GENERAL FEATURES OF MIDDLE AMERICAN INDIGENOUS SOCIETIES
l. Community usually has a civil
and religious center housing a patron saint.
2. Subsistence usually
revolves around maize agriculture.
3. Families generally live in
separate structures, houses vary in form and material.
4. Labor division is by sex
and age, men doing heavy work, women
domestic
tasks; men are in charge of indigenous cults, women are more
prominent
in European-derived religion than in indigenous cults.
5. Market is dominant in
economic life (with exceptions mostly in north)
6. Families usually
articulate directly with the larger community, although
there are usually territorial subdivisions w/in the community.
7. Families are hierarchical,
with male and age dominance; both lines of
descent are recognized, but patrilineal tendency in
transmitting names.
8. Marriage tends to be
negotiated by elders for sons and daughters, w/
fixed visits and gift exchange. Bride price is usual and sometimes bride
service. Serial
monogamy not uncommon until children, and thus
stability arrives.
Polygyny, especially sororal,
is tolerated and not infrequent.
9. Political organization
includes a central building and a hierarchy of
officials. Political offices interwoven with a similar
religious
hierarchy. Annual
change of offices in both hierarchies is most common.
lO. Social classes absent,
but there are considerable differences in
prestige, due to wealth, power, and personal achievement.
ll. Age hierarchy, especially among males, is notable and
tied to
performance in the civil-religious hierarchy.
l2. Important life cycle events include baptism and marriage;
puberty rites
essentially absent.
Death is followed by a one day wake.
l3. Disease concepts include air
invasions of the body; identification of
illness with disturbed emotional states and period
of delicacy when
illness most likely strikes; notions of hot and cold
and strong and
weak are used
incurring and in diagnosis; curers are specialists or
semi-specialists, and are often perceived as witches also.
l4. Hierarchy of deities
(sometimes with God at the apex), including saints
(combining Christian and pagan attributes and powers), ancestor
gods,
and deities associated or identified with such natural
forces as wind,
rain, and lightning. Saint cult centering around housing of
effigies
in house altars or special temples; liquor is a
usual part of the
sacred ceremonies.
l5. Annual cycle regulated by
European calendar and punctuated by festivals,
chief of which is the patron saint ritual. Other major
rituals include
All Saints Day, Easter Week, and the Day of
the Cross. There is a
pagan (non-Christian calendar, chiefly involved in divination
and in some
agricultural ritual.
l6. Worldview is animistic in
the sense that the world is populated by
spirits, souls, ghosts, witches,
and forces that affect the daily life
of persons; omens,
dreams, and talismans are important.
l7. Physical contacts, except
when intoxicated, are disfavored; great
ambition is discouraged, but industry and application
are lauded.
l8. Ritual conformity is more important than inner piety.
Slander, gossip, and
envy are greatly condemned, but these are chief means of
social control.
l9. Great respect for writing and books.
2O. Dependence on law,
and formal organization is more important to
leadership than personal attributes.
(after Tax and Nash)
02/04/2007