Mayan People Within and Beyond Boundaries

Social Categories and Lived Identity in the Yucatan

Peter Hervik

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781135393038
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

Mayan People Within and Beyond Boundaries explores the Maya of Yucatan, the Maya of academic institutions and the Maya of the tourist industry. It examines the interplay between the local and the external, academic categories of the Maya, and seeks to transcend the paradoxical and incongruent relationship between the social spaces that breathe life into the categories. The notion of "shared social experience" is introduced to embody a focus on reflexivity that goes beyond the subjective position of the author and helps demystify the coexisting subjectivities characteristic of ethnographic fieldwork. It provides a basis for overcoming the exclusive focus on "author, " " text, " and "discourse" in contemporary postmodernist ethnography, while still conveying important ethnographic information.

CHAPTER ONE

The People of Oxkutzcab, Yucatán

THE PAST

Anyone who attempts to give an account of the history of the town of Oxkutzcab¹ is forced to make an arbitrary selection of when and where to begin. Morley and Brainerd mention Oxkutzcab when they affirm the presence of Puuc or Rio Bec style architecture in 800–1000 a.d. (1983: 157). This branch of the unique Maya civilization developed its form in the classic era between 300 and 900 a.d., but we do not know when Maya Mesoamericans decided to build in central Yucatán. We can also choose to go under the ground for earlier historical evidence: the cave writings of Loltun. This unique site known to all tourists in Yucatán is located only a few km south of Oxkutzcab. Artifacts and drawings from the cave are at least 3000 years old. Hence, they pre-date the classic period.

The ruins of Sayil, Labná, Kabah, Xlalpak, Kiuic, Sabacché, Kom, and Chacmultun are also located in the município of Oxkutzcab and provide historical evidence of a large population sustained during the classic era. This Maya population that evolved from Mesoamerican cultures was neither isolated or part of a unified Maya nation. Internal rivalries between city-states and external influences of Olmec, Toltec, and Aztec civilizations shaped Maya culture long before Spanish soldiers and missionaries arrived.

The post-classic era begins by academic definition with the Itza Mayas’ conquest of Chichen Itza. They in turn were ousted by another Maya group, the Cocomes. The Cocom lineage gained power and influence through the confederation of various cities called the League of Mayapan. They were able to force the Itzaes out of Chichen Itza in the early 13th century, but were then later overthrown by the Xiu lineage. Earlier, the Xiues had abandoned Mayapan and established themselves in Mani, 10 km from Oxkutzcab. Both the Cocomes and the Xiues claimed their descent from Tula-Toltec (near México City).

The rivalry between these two lineages peaked in a revolt around 1450, when the Xiu family succeeded in killing a large number of Cocom leaders. When the Spaniards attempted to conquer Yucatán in 1531–1536 the Xiu family offered their submission, whereas the Cocomes fiercely resisted this foreign intrusion. In the turmoil that followed the Spanish military efforts to conquer Yucatán and the violent incidents with the Cocomes, the Xiu rulers felt it necessary to make a pilgrimage to Chichen Itza to please the Maya gods. To do this they had to pass through the territory of their traditional enemies, the Cocomes. But the Xiu attempt at a reconciliation failed completely. The Cocomes played the peace game well and entertained their Xiu guests royally for four days. Then finally, on the fifth day, the entire party of 40 Xiu leaders was killed in a surprise attack. Therefore it makes sense that the Xius allied themselves with the Spaniards in 1540 to take up the fight against the Cocomes in what became their final defeat (Morley and Brainerd 1983: 173–176, Roys 1957: 70).

Today, Cocom and Xiu are well known Maya names in Sotuta, Mani, and Oxkutzcab. Several people even bear the same first names such as Nachi (Cocom), and Gaspar Antonio (Xiu). The survival of these names creates an aura of historical vitality for the visitor, and also gives people with these names an alleged authenticity that links them directly to the distant Totul Xiu lineage and the rulers of the Maya cities of Uxmal, Mayapan and Mani. For many years José Agapito Xiu Xiu of Oxkutzcab kept a xerox copy of one of the books of Chilam Balam. However, reporters, scholars, and local people believed he kept an original version which he did nothing to deny. Instead, José Xiu nourished the rumor and subsequent interest in his family through silence and secrecy. Upon his death one of his sons, Gaspar Antonio Xiu Cachon, ended the rumors by asserting that the reported secret Maya book had been kept by José Xiu’s grandfather don Bernabé Xiu. He in turn had given it up to an intermediary who had sold it to an American Museum (El Diario de Yucatán, March 29, 1990).

The practice of recycling names over centuries might lead the careless visitor to make quick conclusions about the persistence of Maya cultural continuity since the pre-hispanic period, but we need to caution against seeing contemporary naming practices as signs indicating that these people are the same as those who lived in the area eight centuries before. Such a view ignores breaches and discontinuities in history such as the Colonial impositions of control, the religious conquest, the Independence of México, and the Mexican Revolution. Moreover, it ignores manipulation through means such as xerox copying in an attempt to gain local and regional prestige. José Agapito Xiu Xiu saw no reason to disprove his proclaimed and ascribed linkage to the great Tutul Xiu leader himself or to disaffirm his possession of a Chilam Balam book. Those images bestowed his position as a cultural authority which attracted visitors and therefore boosted his own social status.

COLONIAL OXKUTZCAB

At the time of conquest the governor of Oxkutzcab was Francisco Pacab; a descendant of Ah Dzulub Xiu and Hun Uitzil Chac Tutul Xiu of the Mani lineage. When the Franciscans Luis de Villalpando and Melchor de Benevente set out to Oxkutzcab to establish the first mission outside of Mérida in 1547 (Gonzàlez Cisero 1978: 89, Roys 1957: 72), they also attempted to convince the Xiues to stop using slaves. To maintain their rights to slavery, the Xiues planned to burn the mission and kill the two missionaries. Only with the intervention of Spanish troops who happened to be in the area could the plotters be captured, taken to Mérida, and sentenced to death although their lives were spared in a last minute dramatic rescue staged by the authorities in Mérida to avoid an outbreak of unrest in the newly conquered southern Yucatán. It more than served its purpose. Maya antagonism was appeased and in addition it paved the way for the Franciscans to set up a mission under Xiu protection in Mani.²

The founder of Mérida, Spanish general Adelantado de Montejo claimed Oxkutzcab was beyond the hills, Yok’huitz (Lazos Chavero 1987: 68).³ Only when Landa arrived and began a series of interviews did it become accepted as a locality within Yucatán. As a consequence the Spanish authorities named friar Diego de Landa as the founder of Oxkutzcab (ibid.), even though Maya people had lived there for much longer.

The encomienda system was founded to reward soldiers for their service to the Spanish Crown. This system obliged Spanish individuals (called encomenderos) to Christianize, protect and educate the Indian population and use their services and goods. The list of tribute-payers provides a fairly accurate picture of the number of people living in the area. Oxkutzcab’s first encomendero Hernando Muños Zapata, had 630 tribute paying Maya Indians enabling us to estimate the number of inhabitants to be 2,835 (Rosales González 1988: 72).

The Muños Zapata family kept the encomienda rights from 1549 to 1607. Then until 1653 they belonged to admiral Enrique Dávila Pacheco. Later, rights were given to doña Maria de Solis Castillo y Cano and finally to Juan Diaz Castro. The encomienda system was suspended in Yucatán 1785, later than any other place in Latin America (ibid.: 56).

In the colonial period Oxkutzcab and the neighboring village of Tekax were the two largest villages in the Yucatán peninsula. Church records inform us that 1,949 Maya Indians received confessions in the year 1700. The total population was 3,255; 15% of these lived outside settlements.

The Spanish Crown chose to cooperate with the Maya nobility and the priesthood. This strategy undoubtedly helped them to keep relative stability and control of the encomienda system. According to Patch, “the Maya upper class, with the exception of the priesthood, was recognized as a legitimate nobility” (1993: 23). They could bear the titles of don and doña, wear Spanish dress, ride horses, and most importantly, they were exempted from personal labor services and tribute. The Spaniards refer to them as Indios Hidalgos. Farriss points out that this term did not refer to the “Maya” originally but to those indigenous auxiliary troops to the Spanish soldiers who followed and served the Spaniards in their conquests around New Spain. Later, Indio Hidalgo was also applied to their descendants and finally came to refer to the Xiues and other Mexican groups settling in the Yucatán (Farriss 1984: 109; 230). The Indios Hidalgos themselves often cooperated with the Spaniards to keep their titles, but when their exemption from paying taxes and providing personal services ended in 1699 (Patch 1993: 230), the distinction between Indios Hidalgos and masewales or commoners, (see Chapter Two) slowly began to fade away.

The Spanish policy of appointing governors—later with the title of cacique (village leader and batab)—eroded the power of the Maya hereditary elite since leadership owed its existence only to Spanish authority (Patch 1993: 24). These local leaders were only partly recruited among the old Maya nobility which implied that new individuals were added to the category of Indios Hidalgos gradually blurring the distinction between old Indios Hidalgos of the upper class and ordinary Indios Hidalgos. Even though the Indios Hidalgo group became less visible and received fewer special privileges and opportunities, the internal differentiation between upper class “noble” Maya and ordinary Maya persisted (Patch 1993: 230).

As part of their effort to keep their noble titles, the Indios Hidalgos organized military companies that could make entrees beyond the Puuc hills to find refugees who had fled from the burdens imposed upon them by the encomienda system (Patch 1993: 47; 230). The area beyond the southern hill frontier was called montaña by the Spaniards which does not refer to the geographic features as one might expect but instead to “refuges, places difficult to control” (ibid.: 46).

The Puuc hills, (sierra or cerro in Spanish) stretch across the peninsula and mark the distinct landscape of the southern part of the peninsula. Here, we find some of the richest soils and vegetation in the state (Hanks 1990: 308). On the northern side of town (immediately north of the Puuc hills) the soil is known as kabaché in Maya (monte bajo in Spanish). This soil is likely to be a thin red layer of soil, chakluum in Maya, or the rocky, red thick soil called kankab (Rosales González 1988: 38). In dispersed pockets around the hills, layers of black soil, eekluum, that contains a high concentration of nutrients serve as sites for so called conucos where fruit and vegetables are cultivated in an intensified version of milpa-technology. In the valley called Cooperativa Emiliano Zapata on the other side of the Puuc 10 km from Oxkutzcab, an abundance of eekluum and the availability of irrigation allow for a rich production of fruit. Another type of soil in this zone is the stone free red soil kankab which can—like the eekluum—be up to 1.5 m. deep (for a more detailed description of types of soil according to altitude, water-carrying capacity, and thickness see Ewell 1983, Hanks 1990, Morales Valderrama and Rosales González 1981, Rosales González 1988). The elevation beyond the valley of Cooperativa is locally known as wits (or juits)—and stretches all the way to Campeche and Champotón. Alternatively it is referred to as Sierra de Bolonchén.

The rich soils of Oxkutzcab have been the site of estates since the early phase of Spanish colonization. The largest estates grew out of the allocated rights to Indian tributes and labor under the encomienda system. In 1698 the estate San Juan Bautista Tabi took its first step towards becoming a hacienda when encomendero de Indios don Juan del Castillo y Arr al petitioned for permission to populate Tabi with cattle. Haciendas were the huge estates with smaller ranches and scores of workers caught in unending debt to the hacienda owner (hacendado). Tabi became an hacienda in the final years of the century when the owner was Alferez Real Don Bernardino del Castillo.

Oxkutzcab after the Independence of México

The haciendas in the south gradually became commercial following the independence of México in 1821. “Diversity” is the key to understanding these haciendas. Unlike ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Maps
• List of Illustrations
• List of National Georgraphic Plates
• List of Tables
• Preface
• Chapter 1 The People of Oxkutzcab, Yucatán
• Chapter 2 Social Categories in Yucatán
• Chapter 3 External Constructions of “the Maya”
• Chapter 4 Maya and “Mestizo”: Two Different Worlds
• Chapter 5 Learning to be “Indian”: Aspects of New Ethnic and Cultural Identities in Oxkutzcab
• Chapter 6 Voices In and About Popular Religion: The Competing Constructions of Participants and “Authorities”
• Chapter 7 Shared Social Experience and Co-developing Reflexivities
• Chapter 8 Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index