Social Stratification in Central Mexico, 1500-2000

Seven. The Indian-Mestizo Transition: From Ethnic Estates to Social Classes

T his chapter returns us to Central Mexico’s small towns and villages, where a transition from Indian to mestizo cultural status has occurred widely during the past two hundred years and especially since about 1950. Structurally, this profound transition involves the final breakdown of vestigial estate stratification rooted in colonial-era ethnic relations and its replacement by class stratification along national lines. Culturally, it involves the loss of most of traditional Indian culture—that syncretic amalgam of Spanish, Indian, and African elements that emerged during the seventeenth century and then persisted, albeit evolving and adapting, through much of the twentieth century (Nutini and Bell 1980: 287–378; Nutini and Roberts 1993: 80–116). The Indian-mestizo transition also entails the reduction or loss of traditional Indian ethnicity at the community level, although Indian ethnicities may be revitalized in reconfigured form at a later date. We will lay the foundation for understanding the transition by first comparing a few salient aspects of Indian and mestizo cultures and then depicting some distinctive features of traditional Indian religion as it has been described ethnographically. Next, we introduce the concepts of modernization, secularization, and mestizoization and show how these processes have transformed the community of Chignautla in northeastern Puebla state. To convey an idea of local and regional variation in the operation of these processes, as well as the time factor involved, we then contrast the Tlaxcala-Pueblan Valley (central Tlaxcala and Puebla states) and the Córdoba-Orizaba region (west-central Veracruz state). Finally, we discuss some of the implications of the completed transition to messeven : THE INDIAN-MESTIZO TRANSITION From Ethnic Estates to Social Classes T H E P O S T R E V O L U T I O N A R Y P E R I O D ( 1 9 2 0 – 2 0 0 0 ) 172 tizo national culture, including the loss of the rich expressive culture that was integral to traditional Indian religion. The terms Indian and mestizo require only brief comment here, as they were discussed at length in Chapter 2. The term mestizo has wide scholarly currency, especially in anthropology and history, to denote the bearers of modern national culture, and it also retains an official aura from the efforts to construct a new nation, a “Mestizo Mexico,” following the 1910–1920 Revolution. But the term is seldom employed in the countryside . Indians use a variety of local terms to designate mestizos, such as gente de razón (people with reason, intelligent people), gente decente (proper people), catrines (city people, city slickers), coyome (coyotes, shady characters ) or, less commonly today, castellanos and other terms that refer to Spanish identity. Mestizos typically refer to themselves with terms of regional or national identity—such as mexicano (Mexican), jarocho (from Veracruz city), poblano (from Puebla city or state), guerrerense (from Guerrero state), chilango (from Mexico City), morelense (from Morelos state), and cuernavaquense (from Cuernavaca). The Spanish word indio long ago came to be considered derogatory in Mexico, owing to its deprecatory usage during the three centuries of Spanish colonial rule. Today, one occasionally hears its diminutive form, indito, the connotation of which varies from region to region; in a few places, it is a term of endearment, but generally its connotation is deprecatory or, at least, condescending. In Spanish, the term usually employed today is indígena (indigenous, indigene), both by the people themselves and in public discourse. Indeed, that is the term we would use if we were writing this book in Spanish, except for certain historical contexts. In English, however, the term Indian lacks the deprecatory connotations of its Spanish equivalent with regard to Mexico, and indigene would seem both eccentric and stilted. Indians and Mestizos: General Observations The Indian population under discussion consists, of course, of the descendants of the population conquered and colonized by the Spaniards in the sixteenth century. The mestizo population has its origins in the SpanishIndian biological and cultural amalgamation that began with the Spanish conquest and continued through the colonial period. As we saw in Chapter 2, mestizo, or mixed, originated as a term of reference for the children T H E I N D I A N - M E S T I Z O T R A N S I T I O N 173 produced by Spanish men with Indian women but eventually lost its biological referents and came to designate...