This paper introduces the Tzotzil Maya by establishing some of the essential
information about them. The home of the Tzotzil Maya lies in the highland region
of central Chiapas in southeastern Mexico. Their territory has increasingly
started to overlap with the Tzeltal, which are also Mayan indigenous people.
This has caused them to influence each other culturally, linguistically, and
politically. The habitat of the Tzotzil is highland, with mountains, volcanic
outcroppings, and valley lowlands. The climate at high altitudes is cool to
cold, and summers are very wet. The native Tzotzil live mainly in the higher
reaches.
Chiapas is rich in natural resources, generating 35% of the nation's
electricity from hydropower, producing 35% of Mexico's coffee, and the second
state in livestock production and maize. The south and eastern parts of the
state are rich in forests. The rocky highlands are a region that was never
considered by the Spaniards as being resource rich and was largely left in the
hands of the indigenous groups. The highlands served as a source of cheap labor
for commercial agriculture in the more fertile estate lands of Chiapas.
The region is going through complex changes in response to population
increase, which has encouraged people to move to less populated areas of the
territory. Thirty years ago the indigenous population was highly concentrated in
the highlands, dispersed in small communities in the rainforest, or along the
borders with Guatemala and Oaxaca.
Today, the Tzotzil have expanded northward and into northern urban areas. The
particular demography of the highlands is shaped by the movement of the
Tzotziles and the Tzeltales. Since they have developed overlapping territories
even within the same municipalities, and because their languages are closely
linked, they have developed ties among younger adults, even though community
boundaries remain separate. After the 1940s, the highlands experienced rapid
demographic growth. Between 1950 and 1990, the population of the region tripled.
In the Altos, the Tzotziles are organized into communities, each with their
own social and cultural unity. Each community has their own identity with a
patron saint as protector and benefactor of its members, its own particular
language characteristics, a body that governs it, and annual rites including
celebration of the festivals for the saints.
The inhabitants of the Altos identify themselves by their community of
origin. The communities are organized in barrios. The barrio can function as a
ceremonial unit, provide justice in minor offenses, decide use of land, maintain
demographic statistics, and assign representatives for the municipal government.
The Tzotzil have mediated land access by maintaining communal land structures
through inheritance of land through the paternal line. Nonetheless, it is
possible that inside a community, members can buy or sell land. Each family owns
small parcels in different agro-ecological zones that are used for different
activities such as collection of firewood, plants and animals and some
cultivation of crops. They occupy communal territory in dispersed settlements
known as parajes which represent a social as well as territorial system of
organization. .
