EMPIRES CHILDREN: THE PEOPLE OF TZINTZUNTZAN FOSTER 



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and ideas of might and power, simply disap- 

 peared; the destroyers had no desire to recreate 

 where they destroyed. By contrast, the first acts 

 of destruction of the old religion were, in reality, 

 the first acts of the creation of the new. Destruc- 

 tion of the Empire was recognized by the con- 

 querors for what it was; destruction of the old 

 religion was a necessary preliminary to the 

 implantation of the new. For a time the Taras- 

 cans, including Tzintzuntzan, had, not enough 

 religion, but too much of it. Had not the steady 

 pressure of the Church remained with such per- 

 sistent vigor over so many years, the result 

 might have been the "idols behind altars" blend- 

 ing which has survived in some parts of Mexico 

 and Guatemala. As it was, the religious ener- 

 gies of the people simply were channeled into 

 new fields, and the force remained unabated. 

 Perhaps, then, in the strength of the modern 

 religion of Tzintzuntzan we have the greatest 

 similarity to the old, a similarity in function 

 rather than form. 



More traces of the old life in Tzintzuntzan 

 remain in the simple aspects of daily life than 

 in religion and political organization. But, just 

 because we know least about these aspects of life 

 in Spain of the 16th century, as well as in the 

 New World, it is often difficult to say what is a 

 part of one cultural heritage, what of the other, 

 or what was common to both. Had we as com- 

 plete data on rural Spanish culture of the present 

 century as we have for Mexico, the questions 

 would be easier to answer. Thus, though specific 

 data on birth customs at the time of the Con- 

 quest are not too complete, the basic Indian 

 pattern in Mexico is so well known that most 

 beliefs and customs can be divided into pre- 

 and post-Spanish categories. Fear of eclipses 

 we know to be Mexican from early chronicles, 

 and special disposition of the afterbirth and 

 umbilical stump is common over all the Amer- 

 icas. The customary delivery position belongs 

 to the New World, and the postnatal concern 

 with hot and cold foods is simply a part of a 

 larger indigenous complex. 



Once in the world, however, the infant draws 

 farther and farther away from this indigenous 

 base. Naming practices appear to be European, 

 and attempts to relate the custom of taking 

 names from saints' days to an ancient horoscope 

 or calendar give very tenuous results. The 



early informal phases of education — learning 

 through imitating — are indigenous only in that 

 this is the common system for all peoples before 

 the formal stages, whether these be grammar 

 schools or puberty rites. Except for the sling, 

 and the occasional bow and arrow, the games of 

 childhood are clearly non-Indian; it would be 

 a venturesome ethnographer indeed who would 

 trace the ball game back to the ancient Mex- 

 icans. Formal schooling, of course, is based al- 

 most entirely on modern concepts having their 

 roots in non-Indian culture. 



Marriage customs again show more aborig- 

 inal influence than one might expect. El robo, 

 the modern elopement, has its counterpart in the 

 descriptions of the Relacion, and the modern 

 admonitions of godparents merely continue the 

 custom of priests and parents of long ago. No- 

 bles formerly made use of go-betweens to ar- 

 range a match, and today, if a youth is sure of 

 his own parents and those of the girl, he may 

 do the same. But the exact ritual, in both cases, 

 stems almost entirely from the Catholic Church. 



About extended family relationships we can 

 only guess. Possibly the ancient Tarascans had 

 lineages, and possibly the strength of the modern 

 compadrazgo system represents a successful 

 grafting onto those roots. Certainly, in the past 

 as today, great stress was laid upon correct inter- 

 family relationships. Cooperation at the time 

 of death, as a responsibility of compadres, un- 

 questionably is a direct survival from earlier 

 days when communal effort was more common 

 than today. But the actual form of modern 

 interment appears to have nothing in common 

 with that revealed by archeology. The cempoal- 

 xochitl (marigold) is still the flower of the 

 dead, but its importance is reduced to that of 

 most other costumbres, only half seriously 

 believed. 



Curing practices still show much that is In- 

 dian. Aire and es panto, air and fright, still 

 cause sickness, though cupping replaces sucking 

 as the cure for the latter. The use of eggs, curar 

 con blanquillos, probably is of European origin, 

 in spite of the fact that it is so intimately as- 

 sociated with supposedly Indian cures. The 

 herbal lore which competes today with the min- 

 istrations of university-trained doctors repre- 

 sents the accumulation of hundreds of years of 

 knowledge. Some is Spanish, but most is In- 



