TerrazgueroSmallholders and the Function of Agricultural Tribute in Sixteenth-Century Tepeaca, Mexico.

Abstract

This work examines the role of agricultural tribute within sixteenth-century indigenous populations from the Tepeaca region. The allocation of agricultural areas to commoners was a crucial strategy for the support of local political institutions. However, such land allocations have not been calculated adequately due to our poor understanding of the local measurement units. This work estimates the size of agricultural tribute spaces by re-evaluating the equivalence between the ancient land measurements and the modern metric system. Doing so allows an assessment concerning food production within domestic households and the involvement of the political apparatus on their food subsistence base.Este trabajo examina la función del tributo agrícola entre las poblaciones indí-genas del siglo XVI en Tepeaca. La asignación de espacios agrícolas al sector comunal fue una estrategia trascendental para el soporte de las instituciones polí-ticas. Sin embargo, nuestro pobre entendimiento de las antiguas unidades de medida indígenas ha derivado en un cálculo inadecuado de dichas asignaciones. Este estudio reevaltia el tamañt) de las parcelas de tributo cotejando las antiguas formas de medición con el sistema métrico moderno. Esto permite evaluar la producción de alimentos a nivel del conjunto doméstico y la injerencia del aparato político sobre su base alimenticia.•The HUÍ Award ofthe Penn State University Department of Anthropology funded this work. We thank the valuable suggestions and comments of the anonymous reviewers.Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos Vol 28. Issue 1, Winter 2012, pages li-9i. is.sN 0742-9797 electronic ISSN 1533-8320.

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