A Maya Village ic folk culture in a village in eastern Yucatan P86 $1.50 (U.K. 10/6 net)PHOENIX BOOKS Pr Benst Cassirer, Parl Oskar Kristeller, and John Herman Randall, Jr., sorrows: ‘The Renaissance Philosophy of Man’ P2 Edward Chiera: They Wrote on Clay P3 John Dewey: The Child and the Curriculumn and The School and Society P 4 Friedrici A, Hayek: The Road to Serfdom Ps Jacqnes Maritain: Man and the State 6 Anscim Strauss, norton: The Social Psychology of George Herbert Mead Py Louis Wintr: The Ghetto norror: Philosophers Speak for Themselves: From Thales to Plato in, Borror: Philosophers Speak for Themselves: From Aristotle to Plotinus P10. A Professional Teief: The Professional Thief, edited by Edwin H. Sutheriand Pi Join A. Hilow: The Culture of Ancient Egypt P12 Gilbert Murray: The Literature of Ancient Greece P13 Emest Stapies Osgood: The Day of the Cattleman P14 Kenneth Burke: Countet-Statement Ps R.S. Crane, sorror: Critics and Criticism (abridged) P16 Kari Lawith: Meaning in History Biz T.V. Smith and Marjorie Grene, eorrons: Philosophers Speak for Themselves: P18 T. V. Smitir and Marjorie Grene, sprro1 Philosophers Speak for Themselves: Berkeley, Hume, and Kant P19. Paul Tillich; The Protestant Era (abridged) P20 Kermeth P. Oakley: Man the Tool-maker Pax W. E, Le Gros Ciark: History of the Primates P22 Enchides da Cunha: Rebellion in the Backlands P23 Joh B, Watsou: Behaviorism P24 B.A. Botkiu: Lay My Burden Down P26 David Cecil: Victorian Novelists P27 Dauiei J. Boorstiu: The Genius of American Politics P28 David M. Poner: People of Plenty P 29 Eleauor Shipiey Ducken: Alfted the Great P30 Rudoif Caruap: Meaning and Necessity P31 Peter H. Buck: Vikings of the Pacific P32, Diawoud Jeuuess: The People of the Twilight P33. Richmoud Lattimore, tanstator: The Odes of Pindar P34 Marjorie Greue: Introduction to Existentialism P35. C.F. vou Weizsicker: The History of Nature P36 A. T. Olmstead: History of the Petsian Empire P37 Charles Feidelsou, Jr: Symbolism and American Literature P38 RW. B. Lewis: The American Adam P39. Smith Paluer Bovie, Transtator: The Satires and Epistles of Horace P 40° Giorgio de Sautillaua: The Crime of Galileo P 40-43 David Greue and Riclutond Lanimore, eprrors: Greck Tragedies, Vols. 1-3 P44 Richard M. Weaver: Ideas Have Consequences P43 Wesou La Barre: The Human Animal rom Descartes to LockeCHAN KOM A Maya VillageCHAN KOM A Maya Village BY ROBERT REDFIELD AND ALFONSO VILLA ROJAS a ved Phoenix Books THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESSThis book is also available in a clothbound edition from THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS Ie includes appendixes and a bibliography Tue University or Cuicaco Press, Cuicaco & Lonpon The University of Toronto Press, Toronto 5, Canada Furst published sm 1934 by the Carnegue Insttation of Washington Fins Pboensx edition 1962CONTENTS 1. Tut Vitiace or Cuan Kom. ents of civilization in Yucatan Peumedine villages. of Chan Kom. Tocaton of Chan Kom: Communictions spatial limits of the native's world temporal limits of the native's world ‘and nativity age 2 II. History. pre-hispanie period. Spanish Conquest eer the Conquest... ‘War of the Castes ization Revolution of ¢gto-21 an Kom becomes « puebio. III, Toots awe Tecnmques oduction and consumption groups ‘A family budget. dintribution ren V. Tue Division oF Lato Between the sexe With respect 10 age ular professionals ife and kax base... ‘The h-mens Cooperative labor and work exchange Communal labor: jen V1. Fauity, VILLAGE No Stare Family and household... .. Kinship and the great family.7 CONTENTS Kinship term Older brother. 222202020000 Marriage: Choice f poute vsvsssess Divotce and desertion we Gadpatens and compas ‘Local governmient: The eamizari State and national governments Li Cuapree VIL Twe Innate Wonto,... The sento.. ‘The eras. ee God of he ld ad the for a Gods of the bees. . : Guardians of the deer... Guatdian of the cattle The winds... The souls of the dead. ‘The alux ..... Demon and nonnet topitinion and prayer. ‘The two ritual contexts the yuntzlab. Making the milpa...- ; ‘The Dinnet-of-the-Milpa. ‘The Dinnet-of-the-Thup.- ‘The tain cotemony, Fitse fit eetemonies ‘The Dinnet-ofthe Rees, Fixing-the-Placefot-the Hives ‘The new houte cetemany. ‘Cwarren IX. Novena ao Vitisoe Fiesta ‘The novena.. Prayers fot the dead. ‘The village fetta _ Daa skab and had pach, Oje Noctutnal bitds Divination ‘Treatment af disease. ‘Thetapeusic ceremonies. Amulets Witehetaf Cuarrex XI. Faow Biarn 70 Dear ‘The hand-washing feremony Hetamek - Childhood. Marriage «| ‘The dying and che dead - ‘The Days af the Dead. (Cuarten XII. Tae Meamina ox Naruns...... ‘Outlines of che universe Sun, moon and stars. Eclipses. Plans end Man's own body. ‘Omens and dreamsLIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS vn PAGE Cnarren XL. A Vitiace Leven... . soa ‘A native autobiography Invex. - ait LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PLATES 1, a. House and house-plot, old style. FACING PAG f poles and thatch. asanr7 house to take the place ofthe old house. House interior, old style. 1, House interior, new sryle. 13 a: Street corner, off the plaza. 1 New maonry buildings onthe plas, The hal ished schoo! and he exe... 2 joure framework. b. om! pen. ©. Granary. 5. 4. Grinding corn on the metaie- '. Rpul, botir, kat and ppulut. & Xex, bass and ate... 6.4, Peten. Bb. Washing clothes on the data, ce. The old-aryle bark pai 7. a. Sandals, 6. Burl. ‘©: Making gourd-carrier.... pacche, Bb. Fiting the milps. © Caanche. x 4. A papaya treated magically 10 cause it to produce good fruit. « 19. a, Hunting party. Bechives. ‘work on the few school building lakes stone figure at X-Ceh-yanr, rq ‘people of ‘Making offering of zaca to the gods of the rain and of the milpa, preparatory t0 s0WiN§ ...2- cee. ceseseee gh li col ceremony. Offering the breads to the god ‘eetemony. Offering the breads to th ceremony. sctced beneath it and Kunky in the esnter idaae is sprinkling the alter with bulehe.......sccscessesseeseeesee ME I atu ding weremony(u hale) Bb; Hemen performing. sentlguers.cvsscsovesssecoes as 4. 8, Amulet. b. Unycot... ees acon ; ra 16. 0, Aburl clastaesed i 8 b, Bunaquio Ceme,.fit 13. Arrangement of the altar at the w hanli cal ceremony’. 14. Arrangement of the altar at the cha-chaae ceremony... 15, Arrangemene of the altar at the u hanli enb ceremony Percentage of population in certain age-group. 2, Sex and age-groups in Chan Kom. 3: Number of mecates under cultivation and aumber of eargus of maize and other crops harvested. 4 Purchases made in store over period often days... ---. §. Division of cime, by days, among various accupations, in the cases of two men ‘6. Composition of households. eePREFACE A first acquaintance with the peninsula of Yucatan indicates the presence of one underlying folk culture common to all the communities of the region, from the most isolated village of what was formerly the Territory of Quintana Roo to the capital city of Merida, The local differences in Yucatan that do strike the attention are those apparently due to the different degrees to which various communities have been exposed to what we often speak of as “civilization’’—schools, roads and economic exploitation. The towns and villages are in varying stages of a process of transition as a result of these influences. When, therefore, in 1930, Carnegie Institution of Washington made provision for ethnological and sociological investigation in Yucatan, these facts guided the formation of a plan of research involving, first, the study of a community in which the folk culture is fairly complete and, second, the study of other communities where that culture is in disorganization or conversion into something else. After the first part of this plan had been well advanced, a beginning was made with the second part. Now, at the time when these words are written, some work, at least, has been carried on by the authors and their associates in Merida, in the railroad town of Dzitas and in certain villages in Quintana Roo. Although the present volume is presented as a simple ethnographic description, the work has been done with a view to a future comparative study of these different communities. This book is an account of the basic folk culture as it manifests itself in one particular village in eastern Yucatan. Though that village is composed of persons of Maya blood and speech, and in this sense justifies the sub-title of this re- port, their culture can not be called, strictly speaking, Indian, any more than it can be called Spanish. Many of the customs described in these pages could be as well or better reported from towns on the railroad or even from neighborhoods in the city. In Yucatan, culture elements of European derivation have penetrated to the uttermost forest hinterland, while Indian practices and ceremonies are carried on by people who dwell in the capital. Nevertheless, taken as a whole, the culture of the village is notably different from that of the city. It is the folk culture and the village community that concern us, while it is the differ- ences from the town and the city that constitute the larger problem to which this first report is a contribution. The reader should know something of the immediate circumstances under which the work was done, and of the workers who did it. Alfonso Villa was born and brought up in Merida. In 1927 he left the third year of the preparatory school of that city to take charge of the Chan Kom school. The University of Chicago gave me leave of absence to permit me to go to Yucatan and undertake the investi- gation for Carnegie Institution of Washington. In the winter of 1930, I made Villa's atquaintance, and paid a short visit to Chan Kom. I spent the first five months of 1931 in Yucatan; half of my time was devoted to the study of Chan Kom. 1xx PREFACE During this period, and for several months thereafter, Villa also devoted time re- maining to him after the discharge of his duties as teacher to the study of the community. He remained in Chan Kom, with occasional short periods of absence, until December 1931. In February 1933, I spent three weeks with Eustaquio Ceme of Chan Kom, going over a provisional draft of this manuscript and checking and revising it. Villa spent some days in May at the same task. The writing of the eth- nological text was done by. me, but Villa has read it all with care, has suggested many small changes, and has given it his approval. I will add that while I speak Spanish, my knowledge of Maya is confined to a vocabulary, simple conversational phrases, and a reading knowledge with the aid of a dictionary. Villa has obtained a good conversational ability in the language. The support and sympathy and sound advice of Dr. A. V. Kidder, Chairman of the Division of Historical Research of Carnegie Institution, has carried the authors along through their work. At Chichen Itza, Dr. Sylvanus G. Morley and his staff gave much practical help. Miss Katheryn MacKay, during the period when she was Staff Nurse at Carnegie Headquarters at Chichen, was of great assistance. Indeed, she brought about the collaboration between Villa and me. Te was her work in the free clinic that gained us the goodwill of the Indians of the villages near Chichen. Miss MacKay has generously allowed us to publish mate- rials she collected on birth customs. Mr. Ralph L. Roys gave many hours of his time and lent his ability to the translation of the Maya prayers and to a general checking of the text. Dr. Manuel Andrade and Mr. Alfredo Barrera Vasquez also gave invaluable advice with regard to Maya passages. We have included data on physical type furnished by Dr. Morrig Steggerda, who spent pleasant days with the authors in Chan Kom; and we have summarized medical data secured in the village by Dr. George C. Shattuck and his associates. Father T. L. Riggs assisted in the identification of elements of Catholic ritual and liturgy; we are very grateful to him. My wife, Margaret Park Redfield, has participated in the planning of the work and in the preparation of the report; she has been my associate in the comparative study of Dzitas, begun in 1933. Mrs. Florence Ziegler Ljunggren during the field season of 1931 gave very efficient assistance, drawing maps and preparing tables. Dr. Alfred M. Tozzer, Dr. Kidder and Mrs. Josephine Hallinan have read all or part of the manuscript, and have made useful suggestions. Of the many men and women in Chan Kom who gave generously of their time and knowledge and patience, Sr. Don Eustaquio Ceme is to be specially mentioned. Our debt to him is very great. We particularly acknowledge the permission he has given us to publish the autobiographic document that appears in Chapter XIII. Dr. Steggerda, Miss MacKay and Mr. Fernando Barbachano gave permission to publish photographs. In the spelling of Maya words, there is here followed an orthography much used in Yucatan, in which the glottalized consonants corresponding, respectively, to t, p, ¢, tz and ch are written th, pp, k, dz and ch. Spanish words are printed in italics and Maya words in Roman characters. Ronert REDFIELD University of Chicago July 1934CHAN KOM—A MAYA VILLAGE Cuarrer 1 THE VILLAGE OF CHAN KOM This book describes the mode of life in a peasant village. A large part of the population of the peninsula of Yucatan dwells in such villages. These villages are small communities of illiterate agriculturalists, carrying on a homogeneous culture transmitted by oral tradition. They differ from the communities of the preliterate tribesman in that they are politically and economically dependent upon the towns and cities of modern literate civilization and that the villagers are well aware of the townsman and city dweller and in part define their position in the world in terms of these. The peasant is a rustic, and he knows i Of those people of Yucatan who do not live in peasant villages, a few in the extreme southern part of the peninsula are truly primitive. The Lacandones (on the borders of Chiapas) are people of this sort. They live apart from modern governmental controls; they make little use of money; literacy has neither practi- cal nor prestige value. ‘About ninety thousand people live in Merida, the capital of the state of Yucatan. This is the one city of the peninsula, Like other provincial Mexican cities, there is little industry, and the city resembles an overgrown town. But the size of the population, the relatively high mobility, the abundance and impor- tance of impersonal contacts and of formal institutional controls make it much like any North American or European city. Besides the primitive tribal settlement, the peasant village and the city, one may distinguish the town, intermediate between the city and the village on this rough scale of community types. The town in Yucatan is, in most cases, on the railroad. There are many mixed-bloods in the population, whereas the peasant village is almost entirely Indian. Not all the people are agriculturalists; some are tradesmen and artisans. Labor, generally, is more specialized, professionalized and secularized. There is more literacy and more practical need for it. Class distinctions are present, and these are in part based on degree of sophistication, or participation in the life of a wider world, and tend to be associated with racial differences or with distinctions in costume. GRADIENTS OF CIVILIZATION IN YUCATAN The peninsula of Yucatan is physiographically simple: a low, level limestone shelf, without watercourse of any size, and diversified only by countless small irregular hillocks anil corresponding depressions.!. But differences in rainfall make "There are hill in the southwest and extreme south2 CHAN KOM—A MAYA VILLAGE great differences in vegetation and hence in the suitability of the land for occupation, As one goes east and south, rainfall increases and scrubby bush gives way to higher, denser bush, and then to tropical rain forest. The old boundary line between Yucatan and Quintana Roo! marked a rough division between the semiarid bush, or jungle, and the rainier forest. Only in the northwestern part of the peninsula can be grown henequen, the one money crop that has made Yucatan so dependent upon the markets of the world. Here, in the northwest where henequen is grown, are large estates and big landowners; here dwell most of the population; here are the railways, the newspapers and the books. As one goes east and south from Merida, in the extreme northwest corner, the center af political and social influence, the population grows scantier, the railways and the towns come to an end, the villages become fewer and the proportion of Indian blood and custom increases. The gradients of population, economic development and Spanish-American civi zation run southeastward, diminishing, until the outermost hinterland is reached in the south central part of what was, until recently, the Territory of Quintana Roo. This hinterland is inhabited by a few thousand Indians whose customs are much like those of the villages of Yucatan, but who maintain a tribal organization largely apart from and unfriendly to modern governmental control. In fact, these Indians are not quite peasant villagers, as are most of the people of Yucatan, but tend to fall into the category of primitive tribesmen. Two extractive industries, chicle and logwood, bring these forest Indians into limited contact with the economy of the wider world, THE INTERMEDIATE VILLAGES ‘The village of Chan Kom lies in the north central part of the peninsula, in a position geographically and socially intermediate between the villages of the henequen area to the northwest and the settlements in the tropical forests to the south, It is situated in that zone that lies between the rail termini and the tropical rain forests. This 2one is too far southeast for henequen production and too far northwest for chicle exploitation; therefore the Indians within it work only for themselves. They raise corn which they. themselves consume or sell or barter for manufactured articles. Very few are laborers for hire. In their independence of the larger hacienda, in their relative remoteness, and in the recency of their incor- poration into the Yucatecan state, the villages in this area, of which Chan Kom is one, differ from the villages northwest of them. On the other hand, the Indians of this area differ from those of Quintana Roo in the kind and degree of adjustment they have made to the modern world. The Quintana Roo Indians are still politically independent; their organization is local and tribal; and schools have only a recent and precarious foothold among them. ‘The Indians of the Chan Kom area, however, are integral parts of the State of Yucatan. This is the outermost region in which governmental and educational controls function effectively. The interests of the villagers here are not wholly turned in upon themselves, but are directed northwestward, toward the towns from * Abolished ye January 1932, when Quintana Roo was divided and the north half made a pat ofthe state of Yucatan and the south halla part ot the state of Campeche,THE VILLAGE OF CHAN KOM a GUATEMALA, Fro, 1—Peninsula of Yucatan, showing locaton of Chan Kom,+ CHAN KOM—A MAYA VILLAGE which come their school teachers and the orders of the state and federal govern- ments. To these governments they are politically responsible. The villagers here are economically independent of the large landowner; the ways of life are primitive and largely Indian; but che people are voters and taxpayers, This incorporation into the modern Yucatecan state has been only recently effected and is still going on. During the Colonial period the Spanish law and authority were maintained over this area and, indeed, over territory much farther south. But in the Nineteenth Century the Indians revolted and the race wars that ensued destroyed many of the villages and for periods almost depopulated the region. The recalcitrant Indians withdrew to the forests of the south, and the territory where now lies Chan Kom became a new frontier, a region grown high with bush, to be rewon for human settlement. Then gradually the villages were rebuile; the cenotes, where the ancient pueblos had been, became again the centers of settle- ment. Bue only since the revolution of 1910-21 have there been schools in the remoter villages, and only since then has the land tenure of the villages been con- firmed under the provisions of the new agrarian laws, and the region effectively incorporated into the state of Yucatan.! It is a region, therefore, in which social change has been recently accelerated. Wich the organization of the people into participant divisions (Ligas) of the State political and labor system, with the establishment of the local agrarian commis- sions, and especially with the influence of the schoolteacher, these villages are coming to face a future defined in terms of modern civilization and incorporation. into the modern Mexican nation. THE POSITION OF CHAN KOM The villages of this intermediate zone differ among themselves, of course, not only in location and in size, but in the degree to which the stimulus of teacher and tradesman has been felt and has been welcomed. Chan Kom lies, geographically, in about the middle of this area; its size—2so people—is neither large nor small; but in respect to the effects of recent outside stimulus and in the disposition delib- erately to welcome these changes and to modernize the community, Chan Kom is the extreme deviate. Other villages in, the area assist their schoolteacher and evince an interest in reform and in new public works, but none so much as has Chan Kom in the three or four years preceding and during the period of these ob- servations. During this period it has been distinguished among its neighbors for industry, sobriety and internal harmony. Its leaders have determined upon a program of improvement and progress and have manifested a strong disposition to take advantage of the missionary educational efforts of the government and of the advice and assistance of the occasional American or Yucatecan visitor. No consider- able opposition to this leadership has appeared; the inhabitants have, on the whole, supported the reform policy. The reforms have not been imposed upon the commu. nity from outside; they have arisen out of the conviction of the village leaders and of the communal lands (cider) begun in Yucatan frst in the cx ached the region between Valladolid "The map (9 $1 indicates how the egal confi and towns near the rlroads, and only ate in 1930-24THE VILLAGE OF CHAN KOM 1925-1929 Fie. 2—Maps showing outward upreed of gide grants during three five-year periods.6 CHAN KOM—A MAYA VILLAGE have been putinto effect by the efforts of the people themselves. The principal of these reforms involves matters of public hygiene, construction of new and more modern public and private buildings, and support of the school. The traditional social and religious life has been affected only indirectly; there has been no frontal attack upon it. The shaman continues to function; he is still quite essential and his prestige has suffered very little, and then only among the more traveled and experienced few. The explanation of the fact that Chan Kom has, more than any other Maya village in the region, defined “progress” for itself lies in a complex of circumstances that can be only imperfectly understood. One of these circumstances is certainly the unusual sympathy and guidance the people have had from certain of their schoolteachers, especially from the junior author of this monograph. Another is the particular attention given the village by Americans at Chichen Itza, where the Carnegie Institution maintains its center for archzological work. Contacts with the Americans at Chichen began to be significant through the distribution of medicines and medical advice from the clinic there, and extended to the visits of scientific investigators in the village A third circumstance is, probably, the chance occurrence in the village of Maya with unusual gifts of leadership and temperamental disposition to enterprise. These factors have interacted upon one another. The presence of Villa, the teacher, drew the Americans at Chichen to Chan Kom; on the other hand, Villa's contacts with these Americans increased and partly shaped his interest in the village where he worked. Villa’s advice and help supported the leadership native in the village. And the traditional Maya institution of fagina, whereby membership in the community is conditional upon faithful performance of labor tasks for purposes decided by the local leaders, has gradually eliminated those families who were least disposed to cooperate in the program of reform and improvement, and attracted to the village new families to whom the reforms were congenial. THE LOCATION OF CHAN KOM: COMMUNICATIONS ‘The state of Yucatan (disregarding the part recently assigned to it by the par- ution of Quintana Roo) is for administrative purposes divided into sixteen partidos; cach is named after the most important town within it. Chan Kom lies in the southwestern part of the southeasternmost partido, that of Valladolid. Itis situated about 50 kilometers southwest of the town of Valladolid, where the railroad ter- minates, and about 14 kilometers south (and a little east) of Chichen Itza. Chan Kom lies in a world of oral and face-to-face communication; a man speaks to his neighbor and, with small exception, to no one else. News comes to the village only as people come. The lanes of transportation and of communication are one and the same: the webbing of footpaths that link one bush village with another and all of them to the towns. From the city and the towns two roads enter Chan Kom: one is the old path from Valladolid southeastward through Cuncunul, the seat of the municipal * Such vistors include: A. V. Kidder (archeologit); George Shattuck snd J. H. Sandground (topical medicine); Manuel Andrade \ingusties); Morse Stegeerda (phyncal anthropology): A. T- Hansen (sociology).THE VILLAGE OF CHAN KOM Suimoys ‘woy uayg Jo suastaug—E O148 CHAN KOM—A MAYA VILLAGE government to which Chan Kom belongs, and through Kaua, where is located the Civil Registry office. The newer road follows that from Dzitas (which is on the railroad) to Chichen Itza, and thence goes slightly east of south to Chan Kom. Westward, a path runs from Chan Kom to the pueblo of X-Cocail and another to neighboring hamlets and cornfields; and eastward and southeastward run two similar paths of minor importance, to the hamlets of Bojon and ‘zeal and to Xanla. The road southward leads into territory of which Chan Kom has no personal knowledge; southward the bush becomes higher and denser and the population scarcer. This road is used by the people of Chan Kom when they have ‘occasion to visit the pueblos of X-Kopteil or X-Kalakdzonot, or to go to their cornfields in the neighborhood of Sahcabchen. The nature and frequence of the comings and goings by these roads is fairly indicated by the following sample. During the ten days from April 21 to April 30, 1931, 35 people, not residents of Chan Kom, came to that village. Some re- mained several days, others only an hour or two, and some merely passed through the pueblo on their way to some other destination. 23 of these people came from neighboring hamlets and villages like Chan Kom; 8 came to make purchases in the store, 3 came to visit relatives, a party of 5 arrived to remove the bones of a dead relative from the cemetery, one man came to invite the people of Chan Kom to a fiesta in his own hamlet, and 3, bound for Muchucuxca, passed through the village. Of the remaining 12 visitors, 4 were from the more distant pueblo of Tekom; 2 of these were masons, come to work on a house in Chan Kom, and 2 came peddling hammocks. The other 8 were mestizos and townspeople; one was a teacher on his way toa post in a distant village and 7 were traveling merchants. During this same period, 28 of the Chan Kom people left the returned;! 9 went to their cornfields, 7 to visit friends or relatives in nearby settle- ments, 4 to the town of Valladolid to buy goods or to attend to official business, and 8 to Chichen Itza—some of these to get medicine, some to sell eggs or venison, and some merely for the excursion. In addition, on the last day of the sample period, almost the entire population of the village went to San Prudencio, a hamlet (o kilometers away, to attend a fiesta there. ‘Although most of the people who come to Chan Kom are from neighboring communities that are like Chan Kom, yet there are not infrequent visits from townsmen and city dwellers. The peddler, the cattle merchant on his rounds, the school inspector, the government idrester or surveyor, and the political organizer, all visit Chan Kom, are expected, and are generally welcomed. Chan Kom looks to these for its contacts and knows the wider world largely through them. lage; most soon THE SPATIAL LIMITS OF THE NATIVES WORLD Of these contacts, the most frequent and most intimate are with the hamlets that lie within 10 kilometers of Chan Kom. Chan Kom is larger than any of the other settlements in this area, and for them it is a center of influence. The area extends northward to include Nicteha and Yula, westward to X-Cocail, southward "Taps made to cornfields, on routes not passing through other setlements, are not included inthis enumeration.THE VILLAGE OF CHAN KOM 9 to Santa Maria and Pamba and eastward and northeastward to Tzeal, Zucmuc and San Prudencio.’ This is the region of frequent personal contact: if a boy from Chan Kom does not find a wife in Chan Kom itself, he is likely to find her in one of these hamlets; people have relatives in them, the fiestas there are well attended from Chan Kom, and their inhabitants buy goods in the Chan Kom store, make use of the Chan Kom midwife and bury their dead in the village cemetery. South of Chan Kom, and more remote from it, lie the pueblos of X-Kopteil and X-Kalakdzonot. These villages use the Chan Kom cemetery too, having none of their own, but they lie in a zone of less frequent and less intimate contact; in it falls also, probably, Kaua. The fiestas of these villages are attended by the people of Chan Kom, but the villages are visited on few other occasions. Still more distant from Chan Kom are other villages, where occasional visiting takes place. But X-Kopteil and Tekom have, ordinarily, separate political and social worlds, whereas the public affairs of the nearer and smaller hamlets tend to be the public affairs of Chan Kom too, and the men of the hamlets not infrequently look to Chan Kom for leadership. Among the more distant settlements there is often rivalry and sometimes open conflict, as in the disputes between Ebtun and Chan Kom (p. 29) and between Ticimul and Kaua. Yet there does exist a larger polity, a con- sciousness of common interests that may, in emergencies, be fanned into a flame of regional patriotism. The list of villages (p. 221) that fought together against “the Liberals,” during the revolution of 1917, defines for us this world of wider political union: Piste, Tinum, Ebtun, Cuncunul and Tekom. The area bounded by these pueblos embraces the “folk state” of the Chan Kom region. Contacts with the towns—Valladolid and Dzitas—are much more frequent than with Ebtun and Piste, but they are contacts of buying and selling, or of official business, with the Liga, or with the officers of the state government. The Chan Kom people do not have friends in Valladolid; they are not at home there. Merida is of course still more re- mote; most of the women and some of the men of Chan Kom have never been there, though all speak of it and know something about it. The world of interest and ac- tivity includes the nearest towns, but the world of intimacy and sentimental attach- ment is only the local region of neighboring villages. The area within which lie the villages with which the loyalties of Chan Kom were bound during the period of revolutionary disorder of 15 years ago (indicated by the widest boundary on the map on page 10 includes almost all the communities with which the adults of Chan Kom have personal knowledge. Such personal knowledge extends only a little way beyond the limits of this area: northeast to Popola and other villages just beyond Valladolid, and south no farther than Tixcacalcupul. One man has been to Santa Cruz del Bravo. Even the traveling merchants, whose range of activity is wider than that of the villagers themselves, go no farther south than X-Kopteil or X-Kalakdzonot; a few reach Kancabdzonot. Then they turn north again. Only one, a hammock-seller, continues west to Sotuta, Ticul and Oxkutzcab. "Teas places are all ranchorlay (hamlet) with the excep are small and unimportant. X-Cocail and Xi the (79, though pueblos (villages,CHAN KOM—A MAYA VILLAGE 'soruta Bovone er ZEAL CHAN KOM,” / oyssANTA MAR 7 tam Yo \_patanozonor TN crea — ee STTCACALCUPUL cl APPROX. SCALE ate 2s Fro, 4—Western part of pornds of Valladolid, showing extent ofthe world of social particiTHE VILLAGE OF CHAN KOM 1 Westward the personal knowledge of the men of Chan Kom goes a greater distance beyond the present area of interest and activity. During the revolutionary period, the men of Chan Kom joined the men of Yaxcaba in military engagements, at that village, with the troops of the reactionary government. So the older men know Yaxcaba and some are acquainted with Sotuta. But today, although there are in Chan Kom one or two families from Yaxcaba, except these families none from Chan Kom ever goes to Yaxcaba, and the feeling plainly is that these westerns are not “our people.” The attachments of Chan Kom do not go west of X-Cocail and Piste. This is partly a result of the fact that Chan Kom was colonized from the Valladolid region and of the fact that commercial and governmental contacts are with Valladolid, But the present situation may also preserve the political alignments of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. For then Yaxcaba be- longed to the territory of one ruling family (the Cocoms), while the site of Chan Kom lay on the western edge of Cupul territory. (See Chapter II.) Within this area of personal knowledge travel is, of course, on foot. The people of Chan Kom use the railroad only to go to Merida. Not all the men of the village have been to Merida, but many have; the dozen most traveled men have been there on the average of six or seven times. In most cases these visits are made in discharge of official duties as representatives of the village government. A few men, and one or two women, have stayed in Merida for weeks or months; one woman was born there. A very few people have taken the railroad beyond Merida; one man has been to Campeche; only four or five have ever seen the sea. By reputation and report, the people of Chan Kom know of Mexico City and, although the governor of the state is the person whom they petition for special assistance, they are quite aware of belonging to the Mexican nation. The state of mind can be referred to by no term more affirmative than “awareness”; no patriotic activity ever asserts nationality. The new schoolbuilding is named for Plutarco Elias Calles, but no real nationalistic feeling animated the choice. Except for Mexico, it is the United States that engages attention. The interest in this country, general throughout the peninsula, is reinforced at Chan Kom, due to contacts with the Americans at Chichen Itza. The United States is known as a distant country of great wealth and fabulous powers; it is the distant star to which the reform sentiment in Chan Kom has hitched the wagon of progress. But it is doubtful if anyone in Chan Kom has seriously conceived of himself as ever going there. THE TEMPORAL LIMITS OF THE NATIVES WORLD As life in Chan Kom is lived without books, continuity with the past is made by oral tradition alone and history extends backward only to the time of the fathers of the older men now living. These older men participated in the events of the revolutionary period of 1917-21 and they frequently recall them in anecdote and conversation. Although henequen is not grown commercially in the area, there were once cattle estates, During the early days of this period peonage was abol- ished, and the period before this event recalled as “the times of slavery” by these12 CHAN KOM—A MAYA VILLAGE men. They remember life in the villages to which they were bound, the names and personalities of their masters and punishment by the lash. Before the time of the fathers of the men now living, there are only myths, the stories, moral or merely fantastic, of the acts and happenings of supernatural races, unconnected with the Maya of today. “‘A long time ago, in the time of my grandfather, there lived in these parts a race of little people,” a typical story begins. The “time of my grandfather” is a time of magical and mysterious events, The stories of this remote period center around what are known as the Good Times. Then lived a race of men known as the Itza—a different race from that which dwells in the land today—who had mysterious wisdom and supernatural power. Then nature cooperated with man; stones did his bidding, and at his whistle leaped into place. These ancient people built the great structures at Chichen and Coba, and fashioned the elevated stone roads (sacbe). The bush was burned without felling, firewood came to the hearth at man's mere bidding, and the corn cooked itself. No one was wicked, and all were wise. The climax of these stories is the destruction or banishment of the Itza as a result of some mistake or impiety: the secret whistle is forgotten; the stone is carried on the shoulder; a tower is built to reach the house of God. Destruction follows, by flood or banishment, and the Good Times are over. In some stories two old races enter into these episodes: The Itza, who were wise and who stil] dwell beneath the floors of the ruined cities and will some day return to their ancient cities, and the ppuzob, a race of hunchback dwarfs, who were all drowned. Now man lives in the Bad Times; he must toil for his living and his mind is dark. But once it was otherwise: man had wisdom and all nature did as man wished. If only the sources of secret knowledge had not been stopped! * But in Chan Kom today, the striking fact in connection with the temporal viewpoint of the native mind is the disposition for it to be prospective rather than retrospective. The older men still know and tell these stories of the lost paradise, hus the progressive influences of recent years have aroused in many of them the feeling that a future of dignity, importance and wealth lies before them, not behind them. The village leader? has pictured a Chan Kom millennium, when everyone will live in a masonry house and own cattle and a phonograph; when a village cooper- ative will market fruit and corn by means of a collectively owned automobile truck, when all necessary domestic industries will be performed in Chan Kom itself so thar specialized labor will not have to be brought in from outside, when Chan Kom will be the head of its own municipio, and when the Americans will drive to Chan Kom by automobile to admire and further dignify the paramount community 1 power, the discrepancy between the grandeur tent thea legends ofthe Good Times preserve ‘The ancient race is nown as the lee: the building of the now-ruined "The functions ofthese stories are 10 explain by poi ‘she eld buildings and the humblenes of fe today, and tj the veanges of torical reminiacence iis not pombe ta ‘ines arenbuted 9 these people: its Koown that before the clay effgies (incense-burners?) sometimes found in che bus {aches used to buon incense co make them come alive:” stories are told of serpent named Xkukicen who once dwelt at Chichen end stemanded human sacri; the shaman at Chan Kom says that in the old days they led men forthe gads and took the viscera from thei bodies, On the other hand, ther is much inches tories that suggests the Bibicl story ofthe Fal from Paradise. "The carer of this man i desenbed in Chapter XII grand