THE HAWAIIAN INDIGENOUS SOVEREIGNTY MOVEMENT
Guy Kirby Letts
Introduction
It was during a trip to Hawai`i in 1994 when I first heard about Hawaiian sovereignty. My father had purchased a condo in Kona and had been begging me to visit for years. Perhaps because of my compassion for indigenous social movements, the prospect of a Hawaiian sovereignty movement did not seem particularly shocking. As a matter of fact, while I was there I collected as much information about the movement as possible—files that are now collecting dust in some closet somewhere. One of the highlights of the trip, I remember, was telling my father that his condo was going to be expropriated by Hawaiians. Since then, the Hawaiian sovereignty movement has gained considerable ground, marking a turning point in U.S. imperial history and indigenous self-determination.History
In 1893 the U.S. invaded Hawai`i and overthrew the Hawaiian constitutional monarchy and proceeded to institute a provisional military government. While the new minister of Hawai`i, John Stevens, attempted to officially annex Hawai`i in 1893, it was not until 1897 that a treaty of annexation was sent to the U.S. senate to be ratified. After being held up in the senate, the house of representatives adopted a joint resolution for the annexation of Hawai`i in 1898. In 1959 Hawai`i officially became the fiftieth state.
Prior to the annexation, president Cleveland appointed a special commissioner to Hawai`i, James Blount, in 1894 who had uncovered a multitude of international law and U.S. foreign policy violations regarding the overthrow of Hawai`i. However, in 1897, senator and chairman of the committee on foreign affairs, John Morgan, insisted that U.S. conduct was appropriate in an effort to rally support for annexation. Morgan went to Hawai`i giving public speeches and newspaper interviews persuading Hawaiians that their status as U.S. citizens would not only improve their living conditions, but that the U.S. only wanted to “secure [them] from aggression from foreign powers” [sic]. Morgan told the Hawaiian people that the U.S. would protect them from the Chinese, that public lands would go to Hawaiians, and that a popular vote on annexation was not necessary.
One month after Morgan’s propaganda run to Hawai`i, thousands of Hawaiian loyalists gathered to protest the anticipated ratification of Hawai`i’s annexation. During the protest, Hawaiian citizens pointed out that they were “held in subjection by the armed forces of the provisional government of the Hawaiian Islands, and of its successor, the Republic of Hawai`i, and had never yielded.” The provisional government of the Republic of Hawai`i had no legitimacy for its existence except for its own proclamation that it existed and exists; it was neither supported by those who lived there, nor did it consider the rights and wishes of the great majority of the residents. In affect, the provisional government existed and maintained itself solely through the force of arms.
By the end of the Spanish/American war in 1898, the U.S. had emerged as a major empire, which now controlled the Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico, Wake Island, Guantanamo Bay, and Hawai`i. Though president Cleveland was instrumental in setting up the provisional military government of the Republic of Hawai`i, he was opposed to annexation. The subsequent annexation of Hawai`i in 1898 prompted the former president to write, “Hawai`i is ours. As I look back upon the first steps in this miserable business, and as I contemplate the means used to complete the outrage, I am ashamed of the whole affair.”
The Hawaiian Sovereignty Movement
The modern native Hawai`i rights movement emerged in the 1960s after several incidents such as the Kalama Valley evictions and the Kaho`olawe bombings. The Hawaiian rights movement evolved into the Hawaiian sovereignty movement in the 1970s as a means of defence from prosecution and to resist on going evictions of native Hawaiians. During this same period, Hawaiian language, hula, canoe paddling and music began to flourish. Today, the Hawaiian sovereignty movement has become the basis for decolonization and self-determination.After the WW II, a UN charter was created that called for the self-governance of territories under colonial-style conditions. The charter outlined three choices for self-determination: integration, free association, or independence. According to the sovereignty movement, the U.S. only provided one option, integration, which led to statehood in 1959. Though the U.S. was obliged to conform to the charter as a signatory, it did not pose the other two options to the Hawaiian people.
The movement today is well informed and organized. They have meet with the UN regarding the process of decolonization, have had several court cases, have had public consultations, and have also developed a model of Hawaiian sovereignty which addresses everything from economics and form of government to immigration and land reform. The Hawaiian sovereigntists have also developed a plan for demilitarizing the islands, citing U.S. military installations as sources of hazardous waste, occupying large portions of land, incurring exploitive lease practices, and logistically making Hawai`i a target for military aggression.
Recent Events
In 1993, president Clinton signed into law an apology resolution that acknowledged the U.S. invasion of Hawai`i, and its participation in the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy. The official apology acted as a catalyst for further action, both at the domestic and international level of civil and human rights. While the Hawaiian sovereignty movement has had some favourable court decisions such as Rice verses Cayetano, the movement has raised many serious questions about the imposition of a court system which itself was never a consensual part of Hawaiian society.In the Rice verses Cayetano case, for example, the supreme court noted, any culture and way of life that are engulfed by a history beyond their control that creates a sense of loss over multiple generations and dismay throughout the larger community must be redressed through political consensus using the constitution. According to the justices, “The constitution of the United States, too, has become the heritage of all citizens of Hawai`i.” Poka Laenui, however, points out that thieves are sitting in judgement of themselves, “using their own standards, constitution, culture, mythology, and military to determine their complicity in the great injustices bestowed upon our people and to dictate the terms of reconciliation."
The problem of sovereignty, however, is not just systemic but also exists in the everyday experience of discrimination. Several sites have emerged which are self proclaimed ‘anti-Hawaiian sovereignty.’ In and of themselves, they sound benign, but their message is quite clear: “Hawaiian sovereignty is apartheid,” “Join us. Stop racism,” “If you have an interest in the promotion of an anti-racist society, this site might interest you.” At this level it is hard to decide what is worse, the obvious racism against indigenous peoples or the fact that they are inverting anti-racist rhetoric for their own ends.
Conclusion
Despite the obvious racism, both structural and vulgar, the Hawaiian sovereignty movement has come along way in the last 30 years, starting off as a form of resistance and becoming a full out social movement. There is little doubt that sooner or later the Hawaiian sovereignty movement will obtain the right to self-determination and independence. The success of the movement, however, will not simply reside within Hawaiians, but will have far reaching implications for indigenous peoples throughout the world. Half of the world is still essentially seen as a vacant space as opposed to a colonized place. Indigenous movements need to be supported, while, at the same time, acknowledging our own role in the ongoing process of repression and imperialism.References
Institute for the Advancement of Hawaiian Affairs (files).—Article originally published in the Atkinsonian.
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STATE TERRORISM AND THE STATE OF FIRST NATIONS: COLONIALISM, GENOCIDE, RACISM
Guy Kirby Letts
I would like to talk to you about various forms of terror as they relate to First Nations peoples. I wish to critically examine and question state and mass media definitions, depictions and portrayals of ‘terrorism’ and ‘terrorists’. State terrorism, which is rarely, if ever, mentioned in the mainstream press, and other forms of terrorism, such as corporate terrorism, has intensified both domestically and globally. For instance, the illegal occupation of Afghanistan by NATO forces has been marred by International Human Rights and Geneva Convention violations. NATO forces, in 2007, killed as many civilians as did the Taliban. And, in Columbia, Chiquita Bananas paid right-wing death squads to intimidate, terrorize and murder local peasants, workers and farmers.
While countries such as Canada and the U.S. are directly and indirectly implicated in global acts of terrorism, domestic state terrorism continues to be a major concern. Increasing rates of poverty, homelessness, and Islamaphobia, for example, are juxtaposed to increases in corporate profit, militarization and state authoritarianism. State terrorism, then, is just as much about creating inequalities and an underclass as it is about repressing social justice movements. Under Bill C36, Canada has indefinitely detained Muslim Canadians without charging them with a crime, or making available to their legal counsel the evidence used to justify incarcerating them. However, unlike India and Algeria who gained their independence from European colonialism, countries like Canada and the U.S. are still colonial states or ‘settler’ colonies. When speaking of internal state terrorism, then, the majority of oppression is directed towards First Nations peoples.
State terrorism in relation to Indigenous groups in Canada ranged from historical housing policies that contributed to disease, illness, and death, to current land claims issues and the persecution of Native protestors, to the historic and contemporary exclusion of Canadian Indigenous peoples to full citizenship. I spoke with Russell Means from the Lakotah Nation about the recent withdrawal from their treaties with the federal government and their declaration of independence from the U.S. that took place in December, 2007. Russell Means, who has been an activist for decades, has been directly resisting state terrorism all his life. I believe the Lakotah freedom movement to be an important precedent for Indigenous resistance to colonial state terrorism in North America. Perhaps more significantly, no one in Canada had heard about the Lakotah declaration of independence, including scholars and researchers in the field of Native Studies. This was, in part, because of the absence of mainstream media coverage surrounding the Lakotah freedom movement, both in Canada and in the U.S.
Native issues in Canada and elsewhere receive either no or negative media coverage, and state policies and practices directed towards indigenous groups are the most draconian form of repression within the borders of ‘free’ and ‘democratic’ nations that idealize themselves as defenders of human rights.
Brant Bardy, communications officer from the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte gave a talk about their current land claim dispute. The Mohawk community itself is divided over the methods of resistance. Brant represents those in the community who are interested in utilizing state institutions as opposed to either militant or nonviolent resistance. However, many in the community, after years of frustration, have engaged in public protests and actions that have been aimed at stopping development on their land. What gets covered on the news, however, is not the injustice surrounding the land claim but rather, the protesters and ensuing struggles with the police. A strategy that seeks resolution through government means has, historically, not resulted in rapid gains for Indigenous groups despite numerous studies, reports, and recommendations generated by the state on how Native issues should be dealt with in a just, fair and timely manner. For instance, it is estimated that it will take 150 years to settle all of the outstanding land claims that are deemed ‘credible’ by the Canadian government. However, avoiding all conflict, even at the level of nonviolent resistance, is often seen as a desirable course of action because of systemic and institutional racism and excessive racist attitudes within the dominant culture, which are reproduced and reinforced through mainstream media. Any protest by Native groups is seen by the dominant culture as unjust given that First Nations are deemed a ‘privileged group’ in society.
State terrorism against Indigenous populations is a global problem. Despite the sheer diversity of indigenous populations—culturally, genetically, and linguistically—the manifestation of repression and genocide are strikingly similar when looking at things such as poverty, the dispossession of land, and the loss of language, to name a few. For example, it is estimated that by the end of this century 4,000 of the world’s languages will cease to exist. The vast majority of these languages are found in small indigenous societies. With the exception of Cree, all other indigenous languages in Canada are in sharp decline. And to date, there are no government programs to preserve, promote or teach Indigenous languages. The funding of things like the Aboriginal Achievement Awards acts as an informal policy of acculturation, especially given the lack of funding for language programs. In other words, government monies are given to projects that assimilate and acculturate Native peoples into the dominant white culture, while they are complicit in neglecting to fund programs that would strengthen First Nations’ cultures and identities. This reflects the very real yet subtle ways in which cultural genocide is waged against Indigenous populations.
These atrocities are what led to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007. Canada, along with other settler colonies, resisted the Declaration as it would hold them more accountable regarding their treatment of Native populations within their own boarders, and it would make them susceptible to criticism from other regions of the world, essentially undermining their role as the morally virtuous, and the defenders of international human rights. It is important to remember that Indigenous peoples exist everywhere, not just in Papua New Guinea, the Amazon Basin, Australia, Canada and the United States. As well as the Americas, Indigenous Peoples live in Africa, India, Cambodia, and Japan, to name a few. In the case of India and Japan, little coverage of Indigenous peoples and their plight is given any acknowledgement by either the media or academics.
Terrorism against Indigenous populations in ‘over-developed’ settler colonies such as Canada, the U.S. and Australia must be understood as a form of highly organized, managed repression that is deeply steeped in institutional structures, policies and practices. In this sense, the situation and condition of Indigenous peoples in these spaces are quite different from those in the ‘developed’ regions of the world such as Brazil, Columbia, Guatemala, and Mexico where the state, rather than being a terrorist state, is a terrorizing state which routinely brutalizes, tortures and murders Indigenous peoples. In this sense, repression is overt. In the ‘civilized’ world, however, such brutality is met with disdain and so repression is exercised covertly through government, ministries, courts, and law enforcement. The results, however, are the same in the sense that they both produce, in Ward Churchill’s words, ‘dead Indians’. For example, the life expectancy for Natives in Canada is 8 years shorter than for non-Natives, death from infectious and parasitic disease are above national averages, as well as suicide rates, deaths from injuries, and accidental deaths. Infant mortality, poverty, unemployment and addiction rates are also significantly higher than the national average. Disability rates, for instance, are 30% higher among Canadian Aboriginals than for non-Aboriginal Canadians. First Nations people are overrepresented in the prison system as well. Native peoples are more often charged with and convicted of crimes than are non-Natives committing the same offense, and they receive longer sentences than non-Natives for the same crime. These manifestations of racialized oppression are not exclusive to Canada. Similar statistics can be found in countries such as the U.S. and Australia, thus reflecting a systematic form of repression, violence and genocide perpetrated by the state.
Many Indigenous identities are stilled tied to the land. And yet it is the land that is the most desired by governments and corporations because of their incessant greed which leads to the extraction and exploitation of every resource that the land has to offer. What does it mean to one’s culture and identity when the means of that cultural identity is taken away. For many Indigenous peoples, to take away their land is to take away not only their livelihood, but who they are. What is left of a people when they have no identity, no culture, no language, and no land? The Lacandon Maya in Mexico say that when the last Mayan is gone the world will cease to exist.
The reason Indigenous issues receive little attention in the mainstream press is both obvious and, simultaneously, complex. At one level we could talk about Noam Chomsky’s ‘filters’ in Manufacturing Consent, or a dominant ideology that reflects and reproduces white supremacy, or the fact that the media atomizes and individuates issues so they are no longer recognizable structural patterns. The media does, however, uphold the status quo by using techniques and reporting styles that ‘blame the victim’ whether we are speaking of First Nations or other marginalized and repressed groups such as the homeless. They are also complicit in reproducing racist stereotypes about Native peoples such as the ‘noble savage’ or ‘Indian princess’. The media constantly rewrites history as in the case of Disney’s version of Pocahontas. A 13 year old girl raped and kidnapped by Smith is shown to fall in love with her oppressor in a romantic tale of death and destruction. The whole situation is not only Kafkaesque, but a blatant example of western hegemony, colonialism and imperialism.
In the 1990 Oka land dispute several Mohawk communities were in a confrontation with Quebec provincial police and the Canadian army. The mainstream media represented the conflict as a clash of interests whereby the dominant culture was represented by the police and the Mohawks were portrayed as deviant. Analyses of the conflict in sociology textbooks even misrepresents and stereotypes Mohawks by constructing them as deviant through what is referred to as ‘warrior fame’ which gives a narrow view of the situation with a vague or partial examination of the event. Such academic portrayals are informed both through media coverage and through dominant cultural subjectivity, which itself in congruent with the reporting of the event.
Similarly, the rhetoric of war, the emotion of revenge, and the simulacrum of military propaganda has denied us the ability to know what is really goingf on in Afghanistan: how many Taliban and Al Qaeda dead, how many civilians killed, how much collateral damage is done?
It is becoming clearer that there is a world sanctioned bias against Afghanistan being perpetuated not only by the U.S. and its western allies but also by the UN and NGOs. For instance, a report by the U.S. bureau for democracy, conflict, and humanitarian assistance lists everything from the Soviet invasion and drought to the Taliban and internal fighting as the mechanisms contributing to Afghanistan’s social problems. Nowhere does it mention the impact and contribution of U.S. military action nor UN restructuring as contributing factors. Any real information—whether its interviews, body counts, or living conditions—is constantly situated in an Eurocentric framework, and directed toward a western audience. The western press itself lines Afghan web sites with stories written by western journalists. When looking at recent UN documents and news on Afghanistan, the emphasis is always on security and refugees: how to maintain stability, future security structures, transitional authority issues, how many refugees and internally displaced persons, the allocation of aid, and so on. Both security and refugee issues are closely linked in an effort to impose social control.
Well, where does this all leave us? Myself, I attempt to disrupt dominant cultural misrepresentations of First Nations peoples through my writing, research, teaching, and every day practices. When my daughter was 3, I explained the situation of Native peoples to her and told her that we live on stolen land. At her preschool they sing the Canadian National anthem which has a line in it, ‘Our home and native land’, which she now sings, ‘Our home on Native land.’ But such minor disruptions do not easily dislodge a Eurocentric, racist discourse that is 500 years old, a discourse that is reinforced and reproduced at every level and in every institution. My neighbor, for instance, has a university degree, is an elementary school teacher, and is one half Native. Besides suffering from internalized racism, she openly says racist remarks about Native peoples. Likewise, a current land dispute beside the town of Caledonia in Ontario has been marred by violent protests, not by members of the Six Nations Confederacy, but by the residents of Caledonia. Instead of the residence of Caledonia siding with the Native protestors to pressure the government to bring a swift end to the dispute, they ironically blame the protestors for disrupting their community and lives.
So what is to be done? What you don’t want to do is get in trouble with the law, you don’t want to join a gang, or do drugs, and you definitely don’t want to drop out of school. This is exactly what they want you to do. Implode and become self destructive, divided against one another, and divided against yourself. It’s cheaper and more effective than using bullets. Use the master’s tools to dismantle the master’s house. You want to educate yourself. Knowledge produced about Indigenous people, whether by the governments or academics, is used to turn people into the subjects of knowledge and the objects of power. Start producing knowledge about white supremacy, racism, colonialism, capitalism, Christianity. Know your enemy. Read. Read Karl Marx, Franz Fanon, Che Guevara, Noam Chomsky, and Ward Churchill. Become doctors, lawyers, educators and professors. Amass wealth, power and influence and turn it against the state of oppression. Become political. Be activists. And most importantly, organize, organize, organize. Stand together and stand forever or stand apart and be lost forever.
—Presentation notes for youth group workshop, First Nation Issues and Society, Shawanaga First Nation Healing Centre.
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Pocahontas,
Calamity Jane, Annie Oakley. When we think of women in the “wild west,”
these are the images that come to mind. The Indian princess is a
serene, noble savage. The cowgirl is a smart-talking, gun-slinging
dynamo. These stereotypes are so deeply ingrained in our popular culture
that we scarcely give them a second thought. A collection of popular
culture images of Aboriginal and western women from the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries, currently showing at the Presentation House
Gallery, unveils and challenges these representational stereotypes.
The show features over 200 photographs, postcards, calendars and other historical images of “Indian princesses” and “cowgirls” which graphically depict the historical representation of women, race and the colonial west.
In the struggle for national identity, Canada and the United States began constructing their own creation myths and fanciful stories. For both of these countries, manufacturing a national identity involved an aggressive, if not genocidal, form of cultural appropriation of First Nations peoples and culture.
Appropriation involves strategies for occupation. This entails a reworking of both real and imagined spaces appropriate to the needs and fantasies of the occupier, as well as a fundamental need to cloak the acts of appropriation in appreciation. Unfortunately, throughout the history of colonization it has primarily been women who have been made amenable to occupation by refiguring and redrawing them in an appreciated, though stereotyped, image.
The squaw is transformed into an acceptable figure of desire by turning her into a lighter-skinned, less threatening twin—the beautiful and heroic princess—while the cowgirl is transformed into a “white savage” who transgresses both sexual and spatial boundaries. This double strategy not only masks Native peoples with European appearances, but is also used to represent the untamed nature which resides in both the frontier and white cowgirl.
The imaginary constructs found in European notions of femininity and wild savagery are grafted onto First Nations and frontier women, bringing civilization to the wild and the wild to civilization in a more palatable form. In essence, Native women become more “feminine” and white, and white frontier women become more “wild” and native.
According to Gail Valaskakis, one of two guest curators, “The discourse of the Indian as noble and savage, the villain and the victim… is threaded through the narratives of the dominant culture and its shifting perceptions of the western frontier as a land of savagery and a land of promise.” Like the cultural narratives of the western frontier which sustained them, textual representations of real First Nations peoples reveal stories of conquest and its legacies. “The Indian social imaginaries expressed in literary, artistic, academic and media images circulate in the discourse of our everyday action and events. In the conflicting power relations of different communities and interests, they work to construct identities with different ideologies and meanings that become central sites of cultural struggle,” said Valaskakis.
The images on exhibit demonstrate how First Nations identity and cultural struggle are grounded in representation and appropriation, representations which have been appropriated by others in a political process that confines the Native past as it constructs the Native future.
“The ambiguous representation of Indian women which we associate with the western frontier has been with us since the earliest colonization of the Americas,” said Valaskakis.
As representations changed, the images of First Nations women as Indian princesses who embodied mystery and exoticism began to emerge. During the post World War I era, the Indian princess is repeatedly portrayed alone in the pristine wilderness, scantily clad in a buckskin or tunic dress, sporting a jaunty feather over two long braids. Most striking, however, is that all of the models are notably white-skinned women.
The masculine transgression of cowgirls in wild west fiction depicted the romanticism of an underlying “Indian nature.” Pictures of cowgirls, adventure heroines and outlaw women were first produced for wild west, rodeo and vaudeville shows, dime novels and monograms as a means to promote sales. However, in actual frontier society, many women deliberately took on this fictional role through the act of “playing Indian.”
Playing Indian was an opportunity for white women to escape the conventional and often restrictive boundaries of society. Rodeo and wild west show cowgirls generally featured “butch” women wearing pants and performing death defying stunts on horseback. These performances mimicked the fantasy of the Native huntress and warrior as imagined in the minds of nineteenth century onlookers.
“Historically, the adventure-loving frontierswoman was explained away as an Indian ‘warrior maiden,’ then as a sexual rebel, and finally, like her counter point the cowboy, as a product of the open range,” said Burgess, co- curator.
However, the relationship between these three stereotypical incarnations is not strictly temporal. “Their respective characteristics,” noted Burgess, “existed in tension with each other, just as they do now, teasing out the gender anxieties produced by the changing sexual freedom of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.”
—Article originally published in The Peak.
—See original publication accompanying art exhibit:
I would like to talk to you about various forms of terror as they relate to First Nations peoples. I wish to critically examine and question state and mass media definitions, depictions and portrayals of ‘terrorism’ and ‘terrorists’. State terrorism, which is rarely, if ever, mentioned in the mainstream press, and other forms of terrorism, such as corporate terrorism, has intensified both domestically and globally. For instance, the illegal occupation of Afghanistan by NATO forces has been marred by International Human Rights and Geneva Convention violations. NATO forces, in 2007, killed as many civilians as did the Taliban. And, in Columbia, Chiquita Bananas paid right-wing death squads to intimidate, terrorize and murder local peasants, workers and farmers.While countries such as Canada and the U.S. are directly and indirectly implicated in global acts of terrorism, domestic state terrorism continues to be a major concern. Increasing rates of poverty, homelessness, and Islamaphobia, for example, are juxtaposed to increases in corporate profit, militarization and state authoritarianism. State terrorism, then, is just as much about creating inequalities and an underclass as it is about repressing social justice movements. Under Bill C36, Canada has indefinitely detained Muslim Canadians without charging them with a crime, or making available to their legal counsel the evidence used to justify incarcerating them. However, unlike India and Algeria who gained their independence from European colonialism, countries like Canada and the U.S. are still colonial states or ‘settler’ colonies. When speaking of internal state terrorism, then, the majority of oppression is directed towards First Nations peoples.
State terrorism in relation to Indigenous groups in Canada ranged from historical housing policies that contributed to disease, illness, and death, to current land claims issues and the persecution of Native protestors, to the historic and contemporary exclusion of Canadian Indigenous peoples to full citizenship. I spoke with Russell Means from the Lakotah Nation about the recent withdrawal from their treaties with the federal government and their declaration of independence from the U.S. that took place in December, 2007. Russell Means, who has been an activist for decades, has been directly resisting state terrorism all his life. I believe the Lakotah freedom movement to be an important precedent for Indigenous resistance to colonial state terrorism in North America. Perhaps more significantly, no one in Canada had heard about the Lakotah declaration of independence, including scholars and researchers in the field of Native Studies. This was, in part, because of the absence of mainstream media coverage surrounding the Lakotah freedom movement, both in Canada and in the U.S.
Native issues in Canada and elsewhere receive either no or negative media coverage, and state policies and practices directed towards indigenous groups are the most draconian form of repression within the borders of ‘free’ and ‘democratic’ nations that idealize themselves as defenders of human rights.
Brant Bardy, communications officer from the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte gave a talk about their current land claim dispute. The Mohawk community itself is divided over the methods of resistance. Brant represents those in the community who are interested in utilizing state institutions as opposed to either militant or nonviolent resistance. However, many in the community, after years of frustration, have engaged in public protests and actions that have been aimed at stopping development on their land. What gets covered on the news, however, is not the injustice surrounding the land claim but rather, the protesters and ensuing struggles with the police. A strategy that seeks resolution through government means has, historically, not resulted in rapid gains for Indigenous groups despite numerous studies, reports, and recommendations generated by the state on how Native issues should be dealt with in a just, fair and timely manner. For instance, it is estimated that it will take 150 years to settle all of the outstanding land claims that are deemed ‘credible’ by the Canadian government. However, avoiding all conflict, even at the level of nonviolent resistance, is often seen as a desirable course of action because of systemic and institutional racism and excessive racist attitudes within the dominant culture, which are reproduced and reinforced through mainstream media. Any protest by Native groups is seen by the dominant culture as unjust given that First Nations are deemed a ‘privileged group’ in society.
State terrorism against Indigenous populations is a global problem. Despite the sheer diversity of indigenous populations—culturally, genetically, and linguistically—the manifestation of repression and genocide are strikingly similar when looking at things such as poverty, the dispossession of land, and the loss of language, to name a few. For example, it is estimated that by the end of this century 4,000 of the world’s languages will cease to exist. The vast majority of these languages are found in small indigenous societies. With the exception of Cree, all other indigenous languages in Canada are in sharp decline. And to date, there are no government programs to preserve, promote or teach Indigenous languages. The funding of things like the Aboriginal Achievement Awards acts as an informal policy of acculturation, especially given the lack of funding for language programs. In other words, government monies are given to projects that assimilate and acculturate Native peoples into the dominant white culture, while they are complicit in neglecting to fund programs that would strengthen First Nations’ cultures and identities. This reflects the very real yet subtle ways in which cultural genocide is waged against Indigenous populations.
These atrocities are what led to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007. Canada, along with other settler colonies, resisted the Declaration as it would hold them more accountable regarding their treatment of Native populations within their own boarders, and it would make them susceptible to criticism from other regions of the world, essentially undermining their role as the morally virtuous, and the defenders of international human rights. It is important to remember that Indigenous peoples exist everywhere, not just in Papua New Guinea, the Amazon Basin, Australia, Canada and the United States. As well as the Americas, Indigenous Peoples live in Africa, India, Cambodia, and Japan, to name a few. In the case of India and Japan, little coverage of Indigenous peoples and their plight is given any acknowledgement by either the media or academics.
Terrorism against Indigenous populations in ‘over-developed’ settler colonies such as Canada, the U.S. and Australia must be understood as a form of highly organized, managed repression that is deeply steeped in institutional structures, policies and practices. In this sense, the situation and condition of Indigenous peoples in these spaces are quite different from those in the ‘developed’ regions of the world such as Brazil, Columbia, Guatemala, and Mexico where the state, rather than being a terrorist state, is a terrorizing state which routinely brutalizes, tortures and murders Indigenous peoples. In this sense, repression is overt. In the ‘civilized’ world, however, such brutality is met with disdain and so repression is exercised covertly through government, ministries, courts, and law enforcement. The results, however, are the same in the sense that they both produce, in Ward Churchill’s words, ‘dead Indians’. For example, the life expectancy for Natives in Canada is 8 years shorter than for non-Natives, death from infectious and parasitic disease are above national averages, as well as suicide rates, deaths from injuries, and accidental deaths. Infant mortality, poverty, unemployment and addiction rates are also significantly higher than the national average. Disability rates, for instance, are 30% higher among Canadian Aboriginals than for non-Aboriginal Canadians. First Nations people are overrepresented in the prison system as well. Native peoples are more often charged with and convicted of crimes than are non-Natives committing the same offense, and they receive longer sentences than non-Natives for the same crime. These manifestations of racialized oppression are not exclusive to Canada. Similar statistics can be found in countries such as the U.S. and Australia, thus reflecting a systematic form of repression, violence and genocide perpetrated by the state.
Many Indigenous identities are stilled tied to the land. And yet it is the land that is the most desired by governments and corporations because of their incessant greed which leads to the extraction and exploitation of every resource that the land has to offer. What does it mean to one’s culture and identity when the means of that cultural identity is taken away. For many Indigenous peoples, to take away their land is to take away not only their livelihood, but who they are. What is left of a people when they have no identity, no culture, no language, and no land? The Lacandon Maya in Mexico say that when the last Mayan is gone the world will cease to exist.
The reason Indigenous issues receive little attention in the mainstream press is both obvious and, simultaneously, complex. At one level we could talk about Noam Chomsky’s ‘filters’ in Manufacturing Consent, or a dominant ideology that reflects and reproduces white supremacy, or the fact that the media atomizes and individuates issues so they are no longer recognizable structural patterns. The media does, however, uphold the status quo by using techniques and reporting styles that ‘blame the victim’ whether we are speaking of First Nations or other marginalized and repressed groups such as the homeless. They are also complicit in reproducing racist stereotypes about Native peoples such as the ‘noble savage’ or ‘Indian princess’. The media constantly rewrites history as in the case of Disney’s version of Pocahontas. A 13 year old girl raped and kidnapped by Smith is shown to fall in love with her oppressor in a romantic tale of death and destruction. The whole situation is not only Kafkaesque, but a blatant example of western hegemony, colonialism and imperialism.
In the 1990 Oka land dispute several Mohawk communities were in a confrontation with Quebec provincial police and the Canadian army. The mainstream media represented the conflict as a clash of interests whereby the dominant culture was represented by the police and the Mohawks were portrayed as deviant. Analyses of the conflict in sociology textbooks even misrepresents and stereotypes Mohawks by constructing them as deviant through what is referred to as ‘warrior fame’ which gives a narrow view of the situation with a vague or partial examination of the event. Such academic portrayals are informed both through media coverage and through dominant cultural subjectivity, which itself in congruent with the reporting of the event.
Similarly, the rhetoric of war, the emotion of revenge, and the simulacrum of military propaganda has denied us the ability to know what is really goingf on in Afghanistan: how many Taliban and Al Qaeda dead, how many civilians killed, how much collateral damage is done?
It is becoming clearer that there is a world sanctioned bias against Afghanistan being perpetuated not only by the U.S. and its western allies but also by the UN and NGOs. For instance, a report by the U.S. bureau for democracy, conflict, and humanitarian assistance lists everything from the Soviet invasion and drought to the Taliban and internal fighting as the mechanisms contributing to Afghanistan’s social problems. Nowhere does it mention the impact and contribution of U.S. military action nor UN restructuring as contributing factors. Any real information—whether its interviews, body counts, or living conditions—is constantly situated in an Eurocentric framework, and directed toward a western audience. The western press itself lines Afghan web sites with stories written by western journalists. When looking at recent UN documents and news on Afghanistan, the emphasis is always on security and refugees: how to maintain stability, future security structures, transitional authority issues, how many refugees and internally displaced persons, the allocation of aid, and so on. Both security and refugee issues are closely linked in an effort to impose social control.
Well, where does this all leave us? Myself, I attempt to disrupt dominant cultural misrepresentations of First Nations peoples through my writing, research, teaching, and every day practices. When my daughter was 3, I explained the situation of Native peoples to her and told her that we live on stolen land. At her preschool they sing the Canadian National anthem which has a line in it, ‘Our home and native land’, which she now sings, ‘Our home on Native land.’ But such minor disruptions do not easily dislodge a Eurocentric, racist discourse that is 500 years old, a discourse that is reinforced and reproduced at every level and in every institution. My neighbor, for instance, has a university degree, is an elementary school teacher, and is one half Native. Besides suffering from internalized racism, she openly says racist remarks about Native peoples. Likewise, a current land dispute beside the town of Caledonia in Ontario has been marred by violent protests, not by members of the Six Nations Confederacy, but by the residents of Caledonia. Instead of the residence of Caledonia siding with the Native protestors to pressure the government to bring a swift end to the dispute, they ironically blame the protestors for disrupting their community and lives.
So what is to be done? What you don’t want to do is get in trouble with the law, you don’t want to join a gang, or do drugs, and you definitely don’t want to drop out of school. This is exactly what they want you to do. Implode and become self destructive, divided against one another, and divided against yourself. It’s cheaper and more effective than using bullets. Use the master’s tools to dismantle the master’s house. You want to educate yourself. Knowledge produced about Indigenous people, whether by the governments or academics, is used to turn people into the subjects of knowledge and the objects of power. Start producing knowledge about white supremacy, racism, colonialism, capitalism, Christianity. Know your enemy. Read. Read Karl Marx, Franz Fanon, Che Guevara, Noam Chomsky, and Ward Churchill. Become doctors, lawyers, educators and professors. Amass wealth, power and influence and turn it against the state of oppression. Become political. Be activists. And most importantly, organize, organize, organize. Stand together and stand forever or stand apart and be lost forever.
—Presentation notes for youth group workshop, First Nation Issues and Society, Shawanaga First Nation Healing Centre.
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INDIAN PRINCESSES AND COWGIRLS: STEREOTYPES FROM THE FRONTIER
Guy Kirby Letts
Pocahontas,
Calamity Jane, Annie Oakley. When we think of women in the “wild west,”
these are the images that come to mind. The Indian princess is a
serene, noble savage. The cowgirl is a smart-talking, gun-slinging
dynamo. These stereotypes are so deeply ingrained in our popular culture
that we scarcely give them a second thought. A collection of popular
culture images of Aboriginal and western women from the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries, currently showing at the Presentation House
Gallery, unveils and challenges these representational stereotypes.The show features over 200 photographs, postcards, calendars and other historical images of “Indian princesses” and “cowgirls” which graphically depict the historical representation of women, race and the colonial west.
In the struggle for national identity, Canada and the United States began constructing their own creation myths and fanciful stories. For both of these countries, manufacturing a national identity involved an aggressive, if not genocidal, form of cultural appropriation of First Nations peoples and culture.
Appropriation involves strategies for occupation. This entails a reworking of both real and imagined spaces appropriate to the needs and fantasies of the occupier, as well as a fundamental need to cloak the acts of appropriation in appreciation. Unfortunately, throughout the history of colonization it has primarily been women who have been made amenable to occupation by refiguring and redrawing them in an appreciated, though stereotyped, image.
The squaw is transformed into an acceptable figure of desire by turning her into a lighter-skinned, less threatening twin—the beautiful and heroic princess—while the cowgirl is transformed into a “white savage” who transgresses both sexual and spatial boundaries. This double strategy not only masks Native peoples with European appearances, but is also used to represent the untamed nature which resides in both the frontier and white cowgirl.
The imaginary constructs found in European notions of femininity and wild savagery are grafted onto First Nations and frontier women, bringing civilization to the wild and the wild to civilization in a more palatable form. In essence, Native women become more “feminine” and white, and white frontier women become more “wild” and native.
According to Gail Valaskakis, one of two guest curators, “The discourse of the Indian as noble and savage, the villain and the victim… is threaded through the narratives of the dominant culture and its shifting perceptions of the western frontier as a land of savagery and a land of promise.” Like the cultural narratives of the western frontier which sustained them, textual representations of real First Nations peoples reveal stories of conquest and its legacies. “The Indian social imaginaries expressed in literary, artistic, academic and media images circulate in the discourse of our everyday action and events. In the conflicting power relations of different communities and interests, they work to construct identities with different ideologies and meanings that become central sites of cultural struggle,” said Valaskakis.
The images on exhibit demonstrate how First Nations identity and cultural struggle are grounded in representation and appropriation, representations which have been appropriated by others in a political process that confines the Native past as it constructs the Native future.
“The ambiguous representation of Indian women which we associate with the western frontier has been with us since the earliest colonization of the Americas,” said Valaskakis.
As representations changed, the images of First Nations women as Indian princesses who embodied mystery and exoticism began to emerge. During the post World War I era, the Indian princess is repeatedly portrayed alone in the pristine wilderness, scantily clad in a buckskin or tunic dress, sporting a jaunty feather over two long braids. Most striking, however, is that all of the models are notably white-skinned women.
The masculine transgression of cowgirls in wild west fiction depicted the romanticism of an underlying “Indian nature.” Pictures of cowgirls, adventure heroines and outlaw women were first produced for wild west, rodeo and vaudeville shows, dime novels and monograms as a means to promote sales. However, in actual frontier society, many women deliberately took on this fictional role through the act of “playing Indian.”
Playing Indian was an opportunity for white women to escape the conventional and often restrictive boundaries of society. Rodeo and wild west show cowgirls generally featured “butch” women wearing pants and performing death defying stunts on horseback. These performances mimicked the fantasy of the Native huntress and warrior as imagined in the minds of nineteenth century onlookers.
“Historically, the adventure-loving frontierswoman was explained away as an Indian ‘warrior maiden,’ then as a sexual rebel, and finally, like her counter point the cowboy, as a product of the open range,” said Burgess, co- curator.
However, the relationship between these three stereotypical incarnations is not strictly temporal. “Their respective characteristics,” noted Burgess, “existed in tension with each other, just as they do now, teasing out the gender anxieties produced by the changing sexual freedom of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.”
—Article originally published in The Peak.
—See original publication accompanying art exhibit:
Indian Princess and Cowgirls: Stereotypes from the Frontier
Essays
by Gail Guthrie Valaskakis and Marilyn Burgess, and one artist's
project by Rebecca Belmore 1995, 83 p., 46 ill. (23 colour), bilingual
publication, $20. Valaskakis’s
essay proposes an analysis of historical and contemporary images of
Indian princesses, while Burgess examines the myths of the cowgirl in
North American culture. Belmore’s bookwork was created especially for
the publication.
___________________________________________________________________________________
If technological, social, and ideological systems of a culture gradually specialize to fit the requirements of successful adaptation to a specific environment, other cultural arrangements become increasingly difficult... to accommodate without setting in motion major disruptive changes that have unforeseen consequences.
—Bodely
The Indian way of consciousness is different from and fatal to our own way of consciousness. Our way of consciousness is different from and fatal to the Indian. The two ways, the two streams are never to be united. They are not even to be reconciled. There is no bridge, no canal of connection....
—D. H. Lawrence
In the literature on the highland Maya and the Lacandon we still find documented examples of traditional social and material culture which is rooted in the pre-conquest period (Hammond, 1988). The amount of exposure and influence from the outside world dictates how much ‘pure’ Mayan culture still exists. However, exposure and influence of the greater Mexican social structure is immanent and ongoing. Thus, while we still find examples of traditional agricultural and subsistence practices like the milpa, traditional clothing, the use of the tumpline, rituals involving balche, polygamy among the Lacandon, traditional housing structures, the burning of pom, language, and the use of pre-conquest tools such as the coa and metate, these practices are becoming increasingly scarce among Mayan communities (Bruce, 1975; Fagan, 1988; Hammond, 1988; Howard, 1969; Mallory, 1984; Mathews, 1992; Kemp, 1962; Simpson, 1987; Tozzer, 1907). Change has occurred not only in more traditional life-styles but in more contemporary terms. Many of the ejidos that were set-up after the Mexican revolution have broken down due to lessened government support (Simpson, 1987; Vogt, 1990).
Another aspect that is undergoing immense change is their religion, which has been impacted by Protestant missionaries who are attempting convert the Maya both in the highlands and in the rainforest regions. In Guatemala, the evangelical Protestants have encouraged the Cakchiquels to accumulate wealth, while telling them they must give up many of their traditional cultural practices. Many Maya have, in fact, done as instructed, breaking off all ties to their culture (Hill, 1992). When a Protestant missionary was forced to leave Zinacantan, a number of local families followed and they settled in what is now known as Nuevo Zinacantan, approximately 15 miles from San Cristobal. It has also been noted, more recently, that in the same area around Zinacantan, violence has erupted in confrontations between the more traditional Catholics and the newly conformed Protestant Maya (Mathews, 1992). To the east, the Lacandon have also experienced the influx of Protestant missionaries. Bruce acknowledges that “[i]t is obviously not the missionaries’ intention to preserve Lacandon religion, but rather to destroy it so that Christianity could replace it” (1975: 6). Bruce notes that the southern community has already been successfully converted to Protestantism, and missionaries are now being sent to northern communities in an attempt to convert them. However, the northern community reportedly thinks them “...fanatics who live in a state of constant crisis” (Bruce, 1975: 7). However, in a more recent account by Perera and Bruce they state that “...the Lacandon culture is endangered by the evangelist missionary’s attacks against its traditional social institutions...” (1982: 24). Nevertheless, they state that a Baptist mission located at Lacanja “...had succeeded in a few short years where the Spanish Catholic friars had failed over five centuries” (Perera & Bruce, 1982: 39). The problem in all of this, as mentioned earlier, is that the loss of religion leads to assimilation, acculturation and ethnocide (Bruce, 1975).
Bruce, Robert D. (1975). Lacandon Dream Symbolism: Dream Symbolism and Interpretation Among the Lacandon Mayas of Chiapas, Mexico. Mexico: Ediciones Euroamericanas, Klaus Thiele.
Cohen, Anthony P. (1985). The Symbolic Construction of Community. London: Tavistock Pub.
Drury, Shadia B. (1988). The Political Ideas of Leo Strauss. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Fagan, Brian M. (1988). In the Beginning: An Introduction to Archaeology, 6th ed. Illinois: Scott, Foresman & Co.
Fukuyama, Francis (1992). The End of History and the Last Man. New York: The Free Press.
Garrett, W. E. (1968). “South to Mexico City.” National Geographic (August, vol. 134, no. 2).
Garret, W. E. (1968). “Mexico’s Little Venice.” Nation Geographic (June, vol. 133, no.6).
Hammond, Norman (1988). Ancient Maya Civilization. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP.
Hanks, William F. & Don S. Rice, eds. (1989). Word and Image in Maya Culture; Explorations in Language, Writing, and Representation. Salt Lake: U of Utah P.
Harman, R. C. (1969). “Medical and Social Changes in a Tzeltal Maya Community.” DAI, U of Arizona. U.S./England: U Microfilms.
Howard, Michael C. (1989). Contemporary Cultural Anthropology, 3rd ed. Illinois: Scott, Foresman & Co.
Hurting, Mel (1991). The Betrayal of Canada. Toronto: Stoddart.
Ingold, Tim, David Riches & James Woodburn, eds. (1988). Hunters and Gatherers: History, Evolution and Social Change, Volume One. New York: Berg Pub.
Ingold, Tim, David Riches & James Woodburn, eds. (1988). Hunters and Gatherers: Property, Power and Ideology, Volume Two. New York: Berg Pub.
Kemp, Lysander (1962). Juan the Chamula: An Ethnological Re-creation of the Life of a Mexican Indian. Richardo Pozas, trans. Los Angeles: U of California P.
Lang, James (1988). Inside Development in Latin America. London: U of North Carolina P.
Lauer, Robert H. (1991). Perspectives on Social Change, 4th ed. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Mallory, Jonh Kenneth III (1984). “Late classic Maya Economic Specialization: Evidence from the Copan Obsidian Assemblage.” DIA, Pensylvania State U. Michigan: U Microfilms Inter.
Maps of Latin America and the Maya (Figures I, III-V). www.latinamericanstudies.org
Marger, Martin N. (1991). Race and Ethnic Relations: American and Global Perspectives, 2nd ed. California: Wadsworth Pub. Co.
Mathews, Peter (1992). “Indians of Middle America.” Archaeology Lectures. U of Calgary.
Matos, Eduardo (1980). “New Finds in The Great Temple.” National Geographic (December, vol. 158, no. 6).
Maybury-Lewis, David (1992). Millennium: Tribal Wisdom and the Modern World. New York: Viking.
McDowell, Bart, ed. (1980). “The Aztecs.” National Geographic (December vol. 158, no. 6).
McDowell, Bart (1968). “Mexico’s New Museum Window on the Past.” National Geographic (October).
Montes, Agusto F. Molina (1980). “The Building of Tenochtitlan.” National Geographic (December, vol. 158, no. 6).
My Country, Occupied (The United Fruit Company & the Guatemala Maya). Documentary (circa 1960’s). U of Calgary Library, Fall 1992.
Perera, Victor & Robert D. Bruce (1982). The Last Lords of Palenque: The Lacandon Mayas of the Mexican Rain Forest. Los Angeles: U of California P.
Ponting, Rick J. ed. (1986). Arduous Journey: Canadian Indians and Decolonization. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart.
Reck, Gregory G. (1978). In the Shadow of Tlaloc; Life in a Mexican Village. Illinois: Waveland Press.
Rothstien, Frances A. & Michael L. Blim, eds. (1992). Anthropology and the Global Factory: Studies of the New Industrialization in the Late Twentieth Century. New York: Bergin & Garvey.
Sacred Games (Anderson, Thor). Ethnographic Documentary (circa 1960’s/70’s). U of Calgary Library, Fall 1992.
Schneider, David J. (1988). Introduction to Social Psychology. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Pub.
Simpson, E. S. (1987). The Developing World: An Introduction. Essex: Longman Scientific & Technical.
Smart, Barry (1985). Michel Foucault. Peter Hamiton, ed. London: Routledge.
Spates, James L. & John J. Macionis (1987). The Sociology of Cities, 2nd ed. California: Wadsworth Pub. Co.
Strauss, Leo (1963). On Tyranny. Allan Bloom, ed. New York: Cornell U.P.
Tepoztlan in Transition (The Nahautl Indians), part I & II. Ethnographic Documentary (circa 1960’s). U of Calgary Library, Fall 1992.
Tozzer, Alfred M. (1907). A Comparative Study of the Maya and the Lacandones. New York: Macmillan Co.
Vanderwood, Paul J. (1981). Disorder and Progress: Bandits, Police, and Mexican Development. London: U of Nebraska P.
Vogt, Zvon Z. (1990). The Zinacantecos of Mexico: A Modern Maya Way of Life, 2nd ed. George & Louise Spindler, eds. Chicago: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Wearne, Phillip & Peter Calvert (1989). “The Maya of Guatemala.” The Minority Rights Group: Report # 62, December. London.
Yucatec Mayan: Marriage and Family. Ethnographic Documentary (circa 1970’s). U of Calgary Library, Fall 1992.
Yucatec Mayan: Chican (Village). Ethnographic Documentary (circa 1970’s). U of Calgary Library, Fall 1992.
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HISTORICAL CHANGES IN MAYAN CULTURE: FROM COLONIALISM AND ASSIMILATION TO ADAPTATION AND RESISTANCE
Guy Kirby Letts
—Bodely
The Indian way of consciousness is different from and fatal to our own way of consciousness. Our way of consciousness is different from and fatal to the Indian. The two ways, the two streams are never to be united. They are not even to be reconciled. There is no bridge, no canal of connection....
—D. H. Lawrence
Introduction
This essay examines the socio-cultural change of both the highland and rain forest Mayans through a multilinear context of time. Change within Mayan culture will be examined from a pre-colonial, colonial, and postcolonial perspective, accompanied by a prognosis for the future based on past and current trends. The three historical components will be compared and contrasted in order to understand the processes and impact of change on the Mayan peoples. An analysis of future change will be administered through the study of historical change and current global trends which will affect the Mayan people and their culture. Examples will be drawn from several sources in order to understand the complex nature of socio-cultural change. Many of these examples will deal not only with other Mesoamerican groups, but with indigenous peoples in other regions as well. I will also draw on multiple sources and disciplines such as geography, archaeology, political philosophy, and sociological, as well as ethnographic and anthropological works. In doing so, the forces that affect socio-cultural change will be seen as a multi-faceted process with a constant influx of factors rather than simply being an evolutionary process. The theoretical perspectives of change will primarily focus around materialistic and idealistic forces, which are both pertinent to change. The essay will not address all aspects of culture or changes that have affected the Mayan peoples. Though details concerning specific issues and aspects of culture will be addressed, the essay is intended to be a general overview of socio-cultural change and its influence on the Maya and their culture. The second half of the essay will deal more specifically with the Lacandon and Zinacantecos Mayans and will primarily focus on these two groups in relation to the short, medium, and long term socio-cultural change and the maintenance of their ways of life. The case study is intended to generate a greater understanding of the influences that will continue to affect the Maya, and the possible direction the Maya will take as a result of those influences.Using Change as a Framework
Before analyzing socio-cultural change among the Maya, a brief description of change, the types, factors and forces of change, should be defined. The study of change is a more recent development in the social sciences. Previously, attention was primarily focused on ‘social order’ and ‘change’ due to the fact that change, given its name, was naturally deemed as the polar opposite to social order and thus, represented disorganization and chaos (Lauer, 1991). However, change is now being perceived as something that is an ongoing process and an integral part of the social organization, interaction and behaviour of individuals, societies and cultures. It has also become apparent that not all change is chaotic, but can occur in an organized form, dispelling the myth that change is the polar opposite to social order.
Typically, ethnographic methodology uses a morphological or typological account of culture in order to reconstruct the past. For instance, a cultural ethnography will have a chapter on politics, religion, subsistence, and so on, and then, in the last chapter, a small blurb on social change. The problem with this traditional form of ethnography is the lack of attention that change receives, and the role that change plays in various aspects of culture. Any attempt to reconstruct the past is partial if that history is not placed within a framework of change. Change, then, can be seen as something pervasive and, as such, a crucial element in ethnographic text and the reconstruction of culture.
We can have a better understanding of change once it has been defined. What then, is meant by socio-cultural change? Socio-cultural change in a broad sense can be seen as the alteration of social phenomena at various levels of human life (Lauer, 1991). More specifically, it can be viewed as any behaviour, social action and interaction, or exchange that affects or alters social or cultural structures from individual attitudes to material and non-material culture, up to a global level (Lauer, 1991). Of course, this definition is neither a priori, nor shared among all who study change, but for the purpose of this essay change will be viewed from this perspective.
As mentioned, change can be viewed as occurring at several levels of interaction. These levels can be seen from the most basic forms of the human experience, namely the self or an individual’s attitudes and beliefs, and can also be seen at the global level, encompassing international organizations and global socio-political relations. Thus, change occurs at the individual, interactive, organizational, institutional, communal, societal, cultural, civilization, and global levels (Lauer, 1991). Another aspect of change is the environmental and geographical action and interaction with culture, or cultural ecology (Hammond, 1988; Ingold, vol. 1&2, 1988; Jordan, 1990). In other words, the interdependent relationship between the physical environment and culture can also act as a catalyst for change. Each of these various levels—individual, organizational, institutional, societal, cultural, civilizational, global, ecological, and geographical—can be seen as affecting and interacting with one another in the overall course of change.
Besides change occurring at different levels, change also comes in different forms, types, and from different sources. For example, change can move between different patterns of interaction, taking the form of cooperation, competition, or conflict. Change can also be either ‘quantitative’—the physical qualities of change, or more overt behaviours and actions like those found in demographics—or ‘qualitative’—which entails more covert behaviors that reflect attitudes and interaction. The rate of change is also an important aspect of change. Change can transpire at a slow or a rapid rate (Bodley, 1990). The rate of change can often be directly associated with how beneficial or detrimental the affects of change will be. In some instances, rapid change can be beneficial, but for the most part rapid change has lasting and negative effects and social-psychological implications for both individuals and cultures, as was the case for many indigenous groups who were confronted with colonialism (Hill, 1992; Lauer, 1991; Mathews, 1992; Marger, 1991; Ponting, 1986). Because change can be beneficial to some and detrimental to others, it is not surprising that we find initiators, facilitators, and resistors to change (Lauer, 1991). Change can be internal, at the individual, communal, societal, or cultural level, or it can be external such as colonialism and its effects on Mesoamerica, or in the case of developing countries such as Mexico and Guatemala, external pressures are exerted from developed nations, multinational and transnational corporations, as well as international bodies like the IMF and World Bank. The last factor affecting change is the direction of change itself, which, for the purposes of this analysis, will be both multidirectional and multilinear, as opposed to unidirectional and unilinear.
The last area to be discussed deals with the theoretical perspectives on change. One theory that has become a ‘dirty word’ in anthropology and sociology is ‘social evolution’. Early proponents of social evolution, such as Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer and Emile Durkheim, were accused of committing the myth of deviance, unidirectionality, and utopia apprehended (Lauer, 1991). While such criticisms may have been true for even Hegel and Marx, the criticisms themselves are too general and vague, which maybe the reason for the philosophical resurgence of social evolution influenced by the works of Strauss, Kojeve and Fukuyama. The difference between contemporary theories of social evolution and those of the past is that change is viewed as multidirectional rather than unidirectinonal and nihilistically as opposed to utopian. Maybury-Lewis defines social evolution as a society moving from one phase to another which, he says, is a misconception, claiming that he does not believe in the idea of linear progression (1992). The notion that societies move in a linear fashion from one inevitable stage to another was made popular in the nineteenth century by Herbert Spencer who developed the idea after reading Darwin’s theory of evolution. Often referred to as social Darwinism, the idea of progressive, societal evolution was discredited, but still resonates in the popular imaginary. However, Maybury-Lewis’ dismissal of social evolution is based on its own misconceptions. Contemporary theories on social evolution do not suppose that all cultures or societies will ‘progress’. If there are no internal or external pressures to change a culture will exist in its social and environmental niche, and even if there is pressure to change that does not mean it will be in a direction deemed ‘progressive’. Newer theories assert that while cultures do not necessarily change at the structural level, external forces from other cultures can inflict change—evident in the diffusion of culture over the course of human history, a point that will be taken up later in the essay. In short, societal evolutionary theories today follow a scientific evolutionary model as opposed to nineteenth century misreadings that saw evolution as inevitable, progressive and linear.
Though there are many theories on change, the main focus of change will be centered on a materialistic and an idealistic perspective. It should be conceded that most other perspectives on change inevitably fall under one or the other perspectives. I am not suggesting that conflict is not a factor in socio-cultural change, but rather that the root of conflict arises from a materialistic or idealistic perspective first before it turns into conflict. In the case of the Maya, an idealistic perspective is best suited to describing change prior to pre-Hispanic contact, but the effects of change are materialistic in nature, especially in the context of global capitalism. It should be noted, however, that both the materialistic and idealistic perspectives overlap: materialists believe ideas play an important role in change, and the idealists believe materialism plays a role in the formation of ideas. The only difference is each sees themselves as the primary or main force of change, while their counterpart is a secondary influence.
The idealistic perspective stresses the role of ideas, ideology and values as the main factors in effecting change (Lauer, 1991). Religion is such an ideology (see Figure I). If we look historically at religion, both the Maya and Spanish cultures were deeply influenced by religious ideology and was the driving force behind the construction of their societies (Bruce, 1975; Fagan, 1988; Hammond, 1988; Mathews, 1992). As Bruce points out, in the case of the Lacandon Maya, “...religion is the backbone of their culture... [it] directly determines, or at least touches and permeates all values and every aspect of their lives” (1975: 10). The materialistic perspective, however, asserts that technological and economic factors are the mechanisms of change, creating class, status and power, which in turn influence thoughts, beliefs, and ideology (Lauer, 1991). The beginnings of this process are based on an evolutionary principle that is somewhat spurious in nature. Nevertheless, materialism is now a global intervention and must be taken seriously. Once materialism embeds itself in a culture, as we will see in the case of the Maya, the effects may be transmitted through either external forces, like structures and institutions, or through cultural diffusion and adaptation.
In order to examine these factors, it is necessary to confine the area of study. The focus of change on the Maya will consist primarily of the highland Maya and some lower occupied regions such as the rain forest where the Lacandon live. Geographically this area is comprised of the Mexican state of Chiapas and the parallel portion of Guatemala (see Figures I & III). This area was chosen due to the more traditional subsistence and cultural practices and the lower rate of change in those areas since the conquest (Hammond, 1988; Mallory, 1984).
Besides change occurring at different levels, change also comes in different forms, types, and from different sources. For example, change can move between different patterns of interaction, taking the form of cooperation, competition, or conflict. Change can also be either ‘quantitative’—the physical qualities of change, or more overt behaviours and actions like those found in demographics—or ‘qualitative’—which entails more covert behaviors that reflect attitudes and interaction. The rate of change is also an important aspect of change. Change can transpire at a slow or a rapid rate (Bodley, 1990). The rate of change can often be directly associated with how beneficial or detrimental the affects of change will be. In some instances, rapid change can be beneficial, but for the most part rapid change has lasting and negative effects and social-psychological implications for both individuals and cultures, as was the case for many indigenous groups who were confronted with colonialism (Hill, 1992; Lauer, 1991; Mathews, 1992; Marger, 1991; Ponting, 1986). Because change can be beneficial to some and detrimental to others, it is not surprising that we find initiators, facilitators, and resistors to change (Lauer, 1991). Change can be internal, at the individual, communal, societal, or cultural level, or it can be external such as colonialism and its effects on Mesoamerica, or in the case of developing countries such as Mexico and Guatemala, external pressures are exerted from developed nations, multinational and transnational corporations, as well as international bodies like the IMF and World Bank. The last factor affecting change is the direction of change itself, which, for the purposes of this analysis, will be both multidirectional and multilinear, as opposed to unidirectional and unilinear.
The last area to be discussed deals with the theoretical perspectives on change. One theory that has become a ‘dirty word’ in anthropology and sociology is ‘social evolution’. Early proponents of social evolution, such as Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer and Emile Durkheim, were accused of committing the myth of deviance, unidirectionality, and utopia apprehended (Lauer, 1991). While such criticisms may have been true for even Hegel and Marx, the criticisms themselves are too general and vague, which maybe the reason for the philosophical resurgence of social evolution influenced by the works of Strauss, Kojeve and Fukuyama. The difference between contemporary theories of social evolution and those of the past is that change is viewed as multidirectional rather than unidirectinonal and nihilistically as opposed to utopian. Maybury-Lewis defines social evolution as a society moving from one phase to another which, he says, is a misconception, claiming that he does not believe in the idea of linear progression (1992). The notion that societies move in a linear fashion from one inevitable stage to another was made popular in the nineteenth century by Herbert Spencer who developed the idea after reading Darwin’s theory of evolution. Often referred to as social Darwinism, the idea of progressive, societal evolution was discredited, but still resonates in the popular imaginary. However, Maybury-Lewis’ dismissal of social evolution is based on its own misconceptions. Contemporary theories on social evolution do not suppose that all cultures or societies will ‘progress’. If there are no internal or external pressures to change a culture will exist in its social and environmental niche, and even if there is pressure to change that does not mean it will be in a direction deemed ‘progressive’. Newer theories assert that while cultures do not necessarily change at the structural level, external forces from other cultures can inflict change—evident in the diffusion of culture over the course of human history, a point that will be taken up later in the essay. In short, societal evolutionary theories today follow a scientific evolutionary model as opposed to nineteenth century misreadings that saw evolution as inevitable, progressive and linear.
Though there are many theories on change, the main focus of change will be centered on a materialistic and an idealistic perspective. It should be conceded that most other perspectives on change inevitably fall under one or the other perspectives. I am not suggesting that conflict is not a factor in socio-cultural change, but rather that the root of conflict arises from a materialistic or idealistic perspective first before it turns into conflict. In the case of the Maya, an idealistic perspective is best suited to describing change prior to pre-Hispanic contact, but the effects of change are materialistic in nature, especially in the context of global capitalism. It should be noted, however, that both the materialistic and idealistic perspectives overlap: materialists believe ideas play an important role in change, and the idealists believe materialism plays a role in the formation of ideas. The only difference is each sees themselves as the primary or main force of change, while their counterpart is a secondary influence.
The idealistic perspective stresses the role of ideas, ideology and values as the main factors in effecting change (Lauer, 1991). Religion is such an ideology (see Figure I). If we look historically at religion, both the Maya and Spanish cultures were deeply influenced by religious ideology and was the driving force behind the construction of their societies (Bruce, 1975; Fagan, 1988; Hammond, 1988; Mathews, 1992). As Bruce points out, in the case of the Lacandon Maya, “...religion is the backbone of their culture... [it] directly determines, or at least touches and permeates all values and every aspect of their lives” (1975: 10). The materialistic perspective, however, asserts that technological and economic factors are the mechanisms of change, creating class, status and power, which in turn influence thoughts, beliefs, and ideology (Lauer, 1991). The beginnings of this process are based on an evolutionary principle that is somewhat spurious in nature. Nevertheless, materialism is now a global intervention and must be taken seriously. Once materialism embeds itself in a culture, as we will see in the case of the Maya, the effects may be transmitted through either external forces, like structures and institutions, or through cultural diffusion and adaptation.
In order to examine these factors, it is necessary to confine the area of study. The focus of change on the Maya will consist primarily of the highland Maya and some lower occupied regions such as the rain forest where the Lacandon live. Geographically this area is comprised of the Mexican state of Chiapas and the parallel portion of Guatemala (see Figures I & III). This area was chosen due to the more traditional subsistence and cultural practices and the lower rate of change in those areas since the conquest (Hammond, 1988; Mallory, 1984).
Pre-Conquest and Change
It would not be fair to impose the notion that socio-cultural change among the Mayans has only occurred since the occupation of the Spaniards, or that all change has been from external pressures. All groups, regardless of their seemingly unchanging nature (such as hunter and gatherers) do go through some aspect of change (Bodely, 1990). For example, anthropologists are beginning to describe hunter and gatherer residential arrangements as something in ‘flux’ whereby bands are in constant change regarding their membership, even when bands themselves are considered to be permanent (Ingold, vol. 1, 1988). Thus, socio-cultural change can be seen as something that is inherent to the human condition even in the most basic communities and simplest forms of social organizations (Ingold, vol. 1&2, 1988). The question is not whether the Maya have gone through a process of change but rather, what is the rate of change, how radical is the change and what were and are the conditions of change. Presumably, in the case of hunter and gatherers the rate of change—from a contemporary Western perspective—is relatively slow. However, in the pre-Hispanic period, the Mayans went through enormous socio-cultural change in order to achieve the level of social organization that they did. Today, however, many isolated Mayan groups have undergone a slower process of change maintaining many of their traditional ways and lifestyles, while groups that have had more contact have undergone greater change, to the point of acculturation and in some cases extinction.
As mentioned earlier, before conquest the Maya civilization underwent fundamental changes that supported a complex system of social organization. The Maya civilization, prior to the Spanish arrival, went through three major periods: the pre-classic, the classic, and the post-classic (Hammond, 1988; McDowell, 1968). The Maya civilization peaked during the classical period and was already in decline when the Spaniards arrived (Hammond, 1988). However, it was long before the classical period that socio-cultural change began to shape the great Mayan Empire.
The first evidence of human occupation in Mesoamerica dates back to a mammoth kill site in the Valley of Mexico around 8,000 B.C. which corresponds with other sites found throughout North America. Nomadic hunters begin to domesticate maize around 5,000 B.C., which was the main force behind the transition from hunter and gatherers exclusively, to agrarian practices and the development of more sophisticated social organization. Mayan prehistory started in the period known as the archaic, and though, to date, there has been no evidence of Pleistocene hunters in the Maya regions, it is believed that early hunters passed through the area which has since been altered geographically by changing sea levels and glacial melting. There is, however, evidence that dates back some 11,000 years ago in the Guatemalan highlands, and pottery showing up in the Pucc hills of the Yucatec lowlands dating from around 2,000 B.C. Whether or not these sites are the early ancestors of the ancient Maya is undetermined (Hammond, 1988; McDowell, 1968).
The actual settlement patterns that occurred when maize, beans and squash were domesticated marked a significant transition. The resulting domestication led to an agricultural economy and technological changes and innovations that would accommodate their new lifestyle, such as pottery (Hammond, 1988). The force behind this transition is a combination of an idealistic approach (developing the idea to grow food), and the geographical and environmental conditions which, with the areas rich volcanic soils and climate, enabled the early inhabitants of the region to domesticate the indigenous flora. The other environmental factor was the availability of natural resources. As Mallory points out, “...the economic importance of exotic commodities... might be considered to be... of importance greater than that likely to have been achieved by such commodities at sites more distant from the sources of these items” (1984: 20). This may be one reason occupation seems to have occurred in the highlands prior to the Yucatec lowlands. The environment, then, played a crucial role in facilitating change among the early ancestors of the Maya.
During the pre-classic period, the Maya become a recognizable culture. While influences from the Olmec are evident in artifacts like carvings, distinct cultural traits begin to emerge through the archaeological record, such as Mamom pottery which began to spread westward into the Chiapas region. Joseph Ball suggests that the “social model of the growth and fissioning of tribal societies as population expansion forced the Maya to seek and settle new ecological niches,” which explains “both the homogeneity and the expansion of Mamom ceramics....” (cited in Hammond, 1988: 120). Environmental factors along with quantitative change in population growth led to a surplus food supply, and eventually to the acquisition of more land. As the direction of change continued towards a complex economic, religious, and political social structure, the Mayan classical period (200-900 A.D.) revealed social and cultural accomplishments in art, architecture, and writing and number systems, marking a pinnacle in human achievement (Perera & Bruce, 1982; Fagan, 1988; Hammond, 1988; Hanks & Rice, 1989).
Change in Maya civilization takes a different direction in the late classic and post-classic periods. The collapse of the Maya empire saw its great cities become abandoned. Many theories have been postulated to explain why the Mayan civilization deteriorated. One of the more popular theories involves the interaction between humans and the environment. It is believed that the environment began to deteriorate as a result of extensive agricultural practices which exhausted the soil, created erosion and deforestation. Another theory postulates that the social structure was weakened by emerging conflicts between the peasants and the ruling class which resulted in the destruction of cities and a return to less organized agricultural communities. The idea that the collapse of the Maya region was in response to an outside military intrusion has also been argued. Regardless of the cause, the cities were abandoned and large areas of the rainforest became uninhabited. Both the ecological explanation—that the land was farmed out—and the social conflict perspective—that a revolt occurred—suggest that change was internal. On the other hand, the notion that there was a military invasion or pressures from competing economic regions can be seen as an external form of change. Whatever the force of change, whether internal or external, the socio-cultural change that resulted was rapid and large in magnitude, and ultimately changed the social organization and institutions of Mayan culture significantly. The Mayan post-classic period, then, was marked by decline and diffusion from competing groups (Hammond, 1988).
As mentioned earlier, before conquest the Maya civilization underwent fundamental changes that supported a complex system of social organization. The Maya civilization, prior to the Spanish arrival, went through three major periods: the pre-classic, the classic, and the post-classic (Hammond, 1988; McDowell, 1968). The Maya civilization peaked during the classical period and was already in decline when the Spaniards arrived (Hammond, 1988). However, it was long before the classical period that socio-cultural change began to shape the great Mayan Empire.
The first evidence of human occupation in Mesoamerica dates back to a mammoth kill site in the Valley of Mexico around 8,000 B.C. which corresponds with other sites found throughout North America. Nomadic hunters begin to domesticate maize around 5,000 B.C., which was the main force behind the transition from hunter and gatherers exclusively, to agrarian practices and the development of more sophisticated social organization. Mayan prehistory started in the period known as the archaic, and though, to date, there has been no evidence of Pleistocene hunters in the Maya regions, it is believed that early hunters passed through the area which has since been altered geographically by changing sea levels and glacial melting. There is, however, evidence that dates back some 11,000 years ago in the Guatemalan highlands, and pottery showing up in the Pucc hills of the Yucatec lowlands dating from around 2,000 B.C. Whether or not these sites are the early ancestors of the ancient Maya is undetermined (Hammond, 1988; McDowell, 1968).
The actual settlement patterns that occurred when maize, beans and squash were domesticated marked a significant transition. The resulting domestication led to an agricultural economy and technological changes and innovations that would accommodate their new lifestyle, such as pottery (Hammond, 1988). The force behind this transition is a combination of an idealistic approach (developing the idea to grow food), and the geographical and environmental conditions which, with the areas rich volcanic soils and climate, enabled the early inhabitants of the region to domesticate the indigenous flora. The other environmental factor was the availability of natural resources. As Mallory points out, “...the economic importance of exotic commodities... might be considered to be... of importance greater than that likely to have been achieved by such commodities at sites more distant from the sources of these items” (1984: 20). This may be one reason occupation seems to have occurred in the highlands prior to the Yucatec lowlands. The environment, then, played a crucial role in facilitating change among the early ancestors of the Maya.
During the pre-classic period, the Maya become a recognizable culture. While influences from the Olmec are evident in artifacts like carvings, distinct cultural traits begin to emerge through the archaeological record, such as Mamom pottery which began to spread westward into the Chiapas region. Joseph Ball suggests that the “social model of the growth and fissioning of tribal societies as population expansion forced the Maya to seek and settle new ecological niches,” which explains “both the homogeneity and the expansion of Mamom ceramics....” (cited in Hammond, 1988: 120). Environmental factors along with quantitative change in population growth led to a surplus food supply, and eventually to the acquisition of more land. As the direction of change continued towards a complex economic, religious, and political social structure, the Mayan classical period (200-900 A.D.) revealed social and cultural accomplishments in art, architecture, and writing and number systems, marking a pinnacle in human achievement (Perera & Bruce, 1982; Fagan, 1988; Hammond, 1988; Hanks & Rice, 1989).
Change in Maya civilization takes a different direction in the late classic and post-classic periods. The collapse of the Maya empire saw its great cities become abandoned. Many theories have been postulated to explain why the Mayan civilization deteriorated. One of the more popular theories involves the interaction between humans and the environment. It is believed that the environment began to deteriorate as a result of extensive agricultural practices which exhausted the soil, created erosion and deforestation. Another theory postulates that the social structure was weakened by emerging conflicts between the peasants and the ruling class which resulted in the destruction of cities and a return to less organized agricultural communities. The idea that the collapse of the Maya region was in response to an outside military intrusion has also been argued. Regardless of the cause, the cities were abandoned and large areas of the rainforest became uninhabited. Both the ecological explanation—that the land was farmed out—and the social conflict perspective—that a revolt occurred—suggest that change was internal. On the other hand, the notion that there was a military invasion or pressures from competing economic regions can be seen as an external form of change. Whatever the force of change, whether internal or external, the socio-cultural change that resulted was rapid and large in magnitude, and ultimately changed the social organization and institutions of Mayan culture significantly. The Mayan post-classic period, then, was marked by decline and diffusion from competing groups (Hammond, 1988).
The Effects of Colonialism
The resulting decline of the Mayan social structure and civilization in the post- classic period represents a minor change in comparison to the effects of the Spanish conquest and colonialism (Hammond, 1988). The period of contact brought with it death, destruction and slavery for the indigenous Maya. High in spirit, after defeating of the Moors in Europe, and believing the world was theirs, the Spaniard’s voracious appetite for gold and glory led them to almost every corner of Mesoamerica. Inevitably, they were challenged by local warrior societies; the resulting wars between the Indians and the Spaniards destroyed indigenous cities and eventually empires. The military defeat of the Mesoamerican Indians and the dismantling of the local ruling class and their authority resulted in the breakdown of Mayan social structure (Mathews, 1992).
The Spaniards not only decimated the populations through warfare, but indirectly brought death through the transmission of diseases such as smallpox, measles, typhoid, and influenza which all had a devastating effect on Mesoamerican populations. In 1521, during the period of the Aztec surrender, it was estimated that there were 20 to 25 million Natives living in Mesoamerica. By 1650, the numbers had been reduced to between 2 and 3 million throughout the region, with some accounts going as low as 1 million (Mathews, 1992; Spates & Macionis, 1987). The impact of disease was devastating throughout the colonized world, from Canada to Brazil; the death tolls resulting from the transmission of European disease was staggering, in some cases wiping out entire tribes. In 1520 the highland Maya were hit with a series of pandemics believed to be the result of smallpox and the plague which, according to some, eradicated approximately one third of the population; the remaining susceptible population was battered with secondary infections such as influenza and pneumonia (Hill, 1992). The reason for the dramatic death tolls resulting from disease and illness was due to the low resistance and undeveloped immunities that indigenous populations had to diseases they had never encountered before contact. This surely affected the social structure and communities of the Maya (Mathews, 1992). The loss of up to 80 % of any population would decimate social structures, organizations and institutions. If we imagine for a moment that suddenly 80 percent of Toronto’s population died, the city would no longer be functional and would rapidly go into decline.
With the establishment of colonial towns and out-posts the Maya were introduced to new technologies. The most significant of these was iron-working technology. Prior to the Spanish invasion, metallurgy was primarily used to work precious metals for ornaments, but the notion of iron-working and tool manufacture was alien to Mayan culture. Many of the tools employed, such as hoes, were made from wood or stone. While obsidian was still being used as a cutting tool or arrow point up until the eighteenth century, metal supplements were desired and obtained by the Maya through trade whenever the possibility arose. The use of the metal axe and machete increased the efficiency in clearing land, wood cutting and its wood modification. It was the metal hoe, however, that was the most valued among both the Spanish and Maya. With the use of the metal hoe, crop intensity and production was greatly increased. In fact, hoes were so highly valued—in part, due to scarcity because they had to be imported—that they were often stored in the local churches when not in use. The highland Maya developed hoe plowing agriculture which is still practiced today and was, and still is, especially effective in hillside cultivation where it is too steep to use a plow (Hill, 1992).
Not so much a technology, but nevertheless a new concept, was the introduction of domestic animals. As the Spanish settled the region, they brought with them new forms of subsistence such as domestic farm animals. Prior to the Spanish arrival, the only domestic meat source the Maya had was turkey. The introduction of domestic animals for both work and food was not only significant in the eyes of the Maya, but also significant in changing the direction of traditional subsistence patterns. Animals such as horses, mules, donkeys and oxen could be used for labour, while sheep, goats, cattle and chickens could be used as alternative food sources. Since their introduction, chickens, and to a lesser degree cattle, have played a significant role in Mayan rituals and religious practices, often serving as sacrifices. The Spanish did not only introduce the domestic animal, but new plant foods. Such crops as wheat, chick peas, broad beans, apples, peaches, pears and quince were introduced into the region (Baer & Merrifield, 1971; Hill, 1992; Mathews, 1992). The introduction of these new foods has not been without incident. Today these same domestic animals are having a negative impact on the environment, and while their initial introduction may have delighted the Maya, they have become a menacing problem. Goats, sheep and cattle over graze lands and have cause enormous environmental degradation and erosion of the surrounding topography. In the case of the Lacandon, cattle and other livestock have devastated many Lacandon milpas and are threatening the local way of life by reducing the habitat needed to support the cultural economy and traditional subsistence patterns (Perera & Bruce, 1982; Mathews, 1992).
Along with the ‘benefits’ of iron and animals came the undesirable change in traditional social status. The Spanish ‘self perceived’ superiority promoted the stratification of the local Indians. While stratification did exist between the commoners and the aristocracy before the arrival of the Spaniards, it became intensified as native populations were pushed to the bottom of the social hierarchy (Hammond, 1988; Hill, 1992; Mathews, 1992). A divisible hierarchy became evident and, to some degree, still exists today. The first order in the caste system was the lower Spanish nobility called hidalgo, followed by the low born Spanish work force called gachupines, then, those Spanish born in Mexico referred to as criollos. After the Spanish ‘pure bloods’ came those of mixed ethnicity or ‘mixed blood’ called mestizos. Within the mestizo class, a further hierarchy exists: first is the European mestizo, those with a Spanish Father, then a Spaniard married to an Indian noble whose children were often called don, then those who were Spanish and African, sometimes referred to as mulatos, and finally unions between African and Indian also called zambos. With the exception of a few Mayan nobles who maintained a higher status by being ‘puppet leaders’ for the purpose of collecting tax goods for the Spanish, most Indians were at the bottom of the social ladder (Mathews, 1992; Wearne & Calvert, 1989).
A part of European colonialism and conquest was the concept and use of slavery. Partly utilized as a form of social control and as a means of cheap labor, Indians all over Mesoamerica were put to work as slaves. Social control was a ‘necessary’ tactic that enabled Spanish forces to maintain their newly conquered territory against overwhelming odds. One method already mentioned was the reinstatement of nobles to act as puppet leaders, while another method was to relocate the Indians to Spanish settlements where they were enslaved. Many of the Maya aristocracy who were not killed in battle were quickly turned into slaves. This not only increased economic production and acted as a form of social control, but was used to signify defeat and instill self degradation and humiliation (Hill, 1992; Mathews, 1992). Legitimized under ‘the just war’ notion, many Mayan Indians found themselves panning for gold or working on farms for the conquistadors and, if not treated brutishly, often ended up dying (Hill, 1992). While slavery was more a military tactic associated with conquest, much like tearing down temples and building churches over top of them, it has been suggested that Spanish slavery practices were more humane than those imposed by the Protestant European colonialists (Marger, 1991; Matos, 1980; Montes, 1980; Spates & Macionis, 1987). However, in the case of Mesoamerica, there is little in the literature to suggest that this was the case.
The external impact of change also brought with it the ideology of Catholicism which was a fundamental force in altering Maya religious culture. The traditional Maya religion, however, was not exterminated through the ‘conversion’ to Catholicism, but rather, a new religion was created in the form of a hybrid religion that drew from both the Mayan traditional religion and Catholicism. Rather than adopting the Catholic faith, the Maya fused certain aspects of the European religion into their own (see Figure II; Mathews, 1992). Today, it is difficult to find any Mayan group who practices their traditional religion that does not have elements of Catholicism in it (Perera & Bruce, 1982; Hammond, 1988; Hill, 1992; Mathews, 1992; Tozzer, 1907; Vogt, 1990). While the Maya groups in the study area have been influenced by the early missionaries, each community exhibits varying degrees of Catholicism. For instance, the Lacandon, who are more isolated, practice the closest form of the original Mayan religion, whereas in the highlands some groups and individuals have completely converted, to a ‘mish mash’ combination of saints, churches and traditional Maya rituals which can be seen in places like Zinacantan (see Figure III; Perera & Bruce, 1982; Mathews, 1992).
Though religion was a central theme in pre-conquest Mayan culture, the introduction of Catholicism to the Maya was relatively easy. This was not because the Maya did not have strong religious convictions, but because of their differing ideological system, which was completely unlike that of the Spaniards. According to Hill, “[n]ew ‘gods’ [or saints] in particular posed no problem for the Cakchiquel since they were accustom to a multiplicity of supernatural beings [as opposed to a monotheistic god] ...they could be assimilated into the pantheon and even worshipped without abandoning or contradicting older beliefs” (1992: 86). While the Spaniards believed they had been successful at converting the Indians to Catholicism, the Maya saw no contradiction and thus no reason to give up their own religion (Hill, 1992). Bruce points out the significance of religion as one of the most important factors in assimilation: “Where the religion is preserved, the culture remains intact, but when the religion is broken, the people abandon practically all of their traditions and move rapidly toward Mexican national culture” (1975: 10). Thus, while the Mayan belief system, to some degree, preserved their culture from colonialism, the adoption of some Catholic concepts and rituals may have also aided in changing various aspects of their culture other than their religion.
As mentioned, the Maya experienced external cultural pressures and diffusion prior to conquest. However, the external forces of change inflicted by the Spanish were so alien and of such a magnitude that it affected Mayan socio-cultural traditions, organizations and structures to such an extent that many of the early Spanish influences have been indoctrinated into and are, an integral part of Mayan culture today. As well, though many traditions and customs have carried through from the classic period to present, for some Mayan communities many customs and traditions where lost forever with the impact of colonialism. As Hammond points out, “[t]here is... a strong temptation to make use of the culture of the living Maya to study the dead, but we have to allow for the enormous impact of the Spanish conquest on... the most fundamental aspects of culture, and also... the impact of other Mesoamerican groups... [which] made the Maya culture... different to an unknown degree from the culture of the Classic period” (1988: 95).
The Spaniards not only decimated the populations through warfare, but indirectly brought death through the transmission of diseases such as smallpox, measles, typhoid, and influenza which all had a devastating effect on Mesoamerican populations. In 1521, during the period of the Aztec surrender, it was estimated that there were 20 to 25 million Natives living in Mesoamerica. By 1650, the numbers had been reduced to between 2 and 3 million throughout the region, with some accounts going as low as 1 million (Mathews, 1992; Spates & Macionis, 1987). The impact of disease was devastating throughout the colonized world, from Canada to Brazil; the death tolls resulting from the transmission of European disease was staggering, in some cases wiping out entire tribes. In 1520 the highland Maya were hit with a series of pandemics believed to be the result of smallpox and the plague which, according to some, eradicated approximately one third of the population; the remaining susceptible population was battered with secondary infections such as influenza and pneumonia (Hill, 1992). The reason for the dramatic death tolls resulting from disease and illness was due to the low resistance and undeveloped immunities that indigenous populations had to diseases they had never encountered before contact. This surely affected the social structure and communities of the Maya (Mathews, 1992). The loss of up to 80 % of any population would decimate social structures, organizations and institutions. If we imagine for a moment that suddenly 80 percent of Toronto’s population died, the city would no longer be functional and would rapidly go into decline.
With the establishment of colonial towns and out-posts the Maya were introduced to new technologies. The most significant of these was iron-working technology. Prior to the Spanish invasion, metallurgy was primarily used to work precious metals for ornaments, but the notion of iron-working and tool manufacture was alien to Mayan culture. Many of the tools employed, such as hoes, were made from wood or stone. While obsidian was still being used as a cutting tool or arrow point up until the eighteenth century, metal supplements were desired and obtained by the Maya through trade whenever the possibility arose. The use of the metal axe and machete increased the efficiency in clearing land, wood cutting and its wood modification. It was the metal hoe, however, that was the most valued among both the Spanish and Maya. With the use of the metal hoe, crop intensity and production was greatly increased. In fact, hoes were so highly valued—in part, due to scarcity because they had to be imported—that they were often stored in the local churches when not in use. The highland Maya developed hoe plowing agriculture which is still practiced today and was, and still is, especially effective in hillside cultivation where it is too steep to use a plow (Hill, 1992).
Not so much a technology, but nevertheless a new concept, was the introduction of domestic animals. As the Spanish settled the region, they brought with them new forms of subsistence such as domestic farm animals. Prior to the Spanish arrival, the only domestic meat source the Maya had was turkey. The introduction of domestic animals for both work and food was not only significant in the eyes of the Maya, but also significant in changing the direction of traditional subsistence patterns. Animals such as horses, mules, donkeys and oxen could be used for labour, while sheep, goats, cattle and chickens could be used as alternative food sources. Since their introduction, chickens, and to a lesser degree cattle, have played a significant role in Mayan rituals and religious practices, often serving as sacrifices. The Spanish did not only introduce the domestic animal, but new plant foods. Such crops as wheat, chick peas, broad beans, apples, peaches, pears and quince were introduced into the region (Baer & Merrifield, 1971; Hill, 1992; Mathews, 1992). The introduction of these new foods has not been without incident. Today these same domestic animals are having a negative impact on the environment, and while their initial introduction may have delighted the Maya, they have become a menacing problem. Goats, sheep and cattle over graze lands and have cause enormous environmental degradation and erosion of the surrounding topography. In the case of the Lacandon, cattle and other livestock have devastated many Lacandon milpas and are threatening the local way of life by reducing the habitat needed to support the cultural economy and traditional subsistence patterns (Perera & Bruce, 1982; Mathews, 1992).
Along with the ‘benefits’ of iron and animals came the undesirable change in traditional social status. The Spanish ‘self perceived’ superiority promoted the stratification of the local Indians. While stratification did exist between the commoners and the aristocracy before the arrival of the Spaniards, it became intensified as native populations were pushed to the bottom of the social hierarchy (Hammond, 1988; Hill, 1992; Mathews, 1992). A divisible hierarchy became evident and, to some degree, still exists today. The first order in the caste system was the lower Spanish nobility called hidalgo, followed by the low born Spanish work force called gachupines, then, those Spanish born in Mexico referred to as criollos. After the Spanish ‘pure bloods’ came those of mixed ethnicity or ‘mixed blood’ called mestizos. Within the mestizo class, a further hierarchy exists: first is the European mestizo, those with a Spanish Father, then a Spaniard married to an Indian noble whose children were often called don, then those who were Spanish and African, sometimes referred to as mulatos, and finally unions between African and Indian also called zambos. With the exception of a few Mayan nobles who maintained a higher status by being ‘puppet leaders’ for the purpose of collecting tax goods for the Spanish, most Indians were at the bottom of the social ladder (Mathews, 1992; Wearne & Calvert, 1989).
A part of European colonialism and conquest was the concept and use of slavery. Partly utilized as a form of social control and as a means of cheap labor, Indians all over Mesoamerica were put to work as slaves. Social control was a ‘necessary’ tactic that enabled Spanish forces to maintain their newly conquered territory against overwhelming odds. One method already mentioned was the reinstatement of nobles to act as puppet leaders, while another method was to relocate the Indians to Spanish settlements where they were enslaved. Many of the Maya aristocracy who were not killed in battle were quickly turned into slaves. This not only increased economic production and acted as a form of social control, but was used to signify defeat and instill self degradation and humiliation (Hill, 1992; Mathews, 1992). Legitimized under ‘the just war’ notion, many Mayan Indians found themselves panning for gold or working on farms for the conquistadors and, if not treated brutishly, often ended up dying (Hill, 1992). While slavery was more a military tactic associated with conquest, much like tearing down temples and building churches over top of them, it has been suggested that Spanish slavery practices were more humane than those imposed by the Protestant European colonialists (Marger, 1991; Matos, 1980; Montes, 1980; Spates & Macionis, 1987). However, in the case of Mesoamerica, there is little in the literature to suggest that this was the case.
The external impact of change also brought with it the ideology of Catholicism which was a fundamental force in altering Maya religious culture. The traditional Maya religion, however, was not exterminated through the ‘conversion’ to Catholicism, but rather, a new religion was created in the form of a hybrid religion that drew from both the Mayan traditional religion and Catholicism. Rather than adopting the Catholic faith, the Maya fused certain aspects of the European religion into their own (see Figure II; Mathews, 1992). Today, it is difficult to find any Mayan group who practices their traditional religion that does not have elements of Catholicism in it (Perera & Bruce, 1982; Hammond, 1988; Hill, 1992; Mathews, 1992; Tozzer, 1907; Vogt, 1990). While the Maya groups in the study area have been influenced by the early missionaries, each community exhibits varying degrees of Catholicism. For instance, the Lacandon, who are more isolated, practice the closest form of the original Mayan religion, whereas in the highlands some groups and individuals have completely converted, to a ‘mish mash’ combination of saints, churches and traditional Maya rituals which can be seen in places like Zinacantan (see Figure III; Perera & Bruce, 1982; Mathews, 1992).
Though religion was a central theme in pre-conquest Mayan culture, the introduction of Catholicism to the Maya was relatively easy. This was not because the Maya did not have strong religious convictions, but because of their differing ideological system, which was completely unlike that of the Spaniards. According to Hill, “[n]ew ‘gods’ [or saints] in particular posed no problem for the Cakchiquel since they were accustom to a multiplicity of supernatural beings [as opposed to a monotheistic god] ...they could be assimilated into the pantheon and even worshipped without abandoning or contradicting older beliefs” (1992: 86). While the Spaniards believed they had been successful at converting the Indians to Catholicism, the Maya saw no contradiction and thus no reason to give up their own religion (Hill, 1992). Bruce points out the significance of religion as one of the most important factors in assimilation: “Where the religion is preserved, the culture remains intact, but when the religion is broken, the people abandon practically all of their traditions and move rapidly toward Mexican national culture” (1975: 10). Thus, while the Mayan belief system, to some degree, preserved their culture from colonialism, the adoption of some Catholic concepts and rituals may have also aided in changing various aspects of their culture other than their religion.
As mentioned, the Maya experienced external cultural pressures and diffusion prior to conquest. However, the external forces of change inflicted by the Spanish were so alien and of such a magnitude that it affected Mayan socio-cultural traditions, organizations and structures to such an extent that many of the early Spanish influences have been indoctrinated into and are, an integral part of Mayan culture today. As well, though many traditions and customs have carried through from the classic period to present, for some Mayan communities many customs and traditions where lost forever with the impact of colonialism. As Hammond points out, “[t]here is... a strong temptation to make use of the culture of the living Maya to study the dead, but we have to allow for the enormous impact of the Spanish conquest on... the most fundamental aspects of culture, and also... the impact of other Mesoamerican groups... [which] made the Maya culture... different to an unknown degree from the culture of the Classic period” (1988: 95).
Post-Independence to Present
While colonialism brought with it unprecedented external social and cultural change to the Mayan Indians, the period after Mexico’s independence has been marked by a considerably slower rate of change. This is not to say there has not been significant change. The move to independence itself, for instance, was a time of turmoil which touched everyone in Mexico as was the Mexican revolution in which the Zinacantecos were extremely active (Garrett, 1968; Vanderwood, 1981). However, due to the more isolated region of the highland Maya and the Lacandon, influence from Mexican society was been kept to a minimum and Hispanic growth of the surrounding colonial established towns has remained at a slower rate of change (Perera & Bruce, 1982; Tozzer, 1907). It has only been in the last thirty years that the rate of change has begun to escalate and, as will be discussed later, will continue to escalate to the point that there may no longer be an independent Mayan culture.
While colonialism incurred many changes among the Mayan culture, the Spaniards failed in the total Hispanicization of the Maya. The Spanish believed that their representatives, the church and their civil organization would bring about rapid assimilation. But as Hill points out, “...as early as the seventeenth century, it was clear to those with experience of highland Maya peoples that assimilation had already proceeded as far as it ever would under prevailing conditions” (1992: 150). However, contemporary conditions have changed dramatically. It has only been in the last thirty years that external pressures have become increasingly noticeable as the area in both the highlands of Chiapas and the rainforest of the Lacandon Maya have been opened up. The opening of the Chiapas region through roads and highways and airstrips acts as a gateway to the Lacandon rainforest and has made the entire region more accessible to development, bringing with it influences such as tourists and missionaries (Mathews, 1992; Perera & Bruce, 1982; Vogt, 1990). This has been brought on by the relatively new adoption of a materialistic based system and the influence of the world economy which, as an ideology, has spread into the larger Mexican infrastructure and society. After WWII there was a push in developing countries for economic development, from both the West and developing countries themselves (Rothstein & Blim, 1992). As a result, the notion of economic development, in the search for greater wealth and new resource base, has spread from the more traditional regions of established economic wealth into the vast, isolated regions of Mexico, namely southern Mexico and the state of Chiapas (Garrett, 1968; Wearne & Calvert, 1989).
In the literature on the highland Maya and the Lacandon we still find documented examples of traditional social and material culture which is rooted in the pre-conquest period (Hammond, 1988). The amount of exposure and influence from the outside world dictates how much ‘pure’ Mayan culture still exists. However, exposure and influence of the greater Mexican social structure is immanent and ongoing. Thus, while we still find examples of traditional agricultural and subsistence practices like the milpa, traditional clothing, the use of the tumpline, rituals involving balche, polygamy among the Lacandon, traditional housing structures, the burning of pom, language, and the use of pre-conquest tools such as the coa and metate, these practices are becoming increasingly scarce among Mayan communities (Bruce, 1975; Fagan, 1988; Hammond, 1988; Howard, 1969; Mallory, 1984; Mathews, 1992; Kemp, 1962; Simpson, 1987; Tozzer, 1907). Change has occurred not only in more traditional life-styles but in more contemporary terms. Many of the ejidos that were set-up after the Mexican revolution have broken down due to lessened government support (Simpson, 1987; Vogt, 1990).
The story of the Maya is much the same as with most Mesoamerican groups and, for that matter, indigenous groups everywhere (Bodely, 1990). The direction of change that has occurred in the last twenty to thirty years with the influx of economic development is sharply contrasted against traditional lifestyles, marking, perhaps, a transitional state in Mayan culture. While the highland Maya of Chiapas and Guatemala of today can still be found making tools from broken glass bottles in much the same fashion as the prehistoric obsidian tradition, we also see the reality of materialism as local Zinacantecos drive down the Pan American highway in motor vehicles (Mallory, 1984; Vogt, 1990). As Vogt puts it, “[t]he economic life of Zinacantan has undergone more rapid and profound changes in the past two decades than any other domain of culture” (1990: 137). In his studies on the Zinacantan in the 1960’s, Vogt notes that “...almost every man grew enough maize for his family’s needs, as well as sufficient surplus to sell in the market....” (1990: 79). When the economy was restudied in the 1980’s, 40 percent (or 130) of the married men no longer farmed maize, and were dependent on other forms of economic activity verses nine men in 1967 (Vogt, 1990). Bodely points out that “...autonomous tribal peoples have not chosen progress to enjoy its advantages, but that governments have pushed progress upon them to obtain tribal resources, not primarily to share with the tribal peoples the benefits of progress” (1990: 137). While the same may be said between the West and developing countries, nowhere is this truer than in the Lacandon communities where the Mexican government cheated them out of vast tracks of land for the purpose of logging (Mathews, 1992). In addition, payments from the logging companies to the Lacandones have been used in the purchase of, essentially, frivolous consumer items. In Perera and Bruce’s (1982) ethnography on the Lacandon they describe how one husband bought each of his wives a gas stove, but as they were to afraid to use them, they continued to cook on a traditional clay griddle as the stoves sat only to be admired by the rest of the community. Similarly, when vehicles were purchased for the community, and the brakes failed on a Volkswagen Safari, it was quickly “...pushed into a ditch and abandoned” (Perera & Bruce, 1982: 26). Bruce notes that “...contacts have, of course, influenced them” and that “[t]hey have become quite money conscious, though... not what we could call ‘excessively materialistic’” (1975: 9).
Another aspect that is undergoing immense change is their religion, which has been impacted by Protestant missionaries who are attempting convert the Maya both in the highlands and in the rainforest regions. In Guatemala, the evangelical Protestants have encouraged the Cakchiquels to accumulate wealth, while telling them they must give up many of their traditional cultural practices. Many Maya have, in fact, done as instructed, breaking off all ties to their culture (Hill, 1992). When a Protestant missionary was forced to leave Zinacantan, a number of local families followed and they settled in what is now known as Nuevo Zinacantan, approximately 15 miles from San Cristobal. It has also been noted, more recently, that in the same area around Zinacantan, violence has erupted in confrontations between the more traditional Catholics and the newly conformed Protestant Maya (Mathews, 1992). To the east, the Lacandon have also experienced the influx of Protestant missionaries. Bruce acknowledges that “[i]t is obviously not the missionaries’ intention to preserve Lacandon religion, but rather to destroy it so that Christianity could replace it” (1975: 6). Bruce notes that the southern community has already been successfully converted to Protestantism, and missionaries are now being sent to northern communities in an attempt to convert them. However, the northern community reportedly thinks them “...fanatics who live in a state of constant crisis” (Bruce, 1975: 7). However, in a more recent account by Perera and Bruce they state that “...the Lacandon culture is endangered by the evangelist missionary’s attacks against its traditional social institutions...” (1982: 24). Nevertheless, they state that a Baptist mission located at Lacanja “...had succeeded in a few short years where the Spanish Catholic friars had failed over five centuries” (Perera & Bruce, 1982: 39). The problem in all of this, as mentioned earlier, is that the loss of religion leads to assimilation, acculturation and ethnocide (Bruce, 1975).
The Lacandon and Zinacanteco Maya
As we have seen, the socio-cultural change that has affected and directed the Maya people has been both multidirectional and of an immense scale over a short duration. While a future outlook has been given on the general state of the Maya Indians in the studied area, a more detailed examination will be taken of two specific Maya groups and the possible direction of change that will occur in the near and distant future. The Zinacantecos of the Chiapas highlands and the Lacandon of the lowland rainforest will be explored in terms of their economy, subsistence, and social, religious and political organization in context to their ever increasing contact with the national infrastructure and the national infrastructure’s contact with world geo-politics and the global economy. Predictions about the direction of change and effects of change will be made in respect to these factors by way of a short, medium and long term prognoses. These two cultures where chosen due to their geographical isolation and the maintenance of traditional life styles. Many of the traditional ways of life among these Mayan groups are still intact, using the same methods and practicing the same traditional daily tasks since before the Spanish conquest and colonialism. This has not been the case, though, for many other Mayan groups, Mesoamerican Indians, or for that matter, other indigenous groups around the world that have had contact with Europeans. This is not just a product of colonialism but the by-product of colonialism by way of ‘progress’ and global industrialization. The ethnocide of small tribes, hunter/gatherers, and simpler ethnic social organizations has become a global trend. Several examples come to mind—the Beothic of Newfoundland and the Tiano on the Island of Espanola—when we think of indigenous peoples around the world who are now culturally and or physically extinct. While many of groups are not yet extinct, their populations are shrinking at incredible rates either through sheer morbidity or through acculturation.
In Japan, the Ainu of Hokkaido had several armed conflicts with the Japanese throughout the later part of the fourteenth century up until the sixteenth century. As Japan became increasingly more technologically advanced, the last revolt by the Ainu in 1669 was crushed by the military superiority of the Japanese. Through a course of historical events, Japan began to adapt formal policies for the assimilation of the Ainu People. The assimilation was so ‘successful’ that there was a reduction in their population from 300,000 in 1800, to around 300 ‘full-blooded’ Ainu today (Ponting, 1986). In Canada and the United States, Native peoples have be oppressed or rendered helpless through the use of either administrative control or military action (Bodely, 1990; Ponting, 1986). In Mexico and Central America, the entire linguistic cultural group Cholti has been lost, and many groups such as the Chol and Lacandon, for instance, are on the verge of extinction. Large tracts of land, like northern Mexico, are no longer occupied by once thriving indigenous cultures (Mathews, 1992). How is it then that the Zinacantecos and Lacandon have managed to keep their cultures relatively intact?
Since Tozzer (1907) did his field work on the Lacandon from the early part of the 20th century until the 1960’s, the Lacandon enjoyed their traditional culture and way of life. Though the impact of logging, decreasing populations, and the extinction of one Lacandon community in Guatemala was already taking place during Tozzer’s time, the culture itself was not experiencing the same rate of change as it is today. By the early 1980s, Perera and Bruce (1982) noted that many traditions where beginning to weaken, citing the fact that young men are only taking one wife and only wanting one or two children. They also noted that the amount of deforestation that was taking place for pasture and lumber was occurring at an alarming rate (Perera & Bruce, 1982). Bruce notes that the invasion of the land by the Ladinos has depleted fish and game stocks to the point that the Lacandon’s traditional economy is threatened. Further, the milpas are being constantly destroyed by the settlers’ livestock (Bruce, 1975). In the early 1970’s Bruce noted that the traditional religion of the Lacandon had been infiltrated by Protestant missionaries which have had a significant influence on traditional social forms and culture (1975). The short term prognosis for the Lacandon, then, is one of increasing deforestation and depopulation. Since the 1970’s, the social behavior of the culture was beginning to fail (Perera & Bruce, 1982), and there is no reason to suggest that this process will not continue into the future. The weakening of the family unit, religious conversion, the loss of habitat and subsistence patterns will eventually lead to the collapse of communities and the overall culture. Given the present conditions and the exponential rate of change, the Lacandon, in the long term, will inevitably be faced with flight or fight, acculturation or extinction.
The Zinacantecos are in a different situation than the Lacandon. Their future, though not much brighter, will likely take a different direction of change. An examination of the Zinacantecos illustrates that much of the traditional highland Maya culture still exists within Zinacantan itself. As well, much of the culture that was developed since the Spanish conquest and during the period of colonization is also intact, such as their religious practices. Vogt agrees with the idea that all cultures go through change, albeit sometimes slow. He argues that cultures display elements of the original culture over hundreds of years and that the most noted cultural carryovers are structural principles such as environment, social order and disorder, and life and death (Vogt, 1990). Vogt notes that the traditional Tzotzil Maya is still spoken and even continues to be dreamed in, regardless of the increased Spanish spoken among the Zinacantecos. Likewise, the cargo system and its festivals and rituals remain intact. Vogt goes on to say that regardless of schooling and contact with the outside world, via television and radio, the Zinacantecos’ ideology about the world and universe is virtually unchanged. Family and social life among the Maya villagers has exhibited considerably more change than the language. They all have electricity, the purchase of mass produced utensils has increased, traditional clothing is being replaced with contemporary clothing, and the extended family is in decline (Vogt, 1990). In the last twenty years, Vogt notes that the economic structure has undergone the most change. This, in part, has been due to the increase in population and decrease in morbidity, the attraction of wage labour, and the oil boom. The introduction of fertilizers and pesticides has increased the traditional maize crop production which has led to the purchasing of trucks and other farm equipment. Many of the Maya now grow flowers and fruits, and unskilled laborers are working in government sponsored jobs such as building highways and dam construction (Vogt, 1990). In the regards to the polity, Vogt asserts that in the last twenty years the political autonomy of the Zinacantecos has become increasingly stronger and though they have a limited knowledge about national politics they have been increasingly active. Over the last three decades he has seen the Zinacantecos move from being an economic, political and socially oppressed minority, to peoples with a much improved morale (Vogt, 1990). The benefits that have come to the Zinacantecos through development have greatly altered, and according to Vogt, increased their lifestyle. Travel to the market in San Cristobal using a trumpline which once took two hours on foot now takes only minutes by vehicle. The laborious task of grinding maize and hand making tortillas with metates has been replaced with grinding mills, electricity has replaced the pine torches which were once used for light, and busloads of tourists settle into the town (Vogt, 1990). Vogt summarizes by saying that “as Zinacantan approaches the twenty-first century, it presents an overall image of reproductive success, cultural vitality, and a generally successful, if not somewhat uneasy, adjustment to the modern world” (1990: 145).
Vogt seems to be reminiscing about a past when ‘development’ was seen as a positive condition that should be imposed onto everyone and in every corner of the world. Today, however, we need only look around the world to see the problems and damage this ethnocentric positivist view has brought to developing countries and indigenous groups alike. While the Zinacantecos may have adapted to the changes better than other indigenous groups, the fact remains that development will merely make them poor in a different world with different ideologies. All the benefits Vogt sees in development are materialistic, and while it may take much of the burden off of daily chores it is nevertheless, just ‘stuff’, which ultimately brings little happiness to the human condition. The acceptance of technology, according to some, does not bring about more freedom, but rather, makes us slaves to it.
The notion of raising flowers as an expansion of economic diversity is in actuality feeding the mouths of multinationals and their shareholders either directly or indirectly. Flowers grown in Mexico are cash crops, and while the Zinacantecos may be only providing them for the local market, they are indirectly freeing up the growers who once filled that marketplace for further export and ultimately exploitation. Thus, the notion of producing fruits and flowers within the Maya community only hurts the Mexican economy and eventually the Mexican people, and sooner or later, the Zinacantecos (Lang, 1988). Vogt comments on the adaptation that the Zinacantecos have made to technology such as roads and vehicles, maize grinding mills, store bought utensils, and electricity. And while it may have made their lives easier, these luxuries will soon become necessities leading not only to a dependency on technologies, but a dependency on a cash economy in order to participate in the marketplace. Further, Vogt noted that change is ongoing and a part of every culture, concluding that the Zinacantan are no exception and thus the changes of modernization undergone by the Maya are not negative but positive. However, Vogt has not recognized that while all cultures change, the changes are usually internal. In the case of the Zinacantan, the adoption of modernization is not merely a case of simple cultural diffusion or external pressures from the environment, but rather, a fundamental ideological shift that has been imposed onto the world whether it is desirable or not. For most cultures, modernization is an external form of change the likes of which have never been experienced before. Such change, then, cannot simply be viewed as ‘natural’ or ‘normal’.
Resisting Acculturation and Ethnocide
The main factor contributing to the Maya’s ability to resist acculturation is their geographical situation and isolation. This has enabled both groups to keep contact to a minimum. In both instances, since the Spanish contact, the Maya region received little attention in comparison to other areas like the Aztec Mexican basin because of the lack of precious metals such as gold. Thus, while the Spanish did establish a presence in the Maya region, it was not as strong as elsewhere in Mesoamerica. In the case of the Chiapas highlands and more specifically Zinacantan, the area had little appeal to early colonizing settlers due to its impractical agricultural potential. The mountainous terrain was not as productive as flatter areas of land found on the Yucatec Peninsula, or in the more northerly located valleys near Oaxaca. Thus, the land had little value for the Spanish noble who wished to obtain vast amounts of land for plantations. As well, the mountainous region surrounding Zinacantan made transportation, both in and out of the region, more difficult and thus less accessible. In the case of the rainforest region inhabited by the Lacandon, the region’s initial lack of exploitation by the Spaniards afforded it relative isolation. The motivation to move that far inland and through the thick foliage of the rainforest was weighed against the economic benefits which seemed, at that time, an unworthy exercise. Thus, the lack of early exploitation of the natural resources enabled contact with the colonizers and economic development to be kept to a minimum (Garrett, 1968; Hill, 1992; Perera & Bruce, 1982; Tozzer, 1907).
Another factor that acted to resist acculturation lies in the structure of the community itself. In the case of both the Zinacantecos and Lacandon, the communities are, for the most part, self sufficient. If we look at the success rate of cultural maintenance and cultural integrity among Canadian indigenous groups—the exception being more isolated northern communities—we see that much of the culture has been lost (languages, religious practices, subsistence economies) compared to that of the Zinacantecos and Lacandon. There are several reasons for this. The first reason is the lack of self-sufficiency. First Nations, especially status Indians, can no longer fulfill their traditional subsistence patterns (hunting and gathering) because of a decrease in geographical and environmental habitat for both traditional practices and subsistence patterns. In the case of the plains Indians, their entire food source, the buffalo, were exterminated by the intrusion of European settlement. However, in the case of both Mayan groups, subsistence based on horticultural practices has enabled them to continue to provide their own food. Native populations of southern Canada, for instance, are dependent on food resources from outside their communities and on a cash economy to obtain their food, while the Maya have eluded being completely assimilated into the cash economy by producing their own food through traditional subsistence patterns such as the milpa and some hunting and gathering (Baer, 1971; Perera & Bruce, 1982; Tozzer, 1907; Vogt, 1990).
The second factor in the structure of the community that has enabled these groups to maintain autonomy is the notion of ‘institutional completeness’. Institutional completeness is a sociological concept which refers to the extent that a particular group develops its own organizations and institutions that enable its members to fulfill their daily needs without having to go to an outside group (Ponting, 1986). Obviously, the discussion on self sufficiency and subsistence falls under this category. However, if we look at the communities of the Zinacantecos and Lacandon we see that all the necessary social organizations are in place without having to go elsewhere. To some degree, both groups exhibit an independent community based on economic, religious, and political (leadership) organizational systems. In Zinacantan, this point is elaborated by a more complex form of social organization than that of the Lacandon. The Zinacantecos have established a municipal type political and administrative structure along with a community religious institution or cargo system (Mathews, 1992; Tozzer, 1907; Vogt, 1990).
The third factor involved in the cultural autonomy among the Zinacantecos and Lacandon may be what Cohen describes as the symbolic construction of community. Cohen argues that the community is not merely a morphological description, nor a composite of social structures, but is in fact a thing that has meaning. Thus, the community, seen previously as objective elements, is not simply a structure, but rather a symbol (Cohen, 1985). He goes on to say that the confusion that arises between ostensible function and indigenous meaning, as a community becomes subject to influences from beyond their boundaries (such as industrialization, urbanization and the cash economy), may in fact result in the community as demeaning or denigrating the sub-national boundaries. The greater the pressure is on the community to modify social structures and adapt or comply to the outside infrastructure, the more the community reasserts their symbolic boundaries. “In other words, as the structural bases of boundary become blurred, so the symbolic bases are strengthened through ‘flourishes and decorations’, ‘aesthetic frills’ and so forth” (Cohen, 1985: 44). Though not as apparent in the Lacandon communities, this has certainly been the case in Zinacantan. The expulsion of the Ladino population, the ‘scared games’ and festivals, and the tight control over incoming technologies and modernization can all be seen as a reassertion of symbolic boundaries (Mathews, 1992; Sacred Games). Cohen states that an indigenous community is built on a ‘dialectical interplay’ of both external and internal forces. The community members recognize common values through the recognition of values in outside communities. Not only do they acknowledge the differences between themselves and other communities, but they take pride in those differences. This in turn becomes a perception of community which is mediated through the accepted particularities of its membership and thus, the foundation of social life within the community. In other words, the process creates identities which become reinforced through their presentation in social life (Cohen, 1985). In this way, the community can overcome and culturally distance itself from most outside influences by rendering them symbolic as a boundary resource—like the Zinacantecos have done with Catholicism through their interpretive practices of the rituals and festivals and worshipping of Saints (Cohen, 1985; Mathews, 1992; Sacred Games; Vogt, 1990). Cohen states that this ‘symbolic mill’ can combat outside influences of dress, practices of dying, and even government policies (1985). Both in the case of the Lacandon and more so in the Zinacantecos we can see the relevance of Cohen’s notion that the community exists in the minds of its members and the meaning they attach to it, rather than in the structural forms themselves (Bruce, 1975; Cohen, 1985; Mathews, 1992).
The three factors—geographical situation and isolation, community structure, and the symbolic community—have contributed to the preservation of cultural identity for both the Zinacantecos and Lacandon Maya. But, will these factors continue to work in their favor or will the small villages of the Lacandon and Zinacantan go the way of many similar villages and communities further to the north. In Reck’s book, In the Shadow of Tlaloc (1978), he concludes by describing the devastating changes that modernization had on the small town of Jonotla. Likewise, in the ethnographic documentary, Tepoztlan in Transition the affects of modernization became quite apparent. In the case of Tepoztlan, the influx of modernization brought with it all the trappings of a cash economy—consumer goods, industrialization, urbanization and technology. The life-style of the Nauahtl Indians changed dramatically as they moved from a life (though poor) of cultural autonomy and independence, to a life dependent on the ideology of a consumer economy, wage labor, and money. This change can be seen as a direct product of the shifting conditions in material culture.
The geographical advantages that once protected the Lacandon and Zinacantecos, are becoming invalid as Mexico moves further into the ‘desired’ state of industrialization. The absence of gold may have stopped migration into the Maya regions, but the search for natural resources, not yet realized nor needed in colonial times, has taken on new priorities in the name of progress. In the Lacandon rain forest, lumber companies have moved in seeking a larger resource base. The logging of this area does not only threaten the enormous problem of vanishing rain forest, but threatens the Lacandon’s way of life. To make maters worse, the Lacandon are not recognized land owners and thus have little legal recourse or say in the regional development that is transpiring (Mathews, 1992; Perera & Bruce, 1982). In the Zinacantan region, the building of the Pan American highway (190) has opened up the once isolated terrain. The development of the highway has made the area more accessible to further development and modernization, tourists, and migrating populations all of which put more strain on the culture (Mathews, 1992).
The structure of community in Zinacantan may in fact have institutional completeness, but the direction this completeness will take once it becomes increasingly influenced from the outside infrastructure and modernization can only lead to inevitable adaptation in order to maintain success in the larger society, going much the same way as Tepoztlan. For the Lacandon, the institutional completeness is not as well developed or as complex as the constructed social organizations and institutions of Zinacantan. With the increase in deforestation and the somewhat fragile nature of the Lacandon culture in context to the national infrastructure, the community has few options and little prospects except disintegration (Mathews, 1992).
While Cohen’s work on symbolic community is a scholarly piece of work and certainly in the case of Zinacantan seems to portray an accurate description of the dynamics at the community level, there must be a limit to the amount of outside influence. It is not hard to imagine the pressures, especially in light of the above, and influences from the outside reaching a point of total bombardment and saturation. If in fact that becomes the case, it seems unreasonable that the community could adapt such rapid rates of change into the community whether they run render them symbolic or not. Once contemporary materialism affixes itself onto a culture it is virtually impossible to remove. Whether one accepts or rejects the values of materialism is of little inconsequence if it inevitably makes slaves out of both the believer and non-believer. In the Lacandon communities, already entrenched in a rich tradition of symbolism, Cohen’s notion of strengthening the community and the identity of its members may hold true, but is outmatch by the onslaught of global capitalism.
Global Pressures
D. H. Lawrence said, “[a]nd to me the men in Mexico are like trees, forests that the white men felled in their coming. But the roots of the trees are deep and alive and forever sending up new shoots” (cited in Perera & Bruce, 1982: introduction). While that has been true of the Maya for hundreds of years and perhaps during Lawrence’s time, what Lawrence was unaware of was the concept of clear-cutting and of the shallow tropical soils that house those roots. The two in combination, can only lead to erosion and an ecological-cultural disaster. Less metaphoric is Harding’s (1960) account of external forces of change and the response of a culture to that change, also known as the principle of stabilization. Harding states that “[w]hen acted upon by external forces a culture will, if necessary, undergo specific changes only to the extent of and with the effect of preserving unchanged its fundamental structure and character” (cited in Bodely, 1990: 23). However, while this may have been true throughout history, the external forces of today are historically unprecedented in magnitude and seem, in themselves, to be constantly evolving, adapting and becoming more complex. Essentially, Harding’s idea on preservation itself has changed. At one time this idea, as we have seen in the external forces of colonialism on the Maya, may have been a characteristic of long term cultural preservation, but today Harding’s ideas are nothing more than short term effects. The notion that cultures enact and absorb some external change in order to protect and maintain cultural integrity and, most of all, to ensure stability, seems trite when as initiators of external change we can not maintain stability in our own societies.
Several mentions have been made to the adaptability of the Maya, especially the highland Maya, to modernization. Even in colonial times Hill notes that the Spaniards were surprised at how well the Mayan adapted to the use of new technologies such as saws, planes and augers. Hill cites Gage, in 1958, as saying, “...in most of their towns there are some that profess such trades as are practiced among Spaniards. There are amongst them smiths, tailors, carpenters, masons, shoemakers, and the like” (cited in Hill, 1992: 78). Vogt also notes this trait in the highland Maya when he says “[a]s Zinacantan approaches the twenty-first century, it presents an overall image of reproductive success, cultural vitality, and a generally successful... adjustment to the modern world” (1990: 145). This notion of successful adaptation has been echoed by many other ethnographers (Harman, 1969; Hill, 1992; Kemp, 1962). But what we are talking about here is not whether small cultural groups are adaptable to modernization or not, though in the case between the Lacandon and the highland Maya I suspect many would favor adaptation to extinction, but whether that adaptation is indeed an adaptation or merely acculturation. According to Bodley acculturation is the “continuous firsthand contact, with subsequent changes in the original cultural patterns of either or both groups” (1990: 42). Acculturation goes beyond even this definition, and can be seen as a form of assimilation, which in turn basically means the adaptation to one culture via the loss, or partial loss, of one’s own culture. In the case of acculturation, it is generally the weaker that gives way to the stronger. As Harman puts it, “[a]cculturation has long been regarded as a master process of culture change” (1969: 173). Even in Canada, the Quebecois who are more active partners in the national infrastructure than are the highland Maya in both Mexico and Guatemala, and certainly stronger (in an established structural sense) than the Lacandon, are constantly aware of the real threat of acculturation into the dominant group. Though the Maya have demonstrated immense cultural resistance and resilience since the onslaught of alien external pressures like colonialism and later modernization, the real battle to maintain their cultural identity, however, hovers around the corner (Bruce, 1975; Hammond, 1988; Harman, 1969; Kemp, 1962; Mallory, 1984; Mathews, 1992; Vogt, 1990). Where colonialism failed in the Hispanicization of the Maya, the Western led capitalist world market economy will likely not fail in Westernizing them (Hill, 1992). The tactics may not be as outwardly brutal as those seen during conquest and colonialism, but they are far more complex and, in many ways, more insidious.
The notion of capitalism and industrialization are not new concepts to Mexico or Guatemala, but what is new is the notion of the ‘global factory’. Even in the nineteenth century Mexico was familiar with foreign investment and global trade, supplying four-fifths of the world’s silver. After 1900 industrialization began to take off, and after the constitution of 1917 Mexico became even more entrenched in foreign investment (Vanderwood, 1981). Even in the case of Guatemala the notion of foreign ownership and multinationals prior to WWII, by corporations like the United Fruit Company, was not an unrealized idea (Mathews, 1992; My Country, Occupied). However, it is after WWII that the world economy began to take a different direction. In an essay by Michael Blim, he describes the direction that the world economy took after WWII by saying “[t]he rise of this global factory is marked not simply by the spread of industrialization throughout the world but also by the incorporation of vast new populations of workers in novel production and labor processes manufacturing goods for the world capitalist market” (Rothstein & Blim, 1992: 1). It is this global economic direction in change that will take its final toll on the Mayan culture and traditional social structures. With the direction of the world economy comes increased technology in transportation and communication, transnationals, geo-politics, the concept of a ‘new world order’, and the influence and desire to adopt, adapt and conform to Western cultural concepts.
We can already see evidence of such global change and the potential impact it will have on countries such as Mexico and Guatemala. The exponential growth in technology, the promotion of tourism in tropical climates, an increase in English as the preferred language of business, further involvement of the world bank, the increase of foreign ownership and multinationals, the recently signed NAFTA agreement, global recession, and the changing role of the United Nations, all signify that the world is becoming ever smaller, bonded together with the concept of economics and Western ideology. More specifically, in 1990 the first McDonalds was being built in Puerto Vallarta; in 1980-83 Mexico borrowed six million dollars from the world bank and between 1983-87 they paid back six times the amount borrowed and still owed more than they received; in the maquiladora region there are some 1800 plants (most of which are foreign owned) that employ approximately 500,000 workers (mostly women) with the average wage between .50 cents to $1.60 per hour; in 1989 the average manufacturing wage in Mexico was $1.90 per hour, in the United States it was $14.32 and in Canada it was $14.71; and on my last visit to Mexico I watched the Hollywood production of Aliens II in Spanish (Hurting, 1991; Lang, 1988). These examples merely express the forecast and the direction of change for Mexican society as a whole. Change, at all levels, inflicted by modernization, industrialization and materialism is continuing to occur at a faster and faster rate and appears to be limitless. The once isolated area of Chiapas and rain forest region of the Lacandon will not be immune to such pressures, and as they experience greater contact with the external forces of global economics so to will they experience greater loss of their culture.
The fact that Mexico is a developing country adds to the problem of the Maya. As Mexico continues to suffer the economic consequences of being ‘under developed’, so too does it suffer the problems associated with all developing nations: increased urbanization and population, financial exploitation from the West, the World Bank and multinational corporations, and a lack of funds to support the society’s infrastructure and social needs (Spates & Macionis, 1987). The Maya are not immune to the effects of economic struggle—the forces of materialism are far greater than Zinacantan and Mexico itself. Essentially, they are caught in a trickle down series of external economic exchanges and interactions which starts at the global level (dominated by the West) which inflicts economic change through external forces, influence, and pressure onto the Mexican society which in turn affects, sooner or later, the community of Chamula via modernization, through the need for greater economic development to fulfill the larger society’s needs and to maintain the West’s prosperity. Bodely notes that while economic development for tribal peoples is generally thought of as “...a process of natural evolution or growth...” it is in fact “...outside coercion and deliberate manipulation [and] have been necessary both to destroy the tribal economy and to carefully channel its conversion into a market-oriented economy” (1990: 114). Thus the ethnocentric term ‘development’ should really be termed ‘transformation’.
As was mentioned earlier, materialism (economics and technology) is the prime force behind socio-cultural change among the Maya in the twentieth century and will continue to be so into the twenty first century. And, as you will remember, materialism has strong ties to ideas, ideology and the idealistic perspective and thus “ideas” play a large role in both the global and more locally based changes. As Strauss points out, “...perhaps it is not war nor work but thinking that constitutes the humanity of man” (1963: 224). Of course, the main ideology which is impacting the Maya is that of the Mexican and Guatemala social structure and polity or socio-political influences of change. In the Chiapas highlands the threat of Ladinoization was, at one time, seen as a basic process of change. However, as Vogt points out, “...we are now beginning to consider ‘the Indianization of San Cristobal’ as a crucial contemporary trend” (1990: 145). But in Guatemala the threat of Ladinoization is still very close to a reality. In a report by The Minority Rights Group it states that “[a]n Indian usually Ladinoizes after leaving his native community” (Wearne & Calvert, 1989: 13). Another form of Ladinoization is the conscription policies of the army. Many Indians are kidnapped in what is known as a cupo or local “grab” and are “...brutalized until capable of administrating the same treatment themselves...” even to their own people (Wearne & Calvert, 1989: 13). However, while Ladinoization is rapid in the east and south regions of Guatemala, it is hampered somewhat by in the west and north by isolated enclaves or islands of indigenous groups (Wearne & Calvert, 1989). Another factor slowing down the process is the tendency for the Maya “to cut themselves off from the outside world,” seeking refuge in their own familiar world (Wearne & Calvert, 1989: 13-14). This is in part due to the Ladino racism that exists which ironically has aided in cultural preservation. However, as we have seen geographical isolation is only a temporary condition over the long term and as long as Guatemala remains a military state they will continue to incarcerate “Indians in model villages and deliberately undermine their traditional structures,” as the government continues attempts at destroying “the Mayan culture and way of life” (Wearne & Calvert, 1989: 30). Part one of The Minority Rights Group report on the Maya in Guatemala concludes that “[t]he overall picture for Indian cultures... is bleak. A general settlement of the conflicts that have torn the region apart in the 1980’s is urgent if creeping militarization and the homogenization of the societies of the region, both by force and the effects of uncontrolled economic pressures, is to be arrested” (Wearne & Calvert, 1989: 8).
Another non-economical but Macro level political trend is that of the homogeneous and universal state and political recognition as both an external and internal force of change. Political theorists and observers have noted trends toward global homogenization (Drury, 1988; Fukuyama, 1992; Strauss, 1963). Kojeve noted in the 1950’s that “the philosophical idea... which... acts politically on earth and which continues today to determine the political acts and entities aiming at the actualization of the universal state or empire” (cited in Strauss, 1963: 183). Fukuyama, an American political theorist argues that humans struggles for ‘recognition’ and it is this recognition (and corresponding ‘desire’ or economic development) which is the foundation of political movements such as liberal democracy and communism in an attempt to fulfill this need (1992). He goes on to say that “...the ‘struggle for recognition’ is evident everywhere around us and underlies contemporary movements for liberal rights, whether in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Southern Africa, Asia [or] Latin America....” (Fukuyama, 1992: 145-146). With the liberalization comes rational organization or institutionalized rationality and the organization of labour which in turn leads to specialization, science, technology and economic development. Because of the need for recognition, there has been a worldwide liberal revolution that started in the later part of the eighteenth century and has continued to present. In 1790 only three countries were liberal democracies and in 1990 the figure has risen to sixty-one (Fukuyama, 1992).
How does this effect the Maya? As the world moves to greater liberalization (through whatever political means to achieve recognition) and as those who are already based in a system that promotes liberalism continue to achieve greater self-realized recognition and desire, the move to cultural universality and homogeneity will become closer to being realized. Thus, as the world becomes more homogeneous, inevitably, so to will the Maya and other indigenous cultures as they become swallowed up in their own recognition and desire, and in the larger political units drive for greater liberalization and recognition (Fukuyama, 1992). Fukuyama, then, confirms the existence of social evolution and that socio-cultural change occurs in a linear rather than cyclical manner. Unlike the previous discussion on social evolution, Fukuyama is not suggesting that change is unidirectional, or that all societies go through social evolution nor that they should, or even that there is a universal history for all peoples and cultures, but rather, social evolution is occurring in all societies (1992: 55). This is, in the case of small indigenous cultures, not because they are inept or they are less ‘advanced’, but because they are confronted with external pressures or forces of change. Thus, if Mayan culture changes to a more homogeneous state due to the external pressures, then they are apart of the larger social evolution.
The evidence of the forces that are and will continue to directly effect the Mayan cultures of Mexico are indisputable. The Maya are under a bombardment of external forces of change from economics to technology to ideology, and there is every indication that these forces are becoming greater as the world becomes smaller over a multilinear context of time.
Cultural Prognosis
The short term prognosis then for the Zinacantecos is a continuation of what Vogt describes. They will continue to be successful in the midst of modernization while maintaining cultural vitality. This is in part due to the unchanging nature of their cargo and language which are both fundamental in the survival of a culture above all else. In all cases, if you loose your language, you loose your culture. The medium term prediction is one of less favor. As the Zinacantan region continues to open up more modernization will filter into the area and continue to influence the Zinacanteco. The increase in the Ladino population and the further development of the region will see further migration until the Zinacantecos enclave will be no longer able to maintain their culture except for language. The economy, social and family life, subsistence and the interaction with the infrastructure's political system will all but render their culture extinct. Even the traditional cargo system is not safe as the influence of fundamental Protestant religion has already begun to influence Zinacanteco groups which has led the two factions (Catholic and Protestant) to collide in violence (Mathews, 1992). Under these conditions the Zinacantecos will begin to suffer status anguish and marginality (Lauer, 1991). And while Vogt sees a viable culture at present, the culture will begin to dissipate over the next two generations. Even in Canada with an official policy of multiculturalism it is only a matter of a few generations before the cultural lineage is lost and the once members become assimilated or at least, acculturated.
In the end, the long term prognosis is ethnocide and national homogeneity. Even if the language is maintained, through modernization, industrialization, and technology, the differences in culture between the West, Mexico and the Zinacantecos will be negligible. We will all be driving the same cars, wearing the same jeans and runners, watching the same TV programs, and all live in the same material world with little room for variation or diversity that alternate cultures once brought. While we in the West have been afforded the luxury of criticizing modernization and industrialization, the criticisms have fallen on deaf developing ears. The problems associated with these ideologies bring with them the realism of the excessive consumption of natural resources and the degradation of the environment. Instead of adapting to the mistake of the global economy, Mexico and the Zinacantecos should be looking for alternative economic systems—much like the traditional economy of the Zinacantecos. If Mexico and more specifically Zinacantan continue on this path, it will speed up not only their demise, but the demise of humanity. If the future for the Zinacantecos and Lacandon Maya is indeed realized, and they become either assimilated or acculturated, or ethnocide or even extinction occurs, then, we will witness the death of Maya culture, and quite possibly the imminent destruction of the world. For if the Lacandon prophecy is right, when the last Lacandon dies, so too will the world... (Bruce, 1975).
As we have seen the socio-cultural change experienced by the highland and parts of the low land regions of the Maya have undergone immense changes. These changes are marked by three, and possibly four if we include the future prediction of change sited, pivotal events over a multilinear context of time. The first dramatic change to impact the Mayan social and cultural structures was the move from a foraging society to a domestic agrarian culture which facilitated the ascent to more complex social and cultural organization. The second significant change was the decline of the Mayan empire which was most likely a combination of internal and external forces of change. The third, certainly the most rapid and dramatic change possibly having the greatest impact on Mayan culture, was the Spanish invasion and the resulting colonialism that followed. The fourth dramatic socio-cultural change is presently upon the Maya with the influx of industrialization, modernization and globalization which, in its infancy, started to be a driving force some time in the 1950’s and 60’s. The forces behind modernization are creating more significant and greater rates of socio-cultural change in Mayan communities, to the point that considerable change in ideological, material, and social lifestyles can be seen within the span of a decade (1975-1985). In each case we see that the direction of change is not unidirectional but multidirectional, taking the Maya and their culture in an entirely new direction. However, the last direction mentioned, inevitably, may not be a direction at all, but the actual ethnocide of a culture which may only be visible in the future through literature. Instead of reading The Last of the Mohicans by Cooper, we may find ourselves reading a similar book entitled, The Last of the Maya. Regardless, we can always relish in the fact, that some day, they will all have microwaves.
If we are truly concerned about the cultural survival of the Maya and other indigenous groups are attempts to preserve them should not be based on their study, but rather on changing society’s perception of them—after all, we are the ones responsible for their demise. As Maybury-Lewis points out, “...one of the most important things Cultural Survival does is to try to help people look at things from a new perspective; until people do that, they are not going to be able to change anything” (1992: 267). While I believe that the extinction of tribal and small societies is inevitable given the structures creating the problem are so immense, Maybury-Lewis is more optimistic and believes that because it is a human problem it can be rectified (1992). The problem is not whether the wheels of ‘progress’ can be altered or modified to accommodate indigenous cultures but rather, if there is the will to change the current systems. While education, information and awareness can lead to new perspectives, there will always be those who will never understand, those who will lose too much, and still those who do not care. One of the most frustrating aspects of the human condition is knowing something ‘doesn’t have to be that way’, that we can change it, and yet, it is that way and it doesn’t change. People do not have to be greedy, nor violent, but they are, and always (in our culture) have been. Perhaps we do not have the capacity for the desire to change, change itself? Without delving too deep into why this is, suffice it to say that it is not practical to think there would ever be enough shared consensus or common beliefs and perceptions for such qualitative change to occur.
It should be mentioned, however, that attempting to change our own society’s perceptions in order to prevent ethnocide and acculturation is a more viable method than studying, observing and recording the Maya and other indigenous cultures. Not because it promotes greater hope for cultural survival than does recording the culture—fearful of its possible extinction—but the very act of study itself can contribute to the problem. Foucault suggests that in the acquisition of producing knowledge, the subject is transformed into an object—the subject of knowledge becomes the object of knowledge. As part of the knowledge/power nexus, the object of knowledge also becomes the subject of power, and the subject of knowledge becomes the object of power. In this sense, the subject of study—the Mayan and their culture—also makes them the objects of knowledge and in turn subject to power. It is this interaction that is central to the operation and exercise of power relations, which in turn has a negative impact on the very culture that anthropologists believe they are aiding through their studies (Smart, 1985). Maybury-Lewis suggests that,
…the present injustices [indigenous societies]... suffer are simply intolerable, that there are alternatives and that the alternatives can be explored and should be explored and are being explored. [Smaller] societies, if they’re not physically exterminated, and if they’re not deprived of their lands and their way of making a living, are quite capable of coexisting within the larger political units and making their own way in the modern world (1992: 269).
While a ton of hope is worth a pound of nothing, perhaps Maybury-Lewis’ cautious yet hopeful prognoses for the future of small societies is possible, even in the face of insurmountable odds.
…the present injustices [indigenous societies]... suffer are simply intolerable, that there are alternatives and that the alternatives can be explored and should be explored and are being explored. [Smaller] societies, if they’re not physically exterminated, and if they’re not deprived of their lands and their way of making a living, are quite capable of coexisting within the larger political units and making their own way in the modern world (1992: 269).
While a ton of hope is worth a pound of nothing, perhaps Maybury-Lewis’ cautious yet hopeful prognoses for the future of small societies is possible, even in the face of insurmountable odds.
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