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Copyright of SWS - Rundschau is the property of Verein fur interdisziplinare sozialwissenschaftliche Studien und Analysen and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Debt is one of the oldest and most widespread social arrangements that humans use to manage hardship--and it has also been one of the riskiest. David Graeber convincingly makes this case in his recent study of debt over the last five thousand years, but his focus on the Old World leaves open the question of whether similar contradictions emerged among the markets, cities, and states of the Americas. This article uses sixteenth-century documents to reconstruct the practices, institutions, and morality of debt in Nahua society during the Aztec Empire (AD 1428-1521) and show how debt was a double-edged risk in the Aztec economy. Debt played a constructive role, helping some households through hard times and carrying little of the negative moral valence commonly associated with it. However, debts could create new vulnerabilities when secured by selling family members into slavery. Exploitative debt, however, may have only become a problem during economic and environmental crises that made the risks of debt seem less than the risks of other ways to deal with hardship. Without careful attention to cultural context and historical circumstances, generalizations about debt's exploitative aspects are limited in their ability to explain debt's global extent and historical persistence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent work in the history of science has questioned the Eurocentric nature of the field and sought to include a more global approach that would serve to displace center–periphery models in favor of approaches that take seriously local knowledge production. Historians of Iberian colonial science have taken up this approach, which involves reliance on indigenous knowledge traditions of the Americas. These traditions present a number of challenges to modern researchers, including availability and reliability of source material, issues of translation and identification, and lack of systematization. This essay explores the challenges that emerged in the author’s attempt to compile a pre-contact Nahua pharmacopeia, the reasons for these challenges, and the ways they may – or may not – be overcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies four perspectives of nakedness. First of all, nakedness as a manifestation of shamelessness and as a sexual transgression. This enables us to move forward in the understanding of the conception of body among the ancient Nahua. Secondly, it is examined as humiliation, punishment and mockery of the person. The lack of clothing is not just a sign of degradation, it also implies a depersonalization. Thirdly, the subject of the intimidating naked body is discussed. For the most part, we focus our attention on the exposure of the female sexual organs. Men are afraid of beautiful and seductive women because the latter can kill the ingenuous who desire them and wish to possess them. Lastly, nakedness is expounded as part of ritual event. In this case, the lack of clothing is a necessary step for transitioning into another status. Nakedness is conceived of as a new birth, an origin, something new. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on ethnographic data collected from 1993 to date, I seek to demonstrate that contemporary Nahua develop certain aspects of their lives in the context of an economy of gifts. Nahua reciprocity expresses this in the basic economic form of "aid", called quipalehuiya locally. I argue that this "aid", given as goods or services, is reciprocated through social networks and provides a foundation for the model of interdependence that completely links this population with its social and ecological environment.

Resumen: La historia de México registra entre sus varios protagonistas a personajes célebres por los hechos gloriosos o vergonzosos en que participaron. Mi intención en este artículo es mostrar a través del trabajo de Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, lo que parece incuestionable: la función del traductor en la construcción de la historia, la identidad y la cultura de un pueblo. En el caso que tratamos aquí se trata de la trascendencia que la obra de Sahagún ha tenido para un mejor conocimiento de la cultura nahua. Palabras clave: México, Sahagún, historia, identidad, cultura, nahua, traductor. THE SILENCE OF THE TRANSLATOR Abstract: The history of Mexico has among its various protagonists celebrities on account of either the glorious or the shameful events in which they got involved. My intention in this article is to show by means of the work of Fray Bernardino de Sahagun, a fact that seems certain: the role of the translator in the construction of the history, the identity, and the culture of a people. In the case discussed here we shall be dealing with the importance that Sahagun's work has had for a better understanding of the Nahua culture. Keywords: Mexico, Sahagún, history, identity, culture, Nahua, translator. LE SILENCE DU TRADUCTEUR Résumé : L'histoire du Mexique compte parmi ses célébrités différents protagonistes, en raison de leur participation soit dans des événements glorieux ou bien honteux. Mon intention dans cet article est de montrer par le biais de l'œuvre de Fray Bernardino de Sahagun, ce qui paraît certaine: le rôle du traducteur dans la construction de l'histoire, l'identité et la culture d'un peuple. Dans le cas évoqué ici, nous serons centrés sur l'importance du travail de Sahagun pour une meilleure compréhension de la culture nahua. Mots-clés : Mexique, Sahagún, histoire, identité, culture, Nahuas, traducteur.

This paper presents an analysis of the ability of the Nahua tícitl (Pre-Hispanic Medics) regarding diagnosis and treatment in the Postclassic period. The tícitl related their medical theory with magical elements, probably leading to the practice of empirical and cosmogonic medicine. This study allowed us to clarify that the various medical specialties reflect the art of healing of the tícitl, as well as the progress in the development of medicine, which is why the tícitl occupies an important role in Nahuatl society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Autrepart is the property of Presses de Sciences Po and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This essay sheds light on the often contentious and always-in-process social relations among indigenous peoples of distinct social classes in colonial Mexico. Through a discourse analysis of one of Tlaxcala's most important heritage sources, the Nahuatl-language annals of seventeenth-century Tlaxcalan noble and statesman Don Juan Buenaventura Zapata y Mendoza (Historia cronológica d e la noble ciudad de Tlaxcala), I examine the subjective and objective factors that challenged Tlaxcalan noble claims to political authority, and provided the means by which indigenous commoners could advocate for themselves during the seventeenth century. A discourse analysis of this source demonstrates that tax and tribute issues as well as mestizo and/or non-indigenous interests disrupted noble hegemony. Equally, commoner recourse to the Spanish legal system and their denial of material items and labor to the nobles were mechanisms to register dissatisfaction and potentially affect change. In this way, this study advances how we understand inter-indigenous relationships of the colonial period, particularly how indigenous nobles and commoners negotiated their inherently intertwined social, political, and economic lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article will explore how Pipil writing compares to better-known Central Mexican pictorial manuscripts. The sole evidence for preconquest writing in this region was presented in the seventeenth century by Don Francisco Antonio de Fuentes y Guzmán through his drawings and descriptions in the chronicle Recordación Florida. In the process of re- presentation, these remnants underwent alterations due to clerical errors, interpretive errors, and errors arising from a mixing or blending of texts. The manuscript of Recordación Florida contains images that were never published, erasures, and marginalia. Three writing genres are identifiable, and the content of these writings has an unusual emphasis on ways to represent money and counts of commodities, particularly cacao. The Pipil demonstrated their independence from the Mixtec and Aztec empires through writing by using a distinctive style to record sovereign political and financial affairs, an example of the Mesoamerican emphasis on authority--the ability to inscribe and draw upon and mobilize relevance and meaning--as the foundation for creating and maintaining a lettered polity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the strategies employed by Nahua community of Mexixo to deal with health problems. Drawing on qualitative research, it discusses the choice of plural therapeutic itineraries, including the use of informal and formal healthcare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a study conducted on varous developments in medical practices and knowledge in Nauha, Mexico. Topics discussed include the dialogue established between national health institutions and the population of various disadvantaged areas of Mexico; incorporation of biomedical tradition into new diagnostic and therapeutic strategies of Mexico; and the use of biomedicine for the treatment of infectious diseases and preventing epidemics.

This paper discusses beliefs associated with human spiritual elements (often called "souls") held by the indigenous Nahua from Sierra Zongolica, Mexico. Spiritual elements, such as tonalli, nawalli, and yolotl form part of a complex of correlated and often overlapping concepts. Such semantic intricacy related to the notion of a spiritual element is not just a local peculiarity of Sierra Zongolica. It appears in ethnographic data concerning other Nahuatl speaking areas, as well as in early colonial sources. Therefore, the case of Nahua beliefs constitutes a challenge to monosemantic, unambiguous definitions of Mesoamerican indigenous concepts of human spiritual elements, as presented by many anthropologists and ethnohistorians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the start of the Spanish conquest of the Americas, a significant number of Amerindian voices can be found in chronicles and administrative texts. By 1560, the first American towns had already been founded. Colonial texts are thus sources for researching the presence of native voices in local or general use in America. As a result of an examination of these texts, I present the criteria used to creating a lexicon, as well as a qualitative/quantitative analysis of the causes which provoked the appearance of Indigenous Americanisms in different American areas; their relationship with commercial activities; and their preference for Caribbean voices. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this study we analyzed the founding mitochondrial DNA (mtdna) haplogroups A, B, C and D in 108 contemporary Mazahua individuals and 73 Otomi from Estado de Mexico to understand the genetic relationship between these populations, and with other ancient and contemporary Mexican populations. The Mazahua and Otomi inhabit the same localities in Estado de Mexico, speak languages that belong to the Oto-Manguean linguistic family and show cultural and historic similarities. Our results showed that haplogroup B is the most frequent in Mazahua whereas haplogroup A is highest among the Otomi. Haplogroup C exhibit similar frequencies. Otomi population exhibits a low frequency of haplogroup D and includes individuals that do not belong to any of the four mtdna haplogroups, whereas all Mazahua individuals in our study belong to one of the four mtdna lineages studied. The Mazahua and Otomi populations from Mexico State are statistically different according the results of the chi square test (p ⩽ 0.05). The principal component analysis using the frequencies of four mtdna haplogroups suggests that Mazahua and Otomi had little or no maternal genetic flow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on ethnographic data collected from 1993 to date, I seek to demonstrate that contemporary Nahua develop certain aspects of their lives in the context of an economy of gifts. Nahua reciprocity expresses this in the basic economic form of "aid", called quipalehuiya locally. I argue that this "aid", given as goods or services, is reciprocated through social networks and provides a foundation for the model of interdependence that completely links this population with its social and ecological environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arthropods, since prehispanic times, was been of great importance among the Mesoamerican peoples, both because of its biological characteristics and its cultural impact. Indigenous groups have generated a deep and systematic knowledge about the different arthropods that are distributed in our country, which is reflected in the use of these organisms for feeding and medicinal use, mainly. There are only a few studies of zootherapy on prehispanic and colonial sources, but this documents represents a vast body of ancient and traditional knowledge about nature, so it is necessary to carry out scientific studies about these muniment in order to understand the knowledge and use of resources involved in the processes of health and disease among people Nahua prehispanic and contemporary. This work aims to identify the arthropods as medicinal resource that are reported in the Florentine Codex, Libellus of Medicinalibus Indorum Herbis and Historia Natural de Nueva España. Such works were consulted and were extracted his texts in spanish which mentions the arthropods useful in Nahua medicine; biological works were reviewed and listed on such taxonomic sources. Eleven arthropods were reported in this study, belonging to fourteen taxonomic orders, to cure 35 diseases. Despite the scant mention of this faunal group in these sources, it is important to record the different uses of these organisms that were part of the biocultural heritage of the Nahua people. It is essential to realize further studies and comparisons between more sources, as this will allow to understand some of the current uses that are still being given to animals in mexican traditional medicine, particularly with arthropods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The chronicles of the Indies, which were written in Spanish during the XVI and XVII centuries, incorporate a large number of indigenous loan-words. These expressions primarily represent Taino, Nahua and Quechua contributions. Previous studies of non-literary texts have demonstrated the characteristics of these indigenous-language contributions, which we attempt to corroborate or modify with a corpus of 24 chronicles written between 1492 and 1648. By noting the indigenous expressions within these chronicles through a bibliographic search, we reached the following conclusions: Taino terms are present in all of the chronicles, whereas similar percentages of Nahua and Quechua terms are used in the chronicle texts. There are differences between the number of expressions and the chroniclers' usage of them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, two unique ecotourism projects in the Sierra of Manantlán Biosphere Reserve in west central Mexico are analyzed in terms of the economic and ideological discourses they reflect. In this region, ecotourism is promoted as (1) a sustainable development platform that is purportedly (2) different from traditional tourism in terms of the socioeconomic and environmental impacts. Economic programs and initiatives with explicit goals of sustainable development and conservation can directly influence local productions of value of forest resources and ethnicity. Weber's ideas on formal and substantive rationalizations are used as points on a continuum, and taken together with Kapp's Theory of Social Costs, the economic and ideological values of ecotourism projects can be compared and analyzed. Using anthropological methods, the two examples illustrate distinct types of ecotourism projects found within a single biosphere reserve. The discourse of ecotourism and integration into global markets through ecotourism are shown to be iterative processes. Production of value in conservation and sustainable development projects is situational; no universal model of value or rationality accounts for the two ecotourism projects presented. Ecotourism schemas should not be viewed as strictly modes for conservation because of the complex social strategies that they embody. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conditions for the circulation of persons between Mexico and the United States have changed drastically in the last decade. The ways people return must be analyzed taking into consideration the specificity of the regions involved. The dynamic of departure and return in the so-called "historic" region of migration to the United States is conceived of in this article as an "ideal type," useful for comparing other experiences in areas where recent, comparatively late migratory flows accelerated in the 1990s. This article analyzes the return from North Carolina of indigenous and mestiza women to the municipality of Pahuatlán, Puebla. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Nahua villages of the region of the High Mountains (in the centre of the state of Veracruz), a form of customary Catholicism and a scheme of social organisation which integrated the civic and the religious in a single symbolic universe predominated until the 1980s. If one could then already observe the presence of certain evangelical churches in some districts, the phenomenon of religious differentiation became increasingly visible in the 1990s in a context of crisis in relation to land, increasing social asymmetry and an intensification of transnational migrant fluxes. Based on a case study, this article illustrates the expansion of evangelical organisations, in particular Pentecostal ones, within the context of a redefinition of interethnic dynamics. The aim is to analyse the capacity of these organisations to provide new paths to autonomy and dissidence in the face of traditional cultural and political structures, and to show how they took part in the production of new forms of socialisation that promoted access to exogenous networks and a redefinition of one's relation to the ethnic space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Papeles de Población is the property of Universidad Autonoma del Estado de Mexico and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article focuses on the conceptualization of time and space in an early 16th century Título Primordial (in English, Primitive Land Title) from the town of Santo Tomás Ajusco (Tlalpan, Mexico). The author discusses the cultural history of the Nahua Indians and considers the settlement history of the Axoxpaneca Indians in the 15th century. He also reflects on the importance of these land title documents for understanding the prehispanic world-view and its interaction with Spanish colonial authorities in the 16th century.

Corn is of central meaning for Nahuat-speaking people of Sierra Norte, Puebla, Mexico. It is an integral part of personhood und closely related to ideals of harmony, of (gender) cooperation and (hierarchical gender) complementarity. The article explores the relation of disturbed male harmony, resulting from missing opportunities, to adequate corn production in the context of globalization. This may lead to increased illegitimate gendered violence by men. Besides, it will also be demonstrated how new forms of cooperation and complementarity between husband and wife are developed and may contribute to less hierarchical and less violent gender relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the use of medicinal plants by Nahua women in the state of Veracruz, Mexico. It documents the women's plant knowledge for reproductive purposes, which includes uses such as conception, pregnancy, birth, contraception, menstruation, post-partum, and general reproductive health. The concept of equilibrium is very important in regaining health among the Nahua; consequently, many of the medicinal plants have this as their primary purpose. The introduction of biomedical clinics and hospitals in the region has had a significant effect on the loss of knowledge about medicinal plants. Additionally, the midwives are not taking any new apprentices and laywomen are not passing on their knowledge to future generations. This generational gap contributes to the loss of knowledge about medicinal plants. This research contributes to the study of indigenous ethnobotany by (a) creating a record of the plant knowledge possessed by indigenous women, (b) giving voice to some of their health concerns, (c) indicating how the introduction of biomedicine has affected their plant use, and (d) providing a framework for understanding how marginal peoples around the world respond to the impact that globalization and change has on their health needs and local ethnobotanical knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this descriptive study we investigated the genetic structure of 513 Mexican indigenous subjects grouped in 14 populations (Mixteca-Alta, Mixteca-Baja, Otomi, Purépecha, Tzeltal, Tarahumara, Huichol, Nahua-Atocpan, Nahua-Xochimilco, Nahua-Zitlala, Nahua-Chilacachapa, Nahua-Ixhuatlancillo, Nahua-Necoxtla, and Nahua-Coyolillo) based on mtDNA haplogroups. These communities are geographically and culturally isolated; parents and grandparents were born in the community. Our data show that 98.6% of the mtDNA was distributed in haplogroups A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2, D1, and D2. Haplotype X6 was present in the Tarahumara (1/53) and Huichol (3/15), and haplotype L was present in the Nahua-Coyolillo (3/38). The first two principal components accounted for 95.9% of the total variation in the sample. The mtDNA haplogroup frequencies in the Purépecha and Zitlala were intermediate to cluster 1 (Otomi, Nahua-Ixhuatlancillo, Nahua-Xochimilco, Mixteca-Baja, and Tzeltal) and cluster 2 (Nahua-Necoxtla, Nahua-Atocpan, and Nahua-Chilacachapa). The Huichol, Tarahumara, Mixteca-Alta, and Nahua-Coyolillo were separated from the rest of the populations. According to these findings, the distribution of mtDNA haplogroups found in Mexican indigenous groups is similar to other Amerindian haplogroups, except for the African haplogroup found in one population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A Nahua Aztec isolated group from Morelos State (Mexico) was studied for their HLA profile. The relationship with other Amerindians and worldwide populations was studied by using 13,818 chromosomes and calculating Nei''s chord genetic distances (DA), neighbor-joining dendrograms and correspondence multidimensional values. Three new HLA extended haplotypes were found in our group: A*30–B*49–DRB1*1001–DQB1*0501 (the most frequent one in this population), A*02–B*52–DRB1*1402–DQB1*0301 and A*68–B*61–DRB1*1602–DQB1*0303. Both genetic distances and correspondence analyses clearly show that our Nahua isolated group is genetically close to some of the most ancient groups living in Mexico (Mayans, Zapotecans, Mixtecans). This suggests that Nahua language (Nahuatl) may have been imposed to scattered groups throughout Mexico; otherwise Aztecs may have been living in Mexico long before their postulated immigration in the XII century AD. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Huastecos or Teenek Amerindians are presently living at North East Mexico (San Luis Potosi State). They have probably one of the most ancient culture of Mexico and Central America together with Mayas and Olmec groups with which also show close relationships. Proximity to Atlantic Ocean/Mexican Gulf originated that Spaniards had very early contact with them at about 1519 CE or before. In the present paper we have aimed to study HLA gene profile which may be useful for HLA and disease epidemiology and transplant programs in Teeneks. HLA-DRB1*04:07, -DRB1*14:06 and -DRB1*04:11 have been found in high frequency like in other Amerindian groups. High frequency typical Amerindians HLA extended haplotypes have been found, such as A*02-B*35-DRB1*04:07-DQB1*03:02; A*68-B*39-DRB1*04:07-DQB1*03:02 and A*02-B*39-DRB1*04:07-DQB1*03:02; also new haplotypes have been described, like A*02-B*52-DRB1*04:11-DQB1*03:02, A*68-B*35-DRB1*14:02-DQB1*03:01 and A*68-B*40-DRB1*16:02-DQB1*03:01. Genetic proximity is observed not only to linguistically close Mayans, but also to Mazatecans, Mixtecans and Zapotecans, who speak an altogether different languages; it shows once more that genes and languages do not correlate. This population was greatly diminished after European contact between 1500 and 1600 years CE; in fact, North and South America First Inhabitants population was brought from 80 down to 8 million people because of diseases (i.e.: measles, smallpox or influenza), slavery and war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]