Gender and town guardianship in Mesoamerica : directions for future research

Abstract

El papel de la mujeres en la defensa de pueblos en Mesoamérica : pistas para futur as investigaciones El militantismo político importante de las mujeres indígenas durante el periodo colonial, bien demostrado por la obra de W.B. Taylor, ha llevado a interrogarse sobre su papel en la defensa de sus comunidades frente a los procesos de formación de estados y constitución de imperios antes de la conquista española, asi como sobre su papel cuando sufrieron una ocupación extranjera. Los manuscritos pictográficos como aquellos de la colección Aubin- Goupil constituyen un excelente punto de partida para estudiar el papel respectivo de los hombres y de las mujeres en la fundación de los pueblos y en su defensa a lo largo del tiempo. Es interesante observar que las mujeres posiblemente tuvieron un papel más destacado que lo que se imaginaba en la defensa de sus comunidades. También es posible que cierto paralelismo о cierta complementaridad en la ideologia de los géneros se haya roto con el tiempo.

The Mixtec Pictorial Manuscripts

“…Carmagnani 1988, Ouweneel & Miller 1990, Harvey 1991, Lockhart 1992, Romero Frizzi 1996, Terraciano 2001. The consequences of these social and mental changes for the production of pictorial manuscripts, chronicles and literary works have been investigated in depth by Gruzinski (1988), Florescano (1999, Wood (2003) and other scholars. Important case studies are presented in the dissertations of Van Doesburg (1996), Roskamp (1999), Oudijk (2000) and Asselbergs (2004).…”

“…12 Calci's son, Don Gonzalo, later claimed that his father had died when he himself was still a small child and that he was succeeded directly by Don Domingo de Guzmán, which would mean that Calci lived till the end of the 1530s. 13 Although the overall picture is far from clear, we get the impression that Lord 8 Death's enthronement as cacique in 1524 was not because his predecessor Calci had died, but as a 10 See the excellent study by Wood (2003) on the representation of Spaniards in early colonial pictorial manuscripts, as well as the contribution by Lori Boornazian Diel to the volume in honor of Mary Elizabeth Smith (Boone 2005: 301-317), which specifically discusses the Spanish chair as an icon of rule, appropriated and incorporated by the Mesoamerican nobility.…”

“…See alsoWood 2003 and the general comments byGosden (2004: 25) on colonialism paradoxically often being a source of creativity, having a transformational influence on all parties involved.…”