Nahua Newsletter

November 2001, Number 32

The Nahua Newsletter
A Publication of the Indiana University Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Alan R. Sandstrom, Editor
With support from the Department of Anthropology
Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne





Contents

Nahua newsletter news

Welcome to the Nahua Newsletter, your friendly doorway to the international community of people with an interest in the culture, history, and language of the Nahua and neighboring indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica. With this issue we complete 16 years of publication in service to our readers. In the pages that follow you will find news items, calls for cooperation, announcements, comments, new publications, book reviews, and a directory update. We hope that you enjoy this issue of the NN and that you will take time to send the editor announcements of your activities or questions directed to other readers, many of whom are internationally renowned experts on Mesoamerica.

As reported in NN 29 we have entered the electronic age, and all previous issues will soon be available, fully searchable, on the Web. We have not gone overboard, however, and plan to continue mailing out printed copies to the people in our directory. Libraries and readers often write to obtain back issues and we thought that posting them on the Web would be the best way to satisfy that need. Find us at our new Web address: http://www.ipfw.edu/soca/nahua.htm. Our Webmaster, Rick Sutter, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne is busy posting issues 10 through 32. Issues 1 through 9 exist in printed format only and a student assistant is currently engaged in scanning and correcting this material so that it can also be made available on the Web. Due to copyright restrictions, the illustrations appearing in each issue will not be included in the online version.

Our subscriber list continues to grow, reflecting the explosion of interest among scholars, students, and others in studies of indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica. As always, the NN is distributed free but it continues to survive on donations from readers. The publication receives no institutional support and we are very pleased that grass-roots interest has kept it alive and thriving for all of these years. Our financial situation is stable right now thanks to the many readers who sent contributions and to a generous anonymous donation. However, it costs about $400 U.S. to print and mail the NN and funds will be nearly depleted after the upcoming issue. The bulk of the cost in producing the NN is postage for our foreign readers. It is important that the publication continues to serve as an international forum and so we welcome any and all donations. Please make out checks or money orders payable to Nahua Newsletter. All funds are applied to offset printing and mailing costs. Be assured that there are no administrative charges of any kind. See below for mailing instructions.

In addition to our kind financial supporters I would like to thank also the people who labor to make each issue a success. Transcribing, typing, proofreading, and layout design - not to mention maintaining the subscriber list, labeling, stuffing envelopes, and preparing the bulk mailing - are all crucial tasks done by volunteers. Please join me in acknowledging the contributions of the following people to the advancement of Nahua studies: Donna Rhodes, Amanda Chambers-Burt, Bobbi Shadle, Brendon Maxwell, and Pamela Effrein Sandstrom.

One benefit of the NN is that we try to keep readers up to date on important publications. Books and articles on indigenous Mesoamerica are published in a number of languages and in a wide variety of outlets, some of which are difficult for people to locate. Read over the extensive book notes featured in this issue's "News Items" to find sources that may be of interest to you or that may aid in your research efforts. To contribute to this program, please send notification of your publications so that we can alert readers. It pays to let others know about your activities and it helps colleagues to keep on top of a rapidly expanding literature.

Please send all inquiries, announcements, contributions, or calls for cooperation, in digitized form if possible, to:  

Alan R. Sandstrom
The Nahua Newsletter
Department of Anthropology
Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne
Fort Wayne, IN 46805

By e-mail: sandstro@ipfw.edu

News Items

1. Thanks to Albert Wahrhaftig (Sonoma State University, California) who wrote from Tepoztlan, Morelos, Mexico, to inform us that the address of the Web site printed in NN 30 and NN 31 was incorrect. Despite our best efforts to avoid errors, a letter was left out of the published electronic address. Please see our correct Web address noted above in "Nahua Newsletter News."

He also writes, "I am working on 'Anales de Tepoztlan' Web pages that will be open to all scholars interested in Tepoztecan studies and open to all Tepoztecos who might wish to contribute. This is a project of Yolanda Corona (UNAM-Xochimilco), Pacho Lane (UAEM Cuernavaca), and myself. I will send notice to the NN when we are ready to place the pages on a server."

2. The following announcement and call for papers comes from Juergen Stowasser: "The University of Vienna (Institute for the Study of Religions and Institute of History) and the Austrian Latin America Institute are organizing a symposium to be held June 6-9, 2002, in Goettweig, on cultural change in Mesoamerica after the Conquest of Central Mexico, 1519-1521. The conference is entitled: 'Cultural Change in 16th-Century Mexico.'

"Scholars from Mexico, the United States, and Europe will debate the various aspects of the cultural, social, religious, and political change in colonial Mexico. The emphasis of the conference is on the interdisciplinary and comparative perspective and on approaches from different disciplines such as ethnohistory, cultural studies, semiotics, intercultural philosophy, and comparative religious studies.

"Cultural change is understood as a dynamic and heterogenous process in which the 'acculturated ones' participate in an active, creative, and sometimes also subversive way. A special focus of the meeting will be the analysis of colonial codices as documents of cultural change, but papers based on other sources are welcome as well. In addition to the presentation of studies of postconquest Mexico, the conference will also reflect on models of cultural change in general and ask for a greater understanding of intercultural encounter situations.

"The symposium will be held at the Monastery of Goettweig near Vienna, founded in 1083. Registration will be open to all interested persons. Registration fees are $100 (students $50). The conference will include keynote speeches, lectures from invited speakers, and mesas redondas (working seminars) with a limited number of participants. A workshop on Nahua writing systems will be held June 9-12 in Vienna. Registration forms are available at http://www.univie.ac.at/meso/conference/form.htm.

"Call for Papers: We invite papers on understanding cultural change in its heterogeneity - religious aspects, early missions; ecological dimensions, the role of epidemics, economic changes, gender concepts; cultural change and literacy - mesoamerican and European writing traditions; colonial codices - case studies; between adaption and resistance - ruptures and continuities of Mesoamerican traditions in the colonial period; methodological questions of intercultural interpretation; reflections on models of cultural change, acculturation, "sincretism."

"Submission of Papers: All paper sessions are limited to 10-15 minutes with five minutes for questions/discussion. Proposals for papers must include the registration form and an abstract of a maximum of 300 words (to be sent in an e-mail or asrtf-file to abstracts@correoweb.com). Deadline for submission is January 31, 2002. Confirmation of acceptance will be no later than February 20, 2002. Accepted abstracts will be posted on the conference Web site at http://www.univie.ac.at/meso/conference/abstracts.htm. All papers given at the conference will be published in an anthology.

"Proposals for mesas redondas: Submitted papers will be read in mesas redondas focusing on the topics listed above. We also accept proposals for sponsoring mesas on topics within the general theme of the conference. Check our Web site at http://www.univie.ac.at/meso/conference.htm or http://www.univie.ac.at/meso/simposio.htm for further information."

3. Here is a message sent from the Archivo Histórico del Agua (CNA-CIESAS); contact them by e-mail at aha@juarez.ciesas.edu.mx: "Nos es grato comunicarles la reapertura de los servicios del Archivo Histórico del Agua (CNA-CIESAS), sito en Balderas 94, en las inmediaciones del Centro Histórico, a partir del próximo 4 de septiembre de 2001. El horario de atención al público será de 9:00 a 15:00 horas de lunes a viernes. Los teléfonos del Archivo a disposición de los interesados son: 55-217362 y 55- 211939 y nuestro correo electrónico: aha@juarez.ciesas.edu.mx.

"El Archivo Histórico del Agua surgió a partir de un proyecto compartido de la Comisión Nacional del Agua (CNA) y el Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS). Inició su actividad el 1º de febrero de 1994. En la actualidad el acervo del Archivo cuenta con los siguientes fondos: Infraestructura Hidráulica, Consultivo Técnico del IMTA, Aprovechamientos superficiales, Comisión del Río Grijalva y Colección fotográfica. El tipo de documentos que contiene es, desde luego, variado: memorias descriptivas y estructurales, casos jurídicos, oficios al ejecutivo local y federal, planos constructivos, croquis, mapas, fotografías, etcétera. La documentación cuenta con un orden cronológico que inicia, en muchos de los expedientes, desde 1880, sin descartar la copia mecanografiada de documentos coloniales.

"El AHA alberga, además, una biblioteca especializada sobre historia del agua en México y usos sociales, que custodia 7,375 volúmenes, entre ellos 130 títulos de revistas. A guisa de ejemplo, es posible consultar en ella la colección completa de la revista: Irrigación en México (1930-1947).

"Inicialmente el Archivo incluía dos actividades del quehacer académico: la archivística y la historiográfica. Continuaremos, desde ahora, con la primera, y esperamos recuperar, lo más pronto posible, la labor de investigación a partir de los acervos archivístico y bibliográfico del Archivo, para lo cual deseamos contar con su colaboración y les extendemos una cordial invitación a visitarnos."

4. Paul Proulx writes with this correction:

"Belatedly reading NN 30, I was dismayed to read the following [written by Terry Stocker]: 'Healan (1993) interchanges macana and macuahuitl. This is not accurate. Macana is a Spanish word referring to any club. Macuahuitl is a Nahuatl word referring to an obsidian lined shaft. One would assume that the Spanish adapted macana from macuahuitl' (NN 30:27).

"In fact, the Spanish adapted macana from maqana, which is the Quechua word meaning something one hits with, typically a club. The underlying verb is maqa- "hit." It is found in most dialects and surely dates back to Proto Quechua."

5. Also from Paul Proulx: "This is a research report and request for assistance from the NN. About ten years ago, I put aside teaching to pursue a major research interest which would require all my time. This was a reconstruction of Proto Algonquian society through the reconstructed Proto Algonquian language, and a diachronic account of its development into the ethnographically attested Algonquian societies. Capitalizing on my grad school training in social anthropology and archaeology, I set about integrating the insights of these subdisciplines with my own knowledge of the Algonquian languages. I believe that the methods I have used may be relevant to the study of Maya prehistory as well.

"In the last few years, I have begun piecing together the many insights gained, using cross cultural comparisons, and organizing an integrated anthropological linguistic account of this Proto Algonquian society and its divergent developments through time. This has required developing an understanding of how various hitherto isolated anthropological hypotheses might interact in a particular social context, and be related in diachronic sequences of probability (if not of cause and effect). While it would be premature and perhaps overly optimistic to suggest that this involves the construction of an integrated overview and synthesis of anthropological theory in the relevant areas, it can certainly be seen as the beginning of such a project.

"At first, I used the status of women in prehistoric times as the major theme around which I organized my accounts. However, although this led to many insights, I ultimately found it useful to include male interests and motivations on an equal footing with those of women: one cannot fully understand the one without the other. In the end, 'gender relations' has proved a useful focus since they touch upon nearly everything - and do so in societies of every kind.

"The accounts I am working on constitute hypotheses, which require further elaboration. They also require something akin to replication: an extension to a variety of other proto languages and societies, so that cross-cultural cause and effect can be discerned. Much of this is beyond my resources as an individual. If an integrated anthropological linguistic science of prehistory is to emerge, and provide a credible account of human social evolution over the last five to ten thousand years, it will require the efforts and resources of several scholars and many graduate students. The present work is only a very small beginning. Moreover, it is not quite finished, and could benefit immensely by an exchange of ideas. I work well in monastic isolation, but have probably pushed that approach about as far as is useful.

"I look forward to hearing from those who would be willing to read portions of the work in the more or less near future, and provide me with constructive feedback. You can look for your areas of interest in the tentative table of Index that follows. The title of the work is 'Weather and Women in the Prehistoric Algonquian Societies of the Lower Great Lakes: A Lexical Reconstruction of the Main Effects of Climate Changes on Algonquian Subsistence Economies, Social Organizations, and Sexual Ideologies Since about 700 B.C.'

"An abstract of the work is as follows: Comparing detailed language data with the archeological record, produced the following hypothesis as to early Algonquian prehistory. The Proto Algonquians (PAs) were uxorilocal foragers who lived in endogamous local groups called *4o:te:nayali, each ideally consisting of a kindred, subdivided into two exogamous halves by the same sex versus cross sex status of siblings - whose children ideally married. The PA people lived in southeastern Ontario about 700 B.C. Their subsistence economy was one of mixed foraging, though they also cultivated the gourd. Their main source of protein was the deer, and their main source of carbohydrate was wild rice.

"When the wild rice harvests began failing ca. 700 B.C. or shortly thereafter due to an increase in the fall rains, at least four groups migrated into the mast forests of the East Coast, where acorns and other nuts largely replaced wild rice as their source of carbohydrate. Those who stayed behind, the Central Algonquians, increased their hunting of bison and caribou, replacing what Peggy Sanday calls an 'inner orientation' by 'outer orientation.' They shifted from wife-centered residence to husband-centered, subdivided in their residential units into two or more camps or barrios (*4o:te:nawali), and developed agnatic succession. They more often married outside the local group.

"Adult men already were politically central to PA society, but, despite the growth in male importance due to the increase in big game hunting and the shift to husband centered residence, PCA society retained public domain sexual equality (Sanday), and female autonomy (Schlegel). During the course of the Scandic period, which begins ca. A.D. 300, women adapted maize to the climate they lived in, learned to make ceramic cooking pots, and developed a maple sugar industry. The Scandic was drier and thus began a period of good wild rice harvests, but they began to fail again with the onset of the wetter Neo-Atlantic episode, ca. A.D. 800. This time, women were able to substitute maize cultivation for the wild rice. This permitted concentrations of population, albeit limited by continued reliance upon meat for protein.

"It was only when the drier weather of the Pacific episode, ca. A.D. 1300, permitted the large scale cultivation of beans, that it became possible to substitute vegetable protein for that of meat, and very large populations could be concentrated in palisaded villages. Where this took place, the over-hunting of game led to an intense male competition for hunting grounds which, together with husband-centered residence and the dense population, motivated the development of patrilineages. While warfare may have bolstered the warriors' prestige, and most warriors were men, bean cultivation put the subsistence economy firmly in female hands. As a result, female prestige became higher than male in those areas where hunting had declined in importance. Those groups which experienced too high a male mortality withdrew north, or fled west, and adapted a big game hunting subsistence economy. To varying degrees, male prestige eclipsed female prestige in these groups. In both areas, sex joined age in determining ascribed status.

"In at least one instance - Plains Cree - big-game hunting produced a semi-egalitarian society (Begler) contrasting with the more egalitarian societies of the traditional Algonquians. In this same semi-egalitarian society, obviation was used strategically to marginalize women in stories, while fragmentary information suggests that perhaps the opposite was true in some of the societies where female prestige eclipsed male.

"In conclusion, climate change and its impact upon food plants created crises which women responded to with agriculture, and men with warfare or migration or both. The resulting direct and indirect changes to the subsistence economy led to major differences in gender relations, depending upon the choices made."

Table of Index

Part I: Introduction

1: The Importance of Algonquian Women to World Culture
2: What Prehistory is Good For
3: Proto-Languages and Proto-Societies
4: Reality Constraints [Recently Conditioned Social Features Versus Survivals; The Principle of Continuous Transmission; Received Ideas, Intellectual Fads; Scholarly Infallibility]
5: Re-Contextualization [Literacy and De-Contextualization; Science and Science Fiction; The Algonquian View of Knowledge; Stories and Re-Contextualization]

Part II: The Algonquians in Space, Time, and Environmental Context

1: Algonquian Language Groupings
2: The Proto Algonquians [The Proto Algonquian Homeland; The Likely Time Depth of PA Society; Smoking Pipes, Archery, Dugout Canoes, and the Hopewell Episode; Pottery and Maple Sugar; The PA Subsistence Economy; Gathering and Hunting; PA Horticulture]
3: The Proto Central Algonquians [The Proto Central Algonquian Homeland; The Likely Time Depth of Late PCA Society; War Paths; Replacement of the Spear Thrower by the Bow; Shooting Replaces Throwing; The Neo-Atlantic Episode; The Sub-Atlantic Central Algonquian Subsistence Economy; PCA: Incipient Maize Agriculture; PCA Transformations, and Symbols of Agricultural Fertility]
4: The Proto Lake Algonquians [The Proto Lake Homeland; The Proto Lake Subsistence Economies; Upland Lake Shifting Agriculture, Marked-Off Agricultural Land; Upland Lake Symbols of Agricultural Fertility; Palisades, War Paths, and the Likely Time Depth of Proto Lake Society; Logs by the Hundreds; Dating Palisade Building; Dating War Paths and the Beginnings of the Upper Lake Adaptation; The Pacific Episode, and the Breakup of Proto Lake Society; Late Developments: Intensive Warfare, Dialectal Relationships, and the Agricultural Upland Lake Migrations; Warfare and the Upland Lake Migration]
5: External and Internal Social Relations [The Use of Foreign Languages]
6: Overview and Conclusions

Part III: Prehistoric Algonquian Social Organization and Marriage

1: Introduction to Part III
2: Residence [Residence-Linked Terms; Central Algonquian Multilocality and PCA Residence; Dating Early Central Algonquian Husband Centered Residence; The Internal Organization of Multilocal Bands; PA Residence]
3: Descent [Consistent Organizational Sex Bias, and Descent; Bilateral Cross Cousin Marriage (BCCM) Versus PCA Patriliny; Diminutive *-4ehs in Affine = Consanguine Equations]
4: Primogeniture and PCA Succession
5: A Typology of Algonquian Organizational Sex Biases
6: Endogamy [Local Endogamy; The Endogamous Unit and its Exogamous Subdivisions]
7: Marriage Classes [CRFA Terms; Marriage Classes; Differential Development of the CRFA Sibling Terms; The Subarctic Central Algonquians; The Agricultural Upland Lake Algonquians; The Transitional Central Algonquians]
8: Irregular Marriage = Irregular Residence [Coresident Outsider Children-in-Law from Other Local Groups; Irregularly Non-Coresident Same Sex Siblings as 'Friends'; Insider Versus Outsider Husbands]

Part IV: The Statuses of the Sexes in Prehistoric Algonquian Societies

1: Introduction [The Work of Early Anthropologists; The Work of Later Anthropologists; Situating the Author; Summary of Parts III-IV]
2: Female Status in Prehistoric Algonquian Societies [Sex Role Plans (Sanday); Plant Classification Terminology and Orientation; Animal Classification Terminology and Orientation; The Horticulturalists; The Big Game Hunters; The Foragers, the Proto-Lake Algonquians; The Saguenay Montagnais; Conclusions; Giving Birth and Inner Versus Outer Orientation; Hypocoristic Register and Orientation; Algonquian Public Domain Sexual Equality; Domestic Relations and Female Autonomy (Schlegel)] [Chapter 3 missing]
4: Constructing the Other: A Typology of Algonquian Socio-Political Sex Biases [Adult Men as Socio-Political Insiders; The End of Adult Male Socio-Political Insider Status; Wife Terms]
5: Population Density, Game Scarcity, and Unilineal Organization [Lowered Male Status]
6: Sex Biases and Subcategories of Obviation
7: Sex Biases and Obviation in Texts
8: Female Status in Some Algonquian Societies [Big Game Hunters With Strong Consistent Male Organizational Bias (Plains Crees); Big Game Hunters Lacking Strong Consistent Organizational Bias (the Blackfoots and Boreal Montagnais); Foragers Lacking A Strong Consistent Organizational Bias (the Saguenay Montagnais, Menominees, and Proto-Algonquians); Foragers With Strong Consistent Male Organizational Bias (the Ottawas); Agriculturalists With A Strong Consistent Female Organizational Bias (the Unami Delawares); Agriculturalists With A Strong Consistent Male Organizational Bias (the Proto-Central-Algonquians and Foxes); Agriculturalists Lacking A Strong Consistent Organizational Bias (the Cheyennes); Conclusions]
9: Sex, Gender, and Female Status Cross Culturally [Female Status in Old World Societies With Sex Gendered Languages; Female Status in Algonquian Societies Compared]
10: The Causes of Differential Female Status (Conclusions) [Residence, Descent, and Female Status; Endogamy and Female Status; Subsistence Economy and Female Status; Cumulative Effects]

Part V: The Transition in Algonquian World View From Sexual Integration to Segregation

1: The Evidence of Transition [The Development of Unilineal Descent Groups; Ascribed Status and Authority; Pure-Egalitarian Versus Semi-Egalitarian Societies; CRFA Sibling Terms and Ascribed Status; Sexually Specific Terminology Replaces Ambiguous; The Development of Sexually Specific General Nouns; Organizational Sex Bias in Terms for Prototypical Relatives (A Typology); Relatives of Both Sexes as Prototypical Referents in a Bilateral Society; Male Relatives as Prototypical Referents in a Patri-Biased Society; Female Relatives as Prototypical Referents in a Matri-Biased Society; Affinal Male Relatives as Prototypical Referents in a Matri-Biased Society: Case One; Dating Blackfoot Multilocality; Affinal Male Relatives as Prototypical Referents in a Matri-Biased Society: Case Two; The Kin Type of a Prototypical Relative, and Societal Type; Prototypical PA Relatives; Summary]
2: The Contexts of the Transition [Local Group Size; Population Density and Homeland Size, Population Distribution; Cognitive Style; Color Categories; Cognitive Style and Autonomy; Sexual Integration Versus Segregation and World View; Conclusions]

Part VI: Epilog

1: Towards a Diachronic Account of Some Central Algonquian Societies [The Central Algonquian Big Game Hunters; The Upland Lake Algonquian Agriculturalists; Comparison With the Eastern Algonquian Societies; The Central Algonquian Foragers]
2: Algonquian Adaptations
3: Other Pre-Neolithic Societies
4: The Status of Women in Pre-Neolithic Society
5: Speculations on the Early Prehistory of Humanity [Our Primate Origins; The Hominid Period; The Cultural Revolution; The Agricultural Revolution; The Industrial Revolution; The Information Revolution; The Future]
6: The Scientific Status of my Findings
Appendices: New or Improved Lexical Reconstructions of Animal Names; New or Improved Lexical Reconstructions (Plants); New or Improved Lexical Reconstructions (Others); Male Centrality in Several Languages; The Supporting Data for Some Key Lexical Reconstructions

If readers wish to discuss the work, please contact Paul Proulx by phone at 902-386-2079, or by e-mail at paulproulx@auracom.com or paul_proulx@yahoo.com.

6. William Willard writes to inform readers, "I am an editor for Wicazo Sa Review, an American Indian journal published by the University of Minnesota Press. The Review is almost 17 years old, just a bit older than the NN. For the 17th volume, we are publishing on North American indigenous self-governance and the exercise of sovereignty. It is our intent to collect the best of the articles plus invited papers to create a book on that topic. Since the scope is North America, we do need a good representation of articles on indigenous governance in Mexico. The declaration by the Nahuas of Chicontepec (NN 30) is an example of the kind of work we are looking for."

William Willard's address is Department of Comparative American Cultures, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164. His e-mail address is wwillard@mail.wsu.edu.

7. The NN received this announcement from the Proyecto Archivo General Agrario (CIESAS RAN): "Por este medio nos permitimos comunicarles de la aparición Boletín del Archivo General Agrario, enero-marzo 2001, número 12 (CIESAS-RAN), publicación del proyecto Archivos Agrarios coordinado por la Dra. Teresa Rojas Rabiela. Asimismo, les recordamos que todos los boletines pueden ser consultados en el apartado de proyectos especiales a http://www.ciesas.edu.mx.

Indice:
"Presentación," Antonio Escobar Ohmstede y Teresa Rojas Rabiela
"Historia y conflicts agrarios en la exhacienda de Tanchachín y conformación del ejido La Morena-Tanchachín, Aquismón, San Luis Potosí," Martha Flores Pacheco
"La lucha por la propiedad de la tierra del rancho de la Concepción, Villa Nicolás Romero, estado de México, 1915-1922," Martín González Solano
"Las tareas del proyecto Archives Agrarios para el 2001," Teresa Rojas Rabiela y Laura Ruiz

Sección documental:
"La composición de tierras de San Mateo Mexicaltzingo, estado de México," Ismael Maldonado Salazar
"La fundación colonial de San Francisco Apasco, México," Teresa Rojas Rabiela y Regina Olmedo

Difusión:
"Esta tierra es nuestra," Arnulfo Embriz

8. Vania Smith has written to say that she finished her master's thesis at the University of Florida and will be continuing graduate school at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the Field Museum. The title of her thesis is "Ethnomedical Agroforestry: Ethnoecological Practices among Nahua Chamanes of the Huasteca Region in Veracruz, Mexico." Please see the Directory Update section for her new address.

9. Eileen M. Mulhare de la Torre, longtime loyal reader of the NN, sends the following communication: "The second revised edition of my book Totimehuacán: Su historia y vida actual has now been published. The prologue is by Lic. Herón García Martínez, and the publisher is the H. Ayuntamiento de Municipio del Puebla, Programa de Atención a la Cultura Popular, 2001. Readers will note the resemblance to the Smithsonian monographs of the 1940s and 1950s. U.S. academics usually consider this format old-fashioned but it serves the book's principal audience, namely, the Totimehuacanos themselves and other Mexicans who routinely seek information about the town (e.g., government agencies, regional scholars, teachers, students, and tourists).

"Like the first edition (1995), the new work tells the story of the Totimehuacanos from the Pre-Classic (695 B.C.E.) to the present, and discusses all major aspects of community life today. It incorporates a wide range of data sources such as archaeology, codices, archives, ethnography, and oral history. The second edition, however, includes fuller coverage of the colonial period, a new section on contemporary social organization (household, kinship, marriage, etc.), many more details on popular Catholicism, and more tables, appendices, and photographs. About two dozen research libraries in the U.S. and Mexico have received copies of the book, so interested readers should be able to borrow one via interlibrary loan."

Eileen can be reached at emulhare@mail.colgate.edu.

10. Berthold Riese has sent the NN a recently published, spiral-bound, 175-page edited volume entitled Einführung in die Indianersprachen (Bonn, 2001). It contains 20 chapters on a number of topics, including Native American language studies centered on the Mesoamerican culture area. Many chapters have been published elsewhere. Most are in German but several appear here in English or Spanish. Following is a selection of the chapters that may be of interest to readers:

"Cahuilla Grammar," by Hansgakob Seiler
"Alfabetos de las lenguas mayances," "Alfabeto quiché," by David G. Fox, Carol Jaeger de Fox, and Felipe Rosalito Saquic Calel
"Alfabeto oficial de las lenguas mayas de Guatemala," by Oxlajuuj Keej Maya' Ajtz'iib' (OKMA)
"Classification of Mesoamerican Indian Languages," by Jorge A. Suárez
"A Linguistic Look at the Olmecs," by Lyle Campbell and Terrence Kaufman

Dr. Riese writes, "Please announce this in your NN. Copies are offered in exchange for scholarly publications." His address is Dr. Berthold Riese, Professor für Ethnologie/Altaamerikanistik, Universität Bonn, Römerstrasse 164, D-53117 Bonn, Germany. His e-mail address is Geschz@voelk.uni-bonn.de.

He also sends notice of his reviews (Buchbesprechungen) of the following two books:

Arellano Hoffmann, Carmen, Peer Schmidt, und Christina Hoffmann-Randall. Die Bücher der Maya, Mixteken und Azteken: Die Shrift und ihre Funktion in vorspanischen und kolonialen Codices. 2nd ed. Schriften der Universitätsbibliothek Eichstäatt, Band 34. Pp. 535, zahlreiche schwarzweisse und farbige Abbildungen. Frankfurt am Main: Vervuert, 1998. Reviewed in Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 126(2001):117-18.

Buschmann, Eduard, und Wilhelm von Humboldt. Wörterbuch der mexicanischen Sprache. Mit einer Einleitung und Kommentar herausgegeben von Manfred Ringmacher. Wilhelm von Humboldt, Schriften zur Sprachwissenschaft. Herausgegeben von Kurt Mueller-Vollmer in Zusammenarbeit mit Tilman Borsche, Bernhard Hurch, Frans Plank, Manfred Ringmacher, Jurgen Trabant, und Gordon Whitaker. Betreut durch die Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Dritte Abteilung, Amerikanische Sprachen, Abteilungsherausgeber, Manfred Ringmacher, Dritter Band. Pp. lxxvi+1034, 1 Karte und mehrere teils farbige teils schwarzweiffe Faksimiles von Handschriften und Editionen. Paderborn: Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, 2000. Reviewed in Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 126(2001):121-25.

11. Dr. Ursula Dyckerhoff-Prem and Prof. Dr. Hanns J. Prem have written to announce a new project: "The goal is to publish a scholarly edition of 'Orígenes de los mexicanos' and 'Genealogía mexicana,' both published at the end of the 19th century by García Icazbalceta but never the subject of a serious study. The work will include a line by line synoptic comparison of the two manuscripts in a new paleographic format. It will be accompanied by a series of studies, including consideration of who wrote the manuscripts and an attempt to determine the author's original intent."

12. Brad R. Huber and Alan R. Sandstrom wish to announce the recent publication of their edited volume entitled Mesoamerican Healers. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001. $50.00 (cloth) ISBN 0-292-73454-9. $24.95 (paper) ISBN 0-292-73456-5. (See NN 29 for the table of Index.) From the back cover:

"Healing practices in Mesoamerica span a wide range, from traditional folk medicine with roots reaching back into the pre-Hispanic era to westernized biomedicine. These sometimes cooperating, sometimes competing practices have attracted attention from researchers and the public alike, as interest in alternative medicine and holistic healing continues to grow.

"Responding to this interest, the essays in this book offer a comprehensive, state-of-the-art survey of Mesoamerican healers and medical practices in Mexico and Guatemala. The first two essays describe the work of pre-Hispanic and colonial healers and show how their roles changed over time. The remaining essays look at contemporary healers, including bonesetters, curers, midwives, nurses, physicians, social workers, and spiritualists. Using a variety of theoretical approaches, the authors examine such topics as the intersection of gender and curing, the recruitment of healers and their training, healer's compensation and workload, types of illnesses treated and recommended treatments, conceptual models used in diagnosis and treatment, and the relationships among healers and between indigenous healers and medical and political authorities."

13. James W. Dow and Alan R. Sandstrom announce the publication of their new edited volume Holy Saints and Fiery Preachers: The Anthropology of Protestantism in Mexico and Central America. Religion in the Age of Transformation series. Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers, 2001. $69.00 (cloth) ISBN 0-275-95852-3. (See NN 30 for the table of Index.) Jim Dow writes:

"Based on empirical analysis and ethnographic fieldwork this collection of original articles on contemporary Protestant religions in Mexico and Central America examines regions ranging from the Pacific coast in the north to Guatemala in the south. These new studies reveal that Protestantism was on the rise in the last decades of the twentieth century because it opposed political structures that were largely unworkable in a new age of economic expansion and population growth. The studies cover regional and local variations in the growth of Protestantism, examine numerous reasons for the variations, and compare rural villages with modern communities. The book concludes that the modern religious conflicts bear only a general resemblance to the anti-Catholic issues that impelled the original Protestant Reformation in Europe.

"Relying on traditional scientific principles of data recording and theory development, the contributors look into the lives of contemporary rural people, Indian and mestizo, and provide data that enhance the general study of modern religious movements. The chapters examine, among other topics, the relationship between religion and demography, the role of leadership in church growth, the theories of Max Weber relating capitalism and Protestantism, religious conversion, and the modernization of Indian communities. Scholars and students who are interested in cultural anthropology, religious change, and religion in Latin America will find in these pages a unique and enlightening examination of Protestantism's rise and spread in Latin America."

14. Jacqueline de Durand-Forest, Danièle Dehouve, and Éric Roulet write to announce publication of their book Parlons nahuatl: La langue des aztèques. Collection "Parlons." Paris: L'Harmattan, 1999. Pp. 346. ISBN 2-7384-8545-6 (book with cassette). From the back cover:

"Parlons nahuatl est une initiation à la langue classique des Aztèques et à une variante encore en usage au Mexique, dans l'État de Guerrero. C'est aussi une introduction à la culture, à l'organisation sociale, aux croyances de ceux qui parlaient et parent encore cette langue. Un chapitre est consacré aux toponymes, où se manifestent les mécanismes de la langue et de l'écriture aztèque. L'ouvrage s'achève par un double lexique et une abondante bibliographie thématique.

"Un enregistrement de nahuatl moderne accompagne cet ouvrage. Les auteurs ont souhaité s'adresser à la fois aux étudiants, aux futurs américanistes et à tous ceux qui veulent préparer ou prolonger leur séjour au Mexique."

15. The NN wishes to announce the following work: Aquellos que vuelan: Los totonacos en el siglo XIX. By Victoria Chenaut. Historia de los pueblos indígenas de México. México, D.F.: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social; Instituto Nacional Indigenista, 1995. Pp. 302. ISBN 968-496-298-3 (paper). ISBN 968-496-259-2 (set). From the back cover:

"El siglo XIX mexicano fue, para los pueblos indígenas, una época de profundas transformaciones. En particular, el Totonacapan no fue ajeno a las desputas por la nacionalidad, ni a las pugnas entre liberales y conservadores y mucho menos a las intervenciones extranjeras. Sin embargo, sus vicissitudes históricas fueron un péndulo que lo mismo significó la aculturación que el apego a antiguas prácticas religiosas; de la huida hacia las montañas y barrancos de la Sierra Norte de Puebla a la integración social junto con los mestizos; de la defensa jurídica de sus propiedades comunales a la rebelión y el motín.

"Los estudiosos, y los lectores en general, encontrarán en el presente texto de Victoria Chenaut un interesante análisis del proceso de desamortización de las tierras totonacas, de cómo la población logró mantener como propiedad colectiva una gran parte de sus territorios. Asimismo, la autora nos ofrece un pormenorizado recuento de rebeliones y motines que protagonizaron los totonacos durante el siglo XIX.

"Como sucedió en muchos otros lugares, los pueblos totonacos sufrieron la pérdida de cultura, tierras e identidad; pero siempre conservando, desde su singular estrategia de sobrevivencia, la posibilidad de rehacer una y otra vez sus relaciones intercomunitarias. En este arduo proceso de reconstrucción étnica el hábitat, los cultivos tradicionales y las formas de la costumbre cotidiana jugaron un papel de primer orden.

"La autora de Aquellos que vuelan nos presenta una visión de la vida cotidiana de los totonacos de la sierra y de la costa, de una región y sus habitantes que han sobrevivido entre la ambigüedad de las formas, pero que una vez disipada nos muestra el rostro real de los totonacos."

16. The NN received a copy of the following book about the history of indigenous peoples of the Huasteca region: De la costa a la sierra: Las huastecas, 1750-1900. By Antonio Escobar Ohmstede. Historia de los pueblos indígenas de México. México. D.F.: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social; Instituto Nacional Indigenista, 1998. Pp. 253. ISBN 968-496-337-8 (paper). ISBN 968-496-259-2 (set). From the back cover:

"Los pueblos indios de las huastecas han sido actores fundamentales de la conformación de esta región de México que comparten los actuales estados de Hidalgo, Veracruz, San Luis Postosí, Tamaulipas y Puebla, y que ha estado inmersa, como otras, en los grandes procesos históricos que ha vivido el país.

"Basada en fuentes administrativas, manuscritas e inéditas, así como en textos de autores de la época y actuales, esta obra se propone dar cuenta del papel que jugaron en esta historia los pueblos nahuas, teenek o huastecos, otomíes, totonacos, tepehuas y pames, muy lejos de la pasividad o la mera receptividad que a menudo se les atribuyen. Los pueblos indios estuvieron prestos a litigar, comprar y defender su patrimonial comunal, así como a preservar y fortalecer su cultura, adaptándose al mismo tiempo a los embates externos, llámense reformas borbónicas, guerra insurgente, legislación gaditana, guerras con potencias extranjeras, desamortización, Imperio o proyecto modernizador porfiriano."

17. The following book will be of interest to readers: N'on nan kobijnd'ue n'an tzjon noan = Los usos de la madera entre los amuzgos. By Modesta Cruz Hernández. México, D.F.: Centro de Investiga-ciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, 1993. Pp 268. ISBN 968-496 236-3 (paper). From the back cover:

"San Pedro Amuzgos es un pueblo ubicado en el sur de Oaxaca; en él sus habitantes han podido trabajar y emplear la madera de los àrboles de la región para todas sus actividades, desde los enseres domésticos, hasta los implementos de trabajo en el campo.

"Este texto, escrito en amuzgo y en español, da cuenta de 100 distintos usos que le da esta etnia a la madera obtenida de las distintas partes de los árboles de la región, que lo vuelve un importante documento etnográfico y lingüístico para el conocimiento de las etnias de nuestro país."

18. The NN received the following book from the publisher: Al pie del volcán: Los indios de Colima en el virreinato. By Juan Carlos Reyes Garza. Historia de los pueblos indígenas de México. México, D.F.: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social; Instituto Nacional Indigenista; Secretaría de Cultura del Estado de Colima, 2000. Pp. 245. $15.00 (paper) ISBN 968-496-395-5. ISBN 968-496-259-2 (set). From the back cover:

"El secular aislamiento de Colima hace pensar que esta región, más que estar al pie del volcán, permanecía oculta detrás de él. Aislamiento que, ahora sabemos, nunca fue tan drástico como en el periodo que se inicia al término del siglo de la conquista y corre hasta la posrevolución. Cuatrocientos años de lejanía tuvieron como consecuencia - una entre muchas - que quedara fuera de las rutas de la historia nacional; una historia, por cierto, hecha desde el centro, por y para los mestizos. Y si la historia del mestizo colimote fue ignorada por sus pares, ¿qué decir de la historia de sus indios? Sin códices que hablaran de su pasado remoto y saqueada en su arqueología; sin frailes con pioneras vocaciones de etnógrafo, ni conquistadores afectos a la pluma; sin oro que radicara a sabios y poderosos; carente de la evidencia de pretéritas suntuosidades, tan apreciadas por los decimonónicos artífices de la mexicanidad, la historia de Colima simplemente transcurrió sin registro deliberado de su acontecer, y no obstante se guardó, involuntariamente, en su rico acervo documental, donde los indios están en su cotidianidad, sólo que las más de las veces en segundo o tercer plano.

"Este es un primer intento por sacarlos al frente del escenario y darles la palabra. La historia de Colima es también la suya, por ello resulta incompleta, cuando no inexplicable sin su presencia y participación."

19. Here is a book sent by the publisher that will be of interest to NN readers: Tinujei: Los triquis de Copala. 2nd ed. By Agustín García Alcaraz. México, D.F.: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, 1997. Pp. 307. ISBN 968-496-330-0 (paper). From the back cover:

"Consciente del respeto a la diferencia, García Alcaraz se compromete con los triquis de Copala para hacer un estudio objetivo que pone en relieve la forma de vivir y convivir de este polémico grupo indígena del estado de Oaxaca.

"A la presente reedición se agrega una semblanza de la vida del filósofo y antropólogo michoacano, y el prólogo escrito ex profeso por Carlos Paredes Martínez. Aquí 'se sintetiza el ser y el hacer de Agustín García Alcaraz, quien fue ante todo, un hombre comprometido con los grupos indígenas y a ellos dedicó su inteligencia, corazón y vida entera.'

"'Tinujei es el libro de antropología social más completo sobre los triquis de Copala,' virtud que lo convierte en una obra básica de consulta para entender mejor la necesidad de todo grupo indígena del respeto a su modo de vida."

20. The following book on the Nahuas of San Luis Potosí will be interest to readers: Aquí nomás... aquí somos: Reproducción de la organización comunal de Ocuilzapoyo S.L.P. By Juan Briseño Guerrero. México, D.F.: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, 1994. Pp. 232. ISBN 986-496-254-1 (paper). From the back cover:

"El presente estudio cuenta una parte de la historia del pueblo nahua de Ocuiltzapoyo, en la Huasteca potosina. Se pretende resaltar la visión y concepción que los propios habitantes del lugar tienen de su vida e historia. Para ello se utilizaron dos lineas de investigación: la historia oral y la cotidianidad. Se conceptualiza la primera como 'la narración de los acontecimientos del pasado, es uno de los mecanismos más transitados por el proceso de legitimación de las instituciones y del sistema político comunal.' Mientras que lo cotidiano 'es entendido como el ordenamiento de la vida y la ejecución diaria de una concepción propia, así como la manifestación más directa de una cultura particular y diferente a la nacional. La cotidianidad es un elemento constitutivo de un proyecto político propio, no es el rutinario hacer diario de los indios.' Conjuntando estas dos categorías analíticas se describen, como objetivo último de la investigación, los mecanismos de reproducción social de esta población."

21. The following work treats themes in Mesoamerican anthropology of enduring interest: Madres, médicos y curanderos: Diferencia cultural e identidad ideológica. By María Eugenia Módena. Ediciones de la casa chata, 37. México, D.F.: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, 1990. Pp. 229. ISBN 968-496-154-5 (paper). From the back cover:

"¿Como se combinan las multiples instituciones y organizaciones, privadas y públicas, que actúan en relación con la salud y la enfermedad? Intervienen en esta combinatoria las políticas estatales, la producción científica sobre el tema, la formación médica y paramédica, el ejercicio profesional, la comercialización de farmacos, los curadores populares y hasta la madre de familia que vincula y sintetiza la eficacia de las prácticas médicas y tradicionales u otras provenientes de fuentes religiosas.

"La madre de familia es el punto donde se anudan operativamente los recursos para la salud y la enfermedad. Al mismo tiempo, su función de curadora reúne la prescripción y normatividad médica, la aplicación particular de esa prescripción normaltizadora y los recursos caseros tradicionales, empíricos y/o mágico-religiosos, provenientes de diversos ámbitos de la vida pública.

"El despliegue de las combinatorias nos lleva a estudiar las relaciones entre autonomía, individualismo, proceso mercantil, secularización, responsabilidad personal y familiar en la salud y la enfermedad. Las medicinas tradicionales continúan y cambian, la medicina oficial se extiende, los nuevos grupos religiosos se expanden, pero la lógica que articular al conjunto es la propia del proceso de hegemonización que intenta abordar todas estas operaciones. No lo hace en forma 'óptima,' sino con esos modales contradictorios y desiguales con los que opera cuando se topa con los hechos provenientes de una historia compleja formada por múltiples actores."

22. Here is a recent collection on religion in Guadalajara: Creyentes y creencias en Guadalajara. Edited by Patricia Fortuny Loret de Mola. México, D.F.: Conaculta, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia; Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, 1999. Pp. 251. (INAH) ISBN 970-18-2503-9 (paper). (CIESAS) ISBN 968-496-388-2 (paper). From the back cover:

"El noventa por ciento de los residentes en la ciudad de Guadalajara y su zona conurbada dicen ser católicos, pero en realidad no lo son tanto. Examinar y discutir los cambios en los valores y prácticas asociados a las religions institucionales, así como mostrar la relación que existe entre la modernidad y las creencias religiosas de los tapatíos al final del milenio, constituyen los objetivos centrales de esta investigación.

"Las autoras compartían la idea de que la majoría de los habitantes de Guadalajara se sienten, reconocen, viven y piensan como católicos, hasta antes de aplicar la 'Encuestra sobre la diversidad religiosa en Guadalajara,' material que se analiza en este libro. Aunque desde diversas perspectivas todavía se puede clasificar esta ciudad como tradicional y conservadora, el presente análisis revela un panorama más dinámico y heterogéneo acerca de los creyentes y sus creencias.

"Los lectores encontrarán en esta obra información relevante sobre la adscripción confesional; la importancia de los rituales para los creyentes; el imaginario social del concepto de Dios y la trascendencia; el tipo de explicación que evocan los fieles ante el éxito o el fracaso en la vida; la conveniencia o inconveniencia de la formación religiosa para sus hijos; el grado de influencia de las normas religiosas en la moral sexual y la actitud frente a las diferencias religiosa, sexual, étnica y de clase."

Índice:

"Introducción," Patricia Fortuny Loret de Mola
"El campo religioso de Guadalajara: Tendencias y permanencias," Renée de la Torre Castellanos, Alma Dorantes González, Patricia Fortuny Loret de Mola, y Cristina Gutiérrez Zúñiga
"Sexo, edad, esculela y religión," Alma Dorantes González
"El catolicismo: ¿Un templo en el que habitan muchos dioses?", Renée de la Torre Castellanos
"Heterogeneidades religiosas: Las salidas de la institución," Cristina Gutiérrez Zúñiga
"Cédula de la encuesta"
"Tablas de los resultados según variables de control," Cintia Castro y David Tinoco
"Bibliografía general"

23. This book treats the topics of race and class in North America: After the Fifth Sun: Class and Race in North America. By James W. Russell. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1994. Pp. 254. ISBN 0-13-036237-9 (paper). From the back cover:

"Race first became an issue in the class structuring of North American societies in 1521 when Tenochtitlán, the capital city of the Aztecs, fell to Spanish invaders. For the first time conquerors and conquered were racially different. After the end of the Aztec era - the fifth sun in Aztec thought - Spanish and later European colonizers built new societies in which they occupied the dominant class positions and forced Indians, Africans, and Asians into subordinate positions. The close association of class and race in North America thus began during the colonial past, but it developed in different ways in the areas that would become the United States, Mexico, and Canada.

"In this far-reaching study, James W. Russell comparatively explores how patterns of class and racial inequality developed in the United States, Mexico, and Canada from the colonial pasts to the present. What is revealed is a continent of diverse historical experiences, class systems, and ways of thinking about race."

Topics include:

The Ending of the Fifth Sun
Class, Race, and Colonial Reconstruction
Three Societies, Two Worlds of Development
Contemporary Classes
Race and Pigmentocracy
Euro-North Americans
Indians after the Fifth Sun
Afro-North Americans
Original and New Asian Communities
The Fifth Race
The New North-American Division of Labor

24. CIESAS also sends the following book to the NN: Anónimos y desterrados: La contienda por el "sitio que llaman de Quauyla," siglos XVI-XVIII. By Cecilia Sheridan. México, D.F.: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social; Miguel Ángel Porrúa Grupo Editorial, 2000. Pp. 389. $25.00 (paper) ISBN 970-701-084-3. From the back cover:

"En este libro se examina el proceso de transformación de la territorialidad nómada del noreste en una territorialidad española, a partir del análisis de la ocupación y formación de una provincia colonial: Coahuila o Nueva Extremadura. Dicho proceso es analizado a la luz de la trayectoria de la conquista española del espacio, sustentada en una miscelánea de formas fractales que se compendian en el esquema: guerra-pacificación-exterminio. Con este trabajo se busca contribuir al esclarecimiento de los procesos sociales que dieron paso a la formación de una provincia española en un contexto de ocupación particular que permita una reflexión en torno a nuevas problemáticas que están todavía por investigar y profundizar."

25. And from the University of Texas Press: Zapotec Science: Farming Food in the Northern Sierra of Oaxaca. By Roberto J. Gonzalez. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001. Pp. 328. $50.00 (cloth). ISBN 0-292-72831-X. $24.95 (paper). ISBN 0-292-72832-8. From the back cover:

"Zapotec farmers in the northern sierra of Oaxaca, Mexico, are highly successful in providing their families with abundant, nutritious food in an ecologically sustainable fashion, although the premises that guide their agricultural practices would be considered erroneous by the standards of most agronomists and botanists in the United States and Europe. In this book, Roberto González convincingly argues that in fact Zapotec agricultural and dietary theories and practices constitute a valid local science, which has had a reciprocally beneficial relationship with European and United States farming and food systems since the sixteenth century.

"Gonzalez bases his analysis upon direct participant observation in the farms and fields of a Zapotec village. By using the ethnographic fieldwork approach, he is able to describe and analyze the rich meanings that campesino families attach to their crops, lands, and animals. González also reviews the history of maize, sugarcane, and coffee cultivation in the Zapotec region to show how campesino farmers have intelligently and scientifically adapted their farming practices to local conditions over the course of centuries. By setting his ethnographic study of the Talea de Castro community within a historical world systems perspective, he also skillfully weighs the local impact of national and global currents ranging from Spanish colonialism to the 1910 Mexican Revolution to NAFTA. At the same time, he shows how, at the turn of the twenty-first century, the sustainable practices of "traditional" subsistence agriculture are beginning to replace the failed, unsustainable techniques of modern industrial farming in some parts of the United States and Europe."

26. The editors send the NN a copy of their new book entitled Cosmovisión, ritual e identidad de los pueblos indígenas de México. Edited by Johanna Broda and Félix Báez-Jorge. Biblioteca mexicana. México, D.F.: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes; Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2001. Pp. 539. ISBN 968-16-6178-8 (paper). From the back cover:

"Este volumen reúne nueve estudios sobre etnografía de los pueblos indígenas de México. Los autores, especialistas internacionalmente reconocidos, presentan materiales de campo inéditos y esquemas interpretativos novedosos. Todos los ensayos que componen el libro han sido redactodos específicamente para integrar el presente volumen.

"Esta obra constituye una aportación para la discusión teórica sobre la religiosidad popular en la historia de México. Además del esfuerzo teórico, el libro propone una reivindicación de la etnografía como parte fundamental del quehacer antropológico. Se investigan temas de la cosmovisión y del ritual y su incidencia sobre los procesos de la reproducción cultural de las comunidades estudiadas. Los capítulos del volumen - aunque no abarcan ejemplos de todos los grupos étnicos del país - demuestran la enorme riqueza cultural que existe en México y que lo hace un país de una gran diversidad basada en antiguas tradiciones.

"Este libro académico también va dirigido a un público más amplio. Sus textos evidencian la asombrosa capacidad creativa de las culturas indígenas herederas de las civilizaciones prehispánicas, culturas que se apropiaron de elemetos impuestos durante su experiencia histórica como pueblos conquistados para crear las cosmovisiones ricas y diversas que mantienen en la actualidad y que llegan a expresarse en una ritualidad exuberante."

27. Of interest to Nahua ethnohistorians will be Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos indígenas novohispanos. Edited by Teresa Rojas Rabiela, Elsa Leticia Rea López, y Constantino Medina Lima. Testamentos en náhuatl y castellano del siglo XVII, Vol. 3. México, D.F.: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social; Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Technología, 2000. Pp. 550. $22.00 (paper) ISBN 968-496-372-6. ISBN 968-496-369-6 (set). Contributors include Guadalupe García Quintana, Magdalena A. García Sánchez, Elia Rocío Hernández, Ma. Elena Maruri, Enrique Nieto Estrada, Mercedes Ortega, and Zazil Sandoval. From the back cover:

"Vidas y bienes olvidados es una serie dirigida por Teresa Rojas Rabiela, investigadora del CIESAS, producto de cerca de una década de investigación, que ahora ve la luz gracias al apoyo del Conacyt [Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Technología].

"En este tercer volumen se publican 50 testamentos en lengua náhuatl dictados en el siglo XVII por 20 indígenas nobles y 30 macehuales. La totalidad de estos extraordinarios documentos proceden del Archivo General de la Nación, de los ramos de Tierras (39), Civil (6), Vínculos y Mayorazgos (2), Hospital de Jesús (1), Intestados (1), y Templos y Conventos (1).

"Los testamentos que los indígenas dictaron desde fechas tempranas, poseen una amplia gama de facetas de interés para conocer lo mismo la naturaleza y las relaciones familiares y sociales, que sus condiciones materiales, la economía y la religiosidad. Son de utilidad para el quehacer de antropólogos, lingüistas, historiadores y demás especialistas en las disciplinas sociales que indagan el pasado de los pueblos indígenas de México."

Los primeros títulos de la serie son:

1. Testamentos en castellano del siglo XVI y en náhuatl y castellano de Ocotelulco de los siglos XVI y XVII
2. Testamentos en náhuatl y castellano del siglo XVI
3. Testamentos en náhuatl y castellano del siglo XVII
4. Testamentos en castellano del siglo XVII
5. Índice de los testamentos de indígenas en el Archivo General de la Nación
6. Estudios

28. Finally, CIESAS has sent to the NN four small monographs on fishing practices in Mexico, part of the series "Cuadernos de la casa chata." The books are part of a larger collection called "Los pescadores de México," edited by Luis María Gatti:

Chenault, Victoria. Los pescadores de Baja California (costa del Pacífico y Mar de Cortés). Cuadernos de la casa chata, 111. México, D.F.: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Anthropología Social, 1985. Pp. 180. ISBN 968-496-062-X.

Díaz, Marcial, Galindo Iturbide, e Imelda García, Los pescadores de la costa norte de Chiapas (pp. 1-101); y Ma. de los Angeles Ortiz Hernández, Los pescadores de la Isla la Palma en Acapetahua, Chiapas: Estructura de poder en la S.C.P.P. de ribera La Palma (pp. 105-59). Cuadernos de la casa chata, 115. México, D.F.: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Anthropología Social, 1984. Pp. 159. ISBN 968-496-066-2.

Díaz, Marcial, Los pescadores de Nayarit (pp. 1-149); y Galindo Iturbide, Los pescadores de Sinaloa (pp. 151-205). Cuadernos de la casa chata, 120. México, D.F.: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Anthropología Social, 1985. Pp. 205. ISBN 968 496-075-1.

Chenault, Victoria. Los pescadores de la península yucatán. Cuadernos de la casa chata, 121. México, D.F.: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Anthropología Social, 1985. Pp. 175. ISBN 968-496-077-8.

Book Reviews

López Austin, Alfredo. 1997. Tamoanchan, Tlalocan: Places of Mist. Niwot, Colo.: University Press of Colorado. $39.00 (cloth). ISBN 0870814451.

This book is important reading for anyone interested in contemporary as well as ancient Mesoamerican culture, and I especially recommended it to those who care about gender. López Austin's ostensible aim is to disentangle the concepts of Tamoanchan and Tlalocan, but he offers his readers much more by presenting a comprehensive synthesis of Nahua culture based on his theory of gender opposition and the circulation of divine essences. Tamoanchan and Tlalocan require clarification for a number of reasons. Tamoanchan is a mythical as well as historical place located variously near the Moon on the top of a high mountain, among the volcanoes surrounding the Valley of Mexico, and in the ancient city of Teotihuacan. Tlalocan is the destination of those who died a water-related death, and scholars have offered many interpretations of its relationship to Tamoanchan. Some say the two are essentially the same, while others contend they are different.

Into this confusion steps López Austin who has already produced a monumental work on the human body (1988[1980]) and an encyclopedic reading of Mesoamerican mythology (1993[1990]). He aims to sort out the confusion by re-examining the ancient sources and by drawing inferences from ethnographic descriptions of contemporary cultures in regions of Mexico he considers "little influenced by Christian thought" (p. 125). Those cultures are the Nahua, Otomí, Tepehua and Totonac of the Sierra Norte de Puebla as well as the Tzotzil of highland Chiapas, and the Huichol of Nayarit, Zacatecas, and Durango. I shall summarize what he learned from examining the ancient sources and then discuss what he inferred from contemporary ethnographies.

López Austin begins his tour through the ancient sources with a close examination of one of Sahagún's documents that he also includes in his appendix. Sahagún's informant told how several human groups, led by their god, landed on a northern coast and worked their way to a place they called Tamoanchan. Their god left them, headed east, and promised to return when the world neared its end. Several of the groups - the Toltec, Chichimec, Michhuaque, Tepanec, Acolhuaque, Chalca, Huexotzinca, Tlaxcalteca, and the Mexica - left the earthly Tamoanchan and migrated to Chicomoztoc ("Seven Caves") where they spoke different languages and had distinct ethnicities. The Mexica, of course, eventually left Chicomoztoc and established the city of Mexico-Tenochtitlán. López Austin offers an interesting and plausible interpretation of the rhetorical strategy used by this informant. The mention of patterns of migration under the direction of a god was a way to establish the Mexica's divine right to their territory now threatened by their Spanish conquerors. The description of Tamoanchan as a historical rather than mythical place underemphasized Aztec religion, which would have provoked the Spaniards' disapproval.

Other sources do describe Tamoanchan as a mythical place, and among them is the Códice Telleriano-Remensis that tells of the gods cutting flowers and branches from a tree, resulting in their expulsion. The offending gods are the feminine Ixnextli, Itzpapalotl, Ixcuina, and Xochiquetzal and the masculine Huehuecoyotl. Their expulsion initiated the creation of the material world of humans, animals, and plants that have parallel cycles of reproduction. López Austin interprets the cutting of flowers and branches as a "sinful act" that initiated the "joining of two contrary cosmic forces": the hot, celestial and masculine; the cold, underworld, and feminine. The use of the term "sinful" is misleading and may be an artifact of Bernard R. Ortiz de Montellano and Thelma Ortiz de Montellano's usually able translation. As Louise Burkhart (1989) demonstrated, the friars introduced the concept of sin to the Nahuas, whose moral concepts rested on beliefs very different from those found in European Christianity. The friars regarded sexuality, especially that associated with women, as a principal source of sin. The use of the word "sin" is misleading for the ancient sources because sexual sin is loaded with connotations about female sexuality that may not have been part of the pre-Hispanic culture (see Klein 2001). Nevertheless, López Austin insightfully points out that the gods' act marked the beginning of human time when divine essences became enclosed in material surfaces that deteriorated in the sun.

López Austin rests part of his case on his translation of key Nahuatl terms and phrases, some of which are very ambiguous. The meaning of the word "Tamoanchan" itself is unclear. Sahagún thought it was a combination of tictemoa tochan = "we seek our home." But a different phrase - "Tamoanchan, quitoznequi temooa tocha[n]" - appears in the text of Sahagún's informant mentioned earlier, and López Austin translated it thus: "Tamoanchan means to descend to our home" (p. 102). The two phrases appear to have verbs that sound almost alike but have different stresses and meanings: temoa, "to look for" vs. temohua, the nonactive form of "to descend." (Karttunen 1983:223).

The ancient documents located Tamoanchan in the ninth level of space above the earth known as "Chicnauhnepaniuhcan," a word that also has an ambiguous meaning. There is confusion over the meaning of the infix nepan, which López Austin believes came from nepanoa, which he translates as "to throw one thing on top of another" (p. 107). However, Karttunen (1983:169) defines nepanoa as "to intersect, or unite." She also glosses nepan as "an element of a compound conveying a sense of mutuality or reciprocity" (Karttunen 1983:169). Her definitions support Michel Graulich's (1997[1970]) interpretation of Tamoanchan as a place where there once existed a harmonious union of opposites.

At issue are gender relations because the opposites have male and female characteristics. López Austin's interpretation of Chicnauhnepaniuhcan is a subtle example of his finding gender opposition throughout the ancient as well as contemporary sources. More conspicuous is his frequent mention of sexual sin in his reading of the contemporary ethnographies he uses to fill the gaps in the fragmentary and ambiguous ancient record. The term "sin" is perhaps more justifiable for contemporary Mesoamericans, although it belies the claim that the present-day groups López Austin has chosen for clarifying the concepts of Tamoanchan and Tlalocan are "little influenced by Christian thought" (p. 125).

López Austin interprets the ethnographic sources as depicting a cosmological model with marked opposition between feminine death, cold, water, and the rainy season, and masculine life, heat, fire, and the dry season. Wet, cold, dark, nocturnal, and terrestrial female beings control the growth and reproduction of humans, animals, and plants. Among them are the feminine earth and the rain deities, some of which turn into serpents and appear as lightning, thunder, wind, rain, clouds, and masses of water. These beings dwell inside a great mountain that contains enormous agricultural wealth, animals, minerals, currents of water, and energy, and some Nahua call the great mountain "Tlalocan." Feminine and masculine beings have a cyclical pattern of dominance correlated with the seasons. During the rainy season, the dominant forces are cold, wet and feminine, and during the dry season they are hot, dry, fiery, solar, and masculine. In the human life cycle, a baby is filled with feminine cold, dirt, sex, sin, and death that require ritual cleansing. As children grow into adults and carry out responsibilities, they acquire masculine heat. The human life cycle is characterized by acquiring an essence known as heart (yollo) from the mythical storehouse of Tlalocan. Yollo remains in the body until death when it returns to Tlalocan, and López Austin notes that the hearts of humans and maize recycle in similar fashion. López Austin contends that the life cycle of the maize plant is paradigmatic for the Nahuas, although the circulation of divine essences resembles the flow of blood through the human body. Curiously missing is a discussion of eztli ("blood"), which Alan Sandstrom (1991) so ably demonstrated links the Nahuatl to their milpas.

On the basis of what he learned from reading contemporary ethnographies, López Austin concludes that: "Tamoanchan and Tlalocan, misty places, are fundamental parts of a cosmic process of circulation of the divine forces that are necessary for the movement and continuity of beings in the world of humans" (p. 267). Contemporary Nahuas regard cold, wet Tlalocan as the realm of death that also produces life. The process of recycling divine essences involves the payment of debts and the purification of sin acquired through sex by which one loads up on tlalticpaccayotl ("earthly things"). Restitution, however, was not a punishment but a mechanical cleansing of any traces of a human's personality. In support, he notes that another name for Mictlan, the Land of the Dead, is "Ximoyan" and "xima means to smooth" (p. 266).

As well as clarifying the concepts of Tamoanchan and Tlalocan, this book also performs a valuable service by correcting the impression that ethnography of contemporary Nahuas has little to offer those interested in pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican culture. A generation of scholars has shied away from learning Nahua languages and making meticulous ethnographic observations that might have helped López Austin draw even more useful conclusions about the Nahuas. I blame Oscar Lewis who popularized the false impression that present day Nahuas not only live in the culture of poverty but also have poverty of culture. As López Austin so clearly demonstrates, the contemporary Nahuas, and many other groups in Mesoamerica, have a rich culture that is well worth the trouble to study, particularly in the indigenous languages.

In joining ethnography with the ancient sources, this synthesis of Nahua culture is bound to raise some questions. López Austin's book is what Geertz (1973:15) calls a fourth-order interpretation. It is a reading of selected anthropological works which themselves are interpretations of informants, subjects, friends, or consultants' explanations of their own utterances and rituals that are the foundation of ethnography. In his earlier work on mythology, López Austin (1993[1990]) explained more fully just how he goes about building his models. Writing about myth, he described how he made a distinction between mythic belief and narration. Mythic belief is the scholar's construction and mythic narration is the actual words of the informant which may be in error and incomplete. López Austin constructs mythic belief by reading widely about ancient Mesoamerican culture and locating survivals in the modern ethnographic record.

As an ethnographer, fourth-order interpretations like this one strike me as distant from the words and behavior of informants. If judged by a model, informants' words may appear to be in error, incomplete, of even lacking in interest because they do not contain evidence of survivals. However, there are reasons for Mesoamericans' variable presentations of culture. One is the informant's social location, an important variable for understanding gender symbolism. Men and women present different models "of and for reality," to borrow a phrase from Geertz (1973:93 96), according to their position in the social structure. Knowledge of their polysemy and multivocality is essential for creating more powerful models from ethnography to interpret the fragmentary and enigmatic historical record. I have the impression that most of the contemporary informants and the authors of the ancient documents are men who presented their culture in a particular way. Knowing more about variable expressions of contemporary culture will enable scholars to offer more socially informed interpretations of ancient myth, rituals, and expressions of belief. López Austin is at his best when taking social location into consideration as when he interpreted a migration narrative by one of Sahagún's informants. I enthusiastically recommend López Austin's fine book to all readers of the Nahua Newsletter.

References Cited

Burkhart, Louise. 1989. The Slippery Earth: Nahua-Christian Moral Dialogue in Sixteenth Century Mexico. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books.

Graulich, Michel. 1990[1997]. Myths of Ancient Mexico. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

Karttunen, Frances. 1983. An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Klein, Cecilia. 2001. "Gender Studies." In The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures, vol. 1. Davíd Carrasco, ed., pp. 435-38. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

López Austin, Alfredo. 1980[1988]. The Human Body and Ideology: Concepts of the Ancient Nahuas. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.

__________. 1990[1993]. The Myths of the Opossum: Pathways of Mesoamerican Mythology. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

Sandstrom, Alan R. 1991. Corn is Our Blood: Culture and Ethnic Identity in a Contemporary Aztec Indian Village. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

James M. Taggart
Franklin and Marshall College

Empire of Sand: The Seri Indians and the Struggle for Spanish Sonora, 1645-1803. By Thomas E. Sheridan. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1999. Pp. 493. $65.00 (cloth). ISBN 0816518580.

This book exemplifies sound scholarship and should be of interest to a diverse audience because the breadth of its research stretches across many academic arenas, e.g., ethnohistory, ethnobotany, social history, and geography. As the title notes, Sheridan's work concentrates on the interethnic division between the Seris of Sonora, Mexico, and the array of Spaniards within their territory. His primary focus is on the interactions through time between the indigenous inhabitants and Spanish missionaries, settlers, and government branches, particularly the military component. However his presentation is somewhat unique. He gives the reader an overview of the region, detailing what is known of the Seris who were divided into at least three groups. He also discusses the inhospitable terrain, the oft-times unsuccessful attempts by the Spaniards at mining, the futility of missionization, the struggle of the military to subdue the Seris, and the ebb and flow of indigenous resistance. Sheridan then presents the reader with the primary documents, first in English translation and heavily footnoted, and then in contemporary Spanish.

Many of the documents have never been published before, while others have been brought to light from scattered publications. The documents are presented in a context that demonstrates the early contact between Seris and Jesuit missionaries, the contentious attempts at missionization, the eventual upheaval of the mission system, and the continued hostilities between the two groups. Sheridan's presentation from the mid-1600s to the early 1800s shows the progression of Spanish interest in the spiritual enlightenment of the Seris, from missionization through their outright militaristic attempts for a final solution, i.e., ethnocide. It was the Seris' knowledge of their environment, which the Spaniards viewed as hostile and nearly uninhabitable, coupled with their focus on small groups, that allowed them to resist both missionization and pacification. Sheridan clearly highlights the fluidity of Seri society and the staunch loyalty of the Seri to their homeland and their ethnicity.

The numerous documents propel the reader into the research project itself as Sheridan does not attempt to highlight every detail within each document, but leaves much for interested readers to cull for themselves. This approach is certainly one of the extraordinary features of presenting a series of original documents through time in their entirety. Sheridan does not over interpret the data or attempt to mine the primary sources for every nugget, but leaves much for others to sift through. This alone should make his work of great interest both to teachers and students. The presentation provides readers with the opportunity to glean data on a variety of topics, including food and water sources, family units, sociopolitical alliances, intra ethnic divisions, as well as mobilizations. However, Sheridan does caution the reader that the documents need to be viewed as European or Euro-American accounts and do not reflect Seri society to any great extent. This is especially apt as only one Jesuit missionary, Nicolas Perera, spoke the Seri language and he wrote sparingly about them.

The volume is divided into five chapters, each with a concise introduction by Sheridan. His chapter-by-chapter overview adds clarity for the reader and was a constant reference source when the content of the documents became more complex. Sheridan has given us an exemplary work on a previously little-known region of northern Mexico. This work will become the benchmark for others to replicate throughout other regions of the New World. The scholarship here is commendable and the book will become a valuable reference guide, as well as a welcome addition to the classroom.

Richard Bradley
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Ritual Sacrifice in Ancient Peru. Edited by Elizabeth P. Benson and Anita G. Cook. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001. Pp. xii+211. ISBN 0-292-70894-7 (paper).

As evidenced by a number of spectacular finds (Reinhard 1996, 1999) and recent popular treatments of the subject (Tierney 1989), the role of sacrifice and sacrificial offerings are of interest to scholars working with both contemporary and pre-Columbian societies. The frequency, role in ritual, and meaning of pre-Columbian sacrificial acts are all topics addressed in Ritual Sacrifice in Ancient Peru. In the words of the editors of this book, "understanding sacrifice is an important means of knowing a culture, its worldview, and its religion" (p. ix) and this volume "should serve as a compilation of significant research on sacrifice and related practices" (p. x). Chapters within this edited volume, which represents a collection of papers presented at a Pre Columbian Society of Washington symposium on human sacrifice in Peru, examine the topic from a variety of sources, including analysis of sacrificial imagery, archaeological evidence, ethnographic analogy, and the analysis of human remains.

Unlike in Mesoamerica, the lack of written documentation for pre-Columbian Peruvian societies presents a number of methodological challenges for those hoping to infer the meaning, role, and frequency of human sacrifice from archaeological contexts. Contributors to this volume meet these challenges with varying degrees of success. Mesoamericanists will be particularly interested in possible extra-regional influences on Moche sacrificial practices, the role of the Moche Moon Priestess discussed in Chapter 3, the striking parallels among the Moche sacrificial victims from Huaca de la Luna (Pyramid of the Moon) Plaza 3A, discussed by Steve Bourget in Chapter 5 and John Verano in Chapter 8, and the "flowery wars" chronicled for the Aztecs in Mesoamerica (Townsend 1992:200). Each contribution within the volume is unique in its approach to human sacrifice. In this respect, nearly all chapters make significant methodological contributions to the study of human sacrifice and offerings for interpreting and understanding both physical and representational evidence.

Elizabeth Benson's opening chapter of the book entitled "Why Sacrifice?" is perhaps the most disappointing contribution to the volume. Benson introduces sacrifice as a general concept, then proceeds to discuss the antiquity of human sacrifice, warfare, ritual decapitation, animal sacrifice, and natural events. In an introductory section, Benson cites a key statement by bioarchaeologist John Verano, in which he distinguishes among "human sacrifice, dedicatory burials, secondary offerings of human remains, and the collection and curation of human body parts" (Verano 1995:189). These are important distinctions, both qualitatively and conceptually, that can often be discerned using physical evidence, but Benson fails to elaborate on these distinctions nor does she use them to guide her discussion of human sacrifice.

"Ritual Decapitation" is another disappointing section that Benson begins by stating "decapitation was the common form of sacrifice in the Andes" (p. 5). I would expect that such an assertive statement would require either some form of citation or discussion of physical evidence. She also goes on to discuss natural phenomena and the environment and how they might be related to ancient Peruvians' perceptions of human sacrifice. It is important to make explicit these relationships rather than listing unpredictable events and simply stating that sacrifice is somehow related to these events. Benson cites ethnographic works, but then fails to make use of the wealth of information they might provide for understanding ancient Peruvians' worldview and how offerings (inanimate, animal, and human) and human sacrifice (the ultimate offering) may have been perceived by ancient Peruvians. With respect to anthropomorphized Moche sacrificers discussed within this section, Benson states "Some scholars describe the sacrificers as masked humans. Actual sacrificers probably wore masks (like hangmen or beheaders in our culture, not too long ago), but I believe that the art generally depicts a mythic, supernatural realm" (p. 14). Given the discovery of the actual Moche entities displayed in "Sacrificial Theme," such as the tomb of the Lord of Sipan (Alva and Donnan 1993), and the remains of the Priestess at San Jose de Moro (Donnan and Castillo 1992) - works cited and discussed by the other contributors - it makes me wonder just how familiar she is with the literature she is trying to summarize.

Benson's chapter misses the opportunity to provide a general framework or operational definitions that would have greatly strengthened this volume. Instead, there are a number of implicitly related topics that are either underdeveloped or superficially discussed.

Chapter 2, entitled "Decapitation in Cupisnique and Early Moche Societies" is an interesting diachronic discussion by Alana Cordy-Collins of imagery and physical evidence for decapitation among two early complex societies that occupied the north coast of Peru. Cordy-Collins explains that Cupisnique (ca. 1500-1 B.C.) imagery represents some of the earliest depictions of decapitation and sacrifice in the New World. She states that "a study of their art reveals five distinct supernatural head-takers: a spider, a bird of prey, a monster, a fish, and a human" (p. 21). She then proceeds to present a strong case for an extended period of religious continuity between the Cupisnique and Moche (ca. A.D. 300-800) and asks the question as to why these pre Columbian north coast societies chose to depict a number - albeit limited - of different decapitators. Cordy-Collins considers a number of possible explanations for the variety of decapitators using both iconographic and physical evidence.

Cordy-Collins explains that during the Moche period, the number of decapitators expands to seven. The imagery from Moche friezes and well-provenienced ceramics suggests a spatial distribution of decapitators during Moche times and may indicate that the "Moche decapitators were patrons of specific valleys, settlements, or groups" (p. 25). This is an intriguing proposition that Cordy-Collins substantiates by reviewing the archaeological record for the region. In her discussion, Cordy-Collins informs us that at any given site only one of the seven different decapitators is found, some decapitators are found a multiple sites, and that imagery exists of different decapitators doing battle with one another. She proceeds to discuss the archaeological evidence from the Moche Dos Cabezas where eighteen severed heads were discovered. Many of the skulls still had some of the vertebral vertebrae attached and displayed cut marks on the anterior bodies of the vertebrae. In an adjacent area, an apparent decapitator was discovered buried with a functional sacrificial copper knife (tumi) in his hand. While the associated offerings with this individual do not indicate whether or not he represents the Fish Decapitator, the spectacular finds at Dos Cabezas suggest that Moche iconography is illustrating something more than mythical depictions of decapitation and human sacrifice.

The third chapter entitled "Blood and the Moon Priestess: Spondylus Shells in Moche Ceremony," also written by Alana Cordy-Collins, will be of particular interest to Mesoamericanists as the author explicitly considers possible extra-regional influences in both the imagery and artifactual evidence in the north coast during the terminal and immediate post-Moche period (ca. A.D. 650-800). She asks "did the Maya, with their long-standing sacrifice of royal prisoners, introduce the Sacrificial Ceremony to the Moche?" (p. 47). While the question is far from resolved within the chapter, Cordy-Collins discusses some provocative evidence that suggests a more than casual relationship between the Moche Priestess and Mayan Moon Goddess.

Cordy-Collins convincingly establishes a relationship among the Moche Priestess, spondylus shells, and the Sacrificial Ceremony depicted in Moche art. She explains that both women and spondylus shells are rarely depicted in Moche imagery, but when they are, they tend to co-occur. The priestess is depicted with a conspicuous stemless cup in the Moche Sacrificial Ceremony and is also often portrayed with a weight associated with diving for spondylus shells. Further, Cordy-Collins contends, the crescent-shaped boats with radiating spikes or rays in which the priestess is depicted in the Type 3 Tule Boat Ceremony may represent either a spondylus shell or the moon. There are also clear associations in Moche imagery and artifacts of the moon, silver, and women.

Based upon these difficult-to-interpret associations, Cordy-Collins claims that, following the decline of the Moche sometime after AD 700, the appearance of new practices and items in the archaeological record of the Peruvian north coast - such as the Peruvian hairless-dog, a new style of loincloth known to have also been used in Mesoamerica, and a new source for symmetrical (as opposed to previously used unsymmetrical) spondylus shells - imply a Mesoamerican source for these changes. In support of her proposition, Cordy-Collins cites depictions at Bonampak of Maya Moon Goddesses collecting blood in spondylus shells. The inference is that these associated changes in the archaeological record of the Peruvian north coast may reflect a direct or indirect influence on Moche bloodletting rituals and iconography.

Although the argument is provocative, the evidence for extra-regional influences is largely anecdotal. However, Cordy-Collins' line of inquiry has revealed a number of parallels that require further investigation.

Chapter 4, "Blood, Fertility, and Transformation: Interwoven Themes in the Paracas Necropolis Embroideries" is an excellent methodological contribution that illustrates how imagery, when meticulously investigated by an expert iconographer, can provide important information about sacrifice and ceremonial activities of temporally distant preliterate societies. Mary Frame's insightful analysis of Paracas embroidered textiles elucidates recurring themes of "blood, fertility, and transformations" (p. 56). Frame uncovered these themes by examining the co-occurrence of specific themes and characters depicted among different bundles of Paracas embroidered textiles. While some of the themes, such as fertility, are fairly unambiguously depicted using sprouting plants, other more cryptic themes, such as transformation, are inferred by the association of subtle variations in recognizable characters and the size of textiles from the same mummy-bundle on which these characters are depicted. (Paracas mummy bundles, or fardos, are often wrapped in multiple layers of textiles. Some of the Paracas embroidered bundles are simply bundles of textiles and lack human remains.)

Frame explains that autosacrifice and bloodletting is a recurring theme in the Paracas embroidered textiles. She makes a compelling case for the association of natural death and autosacrifice: through the death and burial of ancestors, the earth is made fertile again; by dying, one sacrifices one's self and returns to the earth; in turn, the earth's fertility is maintained. The imagery is unambiguous: dead individuals (obvious, due to exposed ribs and other characteristics) are often seen performing autosacrifice and bloodletting, and plants are depicted growing from the dead. Transformation of the dead to other forms (sharks, cats, etc.) becomes apparent when the embroidered textiles from the same mummy-bundle are considered. Here, recently dead ancestors appear in different stages of transformation to other beings and animals among subsequent textiles. Once again, Frame makes a strong case and provides a novel interpretation of the meaning of Paracas imagery.

Steve Bourget, author of Chapter 5 entitled "Children and Ancestors: Ritual Practices at the Moche Site of Huaca de la Luna, North Coast of Peru," attempts to interpret the meaning of three child burials he and his team excavated within Plaza 3A at Huaca de la Luna (Pyramid of the Moon). In the opening pages of his chapter, Bourget develops the context for his interpretations of the anomalous child burials by reviewing the unequivocal physical evidence for human sacrifice from Plaza 3A, an enclosure at one of the principal pyramids of the Moche where he uncovered adult males who displayed clear ontological evidence for traumatic deaths (Bourget 1997a, 1997b; also discussed in Chapter 8). Bourget argues that the anomalous child burials, which are located in levels below the adult male sacrificial victims, are related to the sacrificial activities at Plaza 3A. Two of the three child burials are missing their skulls, yet have their cervical vertebrae in anatomical position, and one of the headless burials has ceramic whistles in each of its hands. While Bourget acknowledges that this may indicate post-mortem disturbance, he suggests, instead, that the skulls may have been removed during decapitation. He also acknowledges that Plaza 3A was constructed upon an earlier Moche cemetery, but suggests that given the three child burials' close proximity to the northeast wall of the plaza, they could not have been there prior to its construction, otherwise they most certainly would have been disturbed. He then suggests the children represent an offering to sanctify the plaza in preparation for subsequent sacrificial events.

The remainder of Bourget's contribution is directed towards establishing iconographic links between children, whistles, and mythical decapitators; decapitators and sacrifice; ritual hunting, warfare, and the sacrifice of captives; and, finally, whistling and sacrifice. By discussing some widely accepted interpretations of Moche iconography dealing with each of the topics, Bourget ties these iconographic themes together to come up with the suggestion that the three child burials from Plaza 3A are somehow related to the subsequent sacrificial events. He admits that these links require further investigation. And it must be pointed out that, while the interpretations for each of the iconographic themes are widely accepted, nobody has strung them together in such a novel way.

Novel as Bourget's interpretation may be, it is like a house of cards in that if one of the cards falls, so falls the house - or in this case, the logic of his interpretations. Those unfamiliar with Bourget may not realize that his intuitions regarding Moche iconography have led him to some of the most spectacular evidence for Moche sacrifice (Bourget 1994, 1997a, 1997b), but in this case, if his interpretations are right, they are right for the wrong reasons. As discussed subsequently in Verano's contribution to the volume, the lack of the skulls, presence of the vertebral vertebrae, and lack of cut marks on those vertebrae almost certainly indicates that the three child burials were not decapitated. Indeed, the presence of the vertebral vertebrae and absence of two of the three children's skulls likely indicates that the skulls were removed long after the soft tissue had decomposed. Rather than decapitation, the lack of skulls likely indicates these skulls were gathered for secondary burial or their subsequent use in ceremonial display or activities. With this in mind, it makes it more likely that the three child burials were indeed disturbed during construction of Plaza 3A. This interpretation represents the most parsimonious explanation for the context.

The presence of the whistles in one of the three children's hands almost certainly has some sort of spiritual meaning to it, but exactly what that meaning is - given that the headless child may not have been decapitated after all - is equivocal. Perhaps the links that Bourget perceives among the iconographic scenes will withstand further investigation. I would not want to suggest otherwise given his uncanny ability to accurately interpret Moche imagery. But the primary evidence on which he largely bases his argument does not withstand thorough scrutiny.

As the title implies, Chapter 6, "Ritual Uses of Trophy Heads in Ancient Nasca Society" by Donald A. Proulx, examines both the physical evidence and imagery to argue that Nasca (100 B.C.-A.D. 700) trophy heads resulted from head hunting associated with warfare, and that these elaborate trophy heads were used in ritual and ceremonial activities that extend beyond conflict. Proulx explains that while imagery of decapitation and trophy heads is widespread throughout the Andes, this south coast culture is the only known to have so elaborately prepared trophy heads. He provides a detailed description of Nasca trophy head preparation. Proulx then supports his assertion that the trophy heads were collected through warfare by discussing their demographic profile (nearly all are those of young adult males, although some Nasca trophy heads are from women and children) and mentioning that many exhibit signs of trepanation associated with skull injuries (p. 121). It should be mentioned that while the demographic profile and iconographic evidence support the assertion that the trophy heads were acquired through warfare, the relationship between trepanation and premortem trophy-head traumas has not been scientifically investigated. I am unaware of any report or presentation of this information and Proulx provides no citation. From my first-hand knowledge of the Nasca trophy skulls at the Museo Nacional de Antropología, Arqueología e Historia del Perú, this statement does not stand up to any empirical evidence I have seen. Another questionable statement made by Proulx is that "of all the cultures that practiced head-taking in ancient Peru, only Nasca and Paracas are known to have meticulously prepared severed heads for ritual use" (p. 122). It is difficult to justify this statement given the trophy heads known from the Azapa Valley, northern Chile (Rivera 1991), and the presence of complex trophy heads from Moche described in a subsequent chapter by Verano. These are minor points, however, and do not undermine the central theses of Proulx's chapter.

Proulx then turns to Nasca imagery to interpret the role the trophy heads had in Nasca ceremonies and rituals. Nasca iconography is replete with individuals carrying trophy heads. There are even ceramics fashioned in the shape of trophy skulls depicting the correct anatomical location of the hole through the forehead where the cordage was used to suspend the trophy heads. Proulx describes how various scenes depict acts of offering trophy heads to mummy bundles. Based upon these scenes he suggests that Nasca trophy heads were used in Nasca mortuary rituals. He cites other instances where Nasca trophy heads are clearly associated with fertility offerings and makes a cogent argument that the trophy heads played an integral role in regeneration and rebirth of both the Nasca's physical and supernatural world. This interpretation dovetails nicely with Mary Frame's discussion of Paracas embroidered textiles and goes far to aid in our understanding of the relationship among prehistoric Andean offerings, decapitation, and the role of trophy heads.

Anita Cook's chapter "Huari D-Shaped Structures, Sacrificial Offerings, and Divine Rulership" is, in my opinion, the strongest theoretical contribution for those seeking a broader understanding of the role that sacrifice likely played in pre-Columbian Peru. The Huari (A.D. 650-1000) were a highland empire that extended its influence throughout northern and central Peru. Cook explains that Huari imagery is "a key to understanding the organization of sacred space within the capital of Huari and at Huari sites outside the Ayacucho Valley" (p. 139). Her central thesis is that pre-existing imagery and practices, such as the sacrificer and notions of sacrifice and offerings, may have been appropriated and transformed by the Huari to a form of state-tribute.

Cook examines the nature and spatial distribution of physical evidence in the form of ritual offerings. Many of these offerings, including inanimate objects like ceramic and cinnabar, animal and human remains, are located under floors of ceremonial and centrally located D shaped structures, which are characteristic of Huari sites. Caches of offerings within these D shaped structures, Cook explains, are located within semi-subterranean stone-slab chambers and cylindrical capped cists. Grooves and holes located in the coverings would have permitted re entry so that subsequent offerings could be added. Later, Cook explains, ceramic imagery sometimes depicts the Huari sacrificer in association with the D-shaped structures.

Cook then makes a strong case that "sacrifice" in Central Andean contexts is materially expressed in "offerings and that these offerings are, in fact, forms of repayment" (p. 156). She cites a number of ethnographic examples that clearly illustrate how traditional Andeans view sacrifice as part of a continuum of possible offerings made as payment to important Andean deities. According to Andean world view, all things, inanimate and living, are imbued with sami, an essence or life force. Sami circulates throughout all things in the universe, and by making offerings, one is an active agent in directing sami so as to maintain balance and to propitiate appropriate deities so that they act favorably on one's behalf. This will sound familiar those Mesoamericanists familiar with Alan Sandstrom's (1991) descriptions of modern ritual acts of the Nahua. Cook explains that the offerings at Huari D-shaped structures may represent the Huari's appropriation of pre-existing Andean ritual offerings and cosmological beliefs as a form of tribute.

In the opening pages of the final chapter of this volume entitled "The Physical Evidence of Human Sacrifice in Ancient Peru," John Verano discusses the history of finds of physical evidence for human sacrifice. He then proceeds to make a strong and rigorous discussion of what constitutes physical evidence for human sacrifice and decapitation and how such evidence can be distinguished from other alternative explanations. Perimortem cut marks, posture and treatment of remains in primary contexts, and more ephemeral physical evidence, such as the presence of ligatures, provide fairly unequivocal evidence that an individual was sacrificed. The presence of cervical vertebrae with cut marks in association with skulls likely indicates decapitation, whereas a lack of cervical vertebrae associated with a skull may indicate that the skull represents a secondary interment. Interred body parts that lack evidence of cut marks are equivocal, but may also represent offerings in the form of secondary interments.

Verano then proceeds to provide a thorough summary of the physical evidence for human sacrifice, dedicatory offerings, secondary interments, and body parts. Finally, he provides a detailed discussion of the nature of the evidence for human sacrifice from Huaca de la Luna Plazas 3A and 3C. Verano makes a strong case based upon the available physical evidence in the form of demographic profile (all adult males), treatment (scattered distribution of the human remains that were left out to rot as evidenced by the presence of fly pupae), evidence for previously healed broken bones, and forensic evidence for cause of death (radial skull fractures indicating massive blunt trauma, while others show evidence of having been struck in the skull by star-shaped maces), that these individuals represent sacrificed captive warriors. Verano's level of analytical rigor in the analysis of physical evidence is a welcome contribution to our understanding and detection of human sacrifice and offerings.

For non-Andeanists and methodologists, this volume would likely have been strengthened if Verano's chapter was placed first. The volume would have benefitted from a rigorous and explicit discussion of what kinds of evidence we might accept human sacrifice. In any case, I feel that Ritual Sacrifice in Ancient Peru, despite some shortcomings, is a must-read for Mesoamericanists. While not all of the information presented in the volume will be directly applicable, one can always glean novel insights, methodologies, and possible extra-regional connections and similarities by reading works done outside one's own area of investigation.

References Cited

Alva, W., and C. B. Donnan. 1993. Royal Tombs of Sipan. Los Angeles: Fowler Museum of Cultural History, UCLA.

Bourget, S. 1994. "Los sacerdotes a la sombra del cerro blanco y del arco bicéfalo." Revista del Museo de Arqueología, Antropología, e Historia no. 5:81-125.

__________. 1997a. "La colére des ancêtres: Découverte d'un site sacrificiel à la Huaca de la Luna, vallée de Moche." In À l'ombre du Cerro Blanco: Nouvelles découvertes sur la culture Moche, côte nord du Pérou. C. Chapdelaine, ed., pp. 83-99. Montreal: University of Montreal.

__________. 1997b. "Las excavaciones en la Plaza 3A de la Huaca de la Luna." In Investigaciones en la Huaca de la Luna 1995. S. Uceda, E. Mujica, and R. Morales, ed., pp. 51-59. Trujillo, Peru: Universidad Nacional de la Libertad.

Donnan, C. W., and L. J. Castillo. 1992. "Discovery of the Moche Priestess." Archaeology 45(6):38-42.

Reinhard, J. 1996. "Peru's Ice Maidens." National Geographic Magazine 189(6):62-81.

__________. 1999. "Frozen in Time." National Geographic Magazine 196(5):36-55.

Rivera, M. 1991. "The Prehistory of Northern Chile: A Synthesis." Journal World Prehistory 5:1 48.

Sandstrom, A. R. 1991. Corn is Our Blood: Culture and Ethnic Identity in a Contemporary Aztec Indian Village. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

Tierney, P. 1989. The Highest Altar: The Story of Human Sacrifice. New York: Viking.

Verano, J. W. 1995. "Where Do They Rest? The Treatment of Human Offerings and Trophies in Ancient Peru." In Tombs for the Living: Andean Mortuary Practices. T. D. Dillehay, ed., pp. 189-227. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Collection.

Richard C. Sutter
Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne

Commentary

Terry Stocker has written to contribute these comments on Richard Townsend's The Aztecs:

In 1992, when I read Richard Townsend's (1992) caption to Motecuhzoma II's coronation stone I assumed it was in part a typo. I did not write specifically addressing the issue at the time since I thought my two-part work A Walk Through An Aztec Dream and The Aztec Augury Table dealing with Sahagún's Book 4 would be published about 1994; both works should appear sometime in 2003. Townsend's mistakes are detailed in the latter. However, a few articles have appeared (Stocker and Dodge 1993; Stocker 1998, 2000, n.d.a).

Dutifully reading Latin American Antiquity book reviews, I learned that not only has Townsend's book, The Aztecs, arrived revised, but the mistakes regarding the stone still stand (Whittaker 2000). It is now Figure 106 instead of Figures 104 and 105. Whittaker ends his review by noting that Townsend's book "cannot be recommended unequivocally as a textbook or as a guide to the nonmaterial side of Aztec culture." Whittaker notes that Townsend's grasp of ethnohistorical materials is inadequate at best.

An underlying current of A Walk Through An Aztec Dream is that the material side of Aztec culture cannot be adequately presented outside of an ethnohistorical context. If we didn't have these records, we might talk (write) about the Aztecs much as some do about Teotihuacan or the Olmec. For example, when reading about pre-Aztec life, archaeologists write about ritual this and sacrifice that. Indeed it is sometimes difficult to separate ritual from almost anything in an animistic culture. Nonetheless, Sahagún has given us a picture of Aztec life in which, for example, people were executed for misdeeds, not sacrificed. The two are profoundly different. Execution is also presented in other ethnohistorical works such as Duran (1964). In certain Mesoamerican iconography and skeletal remains, we are witnessing executions not sacrifice. I will not belabor this point here, but hope that readers will look at Stocker and James (1988) and Stocker (n.d.b). Likewise, slaves abound in ethnohistorical literature, but why do none exist in the archaeological record? I propose that at least 10 to 20 percent of Tollan population was slaves. Anyone may equivocate with the percentage, but they cannot equivocate that slaves must become a living part of the prehistoric landscape (Stocker n.d.c).

In addition, Townsend has other problems with the material side of the Mesoamerican landscape. He claims that "The so-called Pyramid of the Morning Star at Tula was in fact the seat of supreme authority at the city" (Townsend 1992:48, fig. 27). I have detailed the fact that Tula's Pyramid B faces south, not east, in the direction of the Morning Star (Stocker 1993). Townsend changed this to: "Pyramid B at Tula was the seat of supreme authority at the city, with grim warrior columns supporting the roof of the upper chamber" (Townsend 2000:48). I doubt that the warriors supported a roof, but it is possible. However, in light of temple B's columns, I think both were placed outside (Stocker n.d.b). I also pointed out that Tula's Pyramid C is larger than Pyramid B, and normally when allocating authority in Mesoamerica, supreme authority is granted to the larger pyramid. This landscape alignment, of the largest pyramid facing west, is critically important when looking for Aztec heritage (Umberger 1987). My 1993 article was published in a Mexican source, something not well-represented in Townsend's book.

Now, for Townsend's caption and interpretation of Motecuhzoma II's box. On the box is the date 11 Acatl (Reed) in a cartouche which Townsend in both the text of his book and the caption refers to as 2 Reed. Whittaker points out this error. We can push beyond this. Townsend writes, "...plus the year-cartouche 2 reed, and a day-sign 12 alligator. In the Christian calendar this date corresponds to 11 June 1502. The coronation of the emperor Motecuhzoma II...." One will not see the day-sign 12 alligator, but rather 1 Cipactli (Caiman). The word "alligator" should never be used in Mesoamerica since they do not exist there, only caimans do (Stocker et al. 1980). 1 Cipactli was the coronation date of Motecuhzoma II as it was for all the Aztec kings before him and after him and presumably the kings at Tula (Stocker n.d.b).

References Cited

Duran, D. 1964. The Aztecs. N.Y.: Orion Press.

Stocker, T. n.d.a. "Is There Really a Man in the Moon?" In Trickster and Ambivalence: The Dance of Differentiation. B. Spinks. ed. Atwood Publishing (in press).

__________. n.d.b. "Reading Tula's Columns." Arquelogía (in press).

__________. n.d.c. "The Trickster on Parade: The Aztecs." Available: www.trickster.org (in press).

__________. 2000. "Reconsidering Comments on Sahagún's 260 Day Signs." Nahua Newsletter 30:25-26.

__________. 1998. "The Aztec 260 Day Count: An Augury Table Not a Calendar." Epigraphic Society Occasional Papers 23:175-86.

__________. 1993. "Contradictions in Religious Myths: Tezcatilipoca and his Existence at Tula, Hidalgo, Mexico." Notas Mesoamericanas 14:63-92.

Stocker, T., and G. Dodge. 1993. "Comments on the 260-Day Calendar in Sahagún's Book of Soothsayers." Epigraphic Society Occasional Papers 22:295-302.

Stocker, T., and D. James. 1988. "Semiotic Analysis of Prehistoric Texts." Semiotics 1987:183 92.

Stocker, T., S. Meltozoff, and S. Ramsey. 1980. "Further Interpretations in Formative Period Iconography." American Antiquity 45:740-58.

Townsend, R. 1992. The Aztecs. London: Thames and Hudson.

__________. 2000. The Aztecs. Rev. ed. London: Thames and Hudson.

Umberger, E. 1987. "Antiques, Revivals, and References to the Past in Aztec Art." Res 13:62-105.

Whittaker, G. 2000. Review of The Aztecs by Richard F. Townsend. Latin American Antiquity 4:433-34. 30:25-26.

Illustrations this issue

The fine illustrations in this issue were taken from a new monograph entitled Tamtok: Sitio arqueológico huasteco, Vol 1. Su historia, sus edificios. By Guy y Claude Stresser-Péan, in collaboration with Alain Ichon, published with the support of La Fondation Singer-Polignac. México. D.F.: El Instituto de Cultura de San Luis Potosí; El Colegio de San Luis A.C.; Conaculta/El Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia; Le Centre Français d'Études Mexicaines et Centraméricaines, 2001. Pp. 364, 1 map, 101 plates of black and white illustrations, 3 color plates, 34 pages of photographs. ISBN 968-6029-72-9 (Spanish edition with CD-ROM in French). Derived from the flyer that accompanies the book:

"Tamtok is a Huastecan archaeological site in the ancient province of Oxitipa. It is situated on a plain through which the Tamuín River meanders and connects more than 50 small and medium-sized mounds dominated by two large natural hills that were once mistaken for pyramids. Twenty-three buildings compose the imposing ceremonial plaza. Five platforms of ritual use in the center are surrounded by 13 round houses and by two large rectangular buildings with terraces most likely used as social gathering places. Funeral or votive offerings were found here as well as a mural, small statues, sculpted steles, etc. As a whole it gives us an idea of what the religious life of a few noble families that dominated the city of Tamtok must have been like, their practice of the cult of fertility, and veneration of the principal divinity who was the old, hunched and wrinkled Huastecan god. Tamtok is a recent Postclassic site, but the study of its ceramic material and offerings deposited at the foot of two great steles attest to occupation during the ancient Classic period."

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Last updated: 11/29/07