A LAND WITHOUT GODS:
PROCESS THEORY,
MALDEVELOPMENT
AND THE MEXICAN NAHUAS
Co-authored by
Jacques M. Chevalier
and Daniel Buckles
Zed Books and Fernwood Publishing,
London and Halifax, 1995, 374 pp.
ZED BOOKS http://www.zedbooks.demon.co.uk/
Introduction
Anthropology of the Gulf Nahuas 1
Research Methods and Data Base 8
Chapter 1 From Colonialism to Revolution
Coatzacoalcos, a Prehispanic State 11
The Colonial Period 14
The Liberal Land Policies 18
The Excesses and Limits of the Porfiriato 20
The Lot System 23
Pajapan and the Mexican Revolution 26
PRI Institutions, Agrarian Law and the Cattle Industry 28
Chapter 2 State Theory and Native History (1930-1968)
From Class Politics to Political Classes 40
The Gulf Nahuas and the New Order 52
Chapter 3 Oil and Cattle Politics (Coauthored with Dominique Caouette)
PRI Rancher Hegemony and the Struggle for Land 71
From Hegemony to Ethno-Populism 84
Factionalism on the Rise 103
Caciquismo, Ethno-Populism and Factionalism 113
Class Structures, Strictures and Struggles 123
Class Formation and Land Distribution 131
Cattle Economics 141
Small Businesses and Merchant Capital 150
Subsistence and Small-Scale Commodity Production 153
Wage-Labor Employment 162
Conclusion 165
Chapter 5 Agroecology and the Means of Destruction
Theories of Productivity and Irrationality 167
A Tropical Ecosystem 182
Turning Forest into Pasture 191
The Milpa Transformed 202
Hunters and Fishers of Diversity 212
Conclusion 220
Chapter 6 Dynamics of the Patrimonial Domain
Kinship and Process Theory 222
Descent, Marriage and the Household Economy 225
Demographic History 239
Pajapan Society in the 1980s 252
Conclusion 263
Chapter 7 Seeds, Sex and the Aztecs
The Social and the Mythical 268
The Interpretive Method: Rudiments of Scheme Analysis 273
An Old Couple and Two Eggs in a Milpa 281
The Mocking Iguanas Incident 291
The Pilgrim Fathers, the Ant and the Rock 308
Waking the Mother and Resurrecting the Father 316
Warnings of the Plumed Serpent 327
Conclusion -- Theory and Praxis
Outline of a Theory of Process 330
The Sierra Santa Marta Project 338
Glossary
Bibliography
Maps
Map 1 Study Area in Southern Veracruz, Mexico 5
Map 2 The Village of Minzapa (later Pajapan) and Laguna de Minzapa (later del Ostión), 1605 (copy made in 1880) 17
Map 3 Communal Lands of Pajapan, showing the five lots created in 1884 24
Map 4 Proposed Industrial Port Laguna del Ostión, 1981 91
Map 5 Communal Lands of Pajapan, 1981, showing expropriated area and division into 37 lots 98
Map 6 Life Zones of the Sierra de los Tuxtlas and Santa Marta 184
Map 7 Panoramic View of the Landscape Units of Pajapan 188
Figures
Figure 1 Mean Monthly Rainfall and Temperature, Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz 187
Figure 2 Production Calendar, Pajapan 205
Figure 3 The Decline of Shifting Cultivation 207
Figure 4 Seasonal Variations in the Number of Aquatic Species and Organisms, Laguna del Ostión 215
Figure 5 Gulf Nahua Kin Terminology 227
Figure 6 Household Composition, Pajapan 256
Plates
Plate 1 Homshuk, Isla de Tenaspi, Lake Catemaco 266
Plate 2 Monolith #1, Mirador Pilapa, Soteapan
Books by Jacques M. Chevalier
EMAIL JACQUES CHEVALIER
© 2002 Jacques Chevalier.
This page was last updated in November 2002.
