resides in hamlets or on individual farms most of the year, moving to town residences only for short periods either to transact business or to participate in a religious festival.

Social, political, and religious institutions

      The basic social and economic unit of Mesoamerica is the extended family of from two to four generations. There is a strong tendency for the extended family to fragment into individual nuclear families, each consisting of one couple and their children. Kinship is usually reckoned bilaterally, with no distinction being made between kinsmen related through males and those related through females. Such distinctions are made in a few Mayan and Zoque communities, and they are common immediately north of Mesoamerica. These and other facts have led some anthropologists to suggest that small preconquest communities were patrilineal clans or lineages. Named clans and lineages have actually been reported in a few present-day Tzeltal Mayan communities.

      Throughout Mesoamerica generally, newly married couples tend to locate near the groom's family in a slight majority of cases. Inheritance also generally favours the male line, including family names, which are almost invariably inherited from males. Inherited names are now most commonly of Spanish origin, but native surnames are known among some Mayan groups. In certain Mixtec (Oto-Manguean) communities, a man's first name becomes the surname of his offspring.

      Marriage, traditionally an alliance between two families, is initiated by the groom's parents and arranged by them directly or through the services of a go-between. A period of bride service by the groom, often involving at least temporary residence with the bride's family, is not uncommon. Polygyny is known and socially acceptable but is not common.

      Political and religious institutions are traditionally bound together into a complex of hierarchically arranged year-long offices through which adult males may attain status and power in the community. All males must serve in the lower-ranked offices at one time or another, but only the most successful attain the highest positions. Progress through the ranks typically involves an alternation between civil and religious offices. Successful passage to the highest ranks results in election to the position of elder. Elders form a more or less informal group of senior men to whom the community looks for experienced guidance in policy matters and in times of crisis.

      Mesoamerican religion, called Christo-pagan by anthropologists, is a complex syncretism of indigenous beliefs and the Christianity of early Roman Catholic missionaries. A hierarchy of indigenous supernatural beings (some benign, others not) have been reinterpreted as Christian deities and saints. Mountain and water spirits (nature worship) are appeased at special altars in sacred places by gift or animal sacrifice. Individuals have companion spirits in the form of animals or natural phenomena, such as lightning or shooting stars. Disease is associated with witchcraft or failure to appease malevolent spirits.

Economic institutions

      The cultivation of corn (maize), as well as of a number of secondary crops, provides basic subsistence for all Mesoamerica. Secondary crops include the bean, the squash or pumpkin, the chili pepper for seasoning, and tomatoes of both cooking and eating varieties. Additional foods with a limited distribution because of differing climates and terrain are the pineapple, sweet potato, cassava (manioc), chayote, vanilla, maguey, nopal, mesquite, cherimoya, papaya, and avocado. Pre-Hispanic commercial plants included cotton, tobacco, henequen for its fibre, and cocoa beans, which served as a medium of exchange. Important commercial crops that have been introduced since European contact include Old World cereals (wheat, barley, oats), bananas, coffee, sugarcane, sesame, and the peanut.

      Traditional slash-and-burn agriculture persists in the most isolated areas, but plow agriculture has replaced it in many places. chinampa agriculture is limited to the valley of Mexico: small artificial islands are built up about one foot above the level of shallow waters of a freshwater lake, formed from the mud and vegetation of the lake floor. After settling, this serves as a rich bed for mixed-crop rotation, nurseries, and seed plots.

      All Mesoamerican communities are tied to national and international markets, but the extent of this relationship varies considerably. The Lacandón of the Chiapas lowland jungles bordering Guatemala lie at one extreme. If the machete, ax, rifle, matches, and similar items from the outside became unavailable to the Lacandón through some catastrophe, they, of all Mesoamerican peoples, would have perhaps the least difficulty in adjusting to the challenge of their ecological situation. Living members of the community still retain personal knowledge of such traditional skills as working flint and stone and the making of fire, cloth, and pottery.

      A larger segment of the indigenous Mesoamerican population is tied to the outside cash economy by one or more products, such as coffee, citrus, vanilla, livestock, or manufactured goods. Specialization is not the norm, but from before colonialism certain communities have specialized in particular products and skills; an entire community may be known for its pottery, weaving, or basketry.

      Markets are typically organized into a network in which each of several towns hosts the market in its central plaza, a different town each day of the week. The network may or may not include a central market that is held every day of the week. Such a market consists of a core of local merchants, the ranks of which are swollen once a week by merchants from the outlying hamlets of the area. All of the merchants, whether from the central market or from outlying markets, tend to be organized in single household units.

      Craft specializations that figure in the marketplace are also widely practiced to meet family needs. Before the appearance of inexpensive commercial cloth, it was the norm throughout Mesoamerica for every young girl to learn to weave (weaving) cotton cloth and, as a married woman, to provide clothing materials for her family. This skill is declining in the face of easy access to materials of cotton, wool, silk, and synthetic materials and blends. The introduction of the treadle loom by the Spaniards brought men into the weaving industry, especially as a commercial operation.

      Both men and women are hat and basket weavers. Commercial products are produced from grasses, reeds, and palms, and lowland peoples also produce baskets of vine for local use.

      A variety of pottery-making (pottery) techniques are known in Mesoamerica. Before Spanish colonization, female potters made most ware, forming vessels by hand modelling, by building with coils, or by using a wooden paddle or molds. The Spaniards introduced the potter's wheel. Present-day techniques are a synthesis of indigenous and Spanish methods.

      A lacquering (lacquerwork) art, now an integral part of the tourist trade, was practiced at the time of the conquest. A variety of gourd vessels of many sizes and shapes are artistically painted, using local materials and techniques. The beautifully decorated vessels serve a range of purposes, from simple utilitarian items, such as dippers, to elaborate ceremonial bowls.

The life cycle

      Christian baptism is the first major event in the life of an individual. Indeed, among Chinantecs (Chinantec), a child is not considered fully human until the rite has been performed. If an unbaptized infant dies, the body is buried immediately without the usual ritual observances—ringing of the church bells, burning of incense, and reading and singing of prayers in the home, at the church, and at the graveside.

      Nursing may continue for as long as three or four years, and childhood is a period of little discipline except for the responsibility placed on older children to care for their younger siblings while the parents work. Formal schooling is now available in most areas for at least a few years, but monolingualism in less acculturated areas severely limits the efficacy of the training, which is almost always conducted in Spanish only. There is no puberty rite, so that the transition from infancy to adolescence is unmarked ritually.

      A girl becomes an adult at marriage, but a boy becomes an adult in two ways: through marriage and through citizenship attained when he reaches the proper age, usually 14 or 15 years. At this time he must enter the labour pool of adult men who maintain community property and must contribute his share of any assessment the citizenry may impose upon itself to cover community expenses. He becomes eligible (and obligated) to serve in the lowest ranking offices of the political and religious institutions of the community.

      Death (death rite) is marked by ritual and burial within 24 hours of death, with repetition of the ritual at periodic intervals after death, sometimes ending on the ninth day, sometimes repeated on the anniversary. An All Saints feast of several days' duration is prepared annually in the fall of the year for all of the dead.

William Richard Merrifield

Modern developments

      In the latter half of the 20th century, Mesoamerican Indians experienced increased access to material goods and the global economy. They generally accepted technological changes that improved their economic position and resisted externally imposed changes that affected their traditional social life. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, political strife (up to and including civil war) in several Central American countries severely disrupted life for many Mesoamerican people.

Ed.

Additional Reading

Ethnographic materials include Ralph L. Beals, Ethnology of the Western Mixe (1945, reprinted 1973); George M. Foster, Empire's Children: The People of Tzintzuntzan (1948, reprinted 1973); Robert Redfield, A Village That Chose Progress: Chan Kom Revisited (1950, reissued 1970); Oscar Lewis, Life in a Mexican Village: Tepoztlán Restudied (1951, reissued 1963); William Madsen, The Virgin's Children: Life in an Aztec Village Today (1960); Evon Z. Vogt, Zinacantán: A Maya Community in the Highlands of Chiapas (1969); Phillip Baer and William R. Merrifield, Two Studies on the Lacandones of Mexico (1971); Robert Wasserstrom, Class and Society in Central Chiapas (1983), on the Zinacantán and Chamula; Walter F. Morris, Jr., and Jeffrey J. Foxx, Living Maya (1987), also on modern peoples in Chiapas; Robert M. Carmack (ed.), Harvest of Violence: The Maya Indians and the Guatemalan Crisis (1988), on the effect of violence on the indigenous peoples; Carol A. Smith and Marilyn M. Moors (eds.), Guatemalan Indians and the State, 1540 to 1988 (1990); Macduff Everton, The Modern Maya: A Culture in Transition (1991), a heavily illustrated essay on the Maya of the Yucatán Peninsula; Richard R. Wilk, Household Ecology: Economic Change and Domestic Life Among the Kekchi Maya in Belize (1991); and W. George Lovell, Conquest and Survival in Colonial Guatemala: A Historical Geography of the Cuchumatán Highlands, 1500–1821, rev. ed. (1992). Ed.

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