codices mayas 22

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The Origins of Civilization in Mesoamerica: A Geographic

Perspective

Vincent H. MalmstrmDepartment of Geography

Dartmouth CollegeHanover, NH 03755

In earlier papers, I presented my hypothesis on the origin of the 260-day Meso-american sacred calendar at Izapa in southernmost Mexico, demonstrating how theastronomical, geographical, and historical evidence converge on this site on the Pacific

coastal plain of Chiapas (Malmstrm 1973). My presentation included a reconstruction ofthe calendar's chronology dating back to the fourteenth century B.C., using evidence

internal to the sacred and secular calendars themselves (Malmstrm 1978), and anexplanation of its subsequent diffusion throughout Mesoamerica as evidenced in urban

and architectural alignments, citing their repeated orientation to the sunset position on

August 13, the day on which the Mayas believed the present age of the world began andon which the zenithal sun passes overhead at Izapa (Malmstrm 198 1). Although I have

won support for my basic thesis from physical scientists (Chiu and Morrison 1980), 1 amnevertheless mindful that my arguments run counter to the accepted views of mostarchaeologists. The latter believe that because the 0lmecs -- the mother culture of Meso-

america -- have had their presence more clearly identified along the Gulf coast region ofMexico, it is from this so-called 0lmec metropolitan area that the principal cultural

innovations of the New World emanated. (For a summary of current views on culturalorigins in Mesoamerica, see Bemal 1969, and Coe and Diehl 1980.) In this paper,

therefore, I seek to fit the sacred calendar into the broader physical and cultural contextof pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, and, in so doing, to demonstrate the need for re-

examining the conventional wisdom on the subject of the geographic origins ofcivilization in this region.

WHO WERE THE OLMECS?

Central to any discussion of cultural origins in Mesoamerica is an answer to thequestion, "Who were the Olmecs?" An increasing body of evidence, much of it

admittedly circumstantial, suggests that their modem descendants may be found among

the Mixe-Zoque-Popoluca peoples of southern Mexico. (See Ochoa and Lee 1983; Lowe1977.) This conclusion stems both from an analysis of linguistic patterns and from astudy of early pottery types. This evidence tends, moreover, to confirm another

hypothesis regarding the evolution of stone sculpture in Mesoamerica, namely, that themost primitive forms stem from the Pacific versant, while at the same time it argues forthe importance of the Izapa region as a major cultural hearth within the New World. Thephysical-geographic context also supports these theories on the origins of the 0lmecs.


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THE PHYSICAL SETTING

That part of Mesoamerica that Bernal (1969) and others have termed the 0lmec

metropolitan area is centered in the Gulf coastal plain of southern Veracruz and adjacentTabasco. It is in this region that the most extensive alluvial lowlands of Mesoamerica are

found, the latter being the result of the heaviest concentration of precipitation anywherein Mexico. Moisture-laden winds blowing in off the Gulf meet the steep walls of theuplands fewer than 100 km inland and, as a consequence, this east-facing mountain-front

receives more than 2000 mm of rainfall per year. The low latitude of this region,

combined with its low elevation and heavy precipitation, insure that its vegetation is inmost parts high tropical forest of the broadleaf evergreen variety. Even so, there is amarked seasonal variation in rainfall within the region, so that the volume of water

carried by the rivers may vary by as much as tenfold between May (at the end of the dry

season) and September (at the peak of the rainy season). Indeed, changes in river levelsof the magnitude of 10 meters are not uncommon, and, in this region of minimal relief,

widespread flooding results in the creation of extensive swamps. It is, in short, a region of

high temperatures, high humidity, and rampant vegetation growth. Its soils are riverinedeposits of silt and alluvium--a region totally devoid of bedrock. Its climate ranges from

tropical-humid to super humid in the windward uplands (fig. 1).

Rising out of the Gulf coastal plain in southern Veracruz and almost entirelyencircled by it is the volcanic massif known as the Tuxtlas--a cluster of cinder cones and

small stratovolcanoes, none of which exceeds 1500 meters in height. Opening southwardfrom the Gulf coastal plain is the structural lowland known as the Tehuantepec Gap--theonly place in Meso-America where it is possible to cross between the two oceans at an

elevation of scarcely 300 meters. Indeed, apart from the low hills that form thecontinental divide near the southern, side of the Isthmus, the Gulf coastal plain is

virtually continuous with that bordering the Pacific. The latter, however, is quicklypinched out to the west by the Sierra Madre del Sur in Oaxaca but continues as a narrow

fringe along the Pacific margin of Chiapas on into Guatemala where it broadens out to awidth of some 50 km (fig. 2).


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Although topographically an extension of the Gulf coastal plain, the Pacificlowland may be divided into two quite distinct climatic and vegetation regions. Once the

height of land is crossed from the Gulf, the dense rainforests of the north quickly give

way to low scrub forests on the south. Here, in the lee of the main mountain barrier ofMesoamerica, the dry season becomes so pronounced that the entire isthmian area

warrants a tropical sub-humid designation. However, from Tonal southward along thecoast, the rainfall increases rapidly once again, resulting in a dense tropical rainforest

throughout southern Chiapas and adjacent Guatemala. It is this region that was known inpre-Columbian times as Soconusco, prized among the ancients as the source of cacao,

rubber, and quetzal feathers. Thus, while it is climatically very similar to the Gulf plain,Soconusco had a special importance, thanks to its wealth of exotic trade items. Moreover,lying as it does on the flanks of both ancient crystalline and younger volcanic mountains-

-the dividing line between the two formations occurs almost precisely along the presentpolitical boundary between Mexico and Guatemala--Soconusco was likewise blessed

with an abundance of stone that was used both for construction and artistic purposes (fig.3).


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Rugged mountain massifs rise on either side of the Tehuantepec Gap, the one to

the west culminating in Zempoaltepec (3395 meters) near the northeastern comer ofOaxaca, and the one to the east rising in ever-higher ridges into the heart of Chiapas. In

both mountain areas, patterns of climate and vegetation change dramatically withelevation and exposure, varying from cool, moist uplands covered with oak and pineforests to' sub-humid interior valleys where both steppe grasses and prickly pear cactus

are prevalent. In both mountain areas there is likewise a striking transition in geologic

age and complexity from north to south, with the younger, least disturbed sedimentaryformations nearer the Gulf coast and the older, more jumbled crystalline outcrops in closeproximity to the Pacific. Thus, in contrast to the essential simplicity of the physical

patterns of the lowlands of southern and eastern Meso-America, the mountain areas of the

region are characterized by great local diversity.

ALTERNATIVE SCENARIOS OF SETTLEMENT IN SOUTHERN MESO-

AMERICA

Given the character of the physical setting of southern Meso-America, it is easy to

appreciate that the movement of people, goods, and ideas within the region has usuallytaken the path of least resistance, that is, along the Gulf and Pacific coastal plains andthrough the Tehuantepec Gap between them. Despite the fact that the largest rivers of the

region all flow toward the Gulf and that the continental divide lies far closer to the Pacificthan it does to the Gulf, there are no easy approaches from the Gulf to the highlands

either of Oaxaca on the west or of Chiapas in the east. This is because the rivers of the

region are antecedent streams that have breached the uplifted mountain massifs inspectacular canyons. The Grijalva River, for example, has incised to a depth of more than1200 meters. Thus, approaches to the interior mountain areas are actually easier from the

Pacific side, with the valley of the Tehuantepec River affording a route of penetration to

within 20 krn of the great interior valley of Oaxaca, while a couple of passes breakthrough the lower western ridges of the Sierra Madre into the central depression ofChiapas.

Before examining the actual evidence for cultural diffusion within southern Meso-

america, one might be tempted to postulate a theoretical scenario for such movement

based on what is known of the geographic foundations of Olmec civilization. Judgingfrom the character of Bernal's metropolitan area, the Olmecs were a people thoroughly athome in a humid tropical environment. Had they wanted to expand their settlement intoareas with similar physical conditions, they might have done so either by moving

westward along the Gulf coast into central Veracruz or eastward into Tabasco andCampeche. However, even the most cursory reconnaissance southward across theTehuantepec Gap would have brought them face to face with the sub-humid, scrub forest

environment of the Pacific coastal plain of Oaxaca--an area quite unlike that in whichtheir civilization supposedly took root. The incentive for undertaking such a radical move

would have had to be compelling at the very least. (This is not to suggest that Olmecinfluences did not penetrate into regions of very dissimilar physical geography, for they


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are found, for example, in such sub humid areas as the central valley of Oaxaca at MonteAlbn and in the highlands of Morelos at Chalcatzingo. However, no evidence of Olmec

settlement has ever been found in the scrub-forest regions of southern Tehuantepec-, fig.

4).

For the sake of argument, were we to postulate a scenario that has the Olmecsoriginating in the humid tropical environment of Soconusco and adjacent Guatemala and

then spreading out from there, we would find the extent of suitable land far more

restricted, both for reasons of topography and climate. Indeed, as a result, populationpressures would more quickly have convinced them of the need for seeking out other

humid tropical niches of the kind with which they were familiar. On the Pacific coastalplain, this type of environment extends from northwestern Nicaragua across present-dayEl Salvador and Guatemala into southern Mexico as far as the entrance to the

Tehuantepec Gap. There, as indicated above, the climate becomes markedly drier and the

vegetation becomes scrub, but, ironically, not without the promise of more attractivelands beyond: Anyone who reaches the entrance to the Tehuantepec Gap from the south

cannot miss seeing the towering build-up of cumulus clouds across the Gap to the north.One responding to this invitation and venturing through the Gap would find himself in

the midst of a verdant lowland far more extensive than anything he had yet encountered.Whether this scenario is valid or not, it is an interesting geographic fact that the earliest

identifiable Olmec ceremonial center is that at San Lorenzo, near the northern entrance tothe Gap, whereas later centers such as La Venta and Tres Zapotes are both located fartherto the east and west, respectively, in the Gulf coastal plain proper (fig. 5).


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THE EVOLUTION OF CULTURAL PATTERNS IN SOUTHERN MESO-AMERICA

A comparative study of pottery types has always been one of the diagnostic tools

most used by archaeologists to determine relationships between culture areas, so it isfitting that we first examine the evidence relating to this trace element. According toThomas Lee of the New World Archaeological Foundation, the earliest pottery found at

San Lorenzo has unquestioned antecedents in the Ocs phase found along the Pacificcoast of Soconusco (personal communication 1983; also see Coe and Diehl 1980; Lowe

1977). Moreover, Lee points out that the white-rimmed black pottery common to bothareas has come to be recognized as characteristic of the Zoque peoples who currently

inhabit the northwestern sector of Chiapas. (We will return to this link to the Zoque groupin another context later on.) Interestingly, Pierre Agrinier, also of the New WorldArchaeological Foundation, notes that the earliest pottery from the Ocs phase is by Fig.

6.


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all odds the most sophisticated found anywhere in southern Mesoamerica, while thatfrom San Lorenzo represents a rather less carefully made imitation (personal

communication 1983; Cox and Diehl 1980).1 Thus, even if the people responsible for

making the pottery did not themselves move from the Pacific coastal plain to the Olmecmetropolitan area, there is clear evidence that their knowledge of pottery styles and

techniques diffused in that direction (also see Wilkerson and Ortiz 1979, Lowe 1977; fig.6). (2)

Another diagnostic of cultural diffusion cited by archaeologists such as Ferdon(1953) and Miles (1965, 237-275) is the evolution of stone sculpture within Meso-america. Unlike pottery, carved stones cannot be reliably dated. Although the so-called

Fat Boys of the Pacific coastal plain of Guatemala may not be as ancient as Graham asassumed (i.e., 2000 B.C.; personal communication 1979), there is little question but that

the most primitive examples of the sculptor's art all stem from the Pacific side of Meso-america, and especially Soconusco.(3) As indicated earlier, it was in this region that theraw materials, including both granite and basalt, were readily available for carving,

unlike the metropolitan area where stone had to be fetched from the Tuxtlas some 60 to80 km away. In fact, it is very likely that the famous serpentine jaguar mosaics at La

Venta were fashioned from stone quarried on the edge of the Pacific coastal plain nearNiltepec, more than 200 km to the south, and

that as much as 1200 tons of the green rock was transported across the Isthmus for

their construction (fig. 7). (4) All along the Pacific foothills of the Sierra Madre fromArriaga in the north to the Guatemalan border in the south one finds large, round,

exfoliated granite boulders that may have served as an inspiration for the colossal beadsso typical of the Gulf coast metropolitan area. At Iglesia Vieja near Tonal, for example,are some of the most primitive carved statues in Mesoamerica, yet at the same site are

found some of the most impressive stone construction work. Clearly, the Pacific coastal

plain of southern Mesoamerica not only provided the raw materials but was also an idealtraining ground for developing a tradition of stone working, unlike the metropolitan area,where, because of the lack of stone, it is difficult to imagine any such skill having arisen

without outside influence (fig. 8). (5)


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-- Tapachulteco, once spoken in the mountains of Soconusco behind the present-day cityof Tapachula -- is now extinct; the other three, while in active retreat before the

intensified Hispanicization that is going on as a result of Mexico's economic

modernization, are still spoken by approximately 60,000 persons. Of these, the largestgroup -- slightly morethan half of the total -- are Mixe speakers residing in the rugged

mountains of northeastern Oaxaca. The second-largest group -- comprising about one-third of the total -- is the Zoques, who today reside in the mountains of northwesternChiapas. The final group, the Popoluca, who constitute scarcely one-sixth of the members

of the combined Mixe-Zoque-Popoluca language family, inhabit the eastern slopes and

foothill region of the Tuxtla Mountains in southern Veracruz.

That the four groups at one time formed a contiguous or continuous geographic

pattern is as apparent as the original contiguity of the Maya and Huasteca; however, tolink the four groups in any convincing geographic manner would involve a connection

along the Pacific coastal plain and through the Tehuantepec Gap -- along precisely thearteries of movement suggested by the diffusion of pottery-making and the postulateddiffusion of stone sculpture. That the four peoples came to be so isolated one from the

other is easily explained by the subsequent movement of other linguistic groups into orthrough the same lowland corridors. Perhaps the earliest of these pressures was felt in theseventh century A.D., when Chiapanecs, moving out of the central plateau as Nahua-

speaking Toltecs pushed southward, spread into west-central Chiapas. Apart from givingtheir name to the state as a whole and providing many local place names, the Chiapanecsappear to have been culturally assimilated by the Zoques in the succeeding centuries.

About the same time, or perhaps even earlier, Maya speaking peoples began pressing into

the highlands of Chiapas from the northeast, while on the west it is likely that the

Zapotecs posed an increasing threat after the eighth century when their Mixtec neighborsbecame more restive. It remained, however, for the militant Aztecs to reshape the

linguistic map of southern Mesoamerica most thoroughly, impressing their Nahua-tongue

on subjugated peoples all along the Gulf coastal plain down to the Tehuantepec Gap,across the latter and down the Pacific coast into Soconusco during the fifteenth and early

sixteenth centuries (fig. 11). The latter region was a primary goal of their tradingexpeditions and, when combined Zapotec-Mixtec resistance closed the southern end ofthe Tehuantepec Gap in the late fifteenth century, the Aztecs were obliged to open a more


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difficult alternative route to Soconusco through the interior of Chiapas and over theMotozintla pass to the Pacific. As a result, anyone caught in the path of these military andcommercial advances had little recourse but to retire into refuge areas in the adjacent

mountains if they sought to preserve either their economic or cultural independence.

Thus, the Popoluca withdrew into the eastern Tuxtlas where they remained the most

vulnerable of the three extant groups and suffered the greatest inroads into their numbers.(10) The Zoque retreated into the mountains of northwestern Chiapas, a rugged area of

little commercial interest to the Aztecs, hence, of little subsequent cultural disturbance.

Such too, was the fate of the Mixe who, from a tropical lowland environment in the SanLorenzo region, found themselves pushed into the oak-and-pine forested uplands (2000

meters high) of northeastern Oaxaca, an area that not even the highland Zapotec seem tohave coveted. It is they, then, who are the most numerous, the most aloof, and the mostculturally impoverished of the original Mixe-Zoque language family." Their early

separation and long-continued isolation from the rest of their linguistic brethren is seen in

the fact that scarcely half of the words they use have recognizable equivalents in Zoqueor Popoluca, whereas the latter two groups share about two-thirds of their vocabularies in

common.12

Although Jimnez Moreno (1942) commented on the correspondence between thedistribution of the Zoquean language and Olmec settlement patterns forty years ago,

substantial support for any hypothesis linking the two has appeared only in the pastdecade. Thanks to the convincing linguistic studies of Campbell and Kaufman (1976),and more recently of Stross (1982), there now seems little doubt that the Olmecs were

people of Zoquean speech, a conclusion that Lowe (1977) likewise came to after

extensive archaeological studies in the Chiapas region. Geographically, there is a strongcorrelation between the distribution of the Zoquean language on the one hand and thedemonstrated diffusion of pottery styles and techniques, the postulated diffusion of

stoneworking traditions, and the reconstructed scenario of the expansion of Olmecsettlement on the other. Each of the latter trace elements in turn argues more strongly for

a movement emanating from the Soconusco region of the Pacific coastal plain andspreading northward through the Tehuantepec Gap into the Olmec metropolitan area than

in the opposite direction. This is, of course, the same pattern of movement that Ihypothesized earlier for the diffusion of the calendar from Izapa (Malmstr6m 198 1, 260).


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Further validation of my Izapa hypothesis has come from recent work carried out by theNew World Archaeological Foundation both locally in Izapa and at the newly discovered

ceremonial center of El Mirador in northern Guatemala. A re-interpretation of the glyphs

on the stelae at Izapa has convinced Gareth Lowe, Director of the New WorldArchaeological Foundation and one of the excavators of the site, that they are largely

calendrical in nature (personal communication, 1983); this comes as belated support formy hypothesis that Izapa was the birthplace of both the 260-day sacred calendar and the365-day secular calendar, which were adopted and used throughout pre-Columbian

Meso-America. Lowe (Lowe et al. 1982) concludes that the astronomical events that the

glyphs describe correlate best with a first century A.D. time-frame, which would datethem near the end of Izapa's existence rather than toward its beginning. However, whenpressed, Lowe conceded that the dates would correlate "perfectly" with the same

phenomena one Sothic cycle (i.e., 1461 years) earlier;" this would place them in the

fourteenth century B.C., which is precisely the time-frame I postulated for thedevelopment of the calendars. Thus, Lowe's work not only argues for the importance of

Izapa as a calendrical site, but it also indicates that the chronology of the calendar's

origins, as I have reconstructed it, is as logically consistent with my original hypothesisas it is with his. Finally, mapping of El Mirador, a major Maya ceremonial center recently

discovered in the jungles of northem Guatemala, clearly shows that the site's largest

pyramid is precisely oriented to the setting sun on August 13.1" This alignment, whichcommemorates the beginning of time for the Maya and the day the sun passes verticallyoverhead at Izapa to commence its 260-day cycle, has been shown by the author to be

present at key sites throughout Meso-America and represents clear evidence of thediffusion of this knowledge from the calendar's birthplace in Soconusco."

CONCLUSIONS

To recapitulate, in previous publications, I have presented my hypotheses for the

sacred calendar's development at the large Formative site of Izapa on the Pacific coastal

plain of southern Mexico in the fourteenth century B.C. and described its subsequentdiffusion northward through the Tehuantepec Gap into the plateau of Mexico and theYucatan peninsula. The timing of these calendrical innovations corresponds closely to the

founding of San Lorenzo at the northern entrance to the Gap and to the splitting apart ofthe Maya-speaking peoples inhabiting the Gulf coastal plain. The creation and diffusion

of the calendar was paralleled by the development and spread of a special type of pottery

that has recently been recognized as diagnostic of the Zoque people. The latter seem tohave originally inhabited the Pacific coastal plain of Soconusco and adjacent Guatemalaand later to have spread into and through the Tehuantepec Gap, only to be dislodged fromthis lowland corridor in the last dozen centuries by movements of people coming down

off the Mexican plateau. The most distant outliers of Zoqueanspeakers retreated into theeastern foothills of the Tuxtlas to become the Popolucas, while another major group wasdriven westward into the mountains of Oaxaca to become the Mixe, and the remainder

sought refuge in the mountains of Chiapas where they retain their identity as Zoques.There is likewise a strong likelihood that it was this same general movement of people

and ideas northward across the Isthmus that was responsible for introducing the tools andtechniques of stone sculpture into a region that was totally lacking in local raw materials.


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This dispersal seems to have been favored, moreover, both by accidents of climate andterrain that would have been inimical to movement in the opposite direction. It is my

conclusion, therefore, that the mysterious Olmecs were in point of fact none other than

the forebearers of the present Zoque people, and that it is to them, in their originalhomeland in Soconusco, that we may trace most of the material and intellectual

contributions that paved the way for the rise of civilization in Mesoamerica.

NOTES

1. Coe and Diehl (1980) go so far as to term the earliest pottery found at San Lorenzo "acountry version of the far more sophisticated Ocs phase of Guatemalan Soconusco."

2. Wilkerson and Ortiz's (1979) evidence from the Veracruz region suggests threechronological peaks of ceramic activity around 1600, 1400, and 1150 B.C., all linked

with the isthmian and Chiapas coasts. For an extended discussion of the diffusion of Ocs

pottery see Lowe (1977, 204-212).

3. Stratigraphic evidence associated with similar statues in western El Salvador suggest a

dating ca. 500 B.C., although Graham has argued that such sculptures may have been re-set and are therefore likely to be far older (see Demarest et al. 1982, 557-571).Noteworthy in this regard are the sculptures found at Tuxtla Chico near the Guatemalan

border and those discovered at Tonal and now housed in its local museum.

4. Bernal (1969, 69) vaguely locates the source of serpentine "between Tehuantepec and

Tuxtla Gutirrez," while Coe and Diehl (1980, 19) identify the site as lying 130 kin southof San Lorenzo. At Niltepec, such rock outcrops along Highway 200.

5. Haberland (1974, 36) comes to much the same conclusions, citing not only the lack of

stone but also the necessity for long distance transport that implies an effective socialorganization in command of surplus labor.

6. A summary of the early language situation will be found in Castaeda (1983, 465-467). Note that he mentions the Maya-Huasteca split as having taken place ca. 1800 B.C.

Castaeda's language maps (479-481) also differ from figures 9, 10, and 11.

7. Note that in Bernal's citation of Swadesh, he states that the Maya-Huasteca split tookplace 3200 years ago, but uses 1200 B.C. as an approximation of this event.

8. The thesis that the separation of the Maya and Huasteca can be attributed to a naturaldisaster, such as an eruption of the volcanoes in the Tuxtlas, is untenable, because thiswould have coincided with the very time that the Olmecs were supposedly in the area

quarrying stone for their colossal heads. The contention that the Olmecs were native tothe Tuxtla area and that volcanic eruptions covered up all traces of their antecedent

culture is untenable for much the same reason.


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9. As early as 1900, Nicholas Leon (1975, 37) recognized that the Zoquean languagefamily included the Mixe and Popoluca tongues. In Sapir's 1929 classification, the now-

extinct Tapachulteco and a tongue in neighboring Guatemala (Aguacatec) were also

recognized as Zoquean (44).

10. The persistence of rituals involving cacao among the Popoluca people stronglysuggests that they migrated from a region where this crop was native, i.e., Soconusco (seeFoster 1969,454).

11. The Mixe apparently were obliged to give up much of their material culture,including some of their staple crops, when they migrated into the mountains. See Foster(1969, 458) for comments on Mixe cultural "crudity." Native informants told me in 1983

that "mountain beans" constitute one of the principal staple crops today.

12. A diagnostic word list has been prepared by Swadesh (1975) to facilitate the

comparison of various indigenous languages. Using such a word list, my field assistant,

Alex de Sherbinin, and I visited each of the extant language groups, i.e., Popoluca,Zoque, and Mixe, and collected sample glossaries upon which the statistical summaries

cited here are based.

13. The Sothic cycle takes its name from Sothis, the Egyptian term for Sirius. Becausethey reckoned 365 days to the year, the Egyptians discovered that when the annual

movements of the sun were calibrated against the star Sirius, it "lost" about a quarter of aday each year. Hence, it would take 1461 of their years to equal 1460 true solar years,

thus bringing the sun back into precisely the same position with reference to the stars.

14. Alignments measured from site plan prepared by Ian Graham, 1967.

15. Inasmuch as both El Mirador and Teotihuacn date to about 0 A.D., and the dominant

structure at the former and the entire layout of the latter appear to commemorate analignment to the August 13 sunset, it would have been impossible for the sacred calendar-- which supposedly accounts for the significance of such an alignment -- to have arisen

as late as the first century A.D. Indeed, with such alignments confirmed as early as 600B.C. at Monte Albn and possibly as early as 1000 B.C. in La Venta, Lowe's hypothesis

is seen to be totally untenable.

(This article was published in the 1985 Yearbook of the Conference of Latin Americanist

Geographers, Vol. 11, pp. 23-29, editor Lydia Pulsipher. It was re-printed in Spanish intheAnuario del Centro de Estudios Indgenas III(1989-1990) by the UniversidadAutnoma de Chiapas .)


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