Ancient Maya Commoners

Chapter 9. Commoners in Postclassic Maya Society: Social versus Economic Class Constructs

CHAPTER 9 Commoners in Postclassic Maya Society: Social versus Economic Class Constructs marilyn a. masson and carlos peraza lope The concept of a commoner class in Postclassic Maya society is an evasive one, suggesting that social status position does not vary evenly with conditions of economic life. As many of the contributors to this volume have demonstrated, when economic patterns of household production and local, regional, and distant exchange are compared, commoners are not always easilydistinguished from elites. Elites are identified primarily from indicators of social status that are rooted in political and ritual activity. Such indicators include increased residential platform size, the monopolization of certain types of ritual events and paraphernalia, and the control of particular forms of production or exchange. These vary from site to site according to historical and geographic contexts that affected social and economic institutions at individual communities. From the perspective of material realities in the archaeological record, the continuum of social and economic indicators suggests that class structure was to some degree fluid. A single model of class relations within all Postclassic Maya communities is not reflected. Although historic documents suggest that two distinct social classes of nobles and commoners were well defined within Mesoamerican society (Marcus 1992, 1993, this volume), others argue, based on archaeological evidence, for a middle class of individuals (A. Chase 1992). Archaeological data suggest a continuum of economic affluence at some sites based on architectural, mortuary, or artifact distributions that might indicate an upwardly mobile middle class (A. Chase 1992; King and Potter 1994)— though Joyce Marcus (1993) interprets such variation as evidence of differences within a commoner class (see also Smith and Masson 2000:20). Continuous settlement distributions have long been observed in the Maya area (Adams and Smith 1981:339). At many sites, even the humblest house 198 Marilyn A. Masson & Carlos Peraza Lope mounds gained access to valuable materials, albeit in lesser quantities than found in elite contexts (Freidel 1986:414, 417; Haviland and MoholyNagy 1992:54). Formal social classes, as defined emically by Maya noble families in historic records, represent a fundamentallydifferent category than economic status groups that are materially expressed in the archaeological record. These two forms of power represent a dialectic not unique to Maya or Mesoamerican societies. In many complex societies, upper classes composed of those born wealthyare pervasively infiltrated by bourgeois entrepreneurs . A middle-class substrate of affluent ‘‘non-elites’’ carries within it members who strive to improve their economic or social status from generation to generation. Ralph Roys (1943:33) cites historic information to argue for the existence of three classes in Postclassic Maya society: nobles, commoners, and slaves, but Diane Chase (1986:362) describes the difficulty in identifying residences associated with such class differences. Archaeologically, she notes that a gradation in status is indicated that defies the rigid historical categories. Other historical sources point to considerable occupational heterogeneity in Postclassic Maya society, including lords, merchants, traders, priests, warriors, craft specialists, servants, and slaves (Barrera and Morley 1949; Roys 1962; Tozzer 1941), and the correspondence of these occupations to social standing probably varied for individuals at different communities. The debate about the number of formal social class categories rages on in Mesoamerican archaeology, and much of it surrounds the status of merchants in highland and lowland societies at various points in time (Adams and Smith 1981:347; Blanton et al. 1993; Sabloff and Rathje 1975a, 1975b; Smith and Masson 2000:20). As Michael Mann’s oft-cited (1986) work argues, there are different sources of social power, including ideological, economic, militaristic, and political networks. Archaeologists must evaluate the relative significance of these networks for specific societies through the material realm (Blanton 1998; Earle 1997). While extremes on either end of a continuum of architectural size and elaboration perhaps easily illustrate the commonerversus -elite dichotomy, always problematic are those big small platforms or small big platforms found at the center of the distribution. As Diane Chase (1986:357) notes, ‘‘Such a continuum might indicate that commoners could accumulate wealth to the point that they were difficult to distinguish materially from the elite.’’ Arlen Chase (1992) has argued for the likelihood of a Maya middle class based on such evidence. Household artifact distributions in many complex societies do exhibit a continuum that presents interpretive challenges to archaeologists. Superelites Commoners in Postclassic Maya Society 199 have more luxury items, secondary elites have...