Triqui

ETHNONYMS: Triques, Triquis

Orientation

Identification. The Triqui are an indigenous Mexican group who live in the southwestern part of the state of Oaxaca. The term "Triqui" comes from the word driqui. Dri derives from dre r "father," and qui, "great" or "superior"; consequently, "driqui" means "supreme father" or "supreme lord," alluding to the clan "representative" who was consulted on government matters.

Location. The Triqui live in an enclave of the Mixteca Alta and Mixteca Baja in the state of Oaxaca, in a vertex between the districts of Juxtlahuaca, Tlaxiaco, and Putla. The area lies between 17°10′ and 17°15′ N and 97°45′ and 97°50′ W.

Demography. In the sixteenth century the Triqui population did not exceed 2,000. In 1900 the number barely reached 3,000, but in 1980 it exceeded 15,000. The 1990 census registered 14,981 speakers of Triqui.

Linguistic Affiliation. The Triqui language is in the Mixtecan Branch of the Otomanguean Family.

History and Cultural Relations

During the middle of the fifteenth century, the Triqui, together with the Mixtec, were subjugated by the fifth Aztec monarch, who built a fortress on their lands. They witnessed the wars between the Mixtec kings of Achiutla and Tuxtepec and probably took part in the conflicts on the side of the former, the territory of which lay nearer the Triqui area.

During the Spanish Conquest, the social and cultural situation of the Triqui must have been similar to that of the agrarian communities subordinate to the Mixtec ceremonial centers. Triqui communities, which were autonomous up to a point, did not suffer drastic changes in their sociopolitical organization. There were existing agreements according to which a powerful Mixtec cacique would pledge to defend them in exchange for their tribute and, in case of war, a supply of warriors.

During the early period of colonization in the state of Oaxaca, the Spaniards took over the best lands in the valleys and fertile lowland riverine areas, but did not bother with the mountainous, less fertile terrain, which was perhaps one of the reasons Triqui agrarian communities maintained their descent groups and held on to many cultural values. The Triqui constituted a "cultural island" within a wide Mixtec area. They occupied high, cold, misty mountains that were not inviting to the visitor; however, the lowlands, with a temperate climate and mountains of lesser elevation, proved appropriate, at the beginning of the twentieth century, for the cultivation of coffee. The export of the beans outside the Triqui area furthered the process of acculturation of the low-lying area to neighboring mestizo populations. In the latter, commercial demands favored the penetration of private property side by side with communal property, leading to a gradual deterioration of the communal social organization. In contrast, the traditional organization of the mountainous region suffered lesser modifications.

Settlements

Triqui territory encompasses 26,030 hectares, with two main centers: San Andrés Chicahuaxtla, in the highlands, and San Juan Copala, in the lowlands. The former, with a semicompact settlement pattern, is located to the south of the mestizo city of Tlaxiaco, at an elevation of 2,300 meters. It is located on one of the spurs of the cordillera, which begins at the so-called Mixtec Knot. San Juan Copala, which has a more compact settlement pattern, is situated to the north of the mestizo city of Putla, at an elevation of 1,300 meters. It rests in a depression surrounded by several mountains. Other Triqui towns include Santo Domingo del Estado, San Martin Itunyoso, San José Xochistlan, and San Miguel Copala. The remainder of the settlements are small hamlets with a dispersed settlement pattern. Houses have log walls and roofs covered with wood shingles or straw.

Economy

Subsistence and Commercial Activities. Variations in patterns of cultivation are determined by differences in soil, climate, and irrigation in the cold and temperate zones.

The main cultivated crops in the cool highland zone are maize, beans, chilies, and squashes, whereas in the lowland zone the preferred crop for cultivation is coffee, and in still lower-lying regions, sugarcane, bananas, pineapples, oranges, and mangoes. On a lesser scale, maize, chilies, beans, and squashes are also grown there.

One of the factors leading to low agricultural production is the unevenness of the terrain; the Egyptian plow, in common use on the plains, cannot be used. Another factor is the scarcity of water for irrigation and the lack of financial and informational resources for the use of chemical fertilizers.

Industrial Arts. Family industry is geared to the manufacture, for sale, of women's dresses, called huipiles, on the malacate (a horizontal strap loom, with four stakes). Shirts and belts are also made, and palm hats and baskets are woven for personal use.

Commerce. The exchange of agricultural produce, products of the hunt, and domestic animals for manufactured goods from nearby mestizo cities takes place mainly in local markets twice a week. The markets provide the indigenous population with industrial manufactured goods and with grain for local consumption when the supply has run out.

Division of Labor. Men cultivate the land, and women do the domestic work. With the approach of the harvest, men go to tend their fields, remaining there for several days until the work is finished. Women help in clearing the field of weeds, but planting is done only by men.

Land Tenure. Economic life rests on the communal property—both lineage and clan—and private property held by nuclear families. The use of communal property requires customs for cooperation and solidarity, and use of private land leads to competition between nuclear families. Communal land belongs to the entitled population, which has rights of common usufruct of the pasturelands and forest. Property rights are inalienable, and the indigenous community can increase landholdings by requesting it of the "lineage head" and the Comisariato de Bienes Comunes, an institution that is attached to the Ministry of Agrarian Reform.

Kinship

Kin Groups and Descent. The Triqui have endogamous patrilineal clans and exogamous lineages within the clans. The latter are corporate, and lineages hold land scattered within clan territory. Clan endogamy promotes alliances between lineages through marriage, joining kin outside the third degree of consanguinity. Within the elite/noble group belonging to a lineage head's ascendant line, a man may take a wife from the head of another clan. Breaking the pattern of endogamy and hypergamy is one of their prerogatives.

This specific type of lineage is a consequence of the contradictions resulting from the relationship between the heads of descent groups and the common people. Lines of descent do not conform to a totally patrilineal pattern, owing to the establishment of two lines of ascendancy, one for the nobility and one for the commoners. The nobility, which is in the minority, has bilateral ascent, that is to say, their lineage is traced through the father's and the mother's father's lineage. The commoners, who are in the majority, trace their lineage solely through the patrilineal line. The intertwining of both types of ascendancy hinders the imposition of unilineality and produces a global type of descent, which, for lack of a better term, can be called "quasi-patrilineal," as George P. Murdock did for a society in southeast Asia.

Kinship Terminology. The basic kinship terminology is generational; terms for brother and sister extend to sons and daughters of the father's and mother's brothers and sisters, which is typical of the Hawaiian type. The norm for Ego's parents' generation is nonfusion among collaterals. Criteria of sex and the speaker's sex are recognized, but no distinction is made between cross and parallel cousins.

Marriage and Family

Marriage. Marriage within three degrees of consanguinity between cousins is forbidden, no differentiation being made between cross and parallel cousins. There are other guidelines: Ego may not marry a woman who belongs to his lineage or that of his mother's father. When a pair that is courting realize that they belong to the same lineage territory, they scrutinize the degree of kinship that exists between them. If they discover that they both live on their ancestor's lands, they abstain from marrying. Said in another way, knowing up to four or five degrees of ascendant consanguinity in the father's and the mother's father's line, these two patrilineal ascendancies are used to determine rules governing marriage, prohibiting it in cases where the territory of the father's and mother's father's lineage coincides. This has resulted in a kinship category of "land brothers."

Domestic Unit. There are different phases in family development. Initially, a family is nuclear; it becomes an extended family when the children grow up and procreate; later, the family splits into nuclear units which, in their turn, initiate a new cycle. A married daughter abandons the extended family milieu and moves to her new home in the house of the groom's parents or the house he built next to that of his parents.

Inheritance. Commoners inherit land patrilineally; those belonging to the nobility inherit bilaterally land belonging to their father and their mother's father. Women of the noble group inherit lands patrilineally, but the women of the common folk do not inherit land.

Socialization. Boys and girls learn how to perform various tasks from an early age: girls wash their own clothes and help in the kitchen. At the age of 6, boys help with farmwork and, when there are cattle, in tending them. No puberty rites are held. Inculcated values agree with Triqui perception of a world in which life is austere and frugal, with a lack of opportunity produced by the harsh agricultural milieu in which they subsist.

Sociopolitical Organization

Social Organization. The sanctioned unequal access to wealth is the structure on which the Triqui society is based; nobles have greater access to scarce goods than do the common people, but lineage heads try to demonstrate their capacity and disposition for generosity toward people of their own lineage. There are oscillations in the breach between the two strata—sometimes expanding, sometimes contracting—but the egalitarian conscience has not totally died out within the nobility, so long as the common people contribute to maintaining the existing social structure.

Political Organization. The main unit of the modern political apparatus, the municipio, coincides with the structures of descent groups. The apparatus of traditional government, made up of lineage heads, has not been assimilated by the modern government apparatus. It is kept in force, even in weakened form, and imposes many of its criteria on the latter. Because it reinforces clan cohesion, the modern apparatus contributes to the maintenance of the traditional institutions.

Social Control. There is a noticeable disparity between the norms of the local and national society. In the more local society, where descent groups prevail, internal community laws govern behavior. In the wider society, where national interest prevails, laws of an external nature have been brought in by the modern political apparatus.

Conflict. If disputes over land boundaries involve homicide, a normative principle of revenge is followed. The killer is not sanctioned by the community but the victim's relatives will be out to avenge themselves on him. That is why such a killer does not capitulate before the judicial apparatus of the modern government. Knowing that he will be sent to jail in a mestizo city, he protests. His act falls within an implicit consensus of the members of his community regarding acts of vengeance; the victim's relatives are the only ones who should take reprisals, not the state.

Religion and Expressive Culture

Religious Beliefs. In the indigenous belief system there are nine major gods: seven good and two evil. There is another god whom everyone venerates, but who does not belong to the aforementioned Triqui pantheon, the God of Lightning, who resembles the classic Feathered Serpent. In addition to the major gods, there are minor divinities, like the naguals (individual totems).

Each person receives a nagual shortly after birth. Lineage chiefs have two different naguals (e.g., the eagle and the jaguar). There is a cult to the dead, which emphasizes important lineage ancestors. Religious activities are carried out on two levels: those of the Catholic church and belief system and those related to the traditional belief system.

Religious Practitioners. Principales are men who have occupied various cargos within the religious cargo system. One of the principales, a man of advanced age and wisdom, gives a traditional invocation when the authorities representing the modern governmental apparatus are sworn in. He describes how the universe was created, relates Triqui theogony, and tells how the organization of the "chiefs who take care of the land," that is to say, the organization of lineage heads, took place. This orator knows and conducts all the community rituals.

Ceremonies. The main Triqui ceremony is the festival for the God of Lightning on 25 April. It is held within caves called the House of Lightning. It joins many symbols around the figure of the Feathered Serpent, that is to say Quezalcoatl, who introduced the cultivation of maize. A live goat is brought into the cave by one of the principales. Uttering prayers in Mixtec, he offers the goat to the God of Lightening at the same time that he makes a deep cut in the animal's neck, from which a stream of blood gushes out, bathing the place in blood. They say that "blood is a petition for water," alluding to the rains they are asking for. Later the goat's meat is distributed among the participants, observing a hierarchical order: first, to the principales and authorities, and afterward to the public participants, all eating together.

Arts. The most important handicraft is the manufacture of women's dresses (huipiles). A huípil is made of a wide, long piece of cloth, with horizontal borders, woven by the women from varicolored cotton thread. The huípil is adorned with two wide vertical borders, with zigzag designs in yellow and purple thread.

Death and Afterlife. After being washed, a corpse is wrapped in a blanket. If it is a man, next to him are placed his wife's wedding gift, the clothing he wore when he died, a mat, a belt, sandals, and a woven bag. Some money is placed on one side of the body, intended for "traveling expenses" and fourteen beans, with which cattle will be fed during the deceased's last voyage. The seven pairs of beans are repayment for the eyes of animals he killed while he lived, and which they demand in the course of his trip.

Prayers asking for a better afterlife for the dead in the underworld are said on nine days after a person dies. These days are distributed as follows: eight consecutive days of prayer, after which twenty days (the sacred Precolumbian month) for receiving visitors who live far away are intercalated. On the twenty-ninth day, the last prayer is said.

Bibliography

Dahlgren de Jordan, Barbro (1954). La mixteca, su cultura e historia prehispánica. Mexico City: Imprenta Universitaria.

Durand, Carlos A. (1989). "Algunas consideraciones acerca de la etnia de Oaxaca, República Mexicana." Revista Geográfica (Mérida, Venezuela: Instituto de Geografía) 30:37-60.

Gay, José Antonio (1881). Historia de Oaxaca. Vol. 1. Mexico City: Biblioteca de Autores y Asuntos Oaxaqueños.

Huerta Ríos, César (1981). Organización socio-política de una minoría nacional (los triqui de Oaxaca )." Mexico City: Instituto Nacional Indigenista.

CESAR HUERTA RIOS