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133 Life Writing from a Popular Perspective the speech of another, and later mediated and modified through the necessary work of transcription and editing. It is not possible to discern the narrator’s “real” voice speaking on the page, nor is it possible to ascertain what his priorities were, what things he said that were later omitted, what he emphasized or downplayed, or what he might have said had the unknown interview questions been phrased differently than they were. Was Ricardo Pozas “faithful” to his informant or did he manipulate the testimony to his own purposes?14 These are purely speculative and ultimately fruitless concerns, although the framing of the book as an ethnographic document based on interview material might logically encourage a mimetic reading in search of the voice of a “genuine Indian.” However, by letting go of the preoccupation with an elusive authenticity, the reader can ask other, more pertinent questions of the text at hand. To conclude this analysis I will return to aspects of the representation of cultural hybridity in the life story. Juan Pérez Jolote’s narration of his daily activities and his explanations of Chamula economic and religious practices illustrate the inherent hybridity of culture and the degree to which that hybridity is invisible to the members of a human group. While the anthropologist is concerned to differentiate activities, material goods, and beliefs that have Mayan origin from those with Hispanic roots, the informant experiences his diversely constituted culture as a coherent whole. In Juan Pérez Jolote the introduction and the endnotes are the obvious signs of the scientist’s preoccupation with unraveling the weave of Chamula life and tracing its threads to their sources. I am not suggesting that there is nothing to be learned from such an endeavor, only that the life story demonstrates the degree to which a given community internalizes disparate influences and accommodates a certain level of internal contradiction. Also, in the study of cultural change over time there is no starting point from which to measure the distance traveled or the loss or gain of original and new attributes. The Maya and Hispanic cultures were themselves “mongrels,” to recall the root meaning of hybrid. It’s mongrels all the way back. The human awareness of the passing of time is a universal condition that takes a variety of specific forms and is endowed with a variety of meanings. The temporal structure of the life story of Juan Pérez Jolote displays the intersection or overlapping of distinct time values as the narrator-protagonist lives time according to more than one system. The experience of time as a linear progression from the past toward the future, an attribute of Judeo-Christian ideology, shapes the presentation 134 Documents in Crisis of events from childhood to adulthood in a chronological sequence with few anachronisms. This is a shape that may very well have been imposed by Ricardo Pozas, although during the years spent away from the Chamula township, Pérez Jolote would have himself experienced the forward thrust of Mexican history, marked by Revolution and the changing names of those in power: Madero, Huerta, Carranza. The few identifiable dates given in the story are primarily linked to events occurring at the level of the national life insofar as they touch the protagonist (the Revolution) or the Chamula community (the annual arrival of new civil authorities). The measurement of time in weeks and months generally pertains to the life activities of the protagonist experienced outside of his town, including the careful counting of the days spent working for wages on the lowland plantations, where each day holds a small monetary value against the debt contracted prior to the season of planting or harvesting. Pérez Jolote equally experiences the cyclical nature of time that governs life in an agricultural society. The seasons circle around, tracing a predictable pattern of rainy and dry periods and an accompanying rhythm of clearing the land, planting, tending, and harvesting the crops. The steady repetition of the natural cycle might contribute to the sense of permanence and continuity across generations, which is evoked in the opening paragraph of the life story. Pérez Jolote is sure of his unchanging attachment to an identifiable piece of land and is also sure of the continuity of existence across the fluid boundaries of life and death: “Cuando yo muera y venga mi ánima, encontrará los mismos senderos por donde anduve en vida, y...

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