This ethnography of the Náyari (Cora) people of the town of Santa Teresa interprets recent social discord and violence as the result of the erosion of legitimacy of traditional ceremonial systems. Coyle traces the development and breakdown of Cora costumbre, especially the annual cycle of mitote celebrations, utilizing an interdisciplinary blend of recent anthropological theory, historical documentation, and participant fieldwork. The Coras, holed up in their dispersed ranchería settlements in the craggy Sierra del Nayar of western Mexico, withstood Spanish military control until the eighteenth century and experienced only intermittent contact in the first century of the Mexican republic; until recently they have received scant attention from ethnohistorians. The book is a fine-grained analysis of Cora culture and history that explains present and past sociopolitical realities of Tereseño life.
Coyle’s introductory theory chapter is mercifully brief and relatively free of jargon. He employs an updated Geertzian anthropology, articulating a...
