Civil-Religious Hierarchies in Central Chiapas: A Critical Perspective

Author(s): Jan Rus and Robert Wasserstrom

Source: American Ethnologist, Vol. 7, No. 3 (Aug., 1980), pp. 466-478
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Anthropological Association
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civil-religioushierarchiesin central Chiapas:
a critical perspective

JAN RUS- HarvardUniversity

ROBERT WASSERSTROM-Columbia University

Whatever their other disagreements, philosophers and politicians in 19th-century Mexico

shared a common, dismal view of the country's ethnic minorities: indigenous people, op-
pressed by virtue of their cultural isolation, must be compelled to forsake their communal
heritage and join the modern world. Like their forebears of the Gilded Age, many scholars
today continue to argue that indigenous communities have failed to become part of na-
tional society because they retain those customs and traditions that arose under colonial-
ism, inasmuch as, in some sense, they remain encapsulated within the feudal social order.
Some experts even go so far as to claim that these customs have themselves become the
primary agent of ethnic discrimination in many remote areas (Pozas 1971; Aguirre Beltran
1967; Stavenhagen 1969; Collier 1975; Friedlander 1975). According to this theory, native
people have accepted, more or less passively, a series of practices and institutions which
were designed for them by Spanish missionaries and administrators. Among such institu-
tions, anthropologists have consistently focused their attention upon cargo hierarchies,
that is, upon those civil and religious offices through which native men customarily pass in
the course of their lifetimes. By obliging these men to spend their wealth on public ritual, it
is argued, such hierarchies both insure social equality and enforce the principle of com-
munity membership. In short, men exchange their cash-a potentially divisive innovation
in traditional society-for prestige and the right to participate in a distinctive way of life.
Naturally, not all anthropologists adhere to this view. In 1965, for example, Frank Can-
cian published a study of the civil-religious hierarchy in Zinacantan, a Tzotzil (Maya) com-
munity in the central highlands of Chiapas, Mexico. Unlike many of his colleagues, Cancian
suggested that public service of this type did not prevent social and economic differences
from emerging within native pueblos. Instead, he contended, such differences gave the
hierarchy its very raison d'etre: by requiring wealthy Zinacantecos to invest a greater por-

Civil-religious hierarchies (cargo systems) have often formed the subject of

anthropological research in Mesoamerica; indeed, it has been said that
they play an essential role in structuring and organizing native communi-
ties. Using ethnohistorical evidence from highland Chiapas, however, we
argue that such hierarchies emerged in the late 19th and early 20th cen-
turies in response to changes in the regional economy that placed new
demands upon Indian laborers. [civil-religious hierarchies, cargo systems,
Mesoamerica, economic development]

Copyright? 1980 by the AmericanAnthropologicalAssociation

31 .80/1
0094-04961801030466-1

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tion of their income in public ritual, such offices in fact legitimated their unequal status
and permitted them to acquire capital. Moreover, by increasing the ways in which such
careers may be conducted, they have successfully prevented both demographic and
economic pressures from tearing their communal institutions asunder. To this end, they
have created not only new positions, but have also placed on waiting lists those men for
whom no openings are available. Essentially, then, he argued that civil-religious hierarchies
provide a mechanism whereby economic stratification itself may be transformed into a
force for social integration (see also DeWalt 1975).
In the following pages we present an alternative interpretation of civil and religious of-
fice in central Chiapas. In so doing, we demonstrate how historical evidence may be
brought to bear upon the problem of public service in two Tzotzil communities, Zinacan-
tan and Chamula. Like their neighbors throughout the region, these municipios would seem
to lend themselves ideally to such an exercise. After all, the central highlands of Chiapas,
inhabited today by nearly 500,000 Tzeltal, Tzotzil and Chol people, have provided much of
the ethnographic evidence upon which discussions of native life in Mesoamerica have been
based. In contrast to the most widely held views, however, we suggest that civil-religious
hierarchies arose during the late 19th and early 20th centuries in response to regional pat-
terns of economic development and demographic change. Furthermore,we argue that such
institutions have assumed quite different forms and functions depending upon the
divergent roles which local men and women played in these events. Despite their common
heritage and geographic proximity, for example, Zinacantecos and Chamulas reacted in
distinct ways to the growth of commercial agriculture in central Chiapas. On the one hand,
after 1820, Zinacantecos increasingly derived their livelihoods as itinerant peddlers or as
peones on cattle fincas in the adjacent Grijalva river valley; on the other hand, most
Chamulas eked out a living as day laborers or (towards the end of the century) as seasonal
workers on coffee plantations located along the state's Pacific coast. Far from constituting
a bulwark of traditionalism, then, civil-religious hierarchies seem to have emerged in such
communities as local inhabitants were drawn into those relations of social class which
evolved throughout the region.

religious service in Zinacantan, 1792-1975

In order to understand these facts, we must consider briefly the position which native
people occupied in Chiapas during the colonial period. Perhaps contrary to our expecta-
tions, most Indians in the central highlands did not engage in subsistence farming-or at
least they did so only sporadically and with uneven success. Instead, they were required by
Spanish officials to participate in a system of agricultural production known as repartimien-
to. Taking advantage of their legal authority, provincial alcaldes mayores, "governors,"
forced native communities to purchase trade goods or to accept on account large quanti-
ties of unspun cotton. In turn, individual families assumed responsibility for a portion of
the communal debt, which they attempted to discharge through the collective efforts of
their members. In this way, for example, native women spun and wove cotton cloth which
the alcaldes sold throughout the region; their less fortunate husbands were required to
repay a few pounds of dried beef with such expensive and valuable commodities as cacao,
cochineal or indigo (see Table 1). Pressed by these circumstances, Zinacantecos frequently
sold their entire corn crop in order to purchase cacao from Zoque growers-cacao which
they then transported at their own expense to Tabasco or Guatemala. Given this unhappy
state of affairs, it is not surprising that such men and women, like their neighbors in other
highland pueblos, experienced constant hunger and periodic famine (AGE 1955, 1956). So

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 Table 1. Profits earned by the alcalde mayor of Ciudad Real on repartimientos, 1760-65.

Activity Profit
Spinning 500,000 Ibs. of raw cotton into 100,000 Ibs. of
thread (in central Tzotzil and Tzeltal region) 27,500 pesos
Forced production of 100,000 Ibs. of cochineal (Zoque
region) 16,000 pesos
Forced production of 150,000 Ibs. of cacao (Zoque
region) 10,000 pesos
Forced production of 12,000 bunches of tobacco (northern
Tzotzil region) 3,750 pesos
Others (largely involuntary sales of trade goods to
native communities) 13,475 pesos
Total 70,725 pesos

Note: This information is taken from testimony given by the alcalde's personal assistant, teniente,
who claimed that Indian producers were paid in all cases to transport their goods to Ciudad Real or
Chiapa. Because such labor was not generally compensated, however, we may estimate that the
alcalde's profits approached 100,000 pesos.
Source: AGGG 1937:476-478.

desperate, in fact, was their situation that in 1778 Bishop Francisco Polanco was moved to
complain that

the Indians' vexations, nudity, idiocy are born of, and propagated (in the main) by the excessive
repartimientos and general commerce which the alcaldes mayores undertake with the Province's
fruits.... This commerce... consists of buying and selling cacao, cotton, maize, cochineal, dyes,
indigo, cattle, horses, mules, bulls, beef, wax, iron, steel, bolts of cloth, mats, wools, hats.... In some
towns the alcaldes distribute a greater quantity of these than the Indians can pay for, in which case
they are forced to buy on prejudicial terms in order to meet their obligations. In this way, although
the alcaldes pay only ten pesos for each load of cacao, the Indians, if they do not harvest enough to
repay him for his goods, must buy it from him at 18, 20 or more pesos (Orozco y Jimenez 1911).
On the question of religious dues and taxes, however, Polanco was much more circum-
spect in his criticism; indeed, his objections to the repartimiento system may be traced in
large measure to the fact that native communities found themselves increasingly unable to
pay for priestly services and episcopal visitas. Although the church received its share of the
royal tribute collected in these pueblos, its ministers had quite early sought to assure them-
selves of extra revenues. To this end, they had organized a series of cofradias,
"brotherhoods," charged with the sponsorship of various festivals-celebrations for which
these priests collected additional fees. For their part, such cofradias were endowed with a
certain capital which the hermanos were generally required to borrow at five percent an-
nual interest. In this way, neither capital nor cofrades were ever exhausted. Upon marriage,
Indian boys acquired a lifelong affiliation with one of these societies. Eventually, they
became mayordomos, stewards who managed cofradia affairs under the strict guidance of
local prelates (AGGG 1680-1911). In theory, native cofrades elected two (or sometimes
four) new mayordomos each year. In practice, however, these men were appointed by their
parrocos, who also presided over cofradia meetings and kept the books. By 1793, therefore,
Zinacantan possessed five of these brotherhoods, each headed by four mayordomos and
endowed with a capital of around 200 pesos; together they paid their parish priest 185
pesos each year for 58 masses celebrated in their behalf (see Table 2; APSC 1793).
What pressures, one might ask, caused this system-which existed throughout
Mesoamerica for nearly three centuries-to become transformed in ways that are familiar
to modern ethnographers? The answer to this question, we suggest, lies in the kind of
economic development which took place in central Chiapas after 1824, when the province

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 Table 2. Cofradiasin Zinacantan,1793.

Name Capital No. of funciones Contribuci6n

SantisimoSacramento 162 pesos 4 reales 7 35
Santa VeraCruz 184 pesos 9 42
NuestraSenoradel 240 pesos 7 and
Rosario 12 monthlymasses 44
Santo Domingo 203 pesos 4 reales 5 and
4 monthlymasses 33
BenditasAlmasde 200 pesos 2 and
Purgatorio 12 monthlymasses 31
Total 185

was joined to Mexico. No sooner had the international boundary between Mexico and Cen-
tral America been drawn than enterprising men on both sides began to engage in that ac-
tivity which for half a century formed the mainstay of economic life in the region: smug-
gling. In exchange for British cloth and French wine, hacendados along the Grijalva river ex-
panded their production of cotton, cattle and sugarcane (for rum). By 1838, for example,
they had established 16 new fincas in the area immediately adjacent to Zinacantan; farther
to the southeast, they organized no less than 96 plantations during this period (Pineda
1852). Ironically, however, although they soon laid claim to vast amounts of unused lands,
they nonetheless faced one serious, indeed almost unsurmountable, problem: a critical
shortage of labor. As a result, they began to recruit native people from highland pueblos as
peones, baldios and sharecroppers. As early as 1819, men and women from Zinacantan had
formed squatter settlements on the edges of such properties in the nearby municipio of
Acala. Simultaneously, many Zinacantecos, numbering around 30 percent of the municipal
population, abandoned their homes in hamlets near San Cristbbal and settled along the
margins of their communal lands; that is, they formed new villages from which they en-
joyed much easier access to lowland fincas (AHE1819). Nor did this movement cease as the
century wore on. Forty years later, hamlets along the southern limits of Zinacantan held 45
percent of the community's inhabitants. And finally, between 1832 and 1855, 80 families
left the township altogether and joined the ranks of what official censuses conveniently
called the poblaci6n mestiza (APSC 1832, 1855).
Given these facts, it is tempting to suppose that those Zinacantecos who remained in
their villages turned their attention once again to such activities as milpa agriculture and
the elaboration of traditional handicrafts. And yet, this notion finds little support in the
historical record. On the contrary, deprived of their best lands by ladino proprietors, im-
pelled by necessity to find wage labor outside of their community, most Zinacanteco men
took up an occupation to which in earlier years they had been driven by colonial reparti-
mientos: they became arrieros, "muledrivers," cargadores and petty traders. Economic pro-
gress in the lowlands required not only a plentiful supply of peones, it also created a large
force of free laborers who carried cotton, hides and other such products from plantation to
port or market. Paradoxically, however, employment of this sort, while it enabled such men
to provide for their families, also entailed substantial risks of a very different order.
Throughout the 19th century, both hacendados and parish priests complained that the area
was regularly depopulated by epidemics of yellow fever, cholera and other diseases
(Wasserstrom 1978a). In 1830, for example, the curate of Zinacantan wrote that his hapless
parishoners spent their lives on the road between San Cristobal and Tabasco, "whence they
return," he lamented, "only to die" (Orozco y Jimenez 1911). Extravagant as such claims

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may seem, they do not appear to have been greatly exaggerated: whereas in 1778, 20 per-
cent of the households in Zinacantan were headed by women, by 1855 this number had
doubled. Indeed, in some parajes, notably Salinas and Nachij, more than half of these
families had lost their principal provider (see Table 3; Orozco y Jimenez 1911; APSC1855).
Let us consider, for a moment, the effect which such events must have exerted upon both
social and religious life in Zinacantan. First, it is important to note that increased mortality
was felt almost exclusively by adult men; that is, by men who lived long enough to marry
and father two or three children. Between 1778 and 1855, for example, the general ratio of
males to females in the municipal population remained fairly stable. At the same time,
however, this proportion among adults decreased from 0.81 to 0.61 (see Figure 1). Second,
even those men who were spared an untimely death in the lowlands spent very little of their
lives in the township. As a result, the cofradia system, which depended upon the active par-
ticipation of a large number of hermanos, began to crumble; after 1870, it collapsed
altogether.' Who, after all, could assume the burden which cofradia membership entailed?
Even local mayordomos, it would seem, found such service onerous or excessively demand-
ing: by mid-century, only 12 of these officials (two from each cofradia and two mayordomo
reyes)-about half of the original group of 22-continued to occupy their positions. Then,
too, since 1824 Indian communities had not paid regular tithes or tribute: in place of such
measures, ecclesiastical authorities demanded that native alcaldes and regidores, "civil of-
ficers," contribute a fixed sum each month to their pastors. Not surprisingly, priestly emolu-
ments from these sources also fell throughout the century and did not rise again until 1881
(see Figure 2). Faced with this dilemma, local curates adopted a strategy which proved to
be both timely and highly effective. As cofradia funds diminished and finally disappeared,
they ceased to celebrate many of those festivals which from time immemorial had given
shape and substance to public worship in Zinacantan. Instead they introduced a series of
new observances, fiestas dedicated to unfamiliar saints, which became the personal
responsibility of each pair of mayordomos. And to assure that these new functions were
faithfully performed, the town's justicias (alcaldes and regidores) undertook to fill such of-
fices by direct appointment.2
Despite these events, it was not the expansion of long-distance commerce alone which
ultimately pushed Zinacantan's cofradias to the point of extinction. On the contrary, after
1880, a number of foreign investors established large coffee plantations on the slopes of
the state's Sierra Madre mountain range along the Pacific coast (see Wasserstrom 1976 for
a discussion of this period). Responding to new opportunities for employment, men from In-
dian communities throughout the southern highlands abandoned their other activities and
migrated to the Soconusco (coffee zone), where they worked for four to six months each
year. With their wages, they not only purchased such staples as corn and beans, but in

Table 3. Proportionof families headed by women in Zinacantan,1855 (percent).

Percent of total populationa Percent of local families headed

Paraje (N = 2032) by women
cabecera 40 46
Na Chij 14 47
Salinas 5 64
Muk'ta Jok' 19 24
Apas 16 20
Other 6

a Percent of the total municipal population resident in locality.

Source: APSC 1855.

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 MALE ~~~~~FEMALE
MALE

70+
65-69
60-64
55- 59
50- 54
(I) 45-49
40-44
35-39
uli 30-34
25- 29
20- 24
15- 19
10- 14
5- 9
1- 4
less than 1
7.0 6.0 5:o 4.0 3:0 2:0 io 0.0
O i:.O 20' 3:0 4:0 5.:o 6:.0 7:10

PERCENT of POPULATION

Fig. 1. The population of Zinacantan by age and sex, 1855 (N = 2032). Source: APSC 1855.

Uf)
0
U1)
01)
a
Cl)
z
0
D
U)

z
0

z
0 5.
w~
0L
C4
w
4i

1865 1870 1875 1880 1905

YEAR

Fig. 2. Average monthly contributions to the parish priest of Zinacantan, 1855-1905.,a

a Excludes fees for baptisms, marriages, Masses, etc.
b Basic monthly stipend contributed by cabildo officials, mayordomo reyes, mesoneros and mayor-
domo salinero.
Source: APSC 1830-1914: Cuentas parroquiales de Zinacantan.

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Zinacantan at least they also sponsored public festivals without assistance from other
cofrades. Then, too, wage labor in the Soconusco removed such men from those unhealthy
lowland regions in which they had earlier been compelled to reside. The most obvious ef-
fect of this change may be seen in the fact that, during these years, Zinacanteco men
became much more numerous in the municipal population-a state of affairs which
breathed new life into the nuclear family. Now, in fact, with the help of his adolescent sons,
in a few years' time one man might accumulate enough money to take on an important
mayordomia-and to increase his own worth by embellishing the rituals which he spon-
sored. By the end of the century, therefore, competition of this sort had not only made such
positions more expensive, but had also stimulated Zinacantecos to organize the various
cargos into a hierarchy of ranked offices through which economic achievement might be
measured.
Paradoxically, perhaps, it was the very fact that Zinacantecos did not continue to serve
as seasonal plantation laborers that allowed them to elaborate their hierarchy in its current
form. In 1916, the revolutionary government of Chiapas, anxious to deprive rebellious land-
owners of their livelihoods, compelled native peones to return to their communities of
origin. At the same time, it enacted a labor code which obliged local finqueros to pay their
hired hands in cash-and to provide such amenities as health care and free vacations.
Under these circumstances, ranchers in the Crijalva began to rent increasingly large
amounts of land to native sharecroppers, men who commuted from highland pueblos
throughout the growing season to clear, plant, weed and harvest their parcels. Naturally,
such ranchers acquired no legal obligations toward their tenants, whose milpas might easily
be transformed into pasture after a season or two (Wasserstrom 1977). For this reason, cat-
tlemen in the lowlands turned once again to Zinacantan, a few hours' walk from the most
productive ranches. So successful did this arrangement prove to be that, by 1936 (when
state authorities began to enforce Mexico's agrarian reform law), virtually every landowner
in central Chiapas had adopted similar measures. For their part, Zinacantecos were quick
to abandon migrant labor in the Soconusco in favor of sharecropping closer to home. As a
result, they frequently earned three, four or even five times the income obtained by native
men in other municipios-men whom they often hired as day laborers. And finally, it was
this income which permitted Zinacantecos to shape the hierarchy of competitive religious
offices which Cancian (1965) observed a decade later (see also Wasserstrom 1978b).3

political control and public office in Chamula

As we have seen, the growth of commercial agriculture in Chiapas during the final
decades of the 19th century transformed highland communities into important reservoirs
of cheap and accessible labor. Unlike Zinacantecos, however, most of the area's residents
were reluctant to participate in such enterprises-a reluctance which was finally overcome
by official decree. Between 1892 and 1896, for example, the state government-in com-
pliance with President Porfirio Diaz's policy of encouraging foreign investment-enacted
major reforms in the administration of native pueblos. For one thing, such communities
were grouped into a series of new partidos, "administrative districts," under the supervision
of appointed jefes politicos. By imposing new taxes and controlling the sale of liquor, these
jefes compelled local Indians to acquire large debts-debts which they then worked off on
distant coffee plantations (GECh1896).4 Furthermore, to assure that none of these men es-
caped their fate, the state militia obligingly provided armed guards to escort native work
gangs to their destinations.5 For another, indigenous officials themselves were forced to
organize crews of reluctant workers and to detain those who resisted impressment.

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Although one might guess that they cooperated in this task with great reluctance, it is
nevertheless true that they became severely compromised in the eyes of their neighbors.6
Surprisingly, the revolution did little to alleviate such abuses. From 1910 until the winter
of 1920-21, highland Indians were left more or less to their own devices. Of course, a few
of them, driven by extreme poverty and a complete lack of alternatives, made their way
through marauding guerrilla bands to beg for work on fincas where only a short time before
they had been kept as virtual slaves.7 Within communities like Chamula, however, the
abolition of official labor recruitment in 1910-11 permitted local men and women to
reorganize themselves and their municipal cabildos, "councils." They had learned an im-
portant lesson in the previous decades, when the first onslaught of forced plantation labor
had caught them unprepared. Now, with the jefes politicos in flight and the state govern-
ment in disarray, they strengthened their defenses against the recurrence of such a disaster.
To this end, they received some encouragement from the state's military governor, who in
1914 had conferred positions of official leadership in these communities upon men regard-
ed as traditionalists.8 Prompted by such actions, community leaders in Chamula subse-
quently declared that all future municipal officers-particularly the presidente, or
mayor-would henceforth be chosen from the ranks of monolingual elders.9 In this way,
they hoped to forestall the possibility that their own representatives would again betray
them to labor recruiters and ladino politicians.
Despite these measures, however, from 1920 to 1936 Indians suffered as grievously as
they had before 1910. Inevitably, the restoration of public order allowed coffee planters to
regain lost ground and return to normal operations. Although they no longer relied upon
state authorities to supply them with field hands, they soon hired local ladinos to perform
the office of enganchador, that is, to recruit native workers by loaning them money or sell-
ing them badly needed commodities on credit.10 For its part, the state government did not
help these enganchadores to transport or police native work crews; neither did it fulfill its
legal obligation to assure that labor contracts celebrated under such circumstances met
even minimal judicial standards. And yet, although economic conditions in the highlands
at this time were deplorable, at least in Chamula the absence of direct political inter-
ference permitted local elders to consolidate their hold over both civil and religious func-
tionaries-in other words, to establish that kind of social system which Eric Wolf (1955) has
called the "closed corporate peasant community." In so doing, they pursued two separate
but related courses of action. On the one hand, in consultation with members of the
municipal government, they chose the new slate of officers who each year assumed formal
leadership of the town's civil hierarchy.11 In order to be eligible for such a position,
however, these men were required to have served at least one religious cargo. On the other
hand, positions in the religious hierarchy were generally filled with young men appointed
by the municipio's ranking civil authorities-although occasionally an older resident might
request such an office for reasons of his own. By means of such devices, all positions of im-
portance in the community were controlled by a group of men-known as prin-
cipales -who had worked their a
way up through system which in large measure they them-
selves had devised: the civil-religious hierarchy.
This situation began to change rapidly after 1936 when state authorities again resumed
an active political role in native communities. Significantly, their interest was aroused less
by local events than by President Lazaro Cardenas's newly proclaimed politica de masas.
Reacting to pressures from military caudillos, church hierarchs and insurrectionary land-
owners, officials in Cardenas's administration undertook to organize the country's workers
and peasants into an independent source of support for the federal government. By mobi-
lizing Indian voters in Chiapas, cardenistas assumed control of the state governorship and
proceeded to adopt a series of measures designed both to improve the lot of native people

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and guarantee their political loyalty. To this end, they appointed as municipal scribes a
group of young bilingual men who had distinguished themselves not only by their literacy
but also by their desire to please their ladino patrons. Such scribes were necessary, state of-
ficials argued, to defend indigenous communities against the depredations of unscrupulous
planters and enganchadores.12 At the same time, these officials created the Native
Workers' Union, in which all seasonal coffee laborers were duly enrolled. Henceforth, they
declared, contracts between growers and laborers must be celebrated in union offices and
must comply strictly with federal labor legislation. And finally, to direct this union, govern-
ment indigenistas, "Indian officials," appointed municipal scribes from Chamula and two
other highland towns. To these young men (the oldest of whom was 22) then fell the dual
task of enforcing the law and sending an adequate number of workers to the plantations.13
In the end, it was their control of this union which enabled cardenista politicians to bring
the state's coffee planters into the newly formed official party, the Partido de la Revolu-
ci6n Mexicana (PRM).
Naturally, within their own municipios, the power and influence of these scribes grew
enormously. By the late 1930s, they presided over local agrarian reform committees and
represented their communities on the regional agrarian commission; they served as
delegates to state and regional congresses; they also chose those local men who were al-
lowed to work on publicly financed road construction projects. So successfully did they
perform such functions, in fact, that in 1940 state officials tried to install them formally in
municipal presidencies. From that time onward, it was declared, government agencies
would recognize only those presidents who spoke Spanish. Although most communities ac-
ceded to this kind of pressure, a few of them simply refused to comply.'4 In Chamula, for
example, local principales-who in general responded quite favorably to cardenista pro-
grams-viewed this measure as an infringement upon their right to conduct communal af-
fairs; for three more years they continued to name their own presidente. During this period,
in fact, the community had two mayors: a traditional cargo holder designated by the elders,
and a young scribe who had been named by state officials. Rather than force the issue,
however, local progressives decided for the moment to conciliate the principales. Then, in
late 1942, the government candidate requested that he be allowed to serve an expensive
religious cargo-not immediately, but in five years' time. Simultaneously, the state govern-
ment began to enforce a law, enacted in 1937, which effectively permitted only religious
officials or those who would soon assume religious office to sell liquor in Indian communi-
ties-as a "way of paying the costs of their service."15 Essentially, then, this regulation of-
fered traditional authorities a new source of income to compensate for their loss of
power-a source of income which depended upon their cooperation with the young
presidents.
Having formed an alliance with these elders, Chamula's scribes confidently took their
place at the head of both civil and religious government in the community. For the next 30
years, they alternately occupied the municipal presidency and served in important
religious positions-a course of action which permitted them to consolidate and legitimate
their power. In much the same vein, it was they who first spawned the idea of compiling
waiting lists for prestigious cargos. By placing their names on such lists, they earned the
right to sell liquor-an extremely profitable venture-several years before serving the
saints. By the 1950s, in fact, their unorthodox political origins had been all but forgotten. In-
stead, they had themselves become the town's elders, and had displaced those trouble-
some principales whom they had by that time outlived. In this capacity, they played a
prominent role in official plans to develop the highlands, plans which the National Indian
Institute (INI) began to execute in 1952. As a result, they became not only the first school-
teachers in the region, but also the first health workers, owners of improved breeding stock

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and seeds, trucks and cooperative stores. More important, by carefully husbanding their
relationship with state and federal officials, they determined who else might gain access to
such resources. Then, too, with the income derived from their activities, they loaned money
to their less fortunate neighbors-at a monthly interest rate of around ten percent. And
finally, by permitting only loyal followers to pursue religious careers, they continued to
decide who might eventually accede to high municipal office-a decision which they con-
tinued to make long after they had retired from active public life. Although they certainly
did not create the civil-religious hierarchy in Chamula, then, it is also undeniable that they
molded it into its current form and endowed it with new functions.16

conclusions

At this point, one might speculate that after 1942 municipal scribes in Chamula were
directed by cardenista officials to volunteer their services as religious cargo holders.
Perhaps these officials had come to appreciate the importance of public ritual in native
political life. After all, it is at least suggestive that a similar pattern of events occurred dur-
ing this period throughout the central highlands. Consider, for example, the question of
waiting lists which appeared in both Zinacantan and Chamula for reasons which have little
to do with demographic pressure. Such lists also became a prominent feature of religious
life in Huistan, where ladino authorities, responding to conflicts over land and labor, inter-
vened to modify the town's political structure.17 In much the same fashion, it appears that
young caciques, "bosses," rose to political power in communities as diverse as Cancuc,
Mitontic and Tenejapa.'8 Even in Chenalh6, where caciquismo of this sort did not develop,
we find evidence that cardenistas attempted to alter existing arrangements for their own
purposes. In this case, the man whom they selected to represent them had by 1940 already
led an active political life; rather than meddle with traditional government, he chose to
retire from politics entirely.19 What all of these pueblos have in common, and what
distinguishes them from Zinacantan, is that their inhabitants worked on the state's coffee
plantations. Not pure coincidence, it would seem, but rather conscious design inspired
state authorities to turn their attention after 1936 to Indian affairs, to create a group of
local leaders, beholden exclusively to the governing party, who would ensure the flow of
seasonal laborers to their appointed destinations. And it was entirely logical that these
leaders should, in turn, utilize local religious institutions to enforce public order in the
highlands-the kind of order which permitted commercial agriculture in Chiapas to grow
and prosper.
Given these facts, it is perhaps appropriate to consider why civil-religious hierarchies
should have emerged at all, why they should persist in various forms until this very day.
Certainly, as we have seen, they cannot be explained away as a form of self-exploitation, of
a self-sustained mechanism for paying colonial tribute in postcolonial society-still less as
the socioeconomic backbone of closed-corporate peasant communities. On the contrary,
faced with a dominant ideology which in the 19th century demanded that Indians accept
their position as landless (or near landless) laborers, indigenous people-at least those who
did not become mestizos-chose to put up the strongest ideological resistance of which
they were capable. In so doing, they seized upon precisely that aspect of native life which
for centuries had distinguished them as cristianos: their public rituals. Such activities, they
maintained, should not be permitted to die out, even if the celebrants, and the saints whom
they venerated, changed radically. Exploited as occasional or transient laborers, they
responded as Indians, as members of native communities which were themselves being
pulled apart into different social classes. It is this paradox, then, fed by the emergence of

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new social relations within such communities, that cargo systems sought to mitigate and
that-ironically, but inevitably-they only exacerbated.

notes

Acknowledgments. This article is dedicated to the memory of Mark Grady, whose untimely death
deprived us of a warm friend and a respected colleague: reposat in pace.
Research for this article was supported in large measure by the Centro de Investigaciones
Ecol6gicas del Sureste, San Cristbbal, Chiapas, and the Grace and Henry Doherty Foundation of
Princeton, New Jersey, to which our thanks are gratefully extended. Invaluable assistance throughout
the project was provided by Lydia Prieto and Juana Carmona, who patiently transcribed and prepared
many of the documents cited.
1 Information for the
following section is taken from the Cuentas parroquiales de Zinacantan in the
APSC. It is significant that, after independence (1821), native tribute was abolished and the burden of
supporting local priests was assumed by the town's alcaldes, regidores, mayordomo reyes, mesoneros,
and mayordomosalinero.
2 APSC (1830-1914). See especially the letters from Bruno Dominguez, cura of Zinacantan, to Don
Miguel Correa and J. Bonifaz dated June 4, 1867, and February26,1868. In this last communication he
details some of the difficulties which he experienced in organizing such a system.
A few moments ago, after Mass, the ayuntamiento and schoolteacher of this town arrived at my
house to inform me for the second time that the State Congress had decreed, among other things,
the complete dissolution of the mayordomos who serve this holy church, together with the abolition
of the position of alferez, and because without these it is not possible to preserve organized religion
or support the priest with decorum ... I felt it prudent to bring all of this to your attention . .. so
that as soon as possible you might remove me from here in order that this community might under-
stand how sorely they will feel the absence of their priest....
3 After 1916, a new set of civil officials
gradually assumed those political functions which native
justicias have performed. At present, alcaldes and regidores retain only ceremonial obligations in
Zinacantan.
4 Some
years earlier, the state had enacted vagrancy and head tax laws which gave jefes politicos
broad authority to intervene in Indian affairs (see GECh 1880,1892). Finally, on June 1, 1880, the sale
of alcoholic beverages in native communities (illegal throughout most of the 19th century) was permit-
ted; eight years later, it was placed in the hands of administrative officers.
5 Two
inhabitants of Chamula, Mateo Mendez Aguilar (interview of April 21, 1976) and Pascual
Lopex Calixto (interview of September 15, 1975), provided information about this system. It is also
described in Traven (1950).
6
Mendez Aguilar (interview of April 21, 1976); also Salvador L6pez Castellanos (interview of Oc-
tober 5, 1975).
7
L6pez Castellanos (interview of October 5, 1975). Lbpez Castellanos, who for the last 30 years has
acted as cacique of Chamula, described this period on the basis of stories told to him by his father and
uncle, both of whom had occupied important positions in the community before 1920.
8 The
Partido de Chamula was abolished by revolutionary decree in 1914. The communities of which
it had been composed were declared to be municipios libres by the Ley de Municipios Libres of that
same year. Simultaneously, conservative opponents of native leaders who had tried to join the revolu-
tion were imposed in Chamula as municipal officers.
9
Mendez Aguilar (interview of April 21, 1976). In 1942, Ricardo Pozas noted that, until a few years
before, only such traditional elders might serve important political office (see Pozas 1959).
10
Guadalupe Toledo Lopez, mayordomo of the coffee finca "Maravillas," (interview of February
27, 1976); Manuel Castellanos Cancino, former state director of Indian affairs (interview of September
6, 1975); Anastasio Trujillo, enganchador (interview of May 5, 1975).
11
Lbpez Castellanos (interview of October 29, 1975). This system is also described by Pozas (1959).
12 Lopez Castellanos (interview of October 29, 1975); Manuel Castellanos Cancino (interview of
November 8, 1975). It is interesting to note that L6pez Castellanos was one of these scribes, and
Castellanos Cancino was among the officials who chose him.
13
L6pez Castellanos (interview of October 29, 1975); Castellanos Cancino (interview of November
8, 1975).
14
L6pez Castellanos (interviews of October 29 and October 30, 1975); see also Pozas (1969).
15 On June 3, 1937, the sale of alcohol in native towns had again been prohibited
by state
authorities. This measure was used after 1940 to prevent non-Indians from engaging in such activity

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and was selectively ignored to permit Indians themselves to do so. See GECh1937; also Castellos Can-
cino (interviews of August 8, 1975 and January 17, 1976); Lopez Castellanos (interview of October 29,
1975).
16 The information upon which this section is based was drawn from interviews with Salvador
G6mez Osob and Salvador Lopez Castellanos, two of the original scribes, and Manuel Castellanos
Cancino. A more detailed exposition of these events may be found in Rus and Wasserstrom (in press).
17 Castellanos Cancino (interview of November 16, 1975); John Burstein (personal communication,
1976).
18 For details about Cancuc, see Siverts 1965; for Mitontic, see Vicente
Lopez Mendez (interview of
September 29, 1975); for Tenejapa, see Pablo Ramirez Suarez (personal communication, 1976).
19 Jacinto Arias (personal communication, 1976). Arias's father was the political leader of Chenalh6
during these years.

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Submitted 28 September 1979

Accepted 21 November 1979
Revisions received 18 December 1979
Final revisions received 14 April 1980

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