Death as a Way of Life: The Increasing Resort to Homicide in a Maya Indian Community¹

Abstract

The breaking-down of a social-control system based on belief in the guardianship of thespiritual ancestors and lheir temporal age&, the curers, is rejected i n a rising homicide rate as people turn lo individual sanctions when threatened. The acts o j limicide dijer i n their social signifitance according h who is killed, the context, the agency, and the motivation of the killer. Thirty-seven homicides between 1938 and 1965, analyzed in terms of these component variables, reject the con.icts arising from competitim i n new economic enterprises, the rising suspicion of curers' abuse oftheir supernatural power, and the loss of belief in the guardianship of the ancestors.social impact of homicide has caused T some analysts2 to treat it and its sup- Teklum is a predominantly Indian township of Mexico. The population of the town center-about 1,900-includes only one Ladino, or non-Indian, family, that of the schoolteacher. The sense of community is limited to people living in the center and in the four nearby hamlets (barrios).The town center is divided physically and socially into two endogamous sections, called "upper" and "lower." The outlying hamlets are linked to the nearest section by social and economic ties. The civil and religious posts of the town are, in local theory, apportioned evenly between the sections. This was in fact true until the 1950's; for each of the ranked posts had a paired complement, so that both sides of the dual division were represented, and the single posts of president and stndico (the president's administrative assistant) were alternated for each three-year term between the upper and lower sections.But with the recent increase in dealings between the national and regional administrative centers and the local communities, recruitment into o f k e as president and sindico has come to depend upon the candidates' possessing a knowledge of Spanish, literacy, and familiarity with the ways of Ladino society. Because of the relative scarcity of such skills, selection of these two officials has tended to ignore the former residence requirements relating to the dual division. Along with this change in the criteria for selecting these officials has come a decrease in the power and the authority exercised by the principules-elders from each side of the dual division who rose to their position by passing through all of the lower offices in the hierarchy-and a corresponding increase in the importance of the presidency.This dual division also affected the structure of the curing profession. The curers are men who can overcome sickness caused by witchcraft because of their possession of a n animal spirit (swayohel) and their knowledge of ritual. In each of the two sections of the town was a leading curer (staid P d J ) who, by virtue of his age, experience, and recognized authority, was able to control entry into the profession. Their function was to prevent as well as cure, for the leading curers were also charged with guarding their section against the entry of witchcraft. I n the last two decades,...

Articulations of rule: landowners, revolution, and territory in Chiapas, Mexico 1920–1962

“…Violent confrontations within indigenous communities were nothing new in the region. Nevertheless, echoing patterns found elsewhere in Chiapas during this period, 45 the startling visibility of murders, rapes, and other crimes in the written record reflects both the growing importance of indigenous communities and their problems to the people who kept records and a breakdown of traditional order that catalyzed an absolute rise in violence. In the rather typical year of 1950, municipal authorities in Chilo´n heard cases related to one fatal shooting of an indigenous man by a ladino and one ladinoeindigenous land dispute.…”

Play aggression among zapotec children: Implications for the practice hypothesis

“…Daly and Wilson, 1988:137-161;Kappel, 1978;Mednick et al, 1988, Table 11; Nash, 1967;Taylor, 1979;Romanucci-Ross, 1973; U.S. Department of Justice, 1979: 1891. Boys often have been found to engage in more play aggression than girls [Blurton Jones and Konner, 1973;Humphreys and Smith, 1984 and references therein;Pellegrini, 1987:29 and references therein; Whiting and Edwards, 19731, although in some studies no significant sex differences are reported [cf.…”

Assassination and Conflict Resolution in Laos

“…Most primary victims were men also (nine out of ten), although several secondary female victims were executed. Anthropological studies of political homicide among the Maya of Taklum, Tarascans of Acan, and the Carib Kuikuru people of central Brazil also have indicated the marked preponderance of males as assassins and as victims (Dole 1966;Nash 1967;Friedrich 1962). In addition, historical recounts of assassination from Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, and Asia have shown that all assassins and practically all victims were men (Bornstein 1950; Donovan 1955;Havens, Leiden, and Schmitt 1970;Heap 1969;Hyams 1969).…”

“…In these Laotian data, even where the victim did not belong to the same ethnic group as his assassin, the victim held some hegemony [ 75,1973 over the group to which the assassin belonged. Nash (1967) collected data among the Maya of Teklum similar to these from Laos, thus allowing several further comparisons to be made. For example, firearms were used most frequently as weapons in both places.…”

“…Less of the deviant interpretation appears in the anthropological literature, however (Dole 1966;Nash 1967;Friedrich 1962). Certainly these Laotian data support the latter stance: assassins were reported to be responsible people by a wide variety of informants in Laos; and indeed, reconstructions of their social existence revealed them to be socially productive individuals.…”