Aspect of Social Organization in a Maya Hamlet

Abstract

This paper first explores the principles which structure comparticipation in selected activities in a Tzotzil community in southern Mexico. In these activities, coparticipation is highly patterned, relatively invariant from one persone to the next, and structured mainly by kinship ties, residential proxim ity, and the developmental cycle of the domestic group. Certain kinship ties, which normally involve explainig joint participation in such activities as men´s and women´s work, household ceremonies, and recreation, although each of the activities studied tends to emphatize some kinds of relationships more than others. Second, the paper describes and analyzes quantitatively a number of socio-economic variables, revealig that even in this apparently homogeneous hamlet individual men rank remarkably consistently on each of these variables and thar position in the general rank order implies genuine differences in styles of life.