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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
In September, 1584, during an episcopal visita to Chiapa de Indios, a group of townspeople came to the bishop, Fray Pedro de Feria, to accuse the patriarch of one of the principal lineages in the town of leading a clandestine cult. They said that, in nearby Suchiapa, a “gran junta” composed of twelve Indians who called themselves the Twelve Apostles gathered at night to walk among the hills and caves, and to perform “demonic rites against our Christian religion.” With them, Feria was told, went two women. One they called Santa María; the other, Magdalena. Together the cultists carried out ceremonies in which they transformed themselves into gods and goddesses. In their divine form, the women were said to have the power to conjure storms, and to give many riches to whomever they pleased. Feria would report that they had “many other superstitutions and vanities” which he compared to the Alumbrados or Illuminist sect that had been widely popular in Spain during the 1520s and been condemned by the Inquisition.
1 The account of the Atonal conspiracy is drawn entirely from “Relación que hace el obispo de Chiapas, Fray Pedro de Feria, sobre la reincidencia en sus idolatrias de los indios de aquel país despues de treinta años de cristianos,” in Orozco, Francisco y Jiménez, , ed., Colección de documentos inéditos relativos a la iglesia de Chiapas, Tomo II (San Cristóbal de las Casas, 1909–1911),Google Scholar No pagination. For other secondary treatments, see Wasserstrom, Robert Class and Society in Central Chiapas (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), pp. 24–26;Google Scholar de León, Antonio García Resistencia y utopía (México: Ediciones Era, 1985), 1, 76–77;Google Scholar and especially, Megged, Amos “Accomodation and Resistance of Elites in Transition: The Case of Chiapa in Early Colonial Mesoamerica,” HAHR, 71 (August 1991), 477–500.Google Scholar
2 For a brief account of the Illuminists see, Lynch, John Spain Under the Habsburgs, 2nd edition (New York: New York University Press, 1984), 1, 68–69;Google Scholar see also, Llorca, Bernardino La Inquisición española y los alumbrados, 1509–1669 (Salamanca: Universidad Pontificia, 1980);Google Scholar and Márquez, Antonio Los Alumbrados, origines y filosofía, 1525–1559 (Madrid: Taurus, 1972).Google Scholar
3 de Remesal, Fray Antonio Historia General de las Indias Occidentales y particular de la gobernación de Chiapa y Guatemala (Guatemala: Biblioteca “Goathemala,” 1932), 1, 536–538;Google Scholar Ximénez, Fray Fan-cisco Historia de la Provincia de San Vicente de Chiapa y Gwafemala (Guatemala: Biblioteca “Goathemala,” 1929), 1, 476–479.Google Scholar
4 Remesal, , Historia general, 1, 536.Google Scholar
5 Ximénez, , Historia de la provincia, 1, 477–478.Google Scholar
6 Megged, , “Accommodation and Resistance,” pp. 487–491.Google Scholar
7 Several scholars have written on the duties of the office of the provisor, including: Schwaller, John Frederick The Church and Clergy in Sixteenth Century Mexico (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1987), pp. 19–25;Google Scholar Gruzinski, Serge Man-Gods in the Mexican Highlands: Indian Power and Colonial Society, 1520–1800 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989), pp. 7–8;Google Scholar and especially, de los Arcos, Roberto Moreno “New Spain’s Inquisition for Indians from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century,” in Perry, Mary Elizabeth and Cruz, Anne J., editors, Cultural Encounters: The Impact of the Inquisition in Spain and the New World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), pp. 37–57.Google Scholar In Mexico, the offices of provisor and vicar general were combined and held by the same man, but these were separate offices served by different men in the bishopric of Chiapas.
8 Gerhard, Peter The Southeast Frontier of New Spain (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), pp. 158–160.Google Scholar
9 Megged, , “Accommodation and Resistance,” pp. 482–483.Google Scholar
10 The following are just a few of the studies that stress the persistence of native elites in Mexico: Taylor, William B. Landlord and Peasant in Colonial Oaxaca (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972);Google Scholar Thompson, Philip C. “Tekanto in the Eighteenth Century,” Ph.D. dissertation, Tulane University, 1978;Google Scholar Farriss, Nancy M. Maya Society Under Colonial Rule: The Collective Enterprise of Survival (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984);Google Scholar and Haskett, Robert Indigenous Rulers: An Ethnohistory of Town Government in Colonial Cuernavaca (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1991).Google Scholar
11 Remesal, , Historia general, 1, 469–511.Google Scholar
12 Colonial records offer conflicting evidence on Pedro Notí’s succession to the cacicazgo. Balthasar Guerra wrote that he appointed Noti to the post himself, “I made him Cacique against the desire and will of all, and in doing so I violated some of their laws and ancient customs.” ( Remesal, , Historia general, Tomo I, p. 490)Google Scholar Amos Megged, however, offers convincing evidence that Noti was chosen by Nacayola, who was lord of the Chiapanecos at the time of initial contact and remained in office until his death in 1536. ( Megged, , “Accommodation and Resistance,” p. 483.)Google Scholar The friar Tomás de la Torre, who visited Chiapas in the 1550s, reported that the Chiapanecos had no caciques at all, but the bulk of recent scholarship indicates that he was mistaken. ( Navarette, Carlos The Chiapaneco History and Culture [Provo: New World Archaeological Foundation, 1966], p. 21.)Google Scholar
13 de Vos, Jan La Paz de Dios y del Rey: La conquista de la selva lacandona (Chiapas: La Colección Ceiba, 1980), pp. 93–108;Google Scholar Trens, pp. 160–161.
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15 See Farriss, Maya Society, Chapter 11.
16 For an excellent overview of the literature on colonial cofradías in Mexico and Guatemala, see Chance, John K. and Taylor, William B. “Cofradías and Cargos: An Historical Perspective on the Mesoamerican Civil-Religious Hierarchy,” American Ethnologist, 12 (1985), 1–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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21 Ibid., p. 126.
22 Ibid., p. 140.
23 Ibid., p. 140.
24 See Vogt, Evon Z. “Some Aspects of the Sacred Geography of Highland Chiapas,” in Benson, Elizabeth (ed.), Mesoamerican Sites and World View (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1981);Google Scholar and Bassie-Sweet, Karen From the Mouth of the Dark Cave: Commemorative Sculpture of the Late Classic Maya (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991.)Google Scholar
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26 For an excellent overview of the literature on nagualism, see Austin, Alfredo López The Human Body and Ideology (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1988), 1, 362–375;Google Scholar and II, 283–284; for a contemporary account of colonial belief, see de la Vega, Francisco Núñez Constituciones diocesanas del obispado de Chiapas, León Cázares, María del Carmen and Ruz, Mario Humberto editors (México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1988) Carta IXa Pastoral, pp. 752–762.Google Scholar
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34 See Millones, Luis “Religion and Power in the Andes: Idolatrous Curacas of the Central Sierra,” Ethnohistory, 26 (1979), 243–263;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Salomon, Frank “Shamanism and Politics in Late-Colonial Ecuador,” American Ethnologist, 10 (1983), 413–428.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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36 See Stern, Steve J. (ed.), Resistance, Rebellion, and Consciousness in the Andean Peasant World (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987);Google Scholar and Hill, Jonathan D. Rethinking History and Myth: Indigenous South American Perspectives on the Past (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988).Google Scholar