Tzotzil of San Andres Larraínzar

ETHNONYMS: Andresero, Batz'i vinik, Yahval lum

Orientation

Identification. "Batz'i vinik"—"real men" or "real people" —is the label Andreseros use to distinguish themselves from Ladinos, the Spanish-speaking Mexicans of the area. Although they also refer to other Tzotzil-speaking Indians as "Batz'i vinik," the Andreseros use "Yahval lum"—"owner of the land" or "owner of the village"—only for people belonging to their community, San Andres Larraínzar. Today these labels are often replaced by the term "Andreseros," which refers to the colonial name of the village, "San Andrés Istacostoc," or, since 1933, "Larraínzar" or "San Andres Larraínzar." Unofficially, the name "San Andrés Chamula" was also used for a long time, but today only "San Andres Larraínzar"—or among the Andreseros themselves simply "San Andrés"—is used. "Tzotzil," which can be freely translated as "the people of the bat," refers to their language group, and it is spoken in other villages as well. Today the most common term used by the people of San Andres is "Andreseros," which is also the label used in the anthropological literature.

Location. San Andres Larraínzar is one of several municipios in the highlands of Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico. San Andrés Larraínzar, like most other communities in highland Chiapas, consists of a central village and several hamlets. Altogether, the municipio comprises an area of 22,517 hectares. The central village is located at 16°53′ N and 92°43′ E. It is situated at an elevation of 2,100 meters in sikil osil ("cold land"), but some hamlets also have access to k'ixin osil ("hot land"), where coffee as well as bananas and citrus fruits can be cultivated. In tierra fría, the Spanish term for the cold area, mainly maize is grown in the milpa, a field where maize, beans, and squash are usually cultivated together. In the late twentieth century maize has often been produced in monoculture; cabbage and flowers are planted, both as cash crops to be sold in San Cristóbal de las Casas, the nearest city. This is a response to enhanced marketing possibilities but also to growing land scarcity. There is essentially one rainy season from around June to November. The annual rainfall ranges from 100 to 120 centimeters per year. The temperature during the dry season can range from 3°C to 23°C, but can go as high as 40°C during the day. The highlands of Chiapas are a botanically unique area. Various plant species are found only in this area throughout the Americas. Common problems of the area include increasing population density, unequal distribution of land, and, as a result, deforestation, land erosion, and a reduction of the biodiversity. Larger mammals such as deer, which the Andreseros used to hunt, have become very rare; their hunting stories now focus on raccoons, rabbits, and opossums. Larger carnivores such as jaguars are also extinct.

Demography. William Holland (1963) reported that there were 7,285 inhabitants of San Andrés in 1960. Of these, 608 were Ladinos, living in the main village. For the entire Tzotzil population, gives a figure of 182,815 people. According to the 1990 government census, the population of San Andres Larraínzar was 15,303, including approximately 30 Ladinos. The population density increased from around 0.3 persons to almost 0.7 persons per hectare.

Linguistic Affiliation. Tzotzil is a Maya language and belongs to the Tzeltalan Group, which includes Tzotzil, Tzeltal, and Tojolab'al. Tzotzil has a number of mutually understandable dialects. Each village uses a different dialect, but there are also several dialects spoken within larger villages. The Andreseros are well aware of the fact that the Tzotzil spoken in their village differs from that spoken in other villages, and local dialects are often the target of jokes. Differences are not only in pronunciation or intonation, but also in vocabulary, grammar, word choice, and entire interaction schemes. Nowadays only older people are monolingual; most Tzotzil know at least some Spanish, and some also know some Tzeltal, the most closely related Maya language. Tzotzil is the predominant language in the main village, however, and is also dominant in the hamlets.

History and Cultural Relations

There is no evidence that the different Tzotzil groups formed one unit at any time in history. According to the oral history of the Andreseros, in former times the main village was located approximately 2 kilometers to the south. Until 1591, San Andres had the Tzotzil name "Sacamch'en" (white cave/cliff), translated by the Aztecs as "Istacostoc." Indeed, the place designated in the accounts of the Andreseros is close to a huge white cliff with a cave. Although the spot is located in the municipio of San Juan Chamula, the land there is still cultivated by Andreseros.

The Spaniards first arrived in Chiapas in 1524 but were not able to colonize the area until the arrival of Diego Mazariegos, four years later. During the colonial time, the village was known as "San Andrés Istacostoc" or "San Andrés Chamula." The latter name derives from the fact that San Andres belonged to the parish of San Juan Chamula. In 1933, during the anticlerical campaign, the name of the village was changed to "Manuel Larraínzar," to honor an important Ladino diplomat of Chiapas. Nowadays the village is known as "San Andrés Larraínzar," "San Andrés," or, among Ladinos in San Cristóbal, as "Larraínzar." Changes in the village name alone show that it is not possible to understand the history and culture of San Andrés without taking into account the broader context of its interactions. It also shows that San Andrés was already an established community before the time of the Spaniards. San Andrés, as any other community in this area, experienced huge transformations during the colonial period, as well as after the independence of Mexico in 1821.

During colonial times, the Indians of highland Chiapas were forced to live in villages, rather than maintain the former pattern of dispersed settlements. These villages were largely constructed after the Spanish model, in which the center of the village was occupied by a town plaza and the church. Diseases, brought from the "Old World," high taxes, tribute, and forced labor led to the economic and physical exhaustion of the Indians and resulted in a decline of their population. The Indians were very often forced to give up subsistence maize farming to produce cash crops such as cacao, sugar, or cochineal in the lowland areas for the encomendero, who held the Spanish royal grant for the land and was therefore allowed to collect tribute from the Indians living there. The Conquest not only had an impact on the Indian economy but also on their social and cultural environment. Cofradías, brotherhoods responsible for organizing saints' day celebrations and collecting money for the church, were introduced. These brotherhoods increasingly gained power at the local level. In the nineteenth century these cofradías were almost entirely dissolved, and today individuals called alfereces (sing., alférez ) are responsible for these celebrations. They, together with the other religious officeholders and the ayuntamiento regional (town council), form the civil-religious hierarchy of San Andrés.

To assess the impact of the colonial period on the highland villages is almost impossible because there are few descriptions of individual villages. Spanish chronicles, official letters, royal orders, and letters of complaint are the main sources available. In addition, these are only sufficient to give an impression of the atrocities that took place and to indicate that royal orders from Spain were not enacted very often on a local level.

Most colonial laws were abolished with Mexico's independence, after which non-Indians were allowed to settle in Indian communities. Around 1848, four Ladinos lived in San Andrés but apparently left during the Tzotzil uprising in 1869-1870. In the early twentieth century other Ladinos, some of them enganchadores (hiring agents for coffee or sugar plantations), settled in San Andrés. Through purchase and through land titles granted by the government, but also through fraudulent contracts, coercion, and the indebtedness of some Indians, the enganchadores managed to gain control over most of the land around the main village. They created several cattle ranches and coffee plantations in more distant areas. Because of their connections and their superior economic situation, some of them also gained control of trade within, as well as outside, the village, mainly with San Cristóbal de las Casas, the main trading center of the highlands of Chiapas. These Ladinos' estates often contained gardens of 1 hectare of land, which is more than many Andreseros currently have for subsistence.

Owing to their economic power, the Ladinos also dominated the politics within San Andrés, and the Indians were consistently ill-treated by some Ladinos. Although the presidente of San Andrés was an Indian, the Indians had little access to the state government and the legal system because of their lack of knowledge of the Spanish language. Therefore the Ladinos held most of the power in the village, and were able to treat the Indians as they wanted. As a product of the exploitation, inequality, and injustice of their colonial past, which persisted even after the independence of Mexico, the Andreseros formed a strong identity based on the Indian-Ladino dichotomy. Separate religious festivals were held by Indians and Ladinos. In fact, given that the Ladino community could not exist without the Indians, one could argue that there were two communities in one. At the same time, through the accounts of their parents' and grandparents' experiences, the Indians knew that they were the true "owners of the land," the yahval lum, and that the Ladinos had only recently arrived. Between 1974 and 1976, after several appeals to the government for reconciliation failed, the Indians chased almost all the Ladinos out of San Andrés. Although they threatened and frightened the Ladinos, there was only one serious incident—a landowner who had shot at the Indians, and his son, were subsequently killed.

Today there are approximately thirty Ladinos left in San Andrés, most of whom never left the village during the local uprising. They no longer have large amounts of land, and their main economic activities are running small-scale businesses and shops. They participate as regular community members in the political meetings, but they do not act as alfereces or as authorities in the cabildo. Although the Indians of San Andrés clearly see themselves as being closer to other Indian communities than to Ladinos living in their own village, their ethnic identity is nevertheless bound up with their village. On the other hand, this does not prevent some villagers from organizing at supracommunity levels, even including non-Indians, as was the case during the Zapatista rebellion of 1994.

The Spanish imposed Catholicism on the Indians of highland Chiapas in the sixteenth century. Nowadays most of the Indians of San Andrés are nominally Catholic, but this Catholicism is actually a synthesis of a pre-Spanish religion, of Catholic belief, and also of their own invention over the last 450 years. Since the late 1970s, many Protestant sects have established their churches in the cabecera, the main village, as well as in different hamlets of San Andres.

Settlements

There exist no clear data about the precolonial settlement pattern in San Andrés, but it seems that the Andreseros lived in compounds and hamlets based on patrilineages. Today the land is normally inherited by the sons of the family head, and women move into the compounds of their husbands. With the exception of some marginal plots, forests, and pastureland that are still communally held, the landholding pattern has been transformed into one resembling private property—at least insofar as Andreseros now build fences around their plots. Nevertheless, most of the land in San Andres remains terreno comunal: there are no private land titles, and the land cannot be sold. The scarcity of land was already evident in 1960, when the average amount of land per proprietor was 3.82 hectares. It must be remembered that Ladino landowners often held titles to large plots, frequently divided among their family members. San Andrés never faced the problem of huge fincas, such as those found in Pantelhó and other highland villages.

Houses are usually rectangular constructions with a roof made of tile, fiber cement, sheet metal, or grass. Walls are generally wooden or of various types of mud construction. Cement-block or brick constructions were introduced to the more accessible hamlets in the late twentieth century. Use of the latter is widely favored by the Indians but depends heavily on income. The traditional grass roof is rarely built because it is now very difficult to obtain sufficient grass. The normal compound contains one or more multifunctional houses, which include a kitchen, a sleeping room, and, more often than not, a granary. Sometimes separate kitchen houses or granaries are constructed.

The plan of the house symbolizes the shape of the earth, a rectangle. Its four main posts (yoyal na ), which support the roof, symbolize the four pillars of the sky (yoyal vinahel ); the four pillars are located at the four corners of the earth to support the sky. The center of the world, which—according to the oral tradition of the village—is San Andrés itself, has its counterpart in the center of the house, where the fireplace is usually located. Here, during the opening ceremony of the new house, the Andreseros bury bones of animals as offerings to the gods.

Economy

Subsistence and Commercial Activities. The Andreseros still depend heavily on their milpas, which they normally cultivate in a slash-and-burn manner. Because of the lack of land and forest, fallow periods are very short, and fertilizer is often used to maintain the yield of the field. The machete, the hoe, and the planting stick remain the most important tools in agriculture. Maize is the main crop and, together with beans, constitutes the staple food of the Andreseros. Some richer families also have cattle, and almost every household raises some poultry, but sheep are rarely found in San Andrés. Adding to the diet, different vegetables are collected by women, or raised in house gardens. In the early 1980s cabbage was introduced as a cash crop. Cut flowers and apples are also becoming more and more important. In lowland areas, different kinds of fruits and coffee are grown and sold. Whereas most fruits are produced for the local market in San Andrés, coffee is sold outside the village.

Industrial Arts. Surely the most impressive craft in San Andrés is weaving. Weaving is a woman's task, accomplished with a backstrap loom. Carpentry and clay-brick and tile manufacturing are other village crafts. Wooden equipment and furniture were traditionally made by each individual or obtained in trade from the neighboring village of San Juan Chamula, but there are now four carpenters in San Andrés. There are also some men who make musical instruments, such as harps and guitars. Today San Andrés has bakeries, a butcher, a tortillería, several maize mills, a car-repair shop, and even a hostel. Other sources of income include government jobs, transport service to San Cristóbal de las Casas, various shops and restaurants, and wage labor, particularly in construction or agriculture. Besides the shops, there is a weekly (Sunday) market in San Andrés, where people from different villages and Ladinos from San Cristóbal come to sell their products. Most of the Andreseros also have access to different markets and shops in surrounding villages and cities. Seasonal labor migration to plantations is still an additional source of income.

Division of Labor. Most of the heavy field work is done by men, who also take care of the larger animals and are responsible for house construction. The political and religious offices are held by men, but women expend a considerable amount of effort while their husbands hold an office. Sheep, pigs, and poultry are raised by women, who also carry firewood, weave, cook, and cultivate house gardens. Marketing is done by both women and men, but trade outside the village and the transport of goods are mainly men's work. Other agricultural tasks are shared by members of the household—the parents with their unmarried children, and sometimes also the husband's parents. Workers from the village are hired occasionally, because of the intensification of agriculture.

Kinship

The two most important features of kinship relations are age and generation. Men of more or less the same age traditionally refer to each other as "brother," distinguishing only between itz'inal (younger brother) and bankilal (older brother). Older men are addressed as htot (my father) or tata, a term to address very old men. In a similar way, women are addressed as hme' (my mother) or yaya, for a very old woman. People are also addressed by their personal first names and titles.

Residence patterns following marriages are traditionally viri-patrilocal, and although there are some cases of polygyny, the majority of the marriages are monogamous. Bride-price is paid, consisting of food and liquor, and sometimes soft drinks. The groom also has to work for a designated period of time at the house of his father-in-law.

Sociopolitical Organization

Most of the political system was created—or at least strongly influenced—by outside forces during the past 450 years. Today stratification is evident among the Andreseros: there are the landless, those with land for subsistence, cash-crop farmers, and others who no longer depend on their land. Aside from this, San Andres is clearly male dominated. Women usually do not own land, and political and religious offices are held exclusively by men. There are two political and administrative bodies in San Andres, the ayuntamiento constitucional and the ayuntamiento regional. The former consists of thirteen men who govern the municipio. These men, led by the presidente municipal, are elected for three years and receive a salary from the state government. Until the mid-1980s, it was necessary to be a member of the Institutional Revolutionary party to be elected president of a municipio anywhere in Chiapas. The ayuntamiento regional consists of twenty-nine men, and its main concern is with the ritual organization of the village. Men are appointed for one year for these offices and receive no salary. Crimes, misdeeds, land disputes, and the like were originally adjudicated by the local authorities, and some still are. Because of the distance to the nearest city, many cases are never filed. Among the Andreseros, local resolution of legal matters depends on consensus, reached between the authorities of the village and the parties involved. Consequently, power relations and authority have a great impact on these decisions. Nowadays the situation is much more complicated because younger men speak Spanish and, if they have enough money, have access to legal advice in the city.

It seems that when most of the Ladinos were chased out of the village (see "History and Cultural Relations"), the Indians lost their opposition group, against which a common identity was formed. After the liberation from most of the Ladinos, the Catholic part of the village tried unsuccessfully to chase out the Protestant Indians, too, as the Indians of other highland villages had done. Conflicts within the Indian community have been intensifying. Partly because of these conflicts, but also because of the steep expenses incurred by officeholders, many people refuse to fill religious offices, and an increasing number of Protestant churches are gaining supporters. Even among the supporters of the Catholic church, there are religious and political struggles.

Religion

There is no easy way to disentangle contemporary and precolonial belief. Contemporary religion is a product of a constant shaping and reshaping, ordering and reordering of the world. The main source drawn upon in this process is colonial Catholicism. San Andres, the patron of the village, is the highest god of the village, as well as its founder. His feast is the most important ceremony of the year. Andreseros say that saints, with their supporters from other villages, come to visit, and the two alfereces of the patron saint San Andrés spend a huge amount of money on the celebration. They act as hosts to local authorities, to visiting authorities from other communities, and to several other attendees. Assisted by a nakanvaneh (ritual advisor) they give offerings such as fireworks, incense, and pox (liquor), in order to please the gods. Every saint in the church has his or her own ceremony conducted once a year by an alférez, who takes this office for one year, borrowing money from other villagers to fulfill all his duties. Besides the alférez, who is in charge of the ceremony to honor the saint, every saint has at least one martoma, a man who oversees the care of the saint and the church. The martoma's office in San Andrés, is filled annually, giving young married men the chance to enter the cargo system, a variant of a system of civil and religious offices known all over Mesoamerica. There is one group of gods in the church (the saints), but another group dwells in the various mountains and caves in San Andrés. These anheletik, spirits who own the land, must grant permission for new house construction, planting of a field, and so forth. For example, if people do not ask for permission from these spirits, they may send illness and death to the persons living in a newly constructed house.

People can also be harmed through the animal companion of another person. Each person has at least one of these animal companions, the destiny of which is closely related to the destiny of the human being. If an animal companion of a person dies, the person normally gets sick and might also die. Another source of illness is the loss of parts of the soul, which can be caused by fright or induced by malevolent forces. Healing the sick most often consists of appealing for help from different spirits, or even offering them a substitute for a lost soul or animal companion. This tradition has changed through the years. In former times, the death of the highest animal companion (there can be as many as thirteen per person) meant death to the person. Today this kind of illness can be healed by paying a considerable amount of money as an offering to the spirits involved. The animal companions are normally kept in a corral in one of the sacred mountains of San Andrés, where they are fed.

Most healers and practitioners are men; certainly the most important healers of the community are men. Nevertheless, there are also women who are healers. As in other highland villages, the role of the healers, ilvaneh, is very ambiguous. Just as they can heal, they can also bring illness through witchcraft. Many of these beliefs no longer exist, however, and knowledge of this sort is often preserved only through stories and histories.

Bibliography

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NORBERT ROß