Carrello
In the remote highlands of Chiapas, in southeastern Mexico, lies one of the most important Mayan Indian communities in Middle America. Zinacantan is a municipality of 8000 people who speak Tzotzil, a Mayan language, and live in a manner closely resembling that of their preconquest ancestors. Based on more than a decade of work, Evon Z. Vogt's book is the first full-length ethnographic study of Zinacantan culture.
In 1957 Professor Vogt initiated the Harvard Chiapas Project, a long-range field study of Tzotzil-speaking communities in the Chiapas highlands. The first fruit of his concentrated field work is this lively and comprehensive study of the Zinacantecos' way of life. He not only provides detailed ethnographic data on them, but also relates contemporary Zinacanteco patterns to those of the Ancient Maya of Mexico and Guatemala, and interprets trends of social and cultural change as these Indians for the first time become closely involved with the modern world. More than 200 photographs, drawings, maps, and tables enhance and augment the text.
"I feel a deep obligation," the author writes, "to provide an ethnographic account of this unique and fascinating way of life before its patterns become eroded and altered by the process of 'modernization' that is now underway in southern Mexico."
In introducing his work, he describes the geography of the Chiapas highlands, sketches the cultural history of the Tzotzil communities, and places Zinacantan within its historical framework. Focusing on three main areas, he first examines the Zinacanteco economic system and material culture: maize agriculture, tortilla-making, and housebuilding. He then describes the political system and social structure, highlighting the domestic group (the basic social unit), life cycle, and relationship systems-kinship and compadrazgo. Finally he analyzes the Zinacantecos' religious rituals and beliefs, a fusion of ancient myths and cosmological beliefs with Spanish and Mexican Catholicism. In conclusion, Professor Vogt examines some of Zinacantan's organizational principles, especially the replication of structural forms and ritual behaviors at various levels in its society, and the maintenance of cultural patterns in the face of the imposition of new cultural elements.