Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T07:21:08.275Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Secularization of the Cargo System: An Example from Postrevolutionary Central Mexico

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2022

Judith Friedlander*
Affiliation:
SUNY at Purchase
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The cargo system is composed of a series of ranked offices, both civil and religious, that male members of indigenous communities assume. Usually the term for each office lasts one year. Adult men who are active in village affairs pass through the various “cargos,” as these offices are called, taking on civic duties one year, sponsoring important religious fiestas celebrated in the community the next, and so on. Finally, as old men, they attain the status of elders, or “principales,” and have considerable authority in local decision-making (see Cancian [1967] for a concise, traditional interpretation and Smith [1977] for a more critical appraisal of the literature).

Type
Research Reports and Notes
Copyright
Copyright © 1981 by the University of Texas Press

References

Boban, E. 1891 Documents pour servir a l'histoire du Mexique. Vol. 1. Paris: Catalogue raisonné de la collection E.E. Goupil.Google Scholar
Borah, W. and Cook, S.F. 1963The Aboriginal Population of Central Mexico on the Eve of the Spanish Conquest.” Ibero-Americana, No. 45.Google Scholar
Cancian, F. 1965 Economics and Prestige in a Maya Community. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Cancian, F. 1967Political and Religious Organizations.” In Handbook of Middle American Indians: Social Anthropology Vol. 6. Edited by Wauchope, R. and Nash, M. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Carrasco, P. 1961The Civil-Religious Hierarchy in Mesoamerican Communities: Pre-Spanish Background and Colonial Development.” American Anthropologist 63, pp. 483–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Walt, B. 1975Changes in the Cargo System of Mesoamerica.” Anthropological Quarterly 48, pp. 87105.Google Scholar
Dimen-Schein, M. 1977 The Anthropological Imagination. New York: McGraw Hill.Google Scholar
DurÁN, Fr. D. 1967 Historia de los Indios de Nueva España y Islas de Tierra Firme. Prepared by A. Garibay. Vol. 2. Mexico City.Google Scholar
Friedlander, J. 1975 Being Indian in Hueyapan: A Study of Forced Identity in Contemporary Mexico. New York: St. Martin's Press.Google Scholar
Friedlander, J. 1978The Aesthetics of Oppression: Traditional Arts of Women in Mexico.” Heresies, No. 3, pp. 39.Google Scholar
Gerhard, P. 1970aEl Señorío de Ocuituco.” Tlalocan 6, no. 2, pp. 97114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerhard, P. 1970b Personal Communication. Tepoztlan, Mexico.Google Scholar
Harris, H. 1964 Patterns of Race. New York: Walker.Google Scholar
Martinez-MarÍN, C. 1968 Tetela del Volcán. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.Google Scholar
Nash, M. 1958Political Relations in Guatemala.” Social and Economic Studies 7, pp. 6775.Google Scholar
NuÑEz Del Prado, O. 1955Aspects of Andean Native Life.” Kroeber Anthropological Society Papers 12, pp. 121.Google Scholar
Paso Y Troncoso, F. 1905Relación Tetela y Ueyapan.” Papeles de Nueva España 6:283–90. Madrid: Manuscritos de la Real Academia de la Historia de Madrid y del Archivo de Indias en Sevilla, Años 1579–1582.Google Scholar
Ricard, R. 1933 La “conquête spirituelle” du Mexique. Paris: Institut d'Ethnologie de Paris.Google Scholar
Rus, J. and Wasserstrom, R. 1980Civil-Religious Hierarchies in Central Chiapas: A Critical Perspective.” American Ethnologist 7, no. 3 (Aug.): 466–78.Google Scholar
Smith, W. R. 1977 The Fiesta System and Economic Change. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Tax, S. 1953 Penny Capitalism: A Guatemalan Indian Economy. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, Institute of Anthropology Publications No. 16.Google Scholar
Van Zantwijk, R. A. M. 1967 Servants of the Saints: The Social and Cultural Identity of a Tarascan Community in Mexico. The Netherlands: Royal Van Gorcum.Google Scholar
Wasserstrom, R. 1978The Exchange of Saints in Zinacantan: The Socioeconomic Bases of Religious Changes in Southern Mexico.” Ethnology 18, no. 2, pp. 197210.Google Scholar
Wolf, E. 1959 Sons of the Shaking Earth. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar