INFLUENCE OF AGRARIAN COLONIZATION ON THE INDIGENOUS TZELTAL
COMMUXITY AT OCTEN, CHIAPA
Karena Shields
The Mexican revolution of 1910 and the subsequent years of guerrilla
warfare and banditry, brought dissolution of the family ties throughout
the country. By 1931 Mexico recognized a need to find land for the wander-
ing homeless and with the increase in the population and the beginnings of
industrialization arose a greater need for agricultural products. By 1932
an agrarian movement was well underway. Its major intention was to give
land to the homeless and make a larger portion of the population self-
supporting.
Agents for the agrarian movement were sent throughout Mexico, offer-
ing benefits under the new Ejido land divisions. People were to have a
chance to begin again, each man for himself but living together and pro-
ducing on a communal basis.
The type of people gathered together were of all kinds, and followed
a revolution; the fact of homelessness or lack of work did not indicate
degeneracy or poor quality of workmanship. On the contrary, many of the
people who entered into the colonization were those who had been land
holders or overseers on plantations. There were of course many who had
been so-called "revolutionariesIt that. is, men who, as boys, had left home
and joined wandering bands of marauders, but even these enthusiastic with
the new project, entered into the movement with good will. The agrarian
settlement appeared to be succeeding in its land reform.
My work with the Tzeltal of Octen began in 1936, after they had been
approximately four years in colonization on the new, site in the mountains
of Chiapas. For twelve consecutive years X spent each summer in the
vicinity of Octen. During this period I worked on a report for the Insti-
tuto Nacional de Historia y Antropologia de Mexico and for a time on a
Wenner-Gren Foundation grant. In 1954 I went to live on a plantation in
that area and was able to make a continuous study of them until September
1958. This June I have returned to the Octen district to complete this
and other studies.
In observing many agrarian colonies in Southern Mexico over a twenty
year period, I have found that the pattern of development follows almost
identical trends. I use the colonia at Octen as a typical example of the
result of agrarian colonization among indigenous groups. Although my study
has been specialized in Octen, which is a Tzeltal community, observations
of other groups of predominantly Ladino types indicate-that the general
result is the same regardless of basic cultural patterns.
Octen is in Chiapas, too far off the beaten track for the average
ladino to wish to go, so national territory was divided for the extension
of indigenous groups. In this high, rich, jungle-covered area, on the gulf
side of the Cordilleras, the colony of Octen was begun. In 1935 thirty
families were recruited from the district of Yajalon in Chiapas. They were
given two thousand hectares in the municipio of Salto de Agua. It had some
rocky, steep slopes, but much of it was made up of loam fills, narrow
plateaus and small rivers.
The Tzeltal were used to living in high mountains and adhered closely
to the Tzeltal ethnic pattern. Their reasons for leaving Yajalon were dif-
ferent from the "revolutionaries" and homeless. Their motives were primarily
personal--the lure of agrarian promises, family quarrels, a year of poor
crops or poor pay on the coffee fincas, where they occasionally worked, made
up the main stimuli. Younger sons who wanted to venture on their own, or a
young couple eloping because of parental disapproval were motivated to
change.
The thirty families moved en masse from the Yajalon district, the
Agrarian agent staying with them for a month to start the colony. They
were instructed to clear an area near a river for their houses or ttown.tt
Each was to be given land to plant crops and was to build his own house and
plant his own garden. This was to be mutually worked out and agreed upon
in group discussion, each asking for the plot he wished and having the deci-
sion made by common vote. The work was to, be done on an exchange basis,
each man taking turns helping the others., so that all worked together, but
each had his own crop. It was an exchange of labor which carried the label
of "brotherhood workers" and was entered into with high hopes and great
good will.
Yajalon, the district from which they came, is predominantly coffee
country, with little or no contact with the outside world. The ladino popu-
lation of Yajalon is hardly more than a handful, and the town itself and
all the surrounding area is composed of a closely knit Tzeltal clan. It was
natural then, that in coming to Octen they brought with them their culture
patterns. The practice of endogamy, pride in their traditions and mores,
and native dress, were characteristic. They wove cloth from cotton they
themselves grew, wove their own hats, and made their own sandals. The
women wore the dark blue wrap-around skirt, white blouse with neck and
sleeves embroidered and sometimes also wore a huipil.. Around the waist,
holding the skirt in place, was a handwoven belt three yards long which was
tightly wrapped about and looped firmly. They used neither buttons nor
pins. The women wore their hair parted in the center and braided with col-
ored ribbons if unmarried, looped up loosely with one comb if married. The
men wore homespun white cloth trousers rolled to the knee and buttonless
white shirts.
They spoke Tzeltal and understood Chol and Bachajon, but no Spanish.
The economy of this group was primarily corn, beans, and coffee. They
used little or no money, and then only silver, having a mistrust of paper
money partly because it was not traditional, and partly because some had
experienced cheating at the hands of traveling peddlers.
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They made their own cooking utensils of pottery, using the thick red
or blue clays available in these mountains. They used the metate for
grinding corn or chocolate. They planted in the old way, clearing the
chosen rectangle for their crop site, then after a drying period burning it
off. While the ashes were still hot they planted the corn, using a plant-
ing stick. A good planter could drop the trees in such a way as to leave
aisles between them so the corn could be planted in rows which made har-
vesting easier. They made use of the hard wood they found abundantly, pul-
ling the tree trunks out of the area before it was burned and making dug-
outs and washing boards and stools and tables for their houses. They used
machetes, axes, and not infrequently a tool made with an obsidian blade
for finer work. Pumice brought from the high mountains was used for
polishing and finishing the furniture.
Their houses were built solidly, with high roofs and large living
areas of sometimes four rooms and a kitchen building separate from the
main house. The roofs were made of palm thatch, the supporting poles,
joists and so on notched and fitted and wound with a flat vine that dried
tightly against the poles and remained fast. The roofs were made to
special clan pattern, unlike other ethnic groups of Chiapas, and were a
source of much pride in the effective design and weave which was precise
and decorative. This took skill and labor, a common knowledge and a high
standard of work. The walls of the houses were pomoy, a light wood similar
to balsa, the outer bark removed and the poles placed firmly fitted to-
gether in a vertical position. The wood is white and helps give the clean
appearance the houses have. The floors they packed with clay, wetting
them and mixing ashes on their surface until they became hard and cement-
like. This process was repeated every month or so to keep the floors in
perfect condition. Each family had a finely carved chest in which to keep
the traditional family treasures and records as well as a few charms.
The Tzeltal planted coffee, corn, beans, and vegetables (squash, toma-
toes, and yams) and all kinds of fruit, bringing in small seedlings to
transplant, or planting from seeds--mangoes, guanavana, guyaba, pineapples,
ard even coconuts which thrived in the lower canyons and pastures. They
frequently made trips out to other areas to find seeds, and each house had
a flower garden behind a low stone wall. All this is in the typical pat-
tern brought from their original homes in Yajalon, where those who remained
will be found following what has been a traditional way of life.
In the first four years of the colony, eight families gave up and
returned to Yajalon.  The reasons for this were again mostly personal.
Family quarrels had been settled at home; one father had urged a young
couple to come back; one family suffered illness, and just general home-
sickness accounted for the other cases.
By 1950 there were fifteen families left in the colony and two of these
were trying to buy land elsewhere. The people now used meat grinders in
place of the metate, and the men wore huaraches, made of pieces of rubber
tires, bought in the town fourteen hours away. Porcelain dishes and kitchen
utensils were used almost exclusively.  One woman still made water jars and
pots of clay, but none of the younger women knew how to do so. Only one old
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man still made baskets. The dresses of the women, with the exception of one
or two older ones, were made of bright colored rayon cloth. The men now
manufactured straw hats, and although they complained that they did not
keep the head cool in the tropic sun or protect them from the heavy rains
(their own woven hats were of double thickness and shed water) they still
affected the small-brimmed "town" hats. They now raised pigs, fattening
them on the corn they grew, and selling them in the town for several hundred
pesos. It all appeared prosperous enough, and if one mourned the finely
woven cloth and the neatness of the houses that were now cluttered with
plastic gaudies and crepe paper festoons, still it seemed that their communal
lot had been, if not culturally an advancement, at least economically sound.
But the situation in the colonia was far from idyllic. Gradually I
began to see what had brought about this change in the colonial culture pat-
terns. The houses were dirty; the pigs had brought filth and disease into
the colony; and children were now afflicted with sores and running eyes.
The many trips to town in the lowlands to buy goods had brought malaria
into this group, previously free from It. The people themselves were dis-
couraged and quarrelsome. As I went among them their story became clear.
Eujivildo Oleta complained of a backache and did not go to work for
Jubilo. At home, in his hammock, he explained to me, "Jubilo is not a man
of honor. His wife has been taking our chickens and turkeys. They eat well
over at that house now. They have had bad luck with their animals, and we
would have gladly exchanged something with her for ours, but she steals and
sends us nothing in return. This is being done all over the colony. We
all live too close and there is too much quarrelling and gossipping among the
women. In Yajalon we all lived a half hour's walk from each other and had
no troubles like this. Then Jubilo, he isn't the only one. He helped me
the first two years, but lately he is always too tired when it comes his day
to work for me. I give him my strong machete hand with a will, but for
exchange he barely cuts down the brush and never remembers to bring his axe
to cut a tree. This is true of many others, Now most of us do our own
planting. Only our closest friends help uso Perhaps not more than five men
work together to make a corn field. Five men cannot plant enough in one
season to feed us and have money to buy these things too."
The houses by now were old and hardly repaired at all. The newer hous-
es were smaller and inferiority made, The people were using pieces of five
gallon cans to stuff into the thatching to stop leaks. To build a house
takes the help of several men willing and skillful. Half the colony was
quarrelling and feuding. The teamwork necessary to make a good roof was
gone. Besides this, I was told that the supply of palm thatching had run
out. Since everything belonged to everyone, if a man was lazy and did not
want to climb a tree to cut the penkas, or branches, he just cut the tree
down. So that now there were not enough trees to provide roofs. The same
was true of the rattan supply. The men had begun to cut down whole plants
and now there were no longer good stands of jachaacte for use in house
making.
The year before Eujivildo Oleta's boy fell off a roof framework and was
crippled for life. He claimed that Mariano's son had pushed him. Eujivildo
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had attacked Mariano that week in his corn field and cut him badly with a
machete. The agente municipal tried to keep the news within the colony,
but others talked of it in town and the Mexican police made a trip to
Octen. Papers arresting the two men were left there, but as both had gone
into hiding they were not apprehended. With no.place to stay the men
returned the next day and the incident was forgotten. But Eujivildo and
Mariano were now avowed enemies, and each family entered into a campaign
against the other.
In the next three years these situations increased. By 1954 the
younger members of the families, now grown and marrying, were trying to
buy land elsewhere. They wanted no more of colony communal living. My
last survey during 1958 showed these facts:
Of the.,original thirty families, ten remained. Of the ten, five of
the grown children have stayed in the colony and are raising families.
The.others have either returned to Yajalon or are buying a small acreage
of land, working off the purchase. price with day labor. Corn crops were
not good, and beans' developed rot.  The land was being used up. Why
hadn't anyone followed the old Tzeltal rules for leaving land fallow be-
tween plantings? Everyone had worked land wherever he wished. There was
no use arguing such things with each other for there was no one in author-
ity to enforce anything. They told me sadly that when they had lived in
Yajalon each man had had his own property-and guarded his own supply.
Here any one who wanted to could cut down a tree. Everything belonged to
everyone.
In twenty years no fruit trees have been planted and there are no
longer any pineapple or banana groves. Why? The answer is the same in
all families. "Everyone else picks our fruit and we never get any. Why
should we work hard in the hot sun for our enemies to laugh at us and
harvest our fruit?"
The low stone walls guarding the small flower gardens are gone, and
so are the flowers. Why? The women shake their heads.    The children pick
off the fruit to play games with and throw at each other and pull up the
flowers. If you object, they do it all the more to torment. "Dona Elodia
sends her children over here to pull them up because my daughter has been
living with her husband."
I found that the families, rigidly conscious of monogamy when they
came from Yajalon, are now indifferent to clan rules and morals. They
say, "You cantt control the young people," Why?   "The government sent us
a school teacher. We built a school. The teacher had killed someone back
where he came from. We did not know this when he came. He drank and kept
two or three women. Our children saw this. What could we do?"    In places
such as this it is almost impossible to find teachers who qualify. Those
who are worthy are kept busy in the towns, and Mexico still has all'too
few trained teachers. It is usually only the ones who do not qualify to
serve elsewhere who get.sent to the far places, so the colonies received
schools which did not add to the education of the children except to teach
them to disregard the moral standards of the original clan and disrupt
parent-child control.
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In the years I studied the colony I watched the movement go from indus-
try to laziness, from health to anemia and malaria, from an honor code
enforced by clan opinion and custom, to slipshod ethics and quarrelsomeness.
The coming of the ladino teacher added to the changing pattern as the moral
stimulation was poor. The method Mexico uses to teach her indigenous peoples
by giving them school primers in their own languages and to increase pride in
their own cultures failed in this instance.
It is difficult for me to keep a strict cultural relativism where the
colony of Octen is concerned. It is difficult not to make judgments and to
maintain a completely neutral approach when in the presence of serious cul-
ture lags and a destruction of human values. I should like to refer to Dr.
Redfield's words: "tCultural relativism is a doctrine of ethical neutralism,
but is not a doctrine of ethical indifference." So if my opinions emerge,
even by inference, in this report, if I "view with alarm" the results of
these years of observation, it is not that I feel I should determine what a
people should do, but a reaction to a disturbing loss in human ethical val-
ues, and obvious social waste under the agrarian colonization plan of Mexico.
ENDNOTE
(1) This paper was read to the third annual meeting of the Kroeber Anthro-
pological Society, May 16, 1959, Berkeley, California.
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