Mesoamerican Community Organization: Preliminary Remarks

Abstract

During the past three generations, ethnology has benefitted enormously from ethnographic research conducted in various culture areas of the world. This is not only due to the increasing corpus of factual information: many concepts formulated with reference to specific culture areas were significantly modified and refined when applied to other areas. This is readily seen with regard to social organization and religion, as many concepts in common use today (such as lineage, double descent, matrifocality, taboo, and mana) experienced this development. For example, the segmentary lineage system, formulated by British anthropologists to account for the kinship structure of many African tribes, like certain regional wines did not travel well. When applied to Melanesian societies, it had to be modified to accommodate the shallowness of their genealogies. In Mesoamerica it had little or no utility in accounting for the basically bilateral organization of the area, albeit with a strong patrilineal bias. In fact, many of the culture areas of the world have contributed to the growth of ethnological concepts based on the characteristic configuration of their ethnographies. Thus, a large part of the analytical framework employed by anthropologists today has been forged in the reality testing that concepts have undergone as they are applied to areas other than where they originated. Mesoamerica is a good example of this process. Since the beginning of systematic research in the area (initiated with the ethnographic survey of central Mexico by Frederick Starr at the turn of the century, the first ever undertaken by an ethnologist as far as I am aware), but particularly since the 1920s, Mesoamerica has contributed significantly to the conceptual framework of anthropology. It is useful and appropriate here to briefly describe this contribution. Originally formulated by Toennies (1940), the concept of the folk society matured in Mesoamerica by the work of Redfield (1930, 1941, 1947), Foster (1953), and Mintz (1954). In Latin America, where the community had long ceased to be part of the tribe but not yet part of the nation, and where linguistic affiliation plays a tenuous role in ethnic affiliation, this concept has underlain much of the work done in Latin America for two generations. Moreover, directly or indirectly, the notion of the folk society has played a significant role in conceptualizing the transformation of tribal societies as they become part of national states, particularly in the former colonial parts of the world. In a culture area of the world in which little can be understood without reference to the past, Mesoamerica has witnessed some of the best studies of cultural and social change. This is especially so with syncretism and acculturation, which have an unmistakable Mesoamerican flavor. The landmark publication of a memorandum on acculturation (Redfield, Linton, and Herskovitz 1936) quickly led to the study of change in several areas of the New World, particularly in Mesoamerica. A distinction was more or less made between diffusion and acculturation, and the latter concept acquired wide acceptance in many culture areas. More recently, syncretism, as a special kind of acculturation, has also received much attention beyond its traditional use in studies of magic and religion. These two aspects in the conceptualization of change, as formalized primarily by Mesoamericanists (Beals 1950; Carrasco 1952; Foster 1960; Madsen 1957; and more recently Nutini 1976, 1988), are now standard for anthropological studies. Closely related to the study of change is what might be a unique contribution of Mesoamericanists to general anthropology; namely, the ethnohistorical focus and approach (my own designation for want of a better term). This orientation was forged primarily in Mesoamerica, beginning at the turn of the century, and is now extensively practiced in Latin America and other culture areas of the Old World. …