Totonacs

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Totonacs

Totonacs, a major and historically important ethnic group of east-central Mexico. Inhabiting portions of the high eastern plateau, the rugged Sierra Madre Oriental, and the hilly central coastal plain along the Gulf of Mexico, the Totonacs have successfully adapted to a very wide range of habitats. Their life-styles are accordingly varied but tend to have two basic formats, one that exploits the drier highland environments and the other, the lusher humid lowlands.

The lowland Totonacs were the first indigenous peoples observed closely by the Spaniards when they arrived in 1519 and were induced to join an alliance against their Aztec overlords. The chronicler Bernal Díaz del Castillo goes into detail on how the Tontonac ruler whom he calls "the fat king" was brought into the Spanish fold. The Totonac language is generally classified, along with closely related Tepehua, as a separate and somewhat enigmatic language family called Totonaca, which may be distantly related to Mayan. Dialectical differences, variously put at three or four, are recognized. Recent census figures (2005)—at best only a rough estimate of the present strength of Totonac culture—indicate a total of 230,930 speakers over the age of five for Totonacapan, the traditional area in the states of Veracruz and Puebla. As a result of increasing acculturation, many Totonacs no longer habitually speak their mother tongue, and growing numbers are moving to urban centers as laborers.

Archaeological evidence suggests that the Totonacs may have been relatively late arrivals on the Gulf Coast and that some ancient cities assumed to have been built by them, such as El Tajín and Santa Luisa, were actually associated with earlier peoples. Historically, resource-laden Totonacapan has been coveted by many groups. This is reflected today in the interspersed settlements found in some instances with Nahua, Otomí, Tepehua, or Huastec speakers. When Hernan Cortés arrived at the huge Totonac city of Zempoala (Cempoala), most of Totonacapan had already been subjugated by the Aztecs. After the Spanish Conquest the Totonacs suffered severe population decline and dispersion occasioned by catastrophic epidemics of European-induced diseases as well as by their resistance to evangelization and colonial policies.

The Totonacs remain subsistence agriculturalists with a traditional Mesoamerican emphasis upon maize, beans, and squash. They raise some livestock and, in the lowlands, occasional cash crops such as vanilla. In the highlands the population is concentrated in small towns whereas in the lowlands it is scattered in villages, hamlets, and house compounds near the fields. Compadrazgo, a form of ritual kinship, is an important social bond in both areas. Expansion of the oil industry has led to the destruction of the coastal rain forest, land speculation, and a considerable reduction of traditional Totonac farmland.

Ritual life tends to be more elaborate in the isolated reaches of the mountains. There, some mayordomías persist and a greater diversity of dance groups can be found. Among the latter, huehues, negritos, and santiaguerros are common. Popular in both areas are two physically rigorous dances of pre-Columbian origin: the guaguas (quetzalines) and the voladores. Although these were once pan-Mesoamerican rituals, the Totonacs, particularly of the lowlands, consider them to be very much their own and excel at their presentation. Apart from local patron-saint days, the celebration of All Saints' Day (also called Day of the Dead) with elaborate altars and offerings is particularly important to the Totonacs.

See alsoIndigenous Peoples; Volador Dance.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The principal ethnographic studies are Isabel Kelly and Angel Palerm, The Tajín Totonac, pt. 1 (1952); and Alain Ichon, La religion des Totonaques de la Sierra (1969). An important early synthesis is Walter Krickeberg, Die Totonaken (1918–1925). Recent data on origins, environment, and historical migration can be found in S. Jeffrey K. Wilkerson, Ethnogenesis of the Huastecs and Totonacs (1973); "Eastern Mesoamerica from Prehispanic to Colonial Times: A Model of Cultural Continuance," in Actes du XLIIme Congrès International des Américanistes, vol. 8 (1976): 41-55; and "Man's Eighty Centuries in Veracruz," National Geographic Magazine 158, no. 2 (August 1980): 202-231.