This book is an astonishing achievement. Once asked on short notice to summarize Clyde Kluckhohn’s ambitious Values Project in New Mexico, Evon Vogt did the job with style. Now he has designed and executed an even more ambitious ethnographic venture and brought it to such fruition as to constitute an achievement literally without parallel in contemporary anthropology.
What Vogt has done is to rescue an enormous range of fact (much of which will not be retrievable ten years hence) and to add an important, well-described culture to the extraordinarily poor roster of such cultures in Middle America. The Zotzils will now become an anchor-point in Middle American research, along with the Aztecs, the Yucatees and—the Zapotecs? the Quiche? the Otomi? the Mixtec?
The work is hard to capture in 600 words. It is rich, evocative, probably the nearest approach to The Compleat Ethnography that will be reached in this generation. The fact that it is multiplied by the abilities of nearly a hundred student contributors over a fourteen-year period adds to the achievement. Other men have been blessed with privileged access to research funds; Vogt has published his results.
As a quasi-Mayan who views Zotzil as a northerly and barbaric language, I found the report fascinating. Zotzils plant crosses where we Quiches plant com—in dooryards. They have our system of shaman initiation—a little degenerated perhaps, but some of their shamans would be canonical in Quiche. Their respect for rank is pure Mayan and explains the segmentary lineage system, seating arrangements, bride price, bride service, drinking order, age grading, and other formal features of their society. Why don’t they use polite address?
In some respects they act like our grandfathers—bowing and releasing! Hat ribbons for feathers! High backed sandals! Corn knives! Short pants! In others, they seem to have lost the tradition. What has happened to calendar divination? Where is the Road of the Rat? What day is it in Maya?
Their burial service is only a slightly distorted version of our Popol Vuh. The Flood and the transformation of the monkeys are also familiar. Their prayers are in the correct poetry (but occasionally badly scanned). The Bat Men are obviously our relatives, but when did they leave Tula? Where is their mountain? Where is their valley?
Methodologically Vogt’s book is eclectic and uncommitted—leaning perhaps to the historical and including clear objective descriptions of setting and circumstance. At the same time it has a strongly Mayan flavor, as though Zotzils had written it—particularly in the heavy emphasis on rank, duty, and office and on religion. (Over half the text deals with religion.) It is profusely illustrated and meticulously documented. Readers will be shocked that such a work must now be marketed at $25.00, but Zinacantan is certain to be a pivotal contribution to Middle American studies.
