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Mesoamerican Community Organization: Preliminary Remarks Author(s): Hugo G. Nutini Source: Ethnology, Vol. 35, No. 2, Special Issue: Mesoamerican Community Organization: Barrios and Other Customary Social Units: Part I (Spring, 1996), pp. 81-92 Published by: University of Pittsburgh- Of the Commonwealth System of Higher Education Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3774071 Accessed: 15/01/2009 11:51
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MESOAMERICAN COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION: PRELIMINARY REMARKS

Hugo G. Nutini University of Pittsburgh

During the past three generations, ethnology has benefitted enormously from ethnographicresearch 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 areaswere 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," formulatedby British anthropologiststo account for the kinship structureof many Africantribes, like certainregional 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 patrilinealbias. In fact, many of the culture areas of the world have contributedto the growth of ethnological concepts based on the characteristicconfigurationof 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. Mesoamericais 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 undertakenby an ethnologist as far as I am aware), but particularlysince the 1920s, Mesoamericahas contributed significantly to the conceptual framework of anthropology. It is useful and appropriatehere to briefly describe this contribution. Originally formulated by Toennies (1940), the concept of the folk society maturedin Mesoamericaby 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 underlainmuch 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 conceptualizingthe transformation of tribal societies as they become part of national states, particularlyin the former colonial parts of the world. In a culture area of the world in which little can be understoodwithout reference to the past, Mesoamericahas witnessed some of the best studies of culturaland social change. This is especially so with syncretism and acculturation, which have an unmistakableMesoamericanflavor. The landmarkpublication of a memorandumon 81
ETHNOLOGYvol. 35 no. 2, Spring 1996, pp. 81-92. ETHNOLOGY, c/o Departmentof Anthropology,The University of Pittsburgh,PittsburghPA 15260 USA Copyright 1996 The University of Pittsburgh.All rights reserved.

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acculturation(Redfield, Linton, and Herskovitz 1936) quickly led to the study of change in several areasof the New World, particularlyin 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 attentionbeyond its traditional use in studies of magic and religion. These two aspects in the conceptualizationof change, as formalized primarily by Mesoamericanists(Beals 1950; Carrasco 1952; Foster 1960; Madsen 1957; and more recently Nutini 1976, 1988), are now standard for anthropologicalstudies. Closely related to the study of change is what might be a unique contributionof Mesoamericanists to general anthropology; namely, the ethnohistorical focus and approach(my own designationfor want of a betterterm). This orientationwas 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. As its name suggests, the ethnohistoricalcraft is part history and part anthropology,but more nomothetic historically, and more ideographicanthropologically.That is to say ethnohistory is concerned with diachronic, particularisticproblems focused from a on synchronic, generalizing perspective. Ethnohistorians the whole are scholars with a strong historical bent, but with a modusoperandithattends to be anthropologically analytical. Topically, ethnohistorianshave studied a large arrayof domains, ranging from religion, social organization, and economics to political organization, demography, and ethnicity. Although focused on ethnographicaland ethnological subjects, they are concerned with the evolution and configuration of complexes of traits and institutions, and tend to span longer historicalperiods than do anthropologists. Some of the most noteworthy among the pioneering practitioners, working mostly between 1930 and 1960, are Aguirre Beltran (1940), Carrasco (1950), Kirchhoff (1940), La Farge (1940), Palerm (1972), and Wolf (1962). Among those active mostly after 1960, the most outstandingare Alberro (1988), Chance (1978), Calnek (1972), Farris (1984), Hunt (1977), and L6pez Austin (1973). Finally, Mesoamerica(especially before 1960) had a moderaterole as a breeding and testing ground for kinship and social organization concepts. Ritual kinship (compadrazgo), however, because of its importance for the organization of Latin American societies, was envisioned in Mesoamerica,where it has received its most systematic and extensive treatment. Since Colonial times, compadrazgohas been a basic element in the organization of community life in countless folk societies throughoutthe Americas. In transitionalfolk societies, compadrazgorivals or even surpasses kinship as an organizing principle, while in urban and national environments the institution functions as an importantmechanism of patron-clientrelationships. Indeed, compadrazgo in Latin America is a key institution in network formation with manifold functions at all levels of society. Since the 1930s (Paul 1942), most aspects and domains of compadrazgohave been studied, including the Old World origin of the institution(Mintz and Wolf 1950), its inception in the New World (Foster 1953), its evolution since the Spanish Conquest (Nutini 1976), its

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manifold array of types (Nutini and Bell 1980), the structureof its personnel and its varied functions (Nutini 1984), and its position within the framework of society (Ingham 1970; Ravicz 1967; Spicer 1940). Traditionalvillage studies paid little attentionto the role of kinship in community organization;it was assumed that in folk or peasant societies with bilateral descent, particularly in situations of change, kinship had limited significance beyond the household and family structure. A more problem-oriented focus proved this assumptionwrong and revealed rich configurationsof kinship linking household and community, and often extending beyond the community. Since the early 1960s, therefore, Mesoamericanistshave madevaluablecontributionsto the study of kinship. A salient example of this turnaboutis the notion of the nonresidentialextended family (Nutini 1968), which is now recognized as the structural equivalent in bilateral systems of the minimal, localized lineage in unilineal systems. The concept has been used extensively in studies of transitionalfolk communities in Nuclear America. It also is in this general domain that the essays in this volume make valuable analytical contributions that apply well beyond the confines of Mesoamerican kinship, particularlywhere tribal societies are in the process of becoming folk societies, as now occurs around the world following the demise of European colonialism. What follows are the most salient points. First, traditional studies of kinship in Mesoamerica were done as ends in themselves, virtually in vacuo. Conversely, whatever elements were analyzed as political and economic were regarded as extensions of kinship, not as independent domains. With modernizationand secularizationseriously altering the configuration of Indianand Mestizo folk communities, it became evident that kinship was never an isolate. This in turn has led to exploring how kinship, beyond the domestic group, interdigitates with religious, political, economic, and demographic variables to generate social networks and action groups at the community and regional levels. Thus, as communities become increasingly incorporatedinto the framework of the region and the nation, kinship, and ritual kinship by extension, have been redefined. Second, ancillary to the first analytical issue, is the notion widely held by Mesoamericanethnologists that customaryforms of organizationwould disappearas Indian and rural Mestizo communities became increasingly involved in urban and national culture and society. It is clear from the contributions of this volume that many communities have not abandonedtheir traditionalforms of social organization, but have instead modified them in the presence of rapid sociocultural change. Two examples will put matters in perspective. Barrio organization has been one of the most characteristic units in the organizationof the community since early Colonial times. The barrio is a localized (but occasionally nonlocalized) unit standing between the household and/or larger kinship groups andthe community. It combines elements of kinship andterritoriality, it has varying social functions, rather weak economic functions, but is most commonly associatedwith the dischargeof the local folk religion centered on the cult of the saints. This form of organizationwas prevalentwith MesoamericanIndianand rural Mestizo communities until about 40 years ago. Since then it has undergone

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transformations,but it continues to exist as an importantunit in the organizationof the local community. This is another way of saying that as the processes of modernizationand secularizationunevenly affect local communities, the barrio has adaptedto the changing conditions and has acquirednew dimensions. The process of adaptationis not well known: it should be studied carefully because it presents an excellent opportunityfor constructinga model of how traditionalelements combine with new elements in situations of rapid socioculturalchange. Although compadrazgois present at many levels of society and entails varying social, economic, religious, and even political functions, we do not know the specific configurationsthat it acquires across the societal spectrum. We know, for example, that at the communal level compadrazgois basically egalitarianand serves to expand network relations. Higher up the social scale (from the region to the city to the national scene) it becomes stratified and acquires the basic configuration of the patron-client relationship. At the community level compadrazgo is horizontal and ritual kinsmen are almost invariably chosen among nonkinsmen: beyond the community compadrazgo is generally vertical and mainly serves to cement already establishedrelationships, or as instrumental means toward social and economic ends. There are several attributes of compadrazgo that characteristicallychange as one moves from the level of the local community to the nation, which may be summarized as follows: the essentially sacred-egalitarian-horizontal-symmetrical configurationof the institutionevolves towarda secular-stratified-vertical-asymmetrical configuration. Third, and most significant for cross-cultural research, in Mesoamerican folk communities (and putatively in most folk contexts throughoutthe world), kinship is not the only institution that structures larger organizational units beyond the household. Almost invariably,territorialityandvoluntaryassociationsplay a key role in this process. To paraphraseSir Henry Maine, the passage from societas to civitas is fraughtwith problems that anthropologistshave yet to systematicallyapproach.As the organization of society evolves from kinship to territory (in the present context, the national state), there is a no man's land that may be characterized as the hospitabledomain for voluntaryassociations. In societies entirely or mostly based on kinship, voluntary associations are practically nonexistent; while in state-based societies, characterized a weak and usually limited kinshipsystem, free association by groups proliferate. Beyond this well-establishedfact we know little. We do not know, for example, how voluntaryassociationscome into existence, how they interlockwith kinship, what economic and social conditionsunderlietheir growth, andthe territorial contexts in which these processes take place. An example may make the point clear. In my observations of migration from the Tlaxcala-PueblanValley to Mexico City for over three decades, there clearly is a progression in the development of free association groups as people adapt to the urban environment. The process entails people from the same or neighboring communities (frequently involving large numbers of related families) settling in a neighborhoodof the city, and often leads to the formation a new urban community. At first, sometimes taking as long as ten

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years, migrantfamilies exhibit no discernablechange in their reliance on kinship. But after becoming familiar with the urban situation, there is a period of intense readjustmentin which kinship progressively diminishes in importance, and ties with the ancestralcommunity are drasticallyreduced. The bonds that united families who migrated together also diminish as individuals increasingly replace them with voluntaryassociation ties. This process may last for a generation, at the end of which kinship beyond the household acquires limited importance. Families from then on rely mostly on sodalities of their own creation (social clubs, religious associations, mutual assistance fraternities, etc.), involvement in work-related activities, and governmentagencies that provide some assistance. At the end of two generations, the transition is complete: the organization of the neighborhood is a variegated combination of kinship, voluntary association, and institutional/state assistance. Similar processes take place with communities in the Tlaxcala-PueblanValley. I categorize these as transitional-Mestizoand Mestizo-secularized;that is, the point when secularization effectively begins to transform the traditional institutional framework of the community. Labor migration, improved means of transportation and communication, increasing involvement with the outside world through government agencies, and the inevitable contacts with the outside world due to economic necessity, are the main factors that shape the transition from societas to civitas. It takes one or two generationsfor communities to make the transitionfrom

a sacralized world, in which kinshipunderliesmost social action,to a secularized

world, in which kinship is only one (and not necessarily the most important) institution that shapes the life of the community. In this milieu, individuals and groups combine traditional institutionswith new strategies that, in many instances, rapidly and drastically restructure the community. Variegated combinations of kinship, territoriality, and voluntary association characterizedthe reorganizationof the community, in which traditional and secularized elements coexist without apparentcontradiction. This, of course, is anotherway of saying that change at the local level is compartmentalized and not always even. I know of communities in the Tlaxcala-PueblanValley that have essentially a moderneconomy (intimatelyplugged into the economic life of the city) still preserving a traditionalreligious mayordomia (stewardship)system; conversely, there are extremely poor Indiancommunities with a very weak mayordomia system. Even more striking are the formerly independent villages that were engulfed by the expansion of Mexico City. These qualify as folk, with their traditionalreligious system and extensive ritual complex, including a fullblown cult of the saints. Throughout the many regions of Mesoamerica there is significant variation on how the transition from kinship to territorialityis achieved. Various considerations, such as the time element, ethnicity, degree of acculturation,and access to economic resources, determine the pace and extent of the transformationand how kinship, territoriality,andvoluntaryassociationelements combine. But there also are common elements sharedby all regions that facilitatethe difficult task of formulatinga limited range theory of communal transformation.This phenomenon represents a special challenge for ethnology in Mesoamerica and elsewhere. Progress in understanding

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and conceptualizing how social groups that are neither wholly territorialnor wholly kinship-based(and by extension how folk societies are transformedand become part of the nation) requires new analyticaltools. Addressingthat point, the contributions to this volume provide insightful analyses and strategies that promise to be valuable in formulating new approachesfor studying folk communities in transition. To summarize, this volume contributes to kinship and social organizational studies in two ways. Endogenously, it suggests several approachesto the study of how kinship, in combination with territorialityand free association groups, shapes the transition of Mesoamerican folk societies from traditionalto secular forms of social organization.Exogenously, it envisions several avenues of researchwith crosscultural possibilities: the formation of folk societies out of tribal societies, the transformationof folk societies and their absorptioninto the national state, and the conditions under which these processes take place. Therefore, in wishing to advance Mesoamericanethnography,we seek as well to appreciatehow the articles presented here contribute to the wider arena of anthropologicaltheory and practice. Fortunately,the present authorshave takensignificantsteps in redressingthe lack of attention to a neglected area of Mesoamericansocial organization. Their essays enhance our understanding of the problems and indicate directions for future research, as the following remarks illustrate. John Chance's reconstructionof the barriosof Tecali, Puebla, from the Conquest until the end of Colonial times makes two very importantcontributions. First, it validates for Mesoamerica what has been said about the effect of the reforms (Ordenanzas) of viceroy Francisco de Toledo for the viceroyalty of Peru; namely, that the organization of Indian communities in the Andean area today reflects as much the work of Toledo as the pre-Hispanicsituation of the Inca Empire. Second, it illustrates the enormous value of the ethnohistoricalfocus. Ethnohistoriansseem concerned primarily with what the French call histoire des mentalites (history of mentalities);that is, reconstructingthe history and evolution of mores, manners, and institutions of a culture area, ethnic group, nationality, or well-delineated period, focusing particularlyon the social and religious domains. The core of the ethnohistorical craft may be characterizedas the study of the structuraltransformationof institutionsand the treatmentof culturalproblems as parts of largerwholes. On both counts, Chance's analysis excels. The notion that the barrio in Tecali is largely a Colonial development is well taken, but it is a development based on pre-Hispanic antecedents, some of which have survived until the present. The underlyingapproach of his analysis exemplifies the best of what most anthropologists working in Mesoamerica conceive ethnohistoryto be. Robert Carlsen, describing the Tzutujil Mayan town of Santiago Atitlan, also makes admirableuse of an ethnohistoricalperspective. Carlsen takes as his point of departure the internationallypublicized massacre of Atitecos by the Guatemalan Army on December 2, 1990. The true subject of his essay, however, is the transformationsin the social organizationof this town from the sixteenth century to the present as an adaptation the political economy of Guatemala.Carlsen identifies to

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several significant themes for understandingAtiteco social history, two of which are equally pertinentto MesoamericanIndian communities in general: 1) the historical role of socioreligious organization, in this case the cofradias, in deflecting or channeling outside intervention in local culture and society; and, relatedly, 2) the close symbolic and materialconnections linking traditionalreligion with smallholder agriculture, such that an increase in landlessness and nonagriculturaloccupations is often the first step toward greater integrationin the national culture. The fact that a civic committee in Atitlan now serves as the principal guardian of local autonomy, ratherthanthe cofradias, exemplifies the process of modernization/secularization that Mesoamerican communities are currently undergoing. This is evident in many Guatemalaand more recently in Chiapaswith the strategic use of modern communications technology to keep international agencies apprised of conditions in the communityandtherebyleverageconcessions from the nationalgovernment. Carlsen's article informs us about the capacity of Mesoamerican Indian and rural society to preserve some degree of self-determination,as he puts it, "to change in order to stay the same." The Nahuatl Indian community of Amatlan in northernVeracruz, as described by Alan Sandstrom, is of the type that I have characterizedas entailing an IndianMestizo dichotomy, as contrastedto an Indian-Mestizocontinuum, in which there is no sharp break between the two ethnicities. This is a distinction that establishes two stages in the process of modernization/secularization. Exogenously, by conceiving 1) the social organization of Amatlan as a series of concentric circles in which individuals and families participate and have social, economic, and religious expectations that differentially satisfy their needs, Sandstromplaces the community in a dynamic relationship with the outside world. This means that despite their "fierce" independence Amantecos will soon be increasingly incorporated into the

national in in culture,a processthatI haveobserved dozensof similarcommunities

to behavior actionas a concomitant and genously,it is also necessary analyze aspect of the differentlevels of integration, social, economic,andreligiousties expand as from the householdto the nonresidential extendedfamily, and on to the caltej I presume)andthe community. brief, Sandstrom's In articleis important (parajes, for its balancedaccount of the endogenousand exogenous dimensionsof the for of elementsof a folk society, community, theconfiguration structural-ideological in andhow it is embedded theregional national and culture.This approach, mirrored in Carlsen'spaper, is much neededin Mesoamerican withoutit, it is ethnology; difficultto conceptualize variousformsof changethathavetakenplacesincethe the turnof the century. is Indian SantiagoNuyoo, as described JohnMonaghan, a closed corporate by traditional influenced the external worldbutapparently not community, evidently by The community'sconceptionof social the effects of secularization. yet showing relationsas a sacralized institution the cornerstone extending image of the is of the to household theentirecommunity. that the argues by extending principles Monaghan of interaction, and fromthe household the community, to the co-operation, exchange

the Sierra de Puebla and the Sierra de Zongolican in Central Veracruz. 2) Endo-

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unit of commensality. This is a usefulway latterbecomesa Big House, a maximal Mesoamerican Indiansociety, for it transcends standard the to look at traditional of the community composed customary as of socialunitsregarded conceptualization of as fixed entitiesand entailinga combination functions.This novel approach to communitysocial life is borrowedfrom kinshipanalysis,namely, allianceversus the not descenttheory. It portrays community in termsof fixed units (denotedby but as a systemof relations(denoted kinshipbehavior) basedon by kinshipunits), the as ties thatextendthroughout fabricof the community a functionof marriage, alliance Monaghan's exchange,and commensality. position, implicitlyadvocating and analysisatthe expenseof social-unit analysis,is attractive wouldbe usefulto test in Indian-traditional, perhaps and it Indian-transitional communities. Whether would communities uncertain. is be appropriate moremodernized-secularized to In his description analysisof the oratorysystem of the Sierra(de Puebla) and Otomi, James Dow discusses several critical issues for the study of Indianand Mestizopeasantcommunities, those in transition. First, he approaches particularly the privateandpublicdimensions the localfolk religion,with specialreference of to the integrativemechanisms are entailedby the mergingof ritual and social that institutions,as they extend from the householdto the communityand on to the The basedon the modelof the household of cult municipio. privatecult of oratories, and the saints, extendsto the neighborhood thento the entirecommunity, main the and economic consequencesof which are to generatereligious corporateness tendencies.Second, Dow analyzescompadrazgo, mayordomia redistributive the system, and the cult of oratoriesas a single ensembleof ritual and ceremonial model,the cult of sponsorship. Takingpubliccompadrazgo typesas the underlying the saints, pagan supernaturals, the oratorysystem are integratedinto an and undifferentiated of actionthatfostersalliancesandserves as a mechanism unit for and Dow does not conflict,propinquously communally. Third,although minimizing of in emphasizethe point, he recognizesthe importance placingthe community a context.Particularly, OtomiIndiansin his studyhavebeen the dynamic,changing converted Pentecostalism, havemanaged maintain cult of the saintsand to to the yet in and pagan supernaturals a new kind of syncreticentity. These are structural in functional situations withslightvariations, replicated manyMesoamerican are that, IndianandMestizocommunities. The situationdescribed GregoryTruexof the Zapoteccommunity Santa of by Maria appearsto be ubiquitousin Oaxaca.This is in markedcontrastto the in circumstances mostof the NahuaandTarascan areasof Central Mexico, in which barriosare on the wholemorestructured entailspecificfunctions a religious, and of andeven economicnature.Undertheseconditions, barriosare still social, political, amenable institutional to the analysis, giventhatnorms,rules,and,broadly speaking, ideology of actionare explicitlyefficacious.The situationis changingrapidly,of are into course,as manycommunities beingincorporated the life of the nation.The case illustrated Truexdoes not lend itself to institutional by analysis,but it lends itself to networkanalysisquitewell, as this analytical has been conceptualized tool

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analysisand network by DouglasWhiteand others.Ideally,however,institutional each other. In this contextLevi-Strauss's distinction should complement analysis and models is very muchto the point. Institutional betweenmechanical statistical a is model based on analysisof barriostructure akin to constructing mechanical specified rules and constraintsregulatingbehaviorand action. By contrast,the with constructing a networkanalysisof barriostructure practically is synonymous absenceof specifiedrules and useful in the apparent statistical model, particularly fall injunctions.Given that probablymost barriosin Mesoamerica betweenthese mechanicaland statisticalpoles, Truex's notion of applyingnetworkanalysisto is barriostructure commendable. in Zinacantain one of the best-studied is Indiancommunities Mesoamerica, and the articleby Frank Cancian reflectshis continuous association with andstudyof this Tzotzil-speakingmunicipio for more than a generation. Cancian's sustained and observation longperiodsof timeis one of severalimportant over methodological contributions his essay. Its othervirtuesare as follows. First, Cancian of analytical view of the transformations Zinacantan undergone that has takesa processual during the past 50 years as a result of externalreligious,economic, and politicalforces and withinthecommunity's traditional framework demographic growth. reinterpreted in Thispowerfulstrategy the conceptualization sociocultural of changehas so farnot beenblessedwith an adequate theory.Second,the notionof the hamlet(equivalents of whichareknownin Mesoamerica a varietyof names)as a dependent settlement by of a largerwhole clearlypositionsthe processof fission as a concomitant aspectof fruitfulfocus in This is a particularly the changes triggeredby modernization. or of explainingthe transformation originallydispersedmunicipios large villages, common in several regions of Mesoamerica, into independent nucleatedcenters. of Third,the interdigitation externalvariablesof change,their conjoinedefficacy, andthe internal or reactions they elicit is the surestmethodof assessingthe incipient matureprocess of incorporation the folk communityinto the nationalculture. of the or Thus, in Zinacantan growth of hamlets into independent semidependent is an unmistakable indication the processof modernization. of Fourth,by villages the transformation Zinacantain the past generation the of as during conceptualizing that gives rise to social and religiouscommunalindependence process of fission withinthe largerframework the municipio,whichretainseconomic(marketing) of an Cancianhas pinpointed important and political pre-eminence, juncturein the evolutionof folk societies. As his dataon Chinesepeasantsindicate,this may be a widespreadphenomenonas folk societies increasinglybecome part of national the cultures.The foregoinganalytical standis a necessitywhenstudying transformaIndianandMestizosociety. tion of Mesoamerican EileenMulhare's the mostethnologicof all the essays, both in termsof what is social has beendone andwhatneedsto be done in orderto conceptualize customary the thathaveimpeded assessment units.She identifies manyterminological problems functions a kinship,ritual, of socialunitsthatdo not entailconcomitant of disparate for and territorial nature.Fundamentally, problemis not just terminological, the a do socialunitsin Mesoamerica not in factconstitute unitary substantive customary

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complex. Nonetheless, there is a modicum of unity that can be explored in order to place customary social units in structural perspective. For example, the barrio denotes a complex of structures that range from a full-fledged kinship unit to a territorialunit, most often equivalentto a section, the administrativesubdivision of villages and municipios according to state laws. Moreover, the barrio has another dimension that transcendskinship and territoriality;namely, religious functions tied to ritual sponsorship that may render it localized, nonlocalized, or simply a namegroup. When it comes to smaller customaryunits, generally referentlocales of some sort of kinship association (such as the paraje and its equivalent)the situation is just as diffused. Given these constraints,the best strategyto pursue, as Mulharesuggests, is to concentrate on finding the level of concomitance where one can make useful inferences from the kinship, religious, ritual, andterritorialcomposition of whatever is ostensibly defined as a customary social unit. With respect to the topic of customarysocial units, we should emphasize several points. First, it is important to investigate customary social units for two main reasons; because in Mesoamerica few institutions can be fully understood and conceptualizedwithout referenceto the past, and because it is our ethnographicduty to preserve for posterity what is disappearingso rapidly. The articles presented here make many valuable suggestions as to how these tasks may be approachedin future research. Finally, focusing mostly on externalparameters,permit me to make a few suggestions complementingwhat has been said on conceptualizingcustomary social units: 1. The natureand extent of the community into which customarysocial units are embedded must be carefully specified: section, village, municipio, perhapseven the region. 2. The structureof customarysocial units must be differentiallypositioned in the context of settlement patterns:dispersed, semi-dispersed, nucleated. 3. The functions of customary social units must be assessed with reference to ethnic differentiation:Indian, Indian-Transitional, Mestizo, and so on. 4. Establishingthe position of the communityin the modernization-secularization process is necessary in order to gauge the changes that have taken place during the past three or four generations. 5. The long-rangeethnohistorical perspective,perhapsextendingto early Colonial in most cases a necessary complement in ascertaining the nature of times, is customarysocial units, and how they have evolved in terms of religious, kinship, and territorialcontent into the contemporarysetting. POSTSCRIPT A recent doctoral dissertation at the University of Paris on kinship groups in Mesoamerica came to my attention after this essay was written. Because of the dissertation's relevance to the topics considered here, and particularlybecause the author, David L. Robichaux, has constructeda model that accounts for the facts of

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Mesoamerican kinshipbetter than anythingthat has hithertobeen postulated,it as deservesmention.Robichaux (1995)definesthehousehold a domesticgroupbased in what he calls "limitedlocalized and embeds it on residenceand inheritance, whichis a redefinition the nonresidential of extended family(Nutini patrilineages," 1968:149-52). He correctlypoints to the limited localized patrilineageas the and IndianandMestizocommunities as the fundamental kinshipunit in traditional are andreligiousfunctions discharged. unitin whichall significant social,economic, The unit is structured local rules of residence,the developmental by cycle of domesticgroups,andthe inheritance system. Robichaux'sanalysis offers many seminal ideas for the study of kinship in Its Mesoamerica. dynamicview of the domesticgroup as it respondsto outside with the changingrole of kinshipas is pressuresandconstraints entirelycongruent veritable the contributors this volume.OnehopesthatRobichaux's to presented by in tourdeforce will soon be available English.
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Saint in Tlaxcala, Mexico (1519-1670). Ethnology 15:301-21. 1984. Ritual Kinship: Ideological and StructuralIntegrationof the Compadrazgo System in Rural Tlaxcala. Princeton. 1988. Todos Santos in RuralTlaxcala:A Syncretic, Expressive, and Symbolic Analysis of the Cult of the Dead. Princeton. Nutini, H. G., and B. Bell. 1980. RitualKinship:The Structureand Historical Development of the Cult of the Dead in Rural Tlaxcala. Princeton. Palerm, A. 1972. Agriculturay Sociedad en Mesoamerica. Mexico DF. Paul, B. D. 1942. Ritual Kinship: With Special Reference to Godparenthoodin Middle America. Chicago. Ravicz, R. S. 1967. Compadrinazgo. Handbook of Middle American Indians, Vol. 6, ed. R. Wauchope, pp. 238-52. Austin. Redfield, R. 1930. Tepoztlan, a Mexican Village. Chicago. 1941. The Folk Culture of Yucatan. Chicago. 1947. The Folk Society. American Journal of Sociology 52:293-308. Redfield, R., R. Linton, and M. Herskovitz. 1936. Memorandum on the Study of Acculturation. American Anthropologist 38:149-52. Robichaux, D. L. 1995. Le Mode de Perpetuationdes Groupesde Parente:La Residence et l'Heritage a Tlaxcala (Mexique), Suivis d'un Modele pour la Mesoamerique. Doctoral dissertation, University of Paris. E. 1940. Pascua: A Yaqui Village in Arizona. Chicago. Spicer, Toennies, F. 1940. FundamentalConcepts of Sociology. New York. Wolf, E. R. 1962. Sons of the Shaking Earth. Chicago.