Anna Cant, Land without Masters: Agrarian Reform and Political Change under Peru's Military Government (original) (raw)

Writing ajawarem: Establishing Authority over People and Territory in three sixteenth-Century texts in the Highlands of Guatemala

The Latin Americanist, 2021

This essay analyses Indigenous language expressions of authority in the highlands of Guatemala during the early colonial period. It centers on the concept of ajawarem (lordship, señorío) and what I argue are two of its main components: military and political might and legitimacy for leadership and the ability to collect tribute. I explore these two aspects via analysis of the couplets pus nawal and q'aq'al tepewal, as well as the concept of patan or tribute. In studying their use in three important ethnohistorical documents from the region, I trace the notion of ajawarem during the Postclassic period in the highlands and argue that it is wielded in the face of colonial imposition. After discussing the relationship between alphabetic writing and the evangelization process in the highlands, I provide analyses of these concepts as they appear in the Memorial de Sololá (Kaqchikel), the Popol Wuj (K'iche'), and the Título de Totonicapán (K'iche). Each text reveals both general and specific ways in which ajawarem was wielded and represented in alphabetic texts in the highlands.

Sobre Arij Ouweneel: "From Tlahtocayotl to Gobernadoryotl: A Critical Examination of Indigenous Rule in 18th-Century Central Mexico

Historia Mexicana, 1997

Este artículo ofrece una visión de conjunto de la evolución de las comunidades indígenas del México central durante el periodo colonial, del altépetl al pueblo de indios, hasta las décadas finales del siglo XVIII. El autor es ambicioso y logra su pretensión de integrar multitud de temas-naturaleza de los cabildos indígenas y de sus gobernadores, congregaciones, composiciones, generalización del "fundo legal" y las separaciones de pueblos, entre otros-con hallazgos historiográficos de varios investigadores, principalmente Haskett, Chance y Taylor, Hoekstra, Osborn, García Martínez y Tutino. Pero su debilidad, me parece, estriba en el carácter incipiente de su investigación primaria sobre estos temas-al menos hasta el momento de publicar este artículo-, lo que le impide medir, en ocasiones, la complejidad real de los temas que trata: de ahí la explicación de que un texto denso, lleno de elementos y con una visión tan amplia, adolezca de varias imprecisiones, simplificaciones y aún aparentes errores Su debilidad también deriva del camino paradigmático que el autor eli¬ ge: comienza batiendo un modelo ampliamente superado-el que alguna vez creyó en la igualdad de los indígenas en sus co¬ munidades-, para luego caer en otro modelo, el medieval, cjue adopta hasta el punto de desconocer la especificidad del'caso que pretendía explicar.

Zborover_2014_Dissertation_Decolonizing_Historical_Archaeology_in_Southern_Oaxaca_Mexico

The cultural area roughly corresponding to the modern state of Oaxaca, Mexico, was a dynamic cultural arena which saw the rise and development of multiple complex societies and their respective historiographic traditions. This dissertation focuses on the development and application of integrative approaches to the archaeological, documentary, and oral records from the Chontal highlands in southern Oaxaca, with a particular emphasis on the Chontal community of Santa María Zapotitlán. Following a critique and reconfiguration of the methodological and theoretical tenets of 'historical archaeology', I propose to acknowledge and incorporate Mesoamerican indigenous literate societies within a more inclusive paradigm. Based on data collected in the 'Chontalpa Historical Archaeology Project', I draw my data from a rich documentary corpus of indigenous 'territorialnarratives', archaeological surveys and excavations, visual and archaeometric analysis of artifacts, ethnoarchaeology, and a systematic collection of oral traditions. By subjecting these epistemically independent sources to corroborative, complementary, and contrastive modes of inquiry, I explore low-level spatial and temporal correlates followed by high-level correlates of interregional interaction, colonialism, factionalism, and resistance. These integrative correlates are examined through five diachronic case-studies: 1) Monte Albán's imperialism in the Formative period and interregional interactions in the Classic period; 2) Mixtec, Zapotec, and Pochutec conquests and domination of the Chontalpa in the Early-Late Postclassic; 3) The Aztec incursion and multipolity/inter-ethnic factionalism in the Late-Terminal Postclassic; 4) Chontal and Spanish interregional competition, colonialism, and resistance in the Colonial Period; and 5) The Chontal historical image, from the Colonial through the Modern Period.

Mesoamerican voices: native-language writings from Colonial Mexico, Oaxaca, Yucatan, and Guatemala

2005

Mesoamerican Voices presents a collection of indigenous-language writings from the colonial period, translated into English. The texts were written from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries by Nahuas from central Mexico, Mixtecs from Oaxaca, Mayas from Yucatan, and other groups from Mexico and Guatemala. The volume gives college teachers and students access to important new sources for the history of Latin America and Native Americans. It is the first collection to present the translated writings of so many native groups and to address such a wide variety of topics, including conquest, government, land, household, society, gender, religion, writing, law, crime, and morality. Matthew Restall is Professor of Latin American History at Pennsylvania State University. He is the author of more than thirty articles and essays and seven books, including The Maya World (1997) and Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest (2003).