Hill - Tree Families

8/12/2019 Hill - Tree Families

1/29Ethnohistory593 (Summer 2012) 10.1215/00141801-1587469Copyright 2012 by American Society for Ethnohistory

Three Families: Genealogies and Processes

among the Sixteenth-Century Kaqchikel Maya

Robert M. Hill II, Tulane University

Abstract.The new political offices introduced after the Spanish conquest of Meso-america created new challenges and opportunities for indigenous elites and theirsupporters. This article traces the careers of three Kaqchikel-Maya families insixteenth-century Guatemala and reveals a range of concerns about and strategiesfor maintaining and enhancing aspects of their preconquest social status.

The Spanish conquest brought profound, often catastrophic changes toindigenous peoples throughout Mesoamerica. Despite the physical devas-tation and imposition of Spanish rule, members of indigenous aristocraciesfound ways to maintain their status and could continue to serve as an ave-nue for social mobility for their supporters. The present work presents threecase studies of these dynamics in the sixteenth-century Kaqchikel Mayacommunities of Tecpn Atitln and Tecpn Guatemala. The documentarybase is regrettably small, yet the patterns are clear. Indigenous aristocrats inboth communities clung to power through whatever possibilities the Span-ish regime offered. Even if they could not achieve overt political power,aristocrats still aggressively defended their social status. The nonelite mightstill achieve their aspirations for social mobility through association witharistocratic families.

The Iximche Polity

Much of this information has been presented elsewhere, so only a sum-mary is presented here (see esp. Maxwell and Hill 2006). The polity wasfounded and its center at Iximche initially constructed around 1470 as thecapital for the newly independent Kaqchikel Winq, or nation. Initially,


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570 Robert M. Hill II

it was composed of three amaq(confederations ofchinamt): the Kaqchi-kel proper, the Sotzil, and the Tuquche (this last was expelled as a result ofan internal conflict in 1493). Each of these in turn contained several closely

allied groups referred to individually as chinamt. The Kaqchikel Amaqhad four component chinamt: the Xajil, the Bakajola, the Qeqakch,and the Sibaqijay. The Sotzil Amaq also had four chinamt: the Sotzilproper, the Xpantzay, Porom, and Chikbl.

The Kaqchikel aristocracy was, to say the least, fond of titles. Modernscholarship has had only limited success analyzing them, due in large partto the confusion evident among early Spanish observers. Some of these titlesseem to have been honorifics while others were the names of discrete politi-cal offices. Among all of these, the title ajpopdenoted the highest level of

rulership among the Kaqchikel and Kiche. The Ajpo Xajil ruled as head ofthe Kaqchikel Amaq and shared rule of the entire polity with his counter-part of the other amaq, the Ajpo Sotzil. Each chinamt had its own leader,though the title apparently varied. The Xpantzay used the term ajaw. TheBakajol referred to their leader as the atzij winq.

After a prolonged and bitter twentyyear conflict, the Spanish dis-membered the Iximche polity, probably to reduce its potential for futureresistance. In 1545 most of the Xajils and the other chinamt of their amaqwere relocated to Tecpn Atitln (present-day Solol) as part of the larger

Spanish program of congregacinor town formation. Some Xajils evidentlyended up farther afield in Chimaltenango and in the Sacatepquez towns tothe east of Iximche (Hill 1992: 4041). The Sotzil Amaq remained nearIximche to form the town of Tecpn Guatemala.

In 1548 Tecpn Atitln had a reported population of some one thou-sand tributarios. The 1570 census gives a figure of five thousand vecinos.This seems very high, given that in 1571 the Franciscans reported the popu-lation of Tecpn Atitln plus its three small daughter settlements as onlythree thousand vecinos (Acua 1982: 180). Here, the terms tributariosand

vecinosrefer to households headed by an adult male. If we assume that eachhousehold contained four people, the total population in 1548 would havebeen around four thousand and in 1571 around twelve thousand, makingthis by far the largest town in the region at the time. The seemingly greatincrease in population over only a quarter-century is probably due to the factthat while the town of Tecpn Atitln may have been nominally founded in1545, it was a work in progress for years thereafter as other survivors of theinvasion were gradually shepherded into the town. For example, indigenousalcaldes(magistrates), an index of the establishment of formal town govern-

ment, do not appear in the Xajil Chronicle until 1557, twelve years after thenominal founding of the town. House lots were not laid out formally until


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Genealogies and Processes among the 16th-Century Kaqchikel Maya 571

1562 (Maxwell and Hill 2006: 313). In contrast, the Franciscans reporteda population of only thirteen hundred vecinos (or some fifty-two hundredpeople) for Tecpn Guatemala and its two dependencies (Acua 1982: 180).

The Xajil: Genealogy and Power

Much has been written about the continuity of preconquest Mesoameri-can rulers and their descendants into colonial times, the strategies theyemployed to maintain both their aristocratic status and political power,and the extent of their success. Prominent among these strategies through-out the region was rulers ongoing attempts to control the new office ofgovernor, introduced by the Spanish. In broad terms, the typical practice

was that a politys ruler at the time of submission to the Spanish would beappointed governor of his district for life. Absent the ruler, a close rela-tive was selected. After a town was formalized under the Spanish congrega-cin program, the governor would remain as the highest-ranking memberof the new municipal government, with the posts of the two alcaldes usuallystaffed by family members or representatives of other prominent families.In some areas a preconquest ruler who became a governor would typicallyhave the rights to his familys traditional patrimonial lands officially recog-nized. The tracts involved could be substantial and often became an entailed

estate, referred to as a cacicazgo. Typically, both the land and the office ofgovernor, or cacique, were passed down together, giving such families a sub-stantial, permanent economic base.

Such governors almost inevitably sought to extend their families aristo-cratic status, their attendant privileges, and their hold on local power acrossgenerations through appeals to the Spanish authorities who controlled boththe official recognition of aristocratic status and the appointment process.These appeals often were successful, with many families either retainingcontrol of the governorship/cacicazgo for generations or at least continuing

to have their aristocratic status formally recognized through the colonialperiod. However, neither recognition of aristocratic status nor a potentialsuccessors appointment to the governorship by the Spanish was automatic.Individuals who otherwise might expect lifelong appointments could beremoved by the Spanish for cause at any time. Family lines might also dieout, leaving no obvious successor to the office. How could aristocratic fami-lies adapt to such unforeseen circumstances?

The sparse documentary record at our disposal limits our knowl-edge of Xajil efforts to maintain their traditional social status and politi-

cal primacy. They may have appealed to the Spanish for formal recognitionon both counts, as did neighboring Kiche Maya claimants to rulership


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(Carrasco 1967a). However, documentation is lacking. Whatever othersteps they might have taken, an alternative or adjunct to formal Spanishrecognition employed by the Xajil was to maintain power not only through

the governorship but also through control of the office of alcalde. Theircase documents this strategy as employed from the mid- to late sixteenthcentury, the transitional period between the conquest and the mature colo-nial regime.

The Xajil family continued to elect a member to the indigenous officeof Ajpo Xajil, and the electee frequently served as governor (on which morebelow). Members of different branches of the family also rated the aris-tocratic appellation don and served consistently as alcaldes. As we shallsee, compared to the governorship, control of the office of alcalde had the

advantages of a lower profile to Spanish oversight and regular rotation thatmade it less susceptible to Spanish interference. Under exceptional circum-stances, the Xajil even nominated to the Spanish an individual from anotherchinamt who they hoped would be their puppet. As we shall see, whileone such appointment succeeded, the result was not at all what the Xajilexpected.

Sources for the Xajil Case Study

Our source material for this case study is limited almost entirely to the Xajil

Chronicle and a few ancillary documents composed primarily by FranciscoHernndez Arana Xajil (ca. 150083) and his successor, Pakal FranciscoDaz (Maxwell and Hill 2006). The Chronicle is a unique source of infor-mation on mid- to late sixteenth-century history as viewed by a member ofthe Kaqchikel aristocracy. However, as a source of information on geneal-ogy and the distribution of power, it has significant limitations. First, thedocument was not intended to be either a dedicated genealogy or a system-atic description of town government. Rather, it was an extension of theXajil familys preconquest history of important events, now reduced to

changes in town officers each year, the visits of Spanish officials and clerics,outbreaks of disease, squabbles among residents, and unusual natural phe-nomena such as eclipses and volcanic eruptions. Second, both chroniclersassumed a great deal of local knowledge on the part of whoever might readthe Chronicle. They both knew all of the people they mentioned and sodid not consistently identify them beyond their first names. This level ofassumed knowledge extended even to Francisco Hernndezs own parents,whose deaths he recorded but whose names do not appear anywhere in thedocument. Third, even as a family history, and despite the sixteenth-century

Kaqchikel obsession with genealogy, such information is frequently limitedto isolated references to individual men and their sons. Most likely there


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was another document that dealt specifically with genealogy, such as wehave for the Pakals and Xpantzay (on which more below). Finally, the focuson the Xajil family makes it difficult to identify consistently the chinamt

associations of other prominent men who repeatedly served as alcaldes.The same limitation applies to attempts to identify client families within theXajil chinamt (apart from the Pakals, who may have served occasionally astheir surrogates in the office of alcalde). Careful study and cross-checkinghelp alleviate some of these shortcomings, but never completely.

In the present study we are particularly concerned with the sectionof the Xajil Chronicle that begins with the Tuquche revolt of 1493 andcontinues with year-by-year entries down to the early seventeenth cen-tury. The basic format of the document conforms to a preconquest genre

of pictographic history that Elizabeth H. Boone (2000: 197237) calls acontinuous-year annal. In this case, the format must have changed to a pri-marily or entirely alphabetic presentation by the 1550s, when the quantityof Spanish vocabulary expanded greatly (Hill n.d.). Beginning in 1557, aspart of his yearly entries Francisco Hernndez recorded the names of thealcaldes and occasionally some of the lesser municipal officers. He alsonotes death and succession of the Ajpo Xajil and, much less consistently,the appointment of the town governor by the Spanish authorities. Fran-cisco Daz continued these entries through the early 1600s when the docu-

ment ends abruptly (due to loss of an unknown number of pages from thedocument).

Ajpo Xajil and the Governorship: Genealogy and Succession

To understand the distribution of political offices over time in Tecpn Ati-tln, and especially the continued prominence of the Xajil, we must recon-struct the family genealogy from generally incidental references to individu-als relationships to each other. Few individual family members consistentlyused the Xajil name. In the preconquest period individuals were known pri-

marily by their birth dates in the indigenous 260day divinatory calendar.Soon after the conquest, individuals began adopting Spanish names, butpatronymics were not passed on across generations as they were among theSpanish. Accordingly, reconstructing the Xajil family genealogy is a diffi-cult task, especially for the generation born just before the conquest. Thefindings appear in figure 1. When we combine the genealogical data withthe succession of both Kaqchikel and Spanish offices we can document theextent of Xajil control of the governorship.

In the late 1400s succession to the office of Ajpo Xajil seems clearly to

have been based on primogeniture. Thus Wuqu Batzs eldest son, OxlajujTzi, became Ajpo Xajil after the formers death. When Oxlajuj Tzi died


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in 1508, he was succeeded by his eldest son, Jun Iq, who succumbed tothe great plague of 152021. His eldest son, Rajpop Achi Balam, died inthe same event. In the aftermath of the plague and the arrival of the Span-

ish shortly afterward, Jun Iqs younger brother, Beleje Kat, assumed theoffice, an agnatic strategy for succession imposed by the uncertainty ofindividual survival in the postconquest decades. Beleje Kat held the officeuntil his death in 1529.

In 1532 conquistador Pedro de Alvarado ignored the indigenous rulesof succession by installing his own candidate as Ajpo Xajil, Don JorgeKablajuj Tijax, and appointing him as governor (which is confusing,since Tecpn Atitln had not yet been formed). Don Jorge was evidentlydrawn from a collateral line of the Xajil family, since his calendrical name

does not appear anywhere in the line of direct descent from Oxlajuj Tzisfather, Wuqu Batz. Don Jorge ruled as town governor through the townsformation in 1545 and on to 1558 and was Ajpo Xajil through to his deathin 1565. From 1565 through 1580 there is no mention in the Chronicle ofan Ajpo Xajil, though there surely must have been one. In 1580 the officesof Ajpo Xajil and governor returned to the line of Jun Iq when Don PedroSols was installed. He ruled for only four years, and the title of Ajpo Xajilwent back to Don Jorges line with the installation of Don Juan Hernndez.However, he did not serve as governor. Don Juan died in 1585 and had

no surviving children. There is no mention of an Ajpo Xajil later in theChronicle, so we cannot determine if Don Juan was succeeded in the officeor if it ended with him. As noted below, Don Ambrosio de Castellano,Don Juans nephew, had assumed the governorship by 1602. However, it isuncertain whether he had also been made Ajpo Xajil.

As noted above, Don Jorge held the governorship through 1558. Hewas replaced by Don Diego Prez of the Bakajol chinamt. The Chronicledoes not indicate how long Don Diego held the office, though it does statethat he died in 1573 (Maxwell and Hill 2006: 324). Due to a scandal in

the collection of tribute, a Spanish official, the corregidor Hernando deAngulo, assumed the governorship from 1578 to 1580 (331). In 1580 theoffices of governor and Ajpo Xajil again merged, this time, as noted above,in the person of Don Pedro Sols. However, he held the office for only fouryears before his death in 1584. On the verge of another tribute scandal, theXajils nominated Don Pedro Elas Martn of the Qeqakch chinamt asgovernor. The Spanish accepted their nomination, and he served until 1591.After another gap in the record, the governorship returned to Xajil hands by1602 with the appointment of Don Ambrosio. Looking at the governorship

alone, there are clearly gaps in Xajil control. In the seventy years between1531 and 1600 we can document firmly only some thirty-one years when it


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was in Xajil hands. Given gaps in the coverage provided by the Chronicle,there probably were additional years of Xajil control, but there were stilltwo substantial periods of non-Xajil governors.

Alcaldes and Chinamt

However, the picture of political dominance changes when we examine thedistribution of the office of alcalde. Under Spanish policy the office wastechnically an elected position with a one-year term. But the body of eligiblevoters was small. Spanish law specified that only prior officeholders coulddecide the coming years successors. Yet, as elsewhere in early colonialMesoamerica, since from the outset the aristocrats were the main office-holders, they effectively monopolized the selection of members of their own

stratum for decades if not centuries.Over the forty-five years in which the Chronicle identifies the alcaldes,

there are only six years in which some Xajil family member does not holdone of the two positions (see appendix). In two of those six years, one ofthe alcaldes was Francisco Daz of the Pakal family, clients of the Xajil (onwhich more below). When we look diachronically at the distribution of theoffice of alcalde it is clear that it rotated irregularly among three lines of theXajil family. The lines of Jun Iq and Don Jorge have already been identi-fied. What appears to be a hitherto undetected third line is represented by

Don Martn Xajil, whose parentage is unknown but who is definitely not ofeither of the other two lines. He served as alcalde in 1563 and 1565 and diedin 1572. Other likely members of this third line are probably Don Martnssons: Gonzalo de Guzmn, who served as alcalde in 1569, 1575, and 1589,and Don Miguel Lpez, who served in 1588, 1594, and 1599.

Representation of the other three chinamt was less structured. Theyhad only the one office of alcalde to divide among themselves. For a sig-nificant number of individuals chinamt affiliations cannot be determined,even though at least one of them served on three different occasions. Still,

so far as can be discerned, there was no regular rotation among the threegroups. The Bakajol seem to have dominated the other office of alcalde.In the thirty-two cases where chinamt affiliation can be determined, rep-resentatives of the Bakajol served nineteen times as alcalde. In contrast,an Uchabajay representative served nine times. A Qeqakch representa-tive served three times, while a Sibaqijay served only once. Alcaldes drawnfrom the aristocracy also predominated among the Bakajol. The first toserve (and therefore presumably the eldest) was Francisco Hernndez. He isnever referred to with the title don, but he is mentioned with the Kaqchi-

kel aristocratic title Qale Bakajol. The other Bakajol are consistentlyreferred to as don in the Chronicle. Among the representatives of the


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other two chinamt, only Pedro Elas Martn (Qeqakch) is referred toas don, and even then only after having assumed the town governorshipin 1584.

Another important office was that of fiscal, chief indigenous assistantto the local friar(s). Again, with limited references, it seems that this officerotated among the chinamt as well. Pedro Ramrez (Uchabajay) is thefirst fiscal mentioned in the Chronicle (though undoubtedly not the first tohold the position). His term in office must have begun sometime after 1575,since he served as alcalde in that year and would not have held both officessimultaneously. He was replaced by Don Francisco Mndez (Bakajol),who served from 1582 to 1586. He, in turn, was replaced by Don Ambrosio(Xajil), serving from 1586 to 1594.

Starting at the Top

The phenomenon of some kind of civil-religious hierarchy is a near uni-versal feature of indigenous Mesoamerican peasant communities as docu-mented ethnographically and, in some places, historically as well. Ideally, acommunity member begins a public-service career in some low-level office,either in the cabildoor acofrada(or some other form of saints cult). Earlyto mid-twentieth-century ethnographies documented that the distinctionbetween these functions was often blurred in practice, as both constituted

service to the community. If moderately successful in performing this func-tion, the community member might be called on many times throughoutadulthood to serve in increasingly important (and onerous) offices, perhapseventually becoming a member of the group of principales who effectivelychose all of the office holders.

The situation evidently was very different in the still stratified societyof the sixteenth century. Regidoreswere theoretically members of a Spanish-mandated municipal council. Spanish law dictated their number accordingto a towns population. Based on the Xajil Chronicle, it is not clear that

such a municipal council even existed for this community. The governorand the alcaldes alone seem to have been in charge. Indeed, the office ofregidor is mentioned only a handful of times beginning in 1561, and none ofthe officeholders are ever named except in the early 1600s, at the very endof the Xajil Chronicle. The office of regidor was clearly a very minor onein sixteenth-century Tecpn Atitln. The only civil office other than alcaldeto be mentioned with some consistency in the Chronicle is that of alguacilmayor(constable), and even this does not begin until 1584, with a yearly list-ing of officeholders until 1602. It is likely that Francisco Hernndez simply

did not consider the office significant enough to bother listing it during histime as chronicler. Inclusion of the alguaciles mayores only begins with his


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successor as chronicler, Pakal Francisco Daz. Yet significantly, despite thelimited run of alguacil mayor data, it is clear that no Xajil and, indeed, noone with the don title, served in the office. The Kaqchikel aristocrats seem

to have deigned to serve only in the top posts.

Factionalism

Despite the Kaqchikel aristocrats tenacious maintenance of their tradi-tional status and political control, we should not assume that all of themwere uniformly tied to preserving their status based on ties to preconquesttimes. The prime example was the term of Don Pedro Elas Martn as gov-ernor. In Don Pedros own chronicle of his term, he stated that he had beennominated to the Spanish authorities by the Xajils. However, it was clear

to him that they expected him to play the role of figurehead while they con-tinued their dominance of local affairs (Maxwell and Hill 2006: 50918).Instead, Don Pedro pursued a decidedly nontraditional agenda: It is notfrom the reign of the ancient people, nor in the name of the old lordship,nor the counselors, not the qalels of the lordship [that] I carry forth, but Idisplace them. Thus, I displace from the hearts of the people the blindness,the blackness, of those who know not Christianity. Just thus [was] the con-dition of the ancient people; let it just be buried in the past! (quoted inMaxwell and Hill 2006: 536).

Perks of the Governorship

Apart from whatever prestige might have come from holding aristocraticstatus and the post of governor (or alcalde), what were the practical bene-fits of the office in sixteenth-century Tecpn Atitln? As Don Pedro ElasMartn noted in his chronicle, it was expected that the community wouldbuild the governors house, till common lands for his support, provide fire-wood, and send some girls to help with housekeeping (Maxwell and Hill2006: 516). Spanish law specified that a yearly salary for town governors

be drawn from community funds, though there is no mention of such pay-ments in the colonial documents for the Kaqchikel area. But with the localgovernment in the hands of the aristocracy, especially the Xajils, there wasample opportunity to acquire wealth in other ways.

Administration of community funds was the primary means ofenrichment. Tribute collection and its security in the caja de comunidadtechnically should have been the responsibility of the governor and alcaldes.However, this was not how things worked in Tecpn Atitln. In terms ofcollection, it is clear from an official investigation in the 1580s that the aris-

tocrats of each chinamt, whether in office or not, collected the tribute fromtheir respective people. Much of the money did not make its way into the


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caja; or, if it did, the caja was in the custody of a so-called mayordomo dela caja. Individuals holding this office are mentioned by name only twice inthe Xajil Chronicle and, not surprisingly, both are Xajils. Diego Hernndez

held the post in 1584 and Don Bernab de Arana Xajil in 1593. There is noindication that this was an office that rotated yearly; if it did, one suspectsthat it rarely was out of Xajil hands. In any case, funds clearly were diverted.

The Spanish investigation into rezagos de tributos(tribute payments inarrears) provides some important information. In 1583 alcaldes of TecpnAtitln (Diego Hernndez and Don Francisco Prez [Bakajol]) were noti-fied that their tribute payments for 1578, 1579, and 1580 had never beenpaid into the royal treasury. Don Pedro Sols had already been removedfrom governorship in 1578 on account of this, and the Spanish corregidor

had taken over. The royal treasurer wanted the inhabitants to pay the threeyears of tribute again. The commoners of the town complained throughtheir Spanish solicitor and with the support of the Royal Fiscal that, as perimmemorial custom, they had paid their tributes to their tlatoques y cabe-zas de calpules (hispanicized Nahuatl terms for aristocratic heads of thechinamt), but that the latter spent the money on borracheras (drinkingbouts). Accordingly, the commoners argued that they should not have topay the tribute again. Their solicitor and the Royal Fiscal also noted that thispractice had always been tacitly condoned by Spanish officials, despite the

policy that tribute should be collected by the towns governor and alcaldes.As recounted above, Pedro Elas Martn took office as governor in 1584

upon specific nomination to the Spanish authorities by the Xajils and otheraristocrats. He was pro-Christian in orientation and apparently uninvolvedin the scandal. They may also have been setting him up as the fall guy forwhatever sanctions the Spanish authorities might impose. His first act uponbecoming governor was to inspect the towns finances (Maxwell and Hill2006: 520). The legal case dragged on for years, though most of the inves-tigation took place in 1588. The documentation ends in 1592 with the case

still unresolved. In 1591, Don Pedro himself was removed from office by theSpanish for his own diversion of community funds to the finishing and out-fitting of the church.

Other monies were also paid into the caja. One source was the profitsfrom the sale of corn grown by the commoners in community plots set asidefor the purpose. These could be significant sums. In his own account of hisgovernorship, Don Pedro recorded with pride that he had allocated eighthundred tostones(each the equivalent of one-half peso) from the sale ofcommunity corn toward the purchase of an organ for the church (Max-

well and Hill 2006: 526). He used the same source (though the amountsare not listed) to commission a statue of Our Lady of the Assumption (the


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patroness of the town), an oil lamp, and an ark for guarding the sacramentof the host (527). Fines were another source of money for the coffer. Thescant evidence available suggests that four tostones was the customary

fine for simple offenses such as drunkenness (397, 401). Fines were higherfor serving officials, ranging from ten to thirty-five tostones (402, 428). Intheory, half of the fine went to the royal treasury. But with the caja in thearistocrats hands, it is unclear how much of the money collected by thetown authorities actually was handed over.

Limitations of the Governorshipand Advantages of the Office of Alcalde

From the viewpoint of the Xajil familys attempts to monopolize political

power in Tecpn Atitln, the governorship could have been seen as a lessthan perfect strategy despite the offices association with the highest rank ofaristocracy. Appointment to the office was in the hands of Spanish officialsrather than the towns own power brokers. The case of Don Pedro ElasMartn illustrates that nomination to the office by indigenous aristocratsmight be accepted by the Spanish authorities, but there was no requirementthat they accept it. In terms of the exercise of power, tenure in office wasuncertain. Some governors clearly served for many years. In the case of theXajils this simply reflected their traditional status as the preeminent family

back to preconquest times. But members of other chinamt could and didhold the office for extended terms, limiting the Xajil to control of one of thealcalde positions. Such an arrangement may have worked out well enoughfor the Xajil as long as the governor and other alcaldes shared their agendaor acknowledged their high status. The situation was considerably less sat-isfactory when the governorship and the Xajils belonged to different fac-tions, as in the case of Don Pedro Elas Martn.

The ultimate reliance on external Spanish authority also meant thatserving governors could be removed at any time. The events from 1578 to

1584 and again in 1591 illustrate this point. Administration of tribute col-lection had been so faulty that the Spanish did not immediately appoint areplacement governor. Instead, the Spanish corregidor took over for twoyears until Don Pedro Sols was appointed in 1580. Since he died after onlyfour years in office, a replacement governor was again needed. Don PedroElas Martn was appointed, but seven years later he, too, was removed.Such turnover did not make for a secure, predictable exercise of power.

In contrast, control of the office of alcalde as practiced by the Xajilswas a much more secure power base. Alcaldes technically served only one-

year terms, although as we have seen, the office consistently rotated amongmembers of the family. Theoretically, even if removed from office by the


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Spanish, a Xajil alcaldes successor would have been elected from the poolof candidates provided by his family. The officeholder might rotate, but thepower remained within the Xajil family and at a less visible and vulnerable

level than that of governor.

The Xpantzay: Genealogy of Legitimacy

This family represents an intermediate level of the sixteenth-century Kaqchi-kel social spectrum. They gave their name to the chinamt they ruled, oneof four such units forming the Sotzil Amaq of the preconquest Iximchepolity. Thus they were firmly in the aristocratic stratum. They selected oneof their number to rule as ajaw of the chinamt (Ajaw Xpantzay), evidently

without interference from the Ajpo Sotzil. Unlike the Xajils and Pakals,they did not make the move to Tecpn Atitln but remained near Iximche,in the Spanish congregacin of Tecpn Guatemala.

Sources for the Xpantzay Case Study

The small documentary base for the Xpantzay consists of the following:two formal genealogiesone by Alonso Prez from the mid-sixteenth cen-tury, the other by his son, Felipe Vsquez, in 1602; a mid-sixteenth-centuryaccount of the familys origins combined with a boundary-marker list (also

probably composed by Alonso Prez); and a 1581 list of boundary markersdelimiting the lands traditionally claimed by their chinamt, also composedby Felipe Vsquez (Maxwell and Hill 2006: 581657).

Ajaw Xpantzay: Succession and Legitimacy

The Alonso Prez genealogy is primarily a ruler list of the men who held theoffice of Ajaw Xpantzay, extending back seven generations to a semilegend-ary ancestor, Chimal Akat, perhaps in the mid-1300s (fig. 2). Alonso doesnot typically include any of their siblings. Wives and mothers are occasion-

ally noted. This appearance of female ancestors in the document appears tohave been due to Alonsos concern to record his lines status as the legiti-mate descendants of Kaji Aqbal, who ruled as Ajaw Xpantzay in theearly sixteenth century, just before the Spanish conquest. Alonso deridedthe other descendants of Kaji Aqbal, born of an illicit union between theAjaw Xpantzay and a slave woman. Because of population loss due both todisease just before the Spanish invasion and to the fighting itself, Atunal,the son of Kaji Aqbals illicit union, became Ajaw Xpantzay. As the legiti-mate descendant of Kaji Aqbal, Alonso Prez railed that only he and his

children should be recognized as aristocrats, while Atunals progeny weremerely the children of slaves:


14/29Figu

re2.

Sixteenth-CenturyXpa

ntzayGenealogy

Xpantzay

Ajmaq

Slave

JulajujKan

=

KajiA

qbal=

Xoqojaw

Atunal

Chimal

Akat

Xpantza

yNoj

Slave

=

DiegoOrdoez

D.AlonsoPrez

PabloPrez

FelipeVsquez

Cristbal

Xtzik

Qane

l

Tojin

Iyu

daughter

Hernando

Alonso

daughter

D.JuanMexaPusul

FranciscoOrdoez

Silvestre

Francisco

Bonifacio

Juan

Francisco

Gasp

ar

Ordoez

Jos

Lus

Cristbal

Ambrosio


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This was the birth-status of the lord [Kaji Aqbal].There was a xoqojaw, his wife.Kaji Aqbal soon expelled his wife.

With that, then the revolt started, because he brought other maidens.They were his relatives; Julajuj Kan [was] their father, it is said.One of the maidens he [Kaji Aqbal] espoused.She [was] a daughter of servants, her mouth marked as a slave.There, then, Atunal was born, his mother a slave.Their [the servants] grandfathers were his [Atunals] relatives.(quoted in Maxwell and Hill 2006: 63537)

Alonsos outrage was exacerbated by the subsequent successions. Atu-nals son, Juan Mexa Pusul, became Ajaw Xpantzay when his father diedand claimed for himself the Spanish honorific don, usually accorded onlyto high-ranking members of the indigenous aristocracy, not to the son ofan illegitimate father. Juan was ousted from office for misrule by SpanishBishop Francisco Marroqun, who appointed Alonso Prez as his replace-ment. While the office had finally returned to the legitimate line, it wouldnot remain there long. For reasons he does not specify, Alonso was subse-quently replaced at Bishop Marroquns order by Atunals grandson Fran-cisco Ordoez who also received the honorific don. Alonso Prezs docu-ment was clearly a response to ongoing pretensions to aristocratic status byFranciscos descendants. Even more than Atunals lines holding the office,it was these status claims that were clearly intolerable to Alonso:

This then is the birth-rank of Don Francisco [Ordoez, Atunals son]:he is the child of slaves[!]

Although Don Francisco Ordoez might make you suffer, he has nobirth-status.

Although Don Francisco might say [he does], you, my sons, it isbecause he is truly a half-breed lord.

Thus I am seeing it, thus I will write it down: his status, his birth-rank is the son of slaves.

You, in truth, are grandsons of lord Julajuj Kan, children of axoqojaw [female aristocrat]. (quoted in Maxwell and Hill2006: 643)

Upon Franciscos death, Alonso Prezs son Felipe Vsquez becameAjaw Xpantzay. By 1581 he was serving as an alcalde in Tecpn Guatemala.His status should have been secure, but the animosity between the twolines had evidently continued forward another generation, since in 1602Felipe felt compelled to restate his familys legitimate status versus Atunalsdescendants. Felipes main concern was to distinguish his own descendants


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from those of Atunal in the current and the subsequent generation in casethe latter should again press their aristocratic claims:

If it should appear that there is a dispute in their hearts now, let themnot disobey; but let it be completed, let them be shamed!

Let it be said to them, it is not true that a xoqojaw bore theirgrandfather [Atunal]; just a slave, just mouth-branded [was]their grandmother.

If they should aggrandize themselves, let it be asked of them, what isour birth-status?

Let them be shown before the President [of the Audiencia], theOidor, or the Father, or before the justice[s]!

Let them recount their birth-status! Let their words be heard!Then let it be answered!Then let be told the coming of the lords, our grandmothers, our

grandfathers! (quoted in Maxwell and Hill 2006: 65556)

What is so striking about the two Xpantzay genealogies is the fixationsolely on legitimacy of preconquest aristocratic status itself so many yearsafter the conquest. Neither line made claims to disputed land, goods, or ser-vices that might have been attached to the status. The limited documentarybase does not allow us to determine whether the Xpantzay consistently con-

trolled the governorship or an alcalde position as did the Xajils in TecpnAtitln. However, neither office is mentioned in either genealogy as a pointof contention. Even the office of Ajaw Xpantzay seems to have been a sec-ondary concern. It was the legitimacy of aristocratic status itself that was atstake.

The Pakal Family: The Client Route to Status

The Pakal family represents another part of the sixteenth-century Kaqchi-

kel social spectrum. The Pakals were not royalty like the Xajils or evenaristocracy like the Xpantzay, but neither were they entirely without statusand corresponding family pride. However, such status as they enjoyed wasdependent on their appointment to offices by the Xajils, putting the Pakalsin the category of clients. Yet the Pakals were clearly proud of this associa-tion and proclaimed their enhanced status through the creation of a geneal-ogy that highlighted their service.

Sources for the Pakal Case Study

We know about the Pakals through just three short documents: two gene-alogies and a will (Maxwell and Hill 2006: 46488). Supplementing these


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are the brief entries in the Xajil Chronicle made by Pakal family memberFrancisco Daz after he assumed the task of chronicler for the Xajil. In emu-lation of the aristocratic families, like the Xajil and Xpantzay, Diego Lpez

Pakal created an extensive genealogy of his own family, extending back fourgenerations from his own, to the reign of Oxlajuj Tzi (d. 1508) as AjpoXajil. He maintained and extended the genealogy forward two generations,including relatives alive in the 1580s (fig. 3).

Status through Service

Diego was particularly eager to note those of his ancestors and descendantswho had been appointed to offices by the Xajils. The most frequent appoint-ment was as a nima winq. Diego lists at least one Pakal family member fill-

ing this office in six of the seven generations of his genealogy, from thelater 1400s (reign of Oxlajuj Tzii as Ajpo Xajil) down through the latersixteenth century. As noted above, the data on indigenous offices providedby Spanish friars in their dictionaries are scant and contradictory. This isunderstandable, since most of the dictionaries were created or copied in theseventeenth century, by which time the elaborate indigenous political hier-archy was on the wane and the offices increasingly irrelevant from the friarspoint of view. Thus many terms are rendered simply as cacique or prin-cipal without further elaboration. For example, Thoms de Coto (1983:

106) glosses nima winqas consejero (advisor), presumably a member of agroup of esteemed consultants with whom the Ajpo Xajil discussed impor-tant matters. Yet he also renders it in another context as one way to expressthe phrase Es Pedro n[uest]ro prncipe, o Governador a quien reconoce-mos (Pedro is our prince, or Governor whom we acknowledge [252]). Hedoes not identify a context in which such an utterance might be made, orthe social group that might have done so. It is perhaps significant that in thiscontext Coto does not use the Spanish honorific don with the Pedro inhis entry, suggesting that he is referring to individuals below the aristocratic

stratum.Diego also asserted that in each generation of Pakals two of them

served as kul patanand two asajtzalam. The kul patan post was most likelyconcerned with tribute collection, aspatanis typically glossed as tributeor other obligation. The duties of an ajtzalam are more obscure. Accord-ing to Coto (1983: 94), the root, tzalam, can be glossed as caja (box orcoffer). The agentive aj in this context would mean he of. So, he of thebox/coffer implies responsibility for the care of some object(s) containedin boxes. The Pakals clearly considered it an honor. In contrast, Alonso

Prez Xpantzay denigrated the office, referring dismissively to the post heldby his grandfathers illegitimate son: He was just ajtzalam in the house of


18/29Figu

re3.

Sixteenth-CenturyPakalGenealogy

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Pakal

Junajpu

Pakal

Ajin

Pakal

Kej

nimaw

in

q

Fran

ciscoKechelaj

Pakal

Tzikin

Somok

Pakal

Ajin

Diego

Lpez

nimaw

inq

Pakal

Balam

nimaw

inq

Pakal

Qanel

qalachi

Fran

cisco

Ajin

ajtzalam

Paka

lMox

in

nimaw

inq

Pakal

Tata

Aj

nimaw

inq

Pakal

Tata

Tz

ikinajy

nimaw

inq

PakalAqbal

kulpatan

PakalAjmaq

Alonso

Kej

Pakal

Kej

Somo

k

Die

go

No

j

PakalWuqu

Pakal

Kamey

Pakal

Kan

x

Crist

bal

Kej

Francisco

Qanel

Diego

Mn

dez

rutzam

chinam

ital

Juan

Prez

Bernab

Sebas

tinGaspar

Baltasar

de

Arana

PedroI

q

Francisco

Ajmaq

Pakal

To

jin

Pakal

Ajm

aq

Pakal

Kej

nimaw

inq

Juan

Mox

in

de

Chvez

PakalWuqu

Ajin

Fransico

Batzin

Bal

tasar

No

j

Diego

No

j

FranciscoKulpatan

Kamey

Pedro

Kan

Francisco

Daz

Pakal

Tz

ikin

nimaw

inq

Juan

Ajtzalam

Pakal

Iyu


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KajiImox, just a guardian [custodian] of the lordship (quoted in Maxwelland Hill 2006: 639).

The relative esteem in which an office was held clearly had to do with a

familys social position. In the seventeenth century Coto noted in one entrythat ajtzalamwas used in some towns to refer to an alguacil (constable), aminor post in the hierarchy of municipal offices (1983: 24). Elsewhere heindicates that an ajtzalam is closer to town crier: Cargo o officio de aper-cebir la gente q[ue] [h]a de yr a travajo pblico o a llevar cargas, o de prego-nar de noche lo q[ue] [h]a de hacer (Duty or office to summon the peopleto go to public work, or carry goods or to proclaim at night what was tobe done [the following day][90]). By Cotos time it was a yearly appoint-ment, like all of the other municipal offices. Other offices held by Pakal

family members at some point included ajpop achi, qal achi, and rutzramchinamital. Coto indicates that ajpop achi andqal achi were two of theterms used to refer to captains of the warriors (88, 328). The office ofrutzam chinamital remains obscure but may have been concerned with rep-resenting the commoners of a chinamt to higher authorities in the Iximchepolity.

Service and Hypergamy

The Pakal family must have continued to enjoy the esteem of the Xajils

through the remainder of the sixteenth century, specifically in the personof Francisco Daz. Most tellingly, in 1583 he was well enough regarded tosucceed even a Xajil family member as their chronicler. Probably not justby coincidence, in the same year he married into the aristocracy through aunion with the daughter of the Atzij Winq of the Bakajol chinamt. Fran-cisco also served twice as alcalde, in 1591 and 1595. In 1600 (after the deathof his first and second wives) he married into the Xajil family itself, unitingwith the daughter of the deceased Don Cristbal Rubio, Marathoughnot without some initial resistance from her elder brother, Don Juan Cor-

ts (Maxwell and Hill 2006: 579). Ultimately, Maras other brother, DonAmbrosio, straightened matters out.

Population, Land-holding,Inheritance, and Land Concentration

The narrow documentary base on the Pakals inevitably limits the topics wecan explore. Still, the available sources provide insights on several topicsotherwise not well known for the period: specifically, aspects of populationdecline, land-holding, and inheritance.

A shocking feature of the genealogy is the extent of the familys popula-tion loss in the conquest generation (fig. 3). Of the eight individuals in gen-


20/29


eration 3 (presumably alive around the time of the conquest), only half hadsurviving progeny. Whether those childless individuals died too young tohave married or their offspring died in childhood we cannot say. Even for the

four who had children, the numbers were small (keeping in mind that thegenealogies rarely mention daughters at all and almost never by name). Twoof the four had only one surviving son, one of the others had two sons, andthe last had four. Two of the eight men in generation 4 also died with no sur-viving issue. The descendants of Pakal Kej begin to stabilize their numbers ingenerations 5 and 6, though the norm remained only one surviving son.

Diegos (generation 5) 1581 testament offers insights into landholdingand inheritance, both before the conquest and during the period of cata-strophic population loss. At the time of the testaments composition it is

clear that Diego was the eldest of the five sons of Pakal Aqbal and oneof only two survivors. The other was his youngest brother, Cristbal Kej.The testament makes it clear that families had claims to lands within thelarger chinamt unit in late preconquest times. Within a family, individu-als worked specific plots of land, which were inheritable. However, fromthe vague descriptions of the plots locations we cannot determine if thesewere contiguous within a single large holding or dispersed through numer-ous localities. Nor can we determine whether all the males of a given gen-eration lived in a single extended household or if they were dispersed out

among their respective plots. The fact that Diego allocated house founda-tions along with specific tracts of land suggests a more dispersed residencepattern.

What would happen to this land base in the face of catastrophic loss?The lands of four men in generation 3 (including those of Pakal Iyu, whoserelationship to the line of Pakal Balam is unclear) who died without sonswere still recognized as their personal possessions by Diego in the 1580s. Atleast one plot owned by Pakal Kej (also generation 3) was personal propertyas well. Diego allocated the plots to men in generations 5 and 6. He appor-

tioned additional lands to other men in Generation 6, but unfortunatelythe prior ownership of these plots is not specified in his testament. Basedon the beneficiaries, it appears that by 1581 most of the men in generation 5were already deceased. In that generation only Cristbal Kej, evidently theyoungest of Diegos brothers, received land. His sons did not. From thispattern we can infer that Cristbal was still head of his household, whichin 1581 contained his four sons (generation 6). These sons received noth-ing, reinforcing the idea that Cristbal was the patriarch. Most of the otherbeneficiaries were in generation 6 as well, suggesting that their fathers were

already deceased. The resulting response was that responsibility for thePakal familys diverse holdings devolved onto Diego as the eldest surviving


21/29


member of the decimated conquest-period generations. The family began torecover in the late sixteenth century. At that time, Diego effectively passedforward the properties he had held in trust another one or two generations.

The family patrimony was preserved.

Discussion

The narrowly genealogical approach employed by necessity here providesonly a few insights to family and town dynamics in late preconquest andearly colonial Mesoamerica. If there is an overarching contribution to bedrawn from the three family experiences described here, it is the diversity ofconcerns and of strategies employed by families to address them. Two of the

families, the Xajil and the Xpantzay, were members of the Kaqchikel aris-tocracy, while the third family, the Pakals, were an upwardly mobile com-moner family whose claims to status were based on service to the Xajils.

The Xajil example illustrates that the town governorship was but oneexpression of the continuity of power into early colonial times, and it wasnot necessarily the most reliable. Aristocratic families could also exert con-trol through the office of alcalde. When properly orchestrated, a promi-nent family could dominate the office for many decades, practically withoutinterruption. In contrast, a governor in Tecpn Atitln of whatever indige-

nous rank ultimately served at the pleasure of the Spanish authorities. Agovernor could be removed and replaced at their will, though the localscould request a specific replacement.

The Xajil Chronicle ends abruptly at the beginning of the seventeenthcentury, leaving many important issues to be addressed. Primary amongthese in the current discussion would be to discover how much longer thearistocratic system of office holding endured and when and how it ulti-mately ended. However, one feature that stands out clearly from the limiteddocumentation is how seemingly easily the Kaqchikel aristocrats of Tec-

pn Atitln adopted the introduced Spanish municipal offices while main-taining their own traditional political structure. In Tecpn Atitln the newsystem functioned smoothly: if not also holding the governorship, a Xajil(nearly) always held one of the alcalde positions, the other going to one ofthe subordinate chinamt. There is no hint of rancor and litigation over theallocation of offices. We can be sure that had there been any, it would havebeen noted in the Chronicles gossipy accounts of disputes in the town.

Why did things go so smoothly in Tecpn Atitln, despite the popu-lations relocation? In the present case, much of the explanation for the

smooth transition is based on the fact that the Spanish fortuitously (andprobably unknowingly) divided the Iximche polity along the lines of its


22/29


23/29


1565 Ma Ajaw D. Martn(Z) D. Francisco Prez (Bakajol)1566 Diego Hernndez Xajil(JI) Alonso Prez (Sibaqijay)1567 D. Pedro de Robles(JI) Pedro Ramrez (Uchabajay)

1568 D. Pedro Sols(JI) Juan Lpez Simaj1569 Gonzalo de Guzmn(DJ) Francisco Hernndez (Bakajol)1570 D. Cristbal Rubio(DJ) Francisco de Paz Matzar1571 D. Jorge de Vera(DJ) Francisco Prez (Bakajol)1572 D. Cristbal Rubio(DJ) Pedro Ramrez (Uchabajay)1573 Diego Hernndez Xajil(JI) Pedro Martn (Qeqakch)1574 D. Ambrosio de Castellanos(DJ) Juan Lpez Simaj1575 Gonzalo de Guzmn(DJ) Pedro Ramrez (Uchabajay)1576 Diego Hernndez Xajil(JI) D. Francisco Prez (Bakajol)

1577 D. Ambrosio de Castellanos(DJ) Juan Lpez Simaj1578 Don Cristbal Rubio(DJ) Juan Prez Lolmay Koraxon1579 D. Bernab de Arana(JI) Gaspar Chululan1580 D. Juan Hernndez(DJ) Pablo Ximnez (Uchabajay)1581 D. Cristbal Rubio(DJ) Pedro Mndez (Bakajol)1582 D. Ambrosio de Castellanos(DJ) Pedro Martn (Qeqakch)1583 Diego Hernndez Xajil(JI) D. Francisco Prez (Bakajol)1584 Pablo Hernndez Pedro Ramrez (Uchabajay)

(Mayordomo de Caja: Diego

Xajil)(JI)1585 D. Ambrosio de Castellanos (DJ) D. Francisco Prez (Bakajol)1586 Diego Hernndez Xajil(JI) Francisco Arana Moxnay1587 Pablo Hernndez Pedro Mndez Aju (Bakajol?)1588 D. Miguel Lpez(Z) Gregorio Manyorca1589 Gonzalo de Guzmn(Z) Francisco Arana1590 D. Jorge de Vera(DJ) Gaspar Chululan1591 D. Bernab de Arana(JI) D. Pedro Mndez (Bakajol)1592 Pakal Francisco Daz D. Pedro Mndez (Bakajol)

1593 D. Juan Corts(DJ) Mateo Garca (Mayordomo deCaja: D. Bernab Xajil)(JI)

1594 D. Miguel Lpez(Z) Pablo Ximnez (Uchabajay)1595 Pakal Francisco Daz D. Pedro Mndez (Bakajol)1596 D. Juan Corts(DJ) D. Pedro Mndez (Bakajol)1597 D. Bernab de Arana(JI) Bernab Sain1598 D. Juan Corts(DJ) D. Pedro Mndez (Bakajol)1599 D. Miguel Lpez(Z) Pablo Ximnez (Uchabajay)1600 Francisco Arana Estban Martn

1601 D. Ambrosio de Castellanos(DJ) D. Pedro Mndez (Bakajol)1602 D. Juan Corts(DJ) Pablo Ximnez (Uchabajay)


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Alguacil(es) Mayor(es)

1584 Juan Lus1585 Juan Kaqrum

1586 Pedro Martn Prez1588 Diego Snchez Jorge de Robles1589 Juan de Guzmn Juan Ajsik Ajaw1590 Pedro Kaqrum Francisco Chokojay1591 Bernardino Qeqakch Juan Carrasco Chuluan1592 Diego Lpez Francisco Lpez1593 Pedro Hernndez Kaqrum Francisco Lpez1594 Francisco Chokoj Martn Chinta1595 Diego Lpez Francisco Lpez

1596 Jernimo de Paz Juan Tzutuj1597 Diego Lpez Cristbal Batzin1598 Diego Maldonado Jernimo de Paz1599 Francisco Oo Francisco Batzin Chokojay1600 Francisco Xitayul Agustn Prez1601 Estban Martn1602 Francisco Chiroy Juan Nimapam

Escribanos

1584 Pablo Ximnez1586 Mateo Garca1589 Mateo Garca1590 Mateo Garca1593 Estban Martn1602 Estban Martn1605 Baltasar Aju

Notes

This study would have been impossible without Judith Maxwells translation workon the Chronicles. Kit Nelson patiently assisted me by repeatedly recomposing thegenealogical charts as my understanding very gradually grew. John K. Chance gra-ciously read an early draft of this article and provided his usual insightful commentsand suggestions.

1 Abandoned shortly after the Spanish invasion, Iximche is now a partiallyrestored archaeological site and Guatemalan national monument (see Nance,Whittington, and Borg 2003).

2 Archivo General de Indias (hereafter AGI), Guatemala 45.

3 AGI, Guatemala 128. 4 Broadly speaking, cacicazgos combining political office and entailed estates


25/29


seem to have been common in much of highland Mexico, where preconquestrulers claimed varying degrees of ownership over their politys land (Lockhart1992; Terraciano 2001; Martnez 1984: 91108). In contrast, there is no evi-dence that the Ajpo Xajil or Ajpo Sotzil of the Iximche polity claimed primaryownership of all of the land their people occupied and worked. Early colonialhighland Maya aristocrats petitioned the Spanish authorities primarily for trib-ute in goods and services from their people, based on traditional privilege. Theydid not claim sole ownership of a chinamts land or make their possession ofland a basis for other claims. Most commonly, claims to land ownership pre-sented to Spanish courts were made by individual chinamt (and, by the eigh-teenth century, towns) as corporate bodies (Hill and Monaghan 1987, Hill 1992:4864). Accordingly, entailed estates or other forms of cacicazgo based on landownership that developed in central and southern Mexico did not developamong the Kaqchikel or closely related Kiche (Carrasco 1967a, b). Indeed,entailed estates associated with political office seem to have been absent amongthe Maya in both the Yucatan and highland Guatemala. Rights to labor andtribute were aristocrats primary concern (for Yucatan, see esp. Quezada 1993).Furthermore, the term caciquedoes not appear in the Xajil Chronicle itself, norwas it used by Spanish officials in the few documents of the period pertainingto Tecpn Atitln. Instead, Spanish officials used the Nahuatl term tlatoque, thehispanized cabeza de calpul, and the Spanishprincipalto refer to the traditionalaristocrats (as opposed to the serving officeholders).

5 The literature is indeed large, including monographic treatments and edited col-lections (Lpez Sarrelangue 1965; Carrasco and Broda 1976; Menegus Borne-mann 1994; Martnez 1984; and Quezada 1993; and the topic is also dealt with

at length in Farriss 1984; Chance 1997; Thompson 1999; Lockhart 1992; andTerraciano 2001). Other relevant contributions are cited in the text. 6 Under Spanish regulations each Indian town was to have two alcaldes as well as

a group of regidores. Alcaldeis often translated into English as mayor, but thisimplies a single individual holding considerable executive authority. The term

justiceormagistrateis probably more appropriate, since alcaldes performed lim-ited administrative and judicial functions.

7 Unfortunately, investigators have not been able to locate many official Spanishdocuments of this period pertaining to Tecpn Atitln or the Xajil family. Theywere either lost at some point in the past or remain among the unclassified docu-ments in Guatemalas Archivo General de Centro Amrica (AGCA). Accordingly,

additional sources that might provide further corroborating details cannot be pre-sented. We might also expect that the family possessed other documents pertain-ing to their status. Compared to other parts of colonial Mesoamerica, particularlyuseful documents could have included either of the following: petitions such asprobanzas de mrito, in which individual aristocrats explained their customaryrights and privileges and through which they sought confirmation by the Spanishregime; and letters of appointment as town governor. One of the earliest examplesof a Maya family with its own archive coming to scholarly attention is the Xiufamily of Yucatan (Roys 1943; Quezada and Harada 2001). Their archive spannedthe length of the colonial period and contained some of the kinds of documentsmentioned above that we might expect to have existed among the Xajil as well.

8 For example, see Robert Haskett 1991; James Lockhart 1992; HildebertoMartnez 1984; and Kevin Terraciano 2001.


26/29


9 See esp. Pedro Carrasco 1961; John Chance and William B. Taylor 1985; FrankCancian 1965; and Robert M. Hill 1992.

10 The Kaqchikel aristocrats reluctance to serve in lesser cabildo posts contrastswith the situation elsewhere in the region. As Terraciano notes for the Mixtecs:The indigenous cabildo was more fluid than its Spanish model. A high numberof minor officials was designed to include the many nobles who customarily par-ticipated in the administration of corporate affairs and to serve as multiple wit-nesses for ceremonies and speeches. Judging by surnames and places of origin,most of the lower-level offices were staffed by lesser nobles. But even constables[alguaciles] and underlings were nobles (2001: 191). Lockhart (1992: 42) paintsa similar picture for the larger and traditionally more complex Nahua polities ofcentral Mexico:

The well-developed Tlaxcalan municipality of the 1550s and 1560s includedprovincial lieutenants (tenientes), urban and rural constables (alguaciles),

city majordomos (mayordomos), an usher (portero), a jailer (alcaide), cus-todians of the tribute house, tribute overseers, and keepers of municipalinns (mesoneros). A large proportion of these functionaries were electors ofTlaxcala, and turns of phrase used in the records give us reason to think thatthey were all noblemen (pipiltin). As many as a dozen are known to haveserved on the cabildo at some time, usually after their service in minor office.

Moreover, as regidores gained experience, connections, and renown, theyadvanced to alcalde, creating a hierarchical ranking of the two offices (39). Someof this contrast may be due to greater numbers of aristocrats in the Mixteca andNahua polities. On the other hand, the Xajil family of the 1550s-1580s alone was

not exactly small: we can document seventeen adult members who lived duringthat thirtyyear period, and sixteen of them served as alcalde on one or moreoccasions. We might assume that the aristocracies of the Bakajol, Qeqakch,and Uchabajay were similarly large, though we lack the necessary genealogicaldata to demonstrate this.

11 AGCA, A3. 16, leg. 2800, exp. 40485.

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1967b El Seoro Tzutujil de Atitln en el siglo XVI. Revista Mxicana de Estu-dios Antropolgicos21: 31733.

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