Ch'ul Mut: Sacred Bird Messengers of the Chamula Maya

By Maruch Méndez Pérez and Diane Rus

Tsotsil-Maya elder, curer, singer, and artist Maruch Méndez Pérez began learning about birds as a young shepherdess climbing trees and raiding nests for eggs to satisfy her endless hunger. As she grew into womanhood and apprenticed herself to older women as a curer and seer, the natural history of birds she learned so roughly as a child expanded to include ancestral Maya beliefs about birds as channels of communication with deities in the spirit world who had dominion over human lives. In these testimonies dictated to her lifelong friend, anthropologist Diane Rus, Méndez Pérez describes her years of dreams, instruction, and experience. Her narrative sheds light on the basic values of her Chamula culture and cosmovision and has remarkable parallels to concepts of the ancient Maya as interpreted by scholars.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
• Release date: Nov 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9780826365149

Maruch Méndez Pérez

Maruch Méndez Pérez is a weaver, healer, ritual advisor, poet, singer, painter, and ceramicist. She lives in San Juan Chamula in Chiapas, Mexico.

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CH’UL MUT

CH’UL MUT

Sacred Bird Messengers of the Chamula Maya

MARUCH MÉNDEZ PÉREZ AND DIANE RUS

With the collaboration of Margarita Martínez Pérez, Tsotsil Linguistic Advisor, and Jorge Silva Rivera, Chiapas Nature Photographer

University of New Mexico Press | Albuquerque

© 2023 by Maruch Méndez Pérez and Diane Rus

All rights reserved. Published 2023

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Méndez Pérez, Maruch, author. | Rus, Diana, author.

Title: Ch’ul mut : sacred bird messengers of the Chamula Maya / by Maruch Méndez Pérez and Diane Rus ; Tsotsil language advisor: Margarita Martínez Pérez ; bird photographs by Jorge Silva Rivera.

Description: Albuquerque : University of New Mexico Press, 2023. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022047784 (print) | LCCN 2022047785 (ebook) | ISBN 9780826365132 (paperback) | ISBN 9780826365149 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Birds—Mexico—Chiapas Highlands. | Mayas—Folklore. | Birds—Folklore.

Classification: LCC F1435.3.B57 M46 2023 (print) |

LCC F1435.3.B57 (ebook) | DDC 398.3698—dc23/eng/20221118

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022047784

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022047785

Founded in 1889, the University of New Mexico sits on the traditional homelands of the Pueblo of Sandia. The original peoples of New Mexico—Pueblo, Navajo, and Apache—since time immemorial have deep connections to the land and have made significant contributions to the broader community statewide. We honor the land itself and those who remain stewards of this land throughout the generations and also acknowledge our committed relationship to Indigenous peoples. We gratefully recognize our history.

Cover illustration: Tuch’ich’/Oriole by Maruch Méndez

Designed by Felicia Cedillos

Composed in Adobe Jenson Pro

Thank you sacred messenger, thank you,

You have enlightened my mind and my heart,

The thing that I could not know, that I could not see

The thing that might kill me that I didn’t know about,

the thing that might happen to me on the road

You told me the message, Lord.

Holy bird, holy servant.

Kolaval ch’ul mayol, kolaval,

chab’ijubtas ti jole, ti ko’ontone,

ja’ li makal ti jbae, makal ti jsate,

mu xka’i k’usi chilaj-oj,

mu xka’i mi oy k’usi ta jta ta be,

pere taje, lavalbun ti mantale, Kajval.

Ch’ul mut, ch’ul mayol.

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction

chapter 1. Maruch’s Apprenticeship and Childhood Experiences in Nature

chapter 2. Chamula Creation Stories

chapter 3. How the Messenger Birds Assist the Heavenly Lord and the Underworld Pukujetik to Warn Humans about Their Future Life and Health

chapter 4. How the Messenger Birds Assist Our Sacred Mothers—Mother Earth, Mother Moon, and the Mother of Jesus

chapter 5. A Guide to Thirty-Six Birds

5.1. Ichin (great horned owl)

5.2. Kuxkux (whiskered screech owl or pygmy owl)

5.3. Xoch’ (barn owl)

5.4. Mut Bolom (mottled owl)

5.5. Kurutsuk (unspotted saw-whet owl or bearded screech owl)

5.6. Ts’eja’ (squirrel cuckoo)

5.7. Balum Ok’es Mut (tropical mockingbird)

5.8. Katal Mut (pink-headed warbler)

5.9. Ts’unun (hummingbird)

5.10. Saktorin Mut (rufous-crowned sparrow)

5.11. Chu’iv (greater pewee)

5.12. Ti’ (golden-olive woodpecker)

5.13. Kurkuvich’ (whippoorwill)

5.14. Ts’ibaron Mut (warbler)

5.15. Javal Ek’en (swallow and swift)

5.16. Joj (raven and crow)

5.17. Kul (blue-throated motmot)

5.18. Chintuli’ (bobwhite)

5.19. Mank’uk’ (mountain trogon)

5.20. Xulem (vulture)

5.21. Tuch’ich’ (yellow-backed oriole)

5.22. Xik (hawk)

5.23. Jimjim K’abal (banshee-type spirit bird)

5.24. Alperes Mut (white-throated magpie jay)

5.25. Ch’ixtot (rufous-collared robin)

5.26. Jex (Steller’s jay)

5.27. K’ubtot (blue-and-white mockingbird)

5.28. K’ovix (rufous-sided/spotted towhee)

5.29. K’ojte’ Mut and K’orochoch Mut (sapsucker and woodpecker)

5.30. Ko’skorin Mut (band-backed wren)

5.31. Porovos Mut (Inca dove)

5.32. K’ux Kumum (white-tipped dove)

5.33. Kulajte’ (white-winged dove)

5.34. K’ux Tsukut Mut or K’a’-chij Mut (lesser roadrunner)

5.35. Ch’achak Mut (band-tailed pigeon)

5.36. Bak Mut (great-tailed grackle)

epilogue. Final Reflections on a Long Tradition

appendix 1. Tables Citing Other Sources of Maya Bird Beliefs

appendix 2. Municipalities of the Tsotsil and Tseltal Homeland of Central Chiapas

appendix 3. Important Archaeological Sites of Chiapas and Adjacent Areas of Guatemala

appendix 4. English-Tsotsil Prayers

Notes

Bibliography

Index

ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 1. Margarita Martínez and Maruch Méndez at the Galería Muy, 2022

Figure 2. Maruch Méndez Pérez, 2016

Figure 3. Municipal center, Chamula, 1968

Figure 4. Chamula, thatched-roof house, 1968

Figure 5. Chamula, road to the potter’s house, 1968

Figure 6. Chamula potter, 1968

Figure 7. Municipal center, Chamula, 2012

Figure 8. Municipal center, Chamula, market, 2012

Figure 9. Municipal center, Chamula, new construction, 2011

Figure 10. Municipal center, Chamula, street, 2011

Figure 11. Maruch Méndez as a teenager, 1974

Figure 12. Maruch Méndez and Jacob Rus, 1986

Figure 13. Maruch Méndez and Jacob Rus, 2007

Figure 14. Diane Rus and Maruch Méndez, 1986

Figure 15. Maruch performing a curing ceremony, 2015

Figure 16. Maruch in Paris, 2010

Figure 17. Bird head jade pendant, Olmec

Figure 18. Three Girls Pasturing Sheep Who Were Transformed, painting by Maruch Méndez, 2021

Figure 19. Young girls helping pasture sheep, 1973

Figure 20. Girls pasturing sheep, Chamula, 2004

Figure 21. A ritual basket and Chamula female religious official, 2012

Figure 22. A Chamula religious official and his wife lead a procession, 2012

Figure 23. A woman healer of Chamula praying, 1987

Figure 24. Maya ceramic depicting an ancestor in snail shell being pulled by the death deity

Figure 25. Maya ceramic depicting the ancestor god emerging from a conch shell

Figure 26. Maya vessel showing old Smoking God L cutting the lifeline of a person

Figure 27. An antique Chamula tobacco gourd

Figure 28. Chamula countryside with thatched-roof houses, 1968

Figure 29. Ox Yoket: Tres Cerros, Three-Hearthstone Mountains, painting by Maruch Méndez, 2021

Figure 30. Classic Maya incised stone model of the Three Hearthstones

Figure 31. Classic Maya horned owl whistle

Figure 32. Classic Maya ceramic figure of a seated ruler or deity holding a book

Figure 33. Classic Maya ceramic vessel with bird impersonators

Figure 34. A painting by Maruch Méndez showing candles and offerings, 2020

Figure 35. Late Classic Maya bas-relief showing the Pukuj and his snakes, Toniná, Chiapas

Figure 36. Dresden Codex, plate 26, showing a priest making offerings

Figure 37. Yajval Vo’, Ch’ulme’tik (Our Sacred Mother, Patroness of Water), painting by Maruch Méndez, 2020

Figure 38. A page from the Codex Tudela showing a healing ritual using corn kernels and beans

Figure 39. Maruch and stalagmite saints on her household altar

Figure 40. A Chamula mother and daughter weaving using backstrap looms, 1975

Figure 41. A Chamula pus, or steam hut, 1968

Figure 42. Muzzled sheep ready to be led to pasture, 2015

Figure 43. Classic Maya ceramic vessel showing an anthropomorphic hummingbird speaking to a deity

Figure 44. Classic Maya ceramic vessel showing a hummingbird dancer with a lady

Figure 45. A Chamula woman on the road, 1987

Figure 46. Ti’ bird design woven into a shirt

Figure 47. Ti’ bird design woven into a shirt

Figure 48. Classic Maya moon deity Ixchel weaving, accompanied by her bird assistant

Figure 49. Classic Maya vessel showing birds associated with death

Figure 50. Classic Maya ceramic whistle of a vulture impersonator

Figure 51. Classic Maya vessel showing a vulture impersonator

Figure 52. Dresden Codex, plate 74, showing Underworld deities and an associated raptor and snake

Figure 53. The flying jimjim k’abal creature; painting detail by Maruch Méndez, 2018

Figure 54. Men, goats, and the jimjim k’abal in the graveyard; painting by Maruch Méndez, 2018

Figure 55. Embroidered birds; detail on a Guatemalan huipil

Figure 56. Mural detail, Cacaxtla, Tlaxcala, showing anthropomorphized corn

Figure 57. Classic Maya double-chambered vessel showing a person kneeling before a bird deity

Figure 58. Drawing of a Classic Maya image on an incised bone: a coronation scene with a bird deity

Figure 59. Drawing of an image on a pre-Classic stela from Izapa, Chiapas, showing a ruler and bird deity

Figure 60. Drawing of a carved sarcophagus lid, Palenque, Chiapas, showing a bird deity and ruler

Figure 61. Classic Maya vessel showing the bird deity with speech scrolls and servants

Figure 62. Classic Maya vessel showing the bird deity speaking to a vulture/ impersonator

Figure 63. Classic Maya Vase of the Seven Gods depicting Smoking God L of the Underworld

Figure 64. Detail of a stucco facade, Palenque, Chiapas, showing Smoking God L

Figure 65. Classic Maya ceramic figurine showing the deity Ixchel weaving with birds

Figure 66. Classic Maya vessel detail showing the Maize God, dwarfs, and associated bird images

Figure 67. Classic Maya stucco figure of the Rain God, Chahk, with a bird, Copán, Honduras

Figure 68. Classic Maya ceramic figurine of a diving bird, perhaps the Rain God, Chahk

Figure 69. Classic Maya incised sandstone showing a coronation overseen by a bird deity, Palenque, Chiapas

Figure 70. Classic Maya ceramic figurine of a standing dignitary with a feather headdress

Figure 71. Classic Maya ceramic figurine of a bird dancer with staff and birds

Figure 72. Classic Maya owl whistles, Yucatán

Figure 73. Ceramic figurine depicting a female religious practitioner holding a bird, Guatemala

Figure 74. Classic Maya figurine depicting a female religious practitioner with a bird headdress and fish

Figure 75. Classic Maya vessel depicting a deity with attributes of Itzamná speaking to a bird messenger

Color plates follow page 70.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Obviously, this book would not exist without Maruch. From our first encounters in the house of her brother Mateo Méndez Aguilar and his wife Maruch Gómez Pérez, we have felt welcomed as members of this incredible K’at’ixtik family. Maruch’s understanding of the intellectual traditions passed down by her ancestors and her willingness to share them patiently over the course of three years is a gift I most gratefully accepted. Her faith that I could fulfill the promise to record her words on paper inspired me to try. In Tsotsil, a work that we take up with faith and commitment would be called abtel, often represented as our burden to carry, ikats, or in Spanish a cargo; when I took on this project, I decided that my cargo would also include doing the transcribing and translating of her recorded Tsotsil myself. As I worked, I felt the linguistic stretch I needed to make in order to capture the magnificence of the language—its complexity and stylistic variation when used in different spheres, some of which I have limited experience with. I had to wrestle with the complicated metaphors in the formulaic language of the prayers, for instance, and unlike a newly entering religious official in Chamula, I didn’t have the benefit of a ritual adviser for the task. I sincerely hope that I have adequately conveyed the expressiveness of Maruch’s ideas and forms of speech. Along these lines, it was also a challenge for me to take Tsotsil bird descriptions and translate them, since words for colors and body parts are quite different in the different languages. Which color of k’on did she mean—tan, yellow, orange? Which xch’ut of the body was she referring to—the chest, the stomach, the abdomen? I must confess that I felt some relief noticing that from one bird guidebook to another, the descriptions, of both the appearance and the calls, but even of the names of birds, varied considerably.

This book has also been a meeting place for several other people interested in Maruch’s knowledge. First, it would never have been the same without the linguistic and ethnographic knowledge and efforts of Margarita Martínez Pérez. Margarita is originally from the nearby municipality of Huixtán, and thus speaks a dialect of Tsotsil somewhat different from that spoken by Maruch, but her husband is from Chamula, and now they are fully immersed in life there. She also has a doctorate in linguistics from the Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS) and is a professor of Maya studies at Chiapas’s public university of arts and sciences (Universidad de Ciencias y Artes de Chiapas, or UNICACH). She is currently involved in many projects related to her language and culture—too many to believe possible. So, after I transcribed and ordered the interviews with Maruch, I asked Margarita if she would read through the Tsotsil text and make corrections as needed to make my transcriptions understandable and correct. Margarita immediately realized that the three of us (Maruch, she, and I) should work together to make corrections, as the typical way she would say something often differed from Maruch’s dialect. Over the course of more than a year, in many long sessions, Margarita generously gave of her free time to read the Tsotsil text aloud, section by section, to the two of us, asking questions for clarification, suggesting possible alternative ways of expressing awkward phrases, and correcting errors of spelling or grammar in the transcription. Each time we met was like the gathering of good friends, eager to share life’s experiences, with Maruch’s bird stories spread out on the table before us. There is nothing in my mind that could compare to this type of intense and intimate collaboration.

Figure 1 Maruch Méndez and Margarita Martínez present their work as part of an exhibition of recent women’s art at the Galería Muy, 2022. Photo courtesy of Margarita Martínez.

I would also like to give special thanks to a Chiapas photographer of great renown, Jorge Silva Rivera. Jorge generously contributed his photos to the bird guide chapter of this book (chapter 5), as well as contributing many hours working with Maruch and me looking at photos and listening to recorded calls of birds in order to correctly identify the birds that Maruch was discussing. A passionate believer in the need to preserve Chiapas’s wildlife and habitats, Jorge has embarked on a photo project named Untamed Chiapas—Chiapas Indómito (Silva Rivera, 2018) to record images of the incredible nature reserves in the state. He was immediately enthusiastic about participating in this project about local birds in the Tsotsil language, one of the main languages spoken in the state. Jorge also invited his fellow birder and friend José Raúl Vázquez Pérez to join us in a few of these sessions to provide additional expert bird advice in the identifications. Both of these men helped me appreciate the difficulties of observing birds in the wild, of their changing appearance due to light conditions, location in the environment, gender, age, rapid movements, and their need to stay hidden. Jorge and Raúl also commented on the huge variety of each bird’s calls and the difficulty for the observer to see a particular bird in the act of singing.

Nor can I ever repay the generosity of Chiapas archaeologist and epigrapher Alejandro Sheseña Hernández, who carefully read and commented on my final section. He saved me from reporting inaccurate or outdated information about ancient Maya ideas, and his vast knowledge and pertinent suggestions added greatly to my understanding. I take full responsibility for mistakes that I have made or for gaps in my knowledge, as well as for my overeager interpretations of some of the artifact images; it’s hard to convey how urgently my mind wanted to see links between Maruch’s text and the Maya past.

Many other colleagues and friends helped immeasurably to shape this book. I want to especially acknowledge the patient and careful reading and comments from anthropologists, archaeologists, and writers Christine Eber, Jerry Moore and his wife Jan Gasco, and Carter Wilson. All of them gave me valuable ideas of how I could improve the book—how to frame the information in the texts, where to explain things that might be unclear, and which details to correct; most particularly, they reinforced my faith in the value of the work. Carlota Duarte, Carol Karasik, and Lynne Curry also gave me encouragement as well as several important corrections and suggestions that helped me think about how to make this book accessible to people who might not know much about the area. Our colleague John Burstein, lifelong supporter of indigenous voice and autonomy, has supported Maruch’s artistic development by giving her an honored space to work in the Galería Muy art museum in San Cristóbal; he has promoted her ceramic and painting projects and recorded some of her storytelling on video. Over the course of many readings, my husband and life companion Jan Rus gave me many ideas about the historical context and about how to make this text more coherent and manageable, as well as helping with careful editing. Along with my sons Juanito and Jacob and their families, he has patiently listened to me tell about the latest discovery in this long process, as have many other family members, especially my Crow family siblings John, Pat, Janice, and Nancy, and our recently departed mother Mildred, and friends both in the United States and in Chiapas, especially Luz Bermudez, Misgav Har-Peled, Rosaluz Pérez, Gilles Polian, Lola Aramoni, Marielena Fernández Galán, Barbara Vorhees, Sally Thomas, Kathy Davis, and Xmikul Jiménez, who have continually encouraged me to immerse myself in the world of birds.

Here, I also pay homage to the monumental legacy of the late Robert Laughlin of the Smithsonian Institution,¹ who created, besides his many other books and projects, a dictionary that is wonderfully complex, imbued with great sensitivity to the nuances in usage of the Tsotsil language, a dictionary that I have consulted daily. Bob and his wife Miriam (Mimi), always generous in their support of a large community of Chiapas investigators and indigenous writers and artists, founded and widely promoted Sna Jtz’ibajom (House of the Writer), an indigenous writer’s collective, and Fortaleza de la Mujer Maya (FOMMA), an indigenous women’s drama collective. I would also applaud the work of the late Miguel Álvarez del Toro,² zoologist, ornithologist, conservationist, and author of hundreds of publications including Las aves de Chiapas (1971), which helped us identify some of Maruch’s birds. He was also the driving force behind the creation of the amazing Chiapas Regional Zoo and Museum of Natural History where Maruch and I have spent several delightful days strolling about as we looked for birds and other local animals. Likewise, I would like to recognize the organization Pronatura Sur, which, through the efforts of so many involved since its founding in Chiapas in 1983, has worked to expand our knowledge of the habitats—of animals, plants, and resources (among these the birds) of the region—through useful conservation projects, publications, and educational outreach in several southern Mexican states.³ The organization Moxvikil in San Cristóbal also educates people of all ages about the local flora and fauna, while conserving walking trails and sustaining native orchid greenhouses.

Without the original support of the Harvard Chiapas Project and the encouragement of its directors and our teachers, the late Evon Z. and Catherine Vogt, my husband and I may never have had the opportunity to know these magical Chiapas Highlands. Gary and Ellie Gossen, tutors in the Project and dear friends, first introduced us to the municipality they studied—Chamula—and generously shared their knowledge of the region. The late Andrés Aubry and Angélica Inda Buendía, directors of the INAREMAC foundation, were responsible for funding our work publishing important historical oral testimonies in its Tsotsil Writers Workshop, which inspired and further expanded our Chiapas relationships.

To the welcoming staff at the University of New Mexico Press—from editor Michael Millman, who enthusiastically supported the book, to editor Anna Pohlod, who removed pebbles from the road, to James Ayers and Felicia Cedillos, who helped immeasurably with the book’s design and images, and to Norman Ware, who carefully eliminated inconsistences, corrected errors, and filled in missing information—I owe a huge debt of gratitude. To my wonderful reviewers who gave me suggestions for ways I could make the book better, I can never repay their deep understanding of the content and gift of time to help me realize a dream.

As I spoke of this project with many friends, both Maya and others, I became aware of the fact that knowledge of the power of birds, knowledge that has been passed down in many cultural traditions and within many families, holds a special place in people’s understanding of their place in the universe. Being attuned to the living and nonliving elements around us, or as Maruch says, opening our hearts and minds to them, is a first step to understanding our interconnectedness and can lead us to concern ourselves with preserving our correct alignment with it all. I hope that this knowledge remains vibrant, and is recorded, and that Native peoples such as the Chamulas be entrusted with the stewardship of their territories and of the flora and fauna within.⁴ I also hope that through these oral traditions, ornithologists and ethnologists might glean important scientific information not only about the birds themselves but about the Maya people who live in close proximity to these sacred creatures and soul guides.

Koliyal akotolik xchi’uk ti kajvaltike. With humble thanks to all of you and to Our Lord.

INTRODUCTION

A Book about Birds

This is a book about birds, called mut in Tsotsil Maya, and about the essential place they hold in the culture of the Maya people of Highland Chiapas, Mexico. It grew out of conversations between me, a woman from California who has worked for several decades in Chiapas, and Maruch Méndez Pérez, a native, essentially monolingual speaker of Tsotsil Maya¹ whom I have known for nearly fifty years and who is also the godmother of my second son.

Figure 2. Maruch Méndez Pérez, 2016. Photo by Diane Rus.

What is remarkable about this book is that it belongs to Maruch. Hers are the words that tell the story, hers is the knowledge that came from her ancestors and from the humans, birds, and other living things in her world. I was her interlocutor and scribe, the one who became struck with awe at the telling and the teller. The story came in many days and nights of talk over three years, as Maruch transported me, floating on her words, into her cloud-forest home to show me things I’d never seen before, or maybe had seen but never had really understood. Have you ever walked in a cloud forest? The clouds move, their shapes shift, they hide and then reveal things. You have the feeling that magic and conjuring are not only possible but probably happening all around you. You become more alert to the edges of the path, to the surprising vistas, to potential hidden dangers, to sounds that seem clear but that may only be echoes from a distance. When you are in a cloud, it feels like mist or light rain—k’inubal, the Tsotsils say—and things can seem drippy and ill defined. Now, Tsotsils believe that even on a sunny day, humans only have limited sight and understanding—it’s the way the gods wished it to be so that we wouldn’t become too arrogant, and too confident in our powers. The ancient Maya had a metaphor for this: they said that the gods blew their breath and clouded our vision mirror. So I don’t feel embarrassed to say that I never knew many of the things that Maruch talked about here, even though I’d known her for such a long time. I was and am just fully human and fairly ignorant. I can even admit that after putting the words to paper I am only slowly making sense of what they tell. However, the words in this book have given me a deeper understanding of many of the most basic tenets of Chamula cosmovision, and they compelled me to share with a wider audience her great wisdom about this one topic we have before us—birds. It’s likely that other readers will have different interpretations and insights about both the words and birds, for as Maruch says, learning depends on what your heart and mind are open to.

Before I explain more about Maruch and about the process of how this book began and subsequently shifted its shape and caught me up in its magic, you need to know more about where she lives. The Maya municipality of Chamula, Maruch’s home, is located in an oak and pine forest in the mountainous region known as the Chiapas Highlands, most of it at an altitude above 7,000 feet (2,134 meters). It is a land of steep slopes and limestone caves, with those swirling clouds that lend an air of beauty and mystery to the landscape. The temperature is usually moderate to warm during the day and cold to freezing during the night, more so during winter months. There are two distinct seasons in this region—a rainy season, generally from May to October, and a dry season from November to April, depending on the storms and moisture coming off the Gulf of Mexico or above the Pacific slope.

We know from archaeological evidence that the area has been settled continuously by the ancestors of the modern Tsotsils at least since early Classic Maya times (250 CE) and probably from well before the start of the Common Era. The architecture and artifacts of large Classic Maya cities in nearby Palenque (125 miles), Chincultik (55 miles), and Toniná (62 miles), and slightly more distant Yaxchilán (220 miles), Bonampak (174 miles), and Sak Ts’i (142 miles), as well as those at other, smaller settlements and fortifications including those on the Ecatepec and Moxvikil hills bordering Chamula, Zinacantán, and San Cristóbal, have been studied by archaeologists since the early 1900s (Palka & Lozada Toledo, 2018, pp. 89–120). Because the region is heavily settled by Maya groups and others, however, many potential ancient sites have not yet been investigated while others have been looted, built upon, or destroyed.

When the Spanish armies invaded Mexico, it took them three years to get from the conquest of central Mexico to the highlands of Chiapas. But when they arrived in the spring of 1524, they immediately began the process of driving out and replacing the Native populations in the best valleys and setting up a system of administration that would enable them to control the inhabitants. Later in those first decades, the indigenous populations, Maya and Zoque, were concentrated in new Native towns where the Church and Crown surveilled and controlled them through friars of the Dominican order, supported by military force when needed. The Chamulas, for instance, who had originally occupied the San Cristóbal valley, the biggest and best-watered valley in the highlands, were removed to a site directly north of that city on the backside of the small hills that offered a potentially protective shield between them and the Spanish population. Catholic priests who visited these outlying churches insisted that their neophytes learn the true religion and contribute to the maintenance of their religious order. Administrators kept census records and charged taxes, in those early days of the colony, to the Spanish Crown through the Audience of Guatemala and after Mexican independence to Mexico City. Although the mountainous terrain made agricultural enterprises less profitable there than in lower, flatter, and more fertile areas of the state, Spanish-speaking landowners found ways to exploit other resources of the region, especially profiting from the fact they could enslave the Native population and use its labor seasonally in other regions.

Chiapas had many economic booms and busts through the centuries, but overall it was viewed as a backwater. The production of cochineal and indigo dyes and sale of jungle hardwoods were some of the most lucrative enterprises undertaken there in colonial times. In the late nineteenth century, tropical plantation agriculture became profitable at the lower elevations; coffee, cacao, rubber, and bananas joined sugar as main export crops. Most of these were produced on land expropriated from indigenous groups and required a large influx of seasonal labor beyond that which the lowland populations could supply. Hence, through various legal schemes such as vagrancy laws, excessive taxation, sale of alcohol, and use of company stores, indigenous individuals and whole communities in the highlands often found themselves in debt and forced to work on the plantations to pay them off. For all practical purposes, workers were slaves who walked several days to the plantations under the surveillance of the labor contractors’ overseers; they were tracked and punished if they tried to escape the system.

After the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920), conditions for indigenous workers did not change in any significant way, but during the late 1920s and 1930s, the system of labor contracting became slightly more humane. Also, some parcels of land, although not nearly the amount promised by the national government after the revolution, were returned to the indigenous communities through agrarian reform, especially in the late 1930s under President Lázaro Cárdenas. Most indigenous men, however, still found it necessary to work on lowland plantations during many months of the year to earn enough money to supplement what they could produce on their poor mountainous farm plots.

Once the Pan-American Highway was extended through the Chiapas Highlands in the early 1950s, the region became more accessible and more directly linked to central Mexico. The national government began to concern itself with the welfare of these formerly remote indigenous groups by establishing a national pilot program under the Instituto Nacional Indigenista (INI) in San Cristóbal, which encouraged development projects, oversight of labor contracting, and support for bilingual and primary education. The INI also invited Mexican and foreign anthropologists and linguists to investigate Native languages and cultures. These government projects, though not successful in changing the basic structure of state power, did have some modest and potentially positive effects on the indigenous populations, among them being the establishment of schools and health clinics in the Native towns. (For further historical information, see MacLeod, 1973; J. Rus, 2012; Lewis, 2018.)

My husband and I first visited Chamula as college undergraduates in 1968 to spend the summer learning Tsotsil and studying local pottery-making techniques. We arrived just as the rainy season was getting underway, and the vibrant impressions of the landscape captured our hearts and imaginations. We breathed in the cool mountain air and watched it toss the shimmering new green leaves of corn. We were dazzled by the nightly show above us of an unknown abundance of stars and along our paths below by the twinkling of fireflies. We delighted in smells of woodsmoke and toasted corn as we sat around the cooking fires, listening to tales of struggle and pride. It seemed a miracle to be allowed a seat at the fire, actually, and we can never repay our Chamula friends for their generous and open invitation that we stay awhile and learn.

Figure 3. Municipal center, Chamula, 1968. Photo by Jan Rus.

Prior to visiting anyone in the indigenous hamlets, we were first taken to the town center of Chamula and introduced to the municipal president, who, along with the authorities, gave permission for us to talk to people and travel freely in the municipality. Chamula’s center was quite different in those days from what we see now. It had very few houses, perhaps 150 in all, and there were but three tiny stores where you could get a Coke, some candles, or a bag of salt or incense. Spanish-speaking mestizos had not lived in the town for more than forty years, and the people we interacted with were predominantly monolingual Tsotsils who dressed in traditional handwoven clothing. A newly built government building overlooked the central plaza, where an outdoor market was held on Sundays. A small elementary school was located to the side of the government building. The huge colonial church, finished in the 1560s, was visited frequently by numerous Chamula religious officeholders who lived in town in order to fulfill their religious obligations. Needless to say, Chamula was not yet the tourist destination for the hundreds of daily visitors from around the world that we see in current years.

Most of Chamula’s population, at that time around thirty-five thousand people, lived in hamlets scattered through the mountains, where their straw-thatched houses were surrounded by cornfields and thick forests. Most often, a few houses of extended family members were grouped near each other, and it was common for family members to share heavier agricultural chores, but otherwise families lived with a great deal of privacy. Monolingual women and children only left the protection of their hamlets to attend the Sunday market or to congregate with relatives for social, religious, or political events.

Figure 4. Chamula, thatched-roof house, 1968. Photo by Jan Rus.

Figure 5. Chamula, road to the potter’s house, 1968. Photo by Jan Rus.

During our field study, we were invited to stay with the family of a potter, traveling to his hamlet by means of the lone daily truck that drove the dirt road that crossed Chamula from the municipal center past the trail to his house and on to the neighboring municipal center of San Andrés Larráinzar. If we missed the return truck the next day, we had to walk the six miles back to San Cristóbal carrying our gear, often in the rain. Since no one in the countryside had electricity, gas, or running water, the family we stayed with spent a large part of each day gathering firewood from the forest, getting water at the water holes, digging and