Tzotzil of Chamula

ETHNONYMS: Batz'i Krisanoetike ("true people" in Chamula), Chamula, Chamo1 (Chamula's civil-ceremonial center), San Juan Chamula

Orientation

Identification. San Juan Chamula is a Maya township located in the highlands of central Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico. Chamula's Tzotzil name is "Chamo1," or "[where] the water died." According to a myth, Chamula's civil-ceremonial center was built on the site of a lake that San Juan (the patron saint) had dried up in order to make it habitable. Chamula is the largest and most densely populated of more than thirty Maya-speaking communities in the Chiapas highlands.

Location. Chamula occupies an area of 364 square kilometers and the average elevation of its lands is 2,300 meters. Most people live close to the lands they plant, in hamlets scattered along hills and basins across Chamula's eroded terrain. As a consequence of erosion, water holes, the main sources of water, tend to dry up before the rainy season. When this happens, the Chamula abandon their hamlets, temporarily or permanently, and find other places to live. The highest mountain in the region, the Tzontevitz, lies within Chamula and is sacred to the Chamula and neighboring indigenous groups.

Demography. The Chamula number around 100,000, of which about one-half live in the township, and the rest have emigrated to establish new communities both within and outside the highlands. The emigration process began more than a century ago and continues today as land shortages and political and religious conflicts force people to leave.

Linguistic Affiliation. The Chamula speak Tzotzil, a language belonging to the Tzeltalan Group (Tzotzil, Tzeltal, and Tojolab'al) of Mayan languages.

History and Cultural Relations

Recent archaeological studies place the arrival of Maya speakers into Chiapas around 100 b.c. Theories suggesting that the immigrants may have come from the Chuj region in Guatemala are not yet supported by archaeological findings. Dispersion over the area appears to have been relatively rapid. Highland Tzotzil and Tzeltal lived in proximity with Zoque groups to the west and other Maya groups to the north (Chontal and Ch'ol) and east (Tojolab'al and Chuj). Aggressive Chiapanec groups entered the region about AD. 900, settling to the south and constantly pressuring Tzeltal and Tzotzil towns. During the late Postclassic period (a.d. 900 to 1250), central Mexico strongly influenced highland Chiapas's political ideology, organization, religion, and other aspects of its culture. The area functioned as regional intermediary of an extensive network of trade between Guatemala, Tabasco, and central Mexico.

Upon the arrival of the Spanish, highland Chiapas was divided into small, warring petty states. Chamula was a large population center. The Chamula built a fort to confront the invaders, whom they attacked with bows and arrows, slingshots, stone-tipped spears, boiling water, and boiling resin. Aided by Zinacantec warriors, Bernal Díaz del Castillo besieged the town and finally succeeded in entering the fort and overwhelming its defenders. In order to control the indigenous population, the Spanish founded Ciudad Real (now San Cristóbal de las Casas) in 1528.

Since that time, the city has been a center of Ladino (non-Indian) political and commercial domination in the highlands. The defiant attitude of the Chamula toward the dominant society has remained constant for five centuries. Exploited and oppressed through exaggerated tribute and taxes and forced-labor arrangements, the Chamula managed to keep alive central elements of their culture and identity that have helped them resist invasive forces. When the abuses of Spanish-colonial, and later, Mexican societies became intolerable, the Chamula joined other indigenous groups to rebel openly against their oppressors. Major rebellions took place in 1712 and 1867, when the insurgents struggled for the right to their own religion and better living conditions. The rebellions were quelled, but the insurgents were able to secure a measure of religious freedom. The Zapatista rebellion of 1994 focused international attention on the plight of indigenous peoples in Chiapas. Although the Chamula did not participate directly in this uprising (in view of the alliance of the Chamula oligarchy with the ruling Mexican Institutional Revolutionary party), many Chamula sympathize with the movement and recognize that their situation will be deeply affected by the after-math of this struggle.

The Chamula maintain friendly relations with people from nearby indigenous communities such as Zinacantan, Chenalhó, and Tenejapa, with whom they share many cultural traits. They visit these and other communities to trade and attend their celebrations. Most of their interaction with other indigenous people and with Ladinos takes place in San Cristóbal de las Casas, where they go to sell their produce or woven goods, buy necessities, and worship. Ladinos despise indigenous people and usually mistreat and humiliate them, making them feel unwelcome in the city. To combat this situation, the Chamula utilize quiet resistance, forbidding Ladinos to take up residence within their municipio and making their own presence in San Cristóbal felt in ever larger numbers, as more of them seek economic opportunities there.

Settlements

Chamula's contemporary settlement pattern represents a continuation of ancient Maya ones. Most of the people live close to their land, in about one hundred hamlets of varying size. The civil-ceremonial center, or jteklum as the Chamula call it, contains a small permanent population. Civil officials move into Chamula Center for one to three years to carry out their duties, whereas religious officials rent a house for a few weeks to celebrate the saint under their care. The Chamula flock into town for market days (Saturdays and Sundays) and for religious celebrations (several times a year). Before 1960, the Chamula built wattle-and-daub homes with thatched roofs. At present, only the poorest people live in such houses. Most Chamula eventually build homes with cement blocks and tile roofs. Dirt floors are the rule. The fact that emigrants found new colonies that reproduce fundamental cultural traits of the original community reveals the vitality of Chamula culture and society.

Economy

Subsistence and Commercial Activities. The Chamula still define themselves as independent agriculturists who plant their small milpas with the sacred trilogy of maize, beans, and squashes. Planting one's own land is still the most respected occupation for men, as it stresses independence and commitment to traditional values. This, however, has increasingly become an unreachable dream since the end of the nineteenth century, when large coffee farms in Chiapas started recruiting a cheap labor force from highland indigenous groups. The high elevation of lands in Chamula, the fact that they have been intensively planted for hundreds of years, and the fractionalization of land bestowed upon both male and female children have reduced the size of landholdings and their productivity. On average, the Chamula can produce only about 20 percent of their yearly food requirements on their own lands. Most Chamula depend upon wage labor on farms and plantations to support their families or to supplement their plots' production. Many rent lands at lower elevations to plant their foodstuffs—and move there during several months each year to care for their crops. The majority of households own sheep, an important economic asset, since they are the source of wool to weave the family's clothing. Most households also raise chickens, which are eaten occasionally during celebrations and as ritual food. Some households tend pigs to sell to Ladinos.

Industrial Arts. Some households produce utilitarian pottery, furniture, and candles, but weaving is a universal activity for Chamula women and is considered the quintessential female occupation. In the late 1970s many women learned to embroider and to produce more modern-looking garments for tourists.

Trade. From Pre-Hispanic times, periodic local markets have been of central importance in the area. Everything is sold in these markets, from ritual objects, fresh produce, and cooked food to clothes, furniture, and other household needs. People attend the market with enthusiasm, for it is not only a place to buy and sell but also to exchange the latest gossip and visit with relatives and friends. Many Chamula peddle goods on the streets in some of southern Mexico's large cities.

Division of Labor. A traditional, complementary division of labor between men and women existed in the past and still holds as the contemporary ideal; men are independent agriculturists, and women are weavers; they complement each other in household tasks. At present, men leave for wage labor, and women take charge of the household, domestic animals, and children, and plant their small plots.

Land Tenure. Most lands within the township are individually owned, but forests and water holes are community property. Many Chamula have received ejido lands (i.e., lands granted by the government under agrarian reform laws) outside of the community.

Kinship

Kin Groups and Descent. Patrilineages are constituted by two or more virilocal domestic units living in adjacent lands inherited from their ancestors. Strong in the past, patrilineages are rapidly losing ground because of a shrinking land base. Although there is still some preference for virilocality, the system now tends more toward bilocality. Young couples choose their residence near the groom's or bride's family, according to which family can offer them more land or space in the house; or, they establish residence close to either but manage their economy independently.

Kinship Terminology. Kin terms reflect the principles of age, gender, and generation, central organizing axes among the Chamula. People of a generation older than the speaker are addressed respectfully as "uncle" and "aunt." A Chamula couple establishes a fictive-kinship tie, or compadrazgo, with the godparents of their children. These ties are very important; they create or reinforce life-long friendships and foster respect and mutual aid among the people involved.

Marriage and Family

Marriage. Although the Chamula consider monogamy to be the moral way of life, many Chamula men have more than one wife. Polygyny has always been an option in this community. To contract marriage, a young man, assisted by his family and especially selected petitioners, goes to a woman's house to request her hand. Ideally, bride and groom have never spoken to one another, although they may have exchanged looks or words that signal their mutual interest. The young woman has a say in the decision, but parents may pressure her into accepting. Three weeks to a month go by from the beginning of the petition to the actual marriage (the "house-entering" ceremony), the process taking place according to Chamula tradition. Church weddings, in accordance with Catholic sacraments, are rare.

Domestic Unit. A household compound consists of several domestic units. The primary domestic unit consists of a couple, their unmarried children, their married sons, their sons' wives, and their son's children, all sharing a single maize supply and a house altar. This situation is changing because of the lack of land and other resources that supported the father's claim to his sons' and their families' labor; domestic units often manage their economy in an independent manner. The relationship of a woman to her in-laws may be strained; she tries to get her husband to build a new house for her and move out of his parents' house as soon as possible. Separation and divorce are common, especially during the first years of marriage. Major causes cited are the husband's drinking and domestic violence, his quest to acquire a second wife, the husband's or wife's laziness, or either spouse's conflict with in-laws.

Inheritance. Houses, land, and personal property are bequeathed in equal measure to male and female children.

Socialization. Children are viewed as sources of joy and important economic assets. Socialization takes place mainly within the domestic unit and extended family, with mothers, sisters, grandmothers, and aunts being the main socializing figures, given that men leave for months at a time for wage work. Fathers take their young male children with them to the fields in Chamula and to the farms or rented fields in the lowlands when the children are around 10 years old. Although more children are attending school now than were in the 1970s, children still participate actively, from a very tender age, in the household economy. They fetch water and wood, tend the sheep, help their parents at home and in the fields, grind maize, cook, spin, and weave. They start earning money from about age 15, when girls start selling their woven and embroidered goods, and boys begin wage work.

Sociopolitical Organization

Social Organization. The extended family, compadrazgo, and the cargo system constitute the backbone of sociopolitical organization in Chamula. The cargo system in Chamula is a variant of civil-religious hierarchies in indigenous Mesoamerica, a system through which individuals alternate between civil and religious positions, thus climbing the ladder of prestige and power in their communities. The Chamula express their strong feeling of community by serving in this traditional hierarchy. Assisting the deities, they bring blessings upon their families and all the Chamula people.

Political Organization. The regional town council, the traditional form of government, consists of several civil officials selected by a group of respected community elders. Its function is to uphold traditional Chamula values, arbitrate disputes over lands, and resolve intrafamilial problems. The regional town council also includes the religious hierarchy, a body of officials who sponsor public and private celebrations in honor of the saints. The regional town council represents a survival of the system of government that prevailed before the direct intervention of national and state controls in local affairs. Although Spanish and Mexican authorities had always encroached upon the affairs of Chamula, the government has intervened directly in its political life since the 1930s. Through the creation of the constitutional town council mandated by law, the government effectively manipulates the Chamula governing elite. A native elite has benefited from these ties, becoming rich and powerful while acting against their own people. This new imposed system has diminished the influence of the traditional system of government in which community and religion were central guiding forces.

Social Control. Shame is a powerful deterrent both for children who are learning Chamula ways and for adults who stray from the community's mores; hence, gossip acts as a central control mechanism. Minor offenses are punished by the regional council: the offender is shamed before a large audience at the town hall and is required to spend a few days in jail in Chamula. Rape and murder cases are adjudicated by the state authorities outside Chamula and punished by terms in state prisons.

Conflict. Since the early 1970s, political opposition against the ruling oligarchy in Chamula has taken the form of religious conversion to several evangelical sects. Converts oppose the authority of ilols (shamans), object to paying taxes for celebrations they consider pagan, and stop buying liquor. The ruling elite claims this behavior imperils the unity and cultural continuity of the Chamula people and, consequently, expels the converts. More than 15,000 people have been ousted in this way. The converts usually establish residence in colonies close to Chamula, on the outskirts of the Ladino town of San Cristóbal de las Casas. Conflict between traditional Chamula and expelled converts periodically erupts in violence and has become a major source of instability in Chamula.

Religion and Expressive Culture

Religious Beliefs. The Chamula transformed imposed Christian beliefs to suit their central Maya ideas. They merged Christ and Sun into the figure of Our Father, the Sun/Christ, and they merged the Virgin Mary, the Moon, and the Earth into a single female entity, Our Mother, the Earth-Moon/Virgin. Catholic saints, imbued with Maya characteristics, are viewed as helpers of Sun and Moon. Nature and topographic features of the landscape, such as mountains, caves, and water holes are infused with a sense of sacredness: they represent sources of life and places where human beings and deities come into contact. The Earthlord, who lives inside mountains and "owns" all wild animals and water sources, must be propitiated before one partakes of his possessions. From birth, all human beings share a part of their soul with an animal. The Chamula interpret sudden death as the death of one's animal soul-companion.

Religious Practitioners. Women or men ilols (i.e., "seers") conduct private healing rituals for individuals. Ilols obtain their gift for healing in dreams, directly from Our Father and Our Mother. They also preside over annual ceremonies at the water holes to ensure the water supply. Midwives conduct several ceremonies during a woman's pregnancy and labor to safeguard her soul and that of her baby.

Ceremonies. Private curing rituals occur frequently and are held by the hearth in the patient's home or in the church in Chamula's civil-ceremonial center. Ilols entreat the deities, offering prayers, liquor, candles, and food to release their patients' souls from the hold of evil powers. Major and minor public ceremonies take place almost monthly to celebrate the day of a specific deity. Hundreds, sometimes thousands, of Chamula attend these long and complicated rituals, which include processions, dance, prayers inside and outside the church, and distribution of ceremonial foods at the religious official's home.

Medicine. The Chamula interpret illness as the result of the actions of an envious or ill-willed person who appeals to evil beings to seize his or her enemy's soul. The person targeted becomes "colder," loses his or her life force, becomes increasingly weak, and finally dies. "Heat," the essential component of life and health, must be restored through prayer (defined by the Chamula as "heated words"), liquor, nutritious foods such as chicken, ritual sweat baths, and coming under the life-giving influences of Our Father and Our Mother.

Arts. Most Chamula women weave their own and their family's clothing on the backstrap loom; this ancient weaving technique has deep cultural and religious associations. The gift of weaving, like that of healing, is granted in dreams by Our Mother, the Earth-Moon/Virgin, to young women.

Death and Afterlife. Like illness, death is viewed as the result of the loss of one's soul through the schemes of malevolent individuals. The souls of dead people come back to visit their relatives and partake of their food offerings once a year, during the Festival of the Dead (K'in Santo), from 30 October to 1 November. Men and women intone special prayers beseeching the deities to release the souls of their dead relatives and inviting them to come to earth and enter their home.

Bibliography

Calnek, Edward (1988). "Highland Chiapas before the Spanish Conquest." In Archaeology, Ethnohistory, and Ethno-archaeology in the Maya Highlands of Chiapas, Mexico, Papers of the New World Archaeological Foundation, nos. 54-56. Provo: Brigham Young.

Eber, Christine, and Brenda Rosenbaum (1993). "'That We May Serve beneath Your Hands and Feet': Women Weavers in Highland Chiapas, Mexico." In Crafts in the World Market, edited by June Nash, 103-112. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Gossen, Gary H. (1974). Chamulas in the World of the Sun. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Gossen, Gary H. (1986). "The Chamula Festival of Games: Native Macroanalysis and Social Commentary in a Maya Carnival." In Symbol and Meaning beyond the Closed Community: Essays in Mesoamerican Ideas, edited by Gary H. Gossen, 227-254. Albany: State University of New York at Albany, Institute for Mesoamerican Studies.

Posas, Ricardo (1959). Chamula: Un pueblo indio de los altos de Chiapas. Mexico City: Instituto Nacional Indigenista.

Rosenbaum, Brenda (1993). With Our Heads Bowed: The Dynamics of Gender in a Maya Community. Albany: State University of New York at Albany, Institute for Mesoamerican Studies.

Wasserstrom, Robert (1983). Class and Society in Central Chiapas. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

BRENDA ROSENBAUM