250 



INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY — PUBLICATION NO. 13 



tencias que dieron el visitador Diego Ramirez y su 

 acompanado, the latter published in the Episto- 

 lario and so cited. 



The validity of available sources on ancient pop- 

 ulation has been much discussed of late. Kubler 

 (p. 612) believes that the figures may have been 

 exaggerated by the encomenderos, in complicity 

 with Crown officials, in order to boost tribute. 

 Native informants, on the other hand, probably 

 gave low figures in the hope of reducing taxes. 



In fact, one source (Martin Cortes, pi. 448) 

 claims that the native chiefs had great numbers of 

 the population go into hiding. Thereupon, they 

 requested a new tax levy, claiming that, owing to 

 reductio:i in numbers, they could not meet current 

 obligations. He maintains that an inspector 

 might find only a third of the population, even 

 though no deaths had occurred. However, it 

 seems by no means unlikely that the encomenderos 

 themselves reduced the number, in order to simu- 

 late poverty and thus obtain new grants from the 

 Crown. Cook and Simpson (p. 1) maintain that 

 a careful examination of the sixteenth century 

 documents is highly convincing and that their 

 essential agreement cannot be fortuitous. 



We believe, however, that Kubler's comments 

 (p. 613) concerning the difficulty of an accurate 

 census in the sixteenth century are well taken — 

 not only because of technical difficulties, but also 

 because of the displacement of native population. 

 We know, in fact, that a large number of natives 

 changed residence frequently, in order to take ad- 

 vantage of the consequent exemption of tribute 

 (Doctrinas, p. 220). Elsewhere (pp. 34-38) will 

 be found a discussion of the Totonac dispersal 

 which resulted from the systems of encomiendas 

 and haciendas. 



Obviously, on the one hand, not all of the six- 

 teenth-century native population could have been 

 taken into consideration, and the actual popula- 

 tion between 1550 and 1610 must have been ap- 

 preciably greater than that which is given in 

 the sources, even if it be assumed that the latter 

 cite correct figures for the areas under Spanish 

 control. Probably the major difficulty lies not in 

 the estimates which appear in the various 

 sources — among which there is suggestive agree- 

 ment — but in the fact that the old documents do 

 not begin to cover the entire territory. 



On the other hand, there is a certain danger 

 of duplication. Sometimes it is difficult to ac- 

 commodate Totonac pueblos to Spanish political 

 and ecclesiastical boundaries. Accordingly, it is 

 by no means impossible that a settlement, not 

 mentioned by name, but included as the subject of 

 a more important pueblo, may be counted by us 

 a second time if, in another source, it appears 

 under its own name. We feel, however, that er- 

 rors resulting from such duplication probably are 

 slight. 



For 16 pueblos, we have cited estimates of popu- 

 lation prior to 1550. These come principally 

 from the relaciones geogrdficas, but statements 

 from Las Casas and Aguilar also are included. 

 On the whole, the estimates appear reasonable, 

 and only for "Cempoala," Colipa, Jalapa, and 

 Papantla are they so large that exaggeration may 

 be suspected. A discussion of the 1519 population 

 will be found in the text (pp. 11-12). 



MODERN TIMES 



Modern Totonacapan may be defined as the area 

 where the Totonac language still is current. In 

 order to establish its boundaries, we have inspected 

 the original sheets of the 1940 census; the pub- 

 lished reports are not enlightening, since they 

 class bilinguals as Spanish-speaking. 



We started with municipal units known to con- 

 tain a Totonac ingredient, and from them we 

 worked outward radially, until it was evident that 

 we were well beyond the range of Totonac speech. 

 Table 15 is the result of our endeavors. Popula- 

 tion totals given therein are from the published 

 1940 census; occurrences of native speech are 

 from our count of the records in the census ar- 

 chives. The grouping of all persons exclusively of 

 non-indigenous speech and of all children less than 

 5 years of age is explained in the legend to may 2. 

 The latter is essentially a graphic presentation of 

 the data of table 15. On the map, occurrences of 

 less than 3 percent of native speech have been 

 ignored; however, the table gives the incidence 

 of these insignificant elements. 



In map 3, the extent of sixteenth-century and 

 modern Totonacapan is compared, and the shrink- 

 age which has taken place in the course of the 

 years is treated in the main text (pp. 12-14). 



