The Zapotecs: Princes, Priests, and Peasants

352 Pages·1984·15.197 MB·English

by  Joseph Whitecotton

The Zapotees* Princes, Priests,
and Peasants
T he Civilization of the A merican Indian Series

THE
ZAPOTECS
PRINCES,
PRIESTS,
and PEASANTS
By J oseph W. Whitecotton
UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS ! NORMAN
To Gordon and Usa
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Whitecotton, Joseph W 1937—
The Zapotees.
Bibliography : p.
Includes index,
i. Zapotee Indians. I. Title.
F1221 .Z iW48 Q7o’ .004*07 76—62*508
ISBN 0-8061-1914-4
Copyright © 1977 by the University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Publish­
ing Division of the University. Manufactured in the U.S.A. First edition,
1977. First printing of paperback edition, 1984.
IV
Preface
traces the social and cultural history of an in­
This book
digenous New World people who have continuously inhabited
the state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico from 1500 until the
b.c.
present. The Zapotec-speaking inhabitants of this state cover a con­
siderable percentage of its area, occupy diverse habitats, and have
somewhat different histories. The Valley Zapotees, who occupy the
fertile basin in the center of the state, who are the best known of the
various Zapotees, and who are associated with the core region of
Oaxacan history, are the primary subject of this account. The North­
ern Zapotees, the Southern Zapotees, and the Isthmus Zapotees also
are discussed, primarily for purposes of comparison, although limita­
tions of space and knowledge have by necessity relegated them to a
secondary role here.
While this book traces the history of a specific people and culture, it
is also an anthropological history, a term I have borrowed from Robert
T. Anderson. Anthropological history, in my conception of it, at­
tempts to integrate the divers anthropological subdisciplines of
archeology, linguistics, ethnohistory, ethnology, and social anthro­
pology. It also seeks to explore the common ground between the par­
ticular history of a specific culture and those processes which cut
across a broader spectrum of human societies and cultures.
Thus, this book reflects not only my concern with the Zapotees, but
also my concern with anthropology, both of which began in 1957.
Since that year, although I have continued to study the Zapotees, I also
have done research on the Spanish-Americans of New Mexico and on
the peoples and cultures of Italy. The themes explored in this book also
reflect the cross-cultural anthropological interests which I have de­
veloped in my study of these other two cultures: the rise and nature of
state societies, the nature of peasant societies, and the meaning and
VI THE ZAPOTECS
context of ethnicity in complex societies. In discussing these topics, I
have attempted to present anthropological concepts in a language re­
moved from the technical, and frequently unnecessary, jargon which
pervades the monographs and journals written by and directed to
professional anthropologists. The only exception is the Appendix; it
is intended primarily for the specialist.
In 1957 there were but a handful of scholars interested in the
Zapotees. Since 1965 there has been a tremendous growth of scholarly
activity. Knowledge and publications have accumulated so rapidly
that it is difficult for one person to cope with this expanding field, with
publications pouring off the press at a remarkable rate and many
others projected or in progress as well.
The research on which this book is based was completed in January
1974 and the manuscript on which it is based was submitted in June of
that year. Therefore, I have used only those materials which were
available at that time. Some of the unpublished manuscripts cited in
the notes have now appeared in print.
In the course of my study of the Zapotees I have incurred many
obligations. My longest standing debt is to John Paddock, now
Director of the Institute of Oaxaca Studies, whose knowledge of
Oaxacan anthropology is unsurpassed. He not only expanded my
already budding interest in Oaxaca during my student days at Mexico
City College in 1959-60, but also has served as a source of inspiration
for me since then. A remarkable scholar, Paddock has almost single-
handedly managed to cultivate a whole generation of Oaxacan anthro­
pologists; much of what is now known about Oaxaca is the fruit of his
efforts. Through the years he has graciously answered my many
inquiries and has helped me keep informed of recent developments.
My debt to him is great indeed.
I also must acknowledge Julian H. Steward and Oscar Lewis, both
now deceased, who directed my graduate program at the University
of Illinois and who contributed significantly to many of the ideas con­
tained in this book. In 1968 Julian Steward supervised my doctoral
dissertation, “The Valley of Oaxaca at Spanish Contact,” and pre­
sented me with visions of anthropology as a cross-cultural science
freed from the burden of a particularistic descriptive tradition which
treated all cultures as unique entities. His Theory of Culture Change
stands as a seminal work of anthropological theory.
PREFACE Vil
Oscar Lewis taught me mostly about peasants. His books on peas­
ants and city dwellers (Life in A Mexican Village, Pedro Martinez,
Five Families, The Children of Sánchez, and La Vida) have forever
changed anthropological conceptions of poverty.
Joseph Casagrande, Demitri Shimkin, Douglas Butterworth, and
Carl Deal of the University of Illinois and J. Ignacio Rubio Mañé of
the Archivo General de la Nación, Mexico, were also most helpful to
me during an earlier period of research on Oaxaca. Funds from the
Department of Anthropology at the University of Illinois and from
the Faculty Research Program at Lawrence University in Appleton,
Wisconsin, permitted me to pursue research in Mexico.
Many individuals have been most helpful to me during the time that
this book has been in preparation. Ralph L. Beals, Ignacio Bernal,
Richard E. Blanton, Beverly Chiñas, Scott Cook, Martin Diskin,
Theodore E. Downing, Kent V. Flannery, James A. Neely, Carl W.
O’Nell, Arthur J. Rubel, Henry Selby, and Ronald Waterbury re­
sponded to specific inquiries and provided useful information on their
own work in Oaxaca. Richard E. Blanton, John K. Chance, Beverly
Chiñas, Scott Cook, Philip Dennis, Theodore E. Downing, Carl
O’Neil, and John Paddock generously shared with me their unpub­
lished manuscripts.
Richard E. Blanton, Kent V. Flannery, Ronald Spores, and Charles
R. Wicke read portions of various versions of the manuscript and made
helpful suggestions for improvement. Jimmy C. Diecker, my ad­
vanced graduate student at the University of Oklahoma, spent months
reading various versions of the complete manuscript and saved me
from many errors of fact and interpretation; this work has been im­
proved because of his tireless efforts on my behalf. It is with eager
anticipation that I await the results of his own work on a village in
New Mexico which should prove to be the most thorough study of a
Spanish-American community to date.
Several individuals helped in the preparation of the illustrations.
Terry Prewitt drew all of the maps and some additional drawings;
Sarah Whitecotton and Carol Smith also contributed some drawings ;
Kay Parker, Ronald Spores, Bruce Byland, and Beverly Chiñas kindly
permitted me to use some of their photographs. The Peabody Museum
of Harvard University and the Department of Anthropology of the
National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Wash-
viii THE ZAPOTECS
ington, D.C., provided me with photographs of Zapotee ceramic
sculptures. The specific contributions of these individuals and insti­
tutions are acknowledged in the captions to the plates and figures. All
other photographs are my own.
Robert Fields, Jr., and Roberta Pailes contributed their expertise in
photographic processing to many a difficult problem. Carolyn Emery
typed and retyped the final manuscript and coped successfully with
my incessant deletions, additions, and last-minute changes.
The University of Oklahoma granted me a sabbatical leave of
absence from my duties in the Department of Anthropology during
the spring semester of 1974. Without this released time it is doubtful
that I could have finished this book.
Of course, none of the above individuals or institutions necessarily
endorse, are responsible for, or agree with the final outcome; I alone
assume this responsibility.
NOTE TO THE PAPERBACK EDITION
A considerable number of publications about the Zapotees have ap­
peared since this book was written. In the archaeological field, the
results of recent projects are summarized in The Cloud People
(Academic Press, 1983), edited by Kent V. Flannery and Joyce Mar­
cus. While this impressive work includes contributions on all pre-
Hispanic periods by several distinguished scholars, the Formative
period is the focus of most of the original research. Although my
discussions of that period in Oaxaca are still essentially valid, it would
now be possible to refine the chronology further and to address more
fully specific sites and their relationships to the emergence of state
institutions.
Monte Albán’s character and role within the Oaxacan region has
also been reexamined (see, in addition to the above, Richard E. Blan­
ton, Monte Alban, Academic Press, 1978). Monte Albán’s relationship
to its hinterland, for example, seems to have been quite different from
that of Teotihuacan in central Mexico. It was not a dominating, com­
bined commercial-political-religious center, and it may have been
what Blanton calls a “disembedded capital,” whose character was more
administrative than economic. It may not have been an agro-town, as
NOTE TO THE PAPERBACK EDITION IX
I have characterized it, because there is some question whether Monte
Albán had resident agriculturalists. Both of those points are the sub­
ject of considerable debate, but were I to revise Chapter 2 today, I
would not use the term “empire” to describe Monte Alban’s hegemony,
because that concept implies a coterminous political, economic, and
religious system that was not typical of local or regional Mesoamerican
states. Instead, the states were simply parts of a larger social system,
integrated by trade and common ideological concerns, that cut across
political boundaries and formed a single “world.”
Our knowledge and our reading of documentary sources for pre-
Hispanic Zapotee history and ethnography have expanded consider­
ably. Some “new” pictorial and linguistic sources have been recently
identified and interpreted that relate to Chapters 3 and 4. They show
that Mixtee elites were intimately involved in the history of the Valley
of Oaxaca from the time of the “fall” of Monte Albán (if they were
not involved in that fall) until the Spanish conquest. These sources
also confirm that Mixtee elites figured in the complex events that oc­
curred in the post-Classic eastern arm of the Valley.
We now conceptualize a long Monte Albán V period in the Valley,
during which both Zapotee and Mixtee elites were involved and
ethnicity was more a fluid dimension than a fixed designation. Inter­
marriage between Mixtees and Zapotees had resulted in a common
elite culture. Yet that common culture did not promote political inte­
gration because identification with specific princedoms or lineages
promoted strong interregional conflicts.
These more recent interpretations of post-Classic ethnohistory and
the sources on which they are based may be found in two publications:
Joseph W. Whitecotton and Judith Bradley Whitecotton, eds., Native
American Ethnohistory (University of Oklahoma, Papers in Anthro­
pology, vol. 23, no. 2, 1982) ; and John Paddock, Lord Five Flower's
Family (Vanderbilt University Publications in Anthropology, no. 29,
1983).
John Chance has contributed an important monograph on colonial
Oaxaca City (Race and Class in Colonial Oaxaca, Stanford University
Press, 1978). He argues that the concept of “class” is far more im­
portant than the notion of “estate” in understanding social position in
colonial society, primarily because Oaxaca had been permeated by
X THE ZAPOTECS
capitalist institutions and was tied into a larger “world system.”
Chance’s argument is well documented, and were I to rewrite Chap­
ter 5 today, I would give greater attention to the influence of capitalistic
activities in the countryside, though I still feel that the concept of
“estate” aids in understanding the social hierarchy in rural areas. I
agree that it is not useful to discuss societies as “dual” or “part feudal
and part capitalist,” especially when such conceptualizations imply
different “stages” of development.
Recent studies have recognized considerable differences among
modern Oaxacan villages and towns, differences that may in part be
accounted for by their relationships to regional, national, and inter­
national social systems. While the concept of peasantry places the
“Zapotee” villages in a broard crosscultural niche, there is greater
diversity than I emphasize in Chapter 6. These village varieties may
be explored in Social, Political, and Economic Life in Contemporary
Oaxaca, edited by Aubrey Williams (Vanderbilt University Publica­
tions in Anthropology, no. 24, 1979). The way in which village
specialists relate with the larger society may be seen in an excellent
study by Scott Cook (Zapotee Stone workers. University Press of
America, 1982).
While there is still no overarching concept of Zapotee ethnicity in
Oaxaca, a monograph by Anya Royce (Prestigio y afiliación en una
communidad urbana, Instituto Indigenista, México, 1975) shows that
Zapotee ethnicity asserts itself in certain local, situational contexts as it
has in the Isthmus region at various times over the past 500 years. Yet,
regardless of possible future manifestations of Zapotee consciousness,
it is clear that modern Zapotees on the whole show little cultural con­
tinuity with the remote past, even though symbols relating to the
remote past may be incorporated into modern conceptualizations.
The above comments and references only provide a superficial over­
view of recent works. It is unfortunate that space limitations prevent
mention of many other excellent studies. I hope that this brief note
will indicate to the reader that the Zapotees continue to be of utmost
importance to history and to the modern world.
Norman, Oklahoma
Joseph W . W hitecotton