The Indigenous Peoples of Mesoamerica and Central America: Their Societies, Cultures, and Histories

Abstract

One of the inaugural recipients of our Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award, anthropologist Robert M. Carmack continues to enrich the field of Mesoamerican studies, the book under review one of several publications to appear since his retirement, a prodigiously fruitful one, after more than three decades of distinguished service at SUNY Albany. Compact yet wide ranging, The Indigenous Peoples of Mesoamerica and Central America is a synthesis of sorts, distilling the findings of Carmack’s sustained, assiduous labors since he filed his doctoral dissertation over half a century ago (Carmack 1965). That he draws still on data first unearthed in the archives or generated in the field when he was a graduate student at UCLA under the supervision of the inimitable H. B. Nicholson (1925—2007) says much about research forays undertaken not only to acquire a PhD but also to ensure outcomes that endure and continue to be relevant, a source of knowledge for generations to come.In an introduction that spells out what lies ahead for the reader—these days not always the case in many such endeavors—Carmack states succinctly that his goal is to “elaborate on the overarching history of the Central American native peoples, with references also to Mesoamerican influence on them through time.” He opts to “describe these little-known native peoples in highly humanistic terms,” doing so by placing “considerable emphasis on the nature of their indigenous societies, cultures, and countless internal and external struggles over many centuries” (ix).Carmack begins his honed narration with a discussion of the advanced, sophisticated character of the peoples under study. His first three chapters steer us, in turn, through (1) Spanish exploratory voyages and Central American geography, delineating the region’s teeming resources; (2) the state of cultural development in the three broad units that constitute his spatial embrace, which he identifies as northern (including the Yucatán peninsula and highland Guatemala), central (western Honduras, El Salvador, and the Pacific coast of Nicaragua), and southern (Costa Rica and Panama); and (3) contact scenarios between invading Spanish forces and the indigenous groups to which their imperial ventures exposed them. Chapter 4 relays how Mesoamerican influences emanating from Mexico shaped Central American mores. Chapters 5, 6, and 7 offer case studies over the longue durée from the three units identified as northern, central, and southern, set (respectively) among the K’iche’ Maya of Guatemala; the Chorotegas of Masaya, in Nicaragua; and the Chibchans of Buenos Aires, Costa Rica. Carmack concludes proceedings adroitly in chapter 8, viewing the experiences of the native groups examined “as the result of both external and internal sociocultural forces that prevailed in the Central American regions during their pre-Hispanic, colonial, and modern historical time periods” (xi). His exposition, beginning to end, is effectively a summing up of his life’s work.Carmack levels with readers at the outset, stating plainly that he has “drawn freely from a previous book in Spanish which deals exclusively with the Central American region” (xi), a volume that he edited and to which he contributed two substantive chapters (Carmack 1994). This is important to note, because a good number of the sources cited in The Indigenous Peoples of Mesoamerica and Central America do not appear in its bibliography but in that of the volume Carmack edited a quarter-century ago. The decision not to include them is a pity, indeed a curious editorial choice given Carmack’s acumen, prowess, and precision in that regard in other undertakings, best exemplified by Quichean Civilization, his magnum opus (Carmack 1973). Perhaps this might be borne in mind when a future edition of the book is contemplated. So, too, might other infelicities be attended to, among them locating Tikal in “Yucatan, Mexico” (34) (it is in Guatemala’s Petén region); denoting encomiendas as “royal land grants” (117) (they were awards of Indian tribute, not territory); and misspelling Colombia on figure 1.1 (2) as “Columbia.” These are minor snafus easily fixed, and they in no way detract from a stellar offering from, as Allen Christenson conveys on his back-cover endorsement, “one of the great scholars of our time.”Carmack closes with some trenchant thoughts on indigenous legacy. “The fact that descendants of former Central American native peoples have remained almost equal in numbers (around 5 million) to the total aboriginal population encountered in the region at the time of Spanish contact,” he observes, “is truly an extraordinary human survival achievement.” This is emphatically the case “in the context of the continued repression to which they have been subjected through the centuries” (119), nowhere more tragically so than in Guatemala in the early 1980s and the past two years in Nicaragua. Despite the iniquities inflicted on them, the indigenous peoples of Central America endure.