View source for Tzotzil

{{Short description|Ethnic group}}
{{for|the language|Tzotzil language}}
{{Infobox ethnic group
| group = Tzotzil <br/><small>''Sotz'leb''</small>
| image = Street Scene - San Juan Chamula - Chiapas - Mexico.jpg
| caption = Tzotzil people in [[San Juan Chamula]], [[Chiapas]]
| population = {{formatnum:550274}} (2020)<ref>[http://cuentame.inegi.org.mx/hipertexto/todas_lenguas.htm INEGI].</ref>
| popplace = {{MEX}} ({{Flag|Chiapas}})
| langs = [[Tzotzil language|Tzotzil]] and [[Mexican Spanish]]
| rels = [[Christianity]], [[Maya religion]], [[Islam]]
| related = Other [[Maya people]]
}}
The '''Tzotzil''' are an [[Indigenous peoples of Mexico|Indigenous]] [[Maya peoples|Maya people]] of [[Chiapas highlands|the central highlands]] of [[Chiapas]], Mexico.<ref name=vogt>{{cite book |last=Vogt |first=Evon Z. | title=Ofrendas para los dioses: análisis simbólico de rituales zinacantecos | location=México | publisher=Fondo de Cultura Económica | year=1983}} As cited by Alfredo López Austin (1997), p. 133, 148 and following.</ref> As of 2000, they numbered about 298,000. The municipalities with the largest Tzotzil population are [[Chamula]] (48,500), [[San Cristóbal de las Casas]] (30,700), and [[Zinacantán]] (24,300), in the [[Mexican state]] of [[Chiapas]].<ref name=obre>{{cite book | last=Rodríguez | first=Maria Concepción Obregón | title=Tzotziles | location=Mexico | publisher=PNUD | year=2003 | isbn=970-753-007-3 | url=http://www.emexico.gob.mx/documents/10712/22816/tzotziles.pdf/6c8bfc81-6c6e-4230-939a-ed06d4832311?version=1.0 | format=PDF }}{{Dead link|date=April 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref><ref name=potw>Peoples of the World Foundation (1009) ''The Tzotzil'' [http://www.peoplesoftheworld.org/text?people=Tzotzil Online version] accessed on 2009-08-16.</ref>

The [[Tzotzil language]], like [[Tzeltal language|Tzeltal]] and [[Chol language|Ch'ol]], is descended from the proto-Ch'ol spoken in the late classic period at sites such as [[Palenque]] and [[Yaxchilan]].<ref name=coe>{{cite book |first=Michael D. |last=Coe |year=1999 |title=The Maya |edition=6th |publisher=Thames & Hudson |location=New York |pages=134–136 |isbn=0-500-28066-5}}</ref> The word ''tzotzil'' originally meant "[[bat]] people" or "people of the bat" in the Tzotzil language (from ''sotz''' "bat").<ref name=laughlin>{{cite book | last=Laughlin |first=Robert M. | title=The great Tzotzil dictionary of San Lorenzo Zinacantán | location=Washington | publisher=Smithsonian Institution Press | year=1975 }}</ref> Today the Tzotzil refer to their language as '''''Bats'i k'op''''', which means "true language".<ref name=laughlin1988>{{cite book | last=Laughlin |first=Robert M. |title=The great Tzotzil dictionary of Santo Domingo Zinacantán | location=Washington | publisher=Smithsonian Institution Press | year=1988 }}</ref>{{rp|I:p.162,234}}

==Clothing==
Houses were traditionally built of [[wattle and daub]] or [[lumber]], usually with [[thatch]]ed roofs. Traditional men's clothing consists of shirt, short pants, neckerchief, hat, and [[wool]] [[poncho]]. Traditional women's clothing is a blouse or long overdress (''[[huipil]]''), [[indigo]] dyed skirt (''enredo''), cotton sash, and shawl.<ref name=ebrit>Encyclopædia Britannica (2009), ''Tzotzil''. [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/612074/Tzotzil Online entry] accessed 2009-08-16.</ref><ref>Karen Ewell (2005), [http://www.mexicantextiles.com/grouppages/tzotzil.html ''Mexican textiles - Tzotzil of Chiapas'']. Accessed on 2009-08-16.</ref>

==History==
Based on linguistic and archaeological data, scholars believe that the common ancestors of the contemporary Tzotzil and [[Tzeltal people|Tzeltal]] peoples entered Chiapas between 100 BCE and 300 CE. According to Spanish chronicles, just before the [[Spanish conquest|Spanish Conquest]] the Tzotzil exported [[quetzal]] feathers and [[amber]] to the [[Aztec Empire|Aztec]] capital of [[Tenochtitlán]]. They also produced [[salt]] from wells near [[Ixtapa]] and traded it throughout the Chiapas highlands, and continued to do so after the Conquest.<ref name=vogt/>

The Spanish conquerors met comparatively little resistance in Chiapas. In 1522, the Zinacantán lord Cuzcácuatl sought the Spaniards with an offer of allegiance, and his subjects afterwards helped Spanish commander [[Luis Marin (conquistador)|Luis Marín]] to subdue neighboring tribes. On the other hand, the natives from Chamula fought hard against the Spaniards. They and the natives of Huixtlán eventually fled leaving nothing that the invaders could make use of. Unable to obtain service or tribute from those people, the Spaniards returned to the [[Gulf of Mexico|Gulf]] coast, and the Tzotzil returned to their lands and lifestlyle. Other Spanish incursions in the following decade generally spared the Tzotzil, but their numbers were greatly diminished by diseases and hunger. Many villages were forcibly relocated, and the natives were assigned as vassals to the ''encomiendas'' (land grants) given by the Spanish crown to the conquerors.<ref name=obre/>

After the Spanish conquest, the Tzotzil were for centuries exploited as laborers, first by the Spaniards and then by the [[Ladino people|''Ladinos'']] (urban Spanish-speaking people of Spanish and native descent) who own most of the land and dominate commerce. During most of this period, a rigid [[casta|caste system]] sharply divided the natives from the Ladinos, with very different rights and obligations. The oppression led them to revolt in 1528, 1712, and 1868.<ref name=obre/> The situation of the Tzoltzil worsened considerably in 1863, when laws enacted by [[Benito Juárez]] stripped the Indian towns of their corporate lands, forcing many Zinacantecos to become debt-indentured laborers on farms owned by the Ladinos.

The sense of national pride has become stronger among the Tzotzil since 1940, as natives have increasingly began to occupy local administrative posts and used their cultural identity for political purposes. While sizable Tzotzil communities have appeared in some towns, other Tzotzil towns have been undergoing "reindianization" as the formerly dominating Ladino minorities have migrated to larger cities.<ref name=obre/>

Issues surrounding social integration persist, especially with the Ladinos. Support for the [[Zapatista Army of National Liberation|Zapatista]] movement,<ref name=potw/> as well as for other non-violent opposition groups such as [[Las Abejas]],<ref>Tavanti, Marco. Las Abejas: Pacifist Resistance and Syncretic Identities in a Globalizing Chiapas. New York: Routledge, 2003.</ref> is strong among the Tzotzil.

== Native religion ==

A Spanish chronicler described Zinacantán as a people with "an infinite number of gods; they worshiped the sun and offered sacrifices to it, and to the full rivers, to the springs, to the trees of heavy foliage, and to the high hills they gave incense and gifts .. . their ancestors discovered a stone bat and considered it God and worshiped it" (Ximenez 1929-1931, 360).<ref name=vogt/>

The Tzotzil conceive the World as a square, at whose center is the "navel", a mound of earth located in the ceremonial center. The world rests on the shoulders of the ''Vashak'', analogous to the [[Four-Corner Gods]] or Sky-Bearers of the ancient Maya. This cosmic model is reflected in the ceremonial circuits around houses and fields performed by priests, which proceed counterclockwise around the four corners and end in the center, where offerings are made to the gods. The Tzotzil Underworld inhabited by a race of dwarfs, created by the gods during their attempts to create mankind.<ref name=vogt/>

The Sun is "Our Father Heat", and the Moon is "Our Holy Mother". The planet [[Venus]] is called "Sweeper of the Path" as it precedes the Sun in his path around the World. Local hills and mountains lare the homes of the ancestral couples, the ''Totilme'il'' or "Fathers-Mothers", the most important Tzotzil gods. The next most important deity is the Earth Lord. In modern times, he is pictured as a large fat and rich Ladino living underground, who owns all land and its natural resources. A Tzotzil who uses any of those resources — water holes, trees, mud for his home, [[limestone]] for [[lime (material)|lime]] — is expected to compensate the Earth Lord with appropriate offerings in a ceremony.<ref name=vogt/>

The Tzotzil believe that each human being has two souls, a ''ch'ulel'' and a ''wayhel''. The ''ch'ulel'' is an inner, personal soul, located in the heart and blood, placed in the unborn embryo by the ancestral gods. It is composed of thirteen parts, and a person who loses one or more of these parts must have a curing ceremony performed by a shaman to recover them. "[[Soul loss]]" may be caused by fright of falling down or seeing a demon on a dark night; as a punishment by the ancestral gods for misbehavior; or by being sold into slavery to the Earth Lord, through evil witchcraft.<ref name=vogt/> At death, the inner soul leaves the body and goes to the ''Katibak'', the world of the dead in the center of the Earth. There it will remain for the same length of time it had been in the human world, reliving his life in reverse, younger and younger, until it is assigned by the ancestral gods to another newborn of the opposite sex.<ref name=guiteras>{{cite book | last=Guiteras-Holmes |first=Calixta | title=Los peligros del alma: visión del mundo de un tzotzil | location=México | publisher=Fondo de Cultura Económica | year=1965 }} As cited by Alfredo López Austin (1997), p. 146 and following.</ref>{{rp|p.131,198–9}}<ref>{{cite book |last=Austin |first=Alfredo López |authorlink=Alfredo López Austin |year=1997 |title=Tamoanchan, Tlalocan: Places of Mist |series=Mesoamerican Worlds series |translator=Bernard R. Ortiz de Montellano |translator2=Thelma Ortiz de Montellano |location=Niwot |publisher=[[University Press of Colorado]] |isbn=0-87081-445-1 |oclc=36178551}}</ref> Baptized infants and women who die in childbirth go directly to Winajel, located in the Sun. People who have drowned, have been murdered, or were struck by lightning do not go to Katibak.<ref name=guiteras/>{{rp|p.42–3}} Animals and trees too have ''ch'ulel'' soul, which goes through the same cycle.<ref name=guiteras/>{{rp|p.249}}

The other soul, the ''wayjel'', is an animal-spirit companion, shared with a ''chanul'', a wild animal. Throughout each person's life, whatever happens to the animal spirit also happens to the person and vice versa. These animal-spirit companions, consisting of [[jaguars]], [[ocelots]], [[coyotes]], and smaller animals such as [[squirrel]]s and [[opossum]]s, are kept by the ancestral gods in four corrals inside the "Senior Large Mountain" in the east side of the world. If the animal spirit is let out of its corral by the ancestral gods, the person is in mortal danger and must undergo a lengthy ceremony to round up the ''chanul'' and return it to its corral.<ref name=vogt/> Only human beings have a ''wayhel'' soul.<ref name=guiteras/>{{rp|p.249}}

Each town is associated to a sacred mountain. The god [[Manojel-Tojel]] created humans by leading them out of the caves of the original hills.<ref name=guiteras/>{{rp|p.237}} According to myth, each one of the patron-gods "installed himself in a hill, by order of the gods of the four corners of the earth".{{Clarify|date=August 2009}}<ref name=vogt/>{{rp|p.35}}

Yahwal Balamil is a god who lives inside the earth. He rides a deer with serpent [[bridle]]s, and frees the water-filled clouds from inside the Earth through caves. He announces himself with the croaking of frogs".<ref name=vogt/>{{rp|p.35,94}}

===Syncretism===
In the centuries since the [[Spanish conquest]], under the influence of [[Catholicism]], the Tzotzil have come to associate the Sun with God the Father or Jesus Christ and the Moon with the Virgin Mary. They also revere carved wooden or plaster images and pictures of Catholic saints, dressed in a mixture of colonial- Zinacanteco-style dresses.<ref name=vogt/>

==Eponyms==
The Tzotzil are commemorated in the scientific name of a species of Mexican pit viper, ''[[Cerrophidion tzotzilorum]]''.<ref>Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. {{ISBN|978-1-4214-0135-5}}. ("Tzotzil", p. 269).</ref>

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

==Further reading==
*{{cite book |last=Laughlin |first=Robert M. |authorlink=Robert M. Laughlin|year=2003 |title=Beware the Great Horned Serpent!: Chiapas Under the Threat of Napoleon |series=IMS Studies on Culture and Society, no. 8|location=Albany, New York |publisher=Institute of Mesoamerican Studies, [[University at Albany, The State University of New York|University at Albany, SUNY]]; distributed by [[University of Texas Press]] |isbn=0-942041-19-4 |oclc=52341702}}
*{{cite book |last1=Austin |first1=Alfredo López |authorlink1=Alfredo López Austin |last2=Luján |first2=Leonardo López |authorlink2=Leonardo López Luján |year=2001 |title=Mexico's Indigenous Past |series=Civilization of the American Indian series, no. 240 |translator=Bernard R. Ortiz de Montellano |location=Norman |publisher=[[University of Oklahoma Press]] |isbn=0-8061-3214-0 |oclc=45879556}}

{{Indigenous peoples of Mexico}}
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[[Category:Chiapas]]
[[Category:Ethnic groups in Mexico]]
[[Category:Indigenous peoples in Mexico]]
[[Category:Maya mythology and religion]]
[[Category:Maya peoples]]
[[Category:Chiapas Highlands]]
[[Category:Tzotzil| ]]

[[pl:Tzeltalowie]]