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Good-bye to the Otomi of Mexico: Our Vanishing Global Ethnicity
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20400 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
3 / 1992 |
2,842 Words |
| Author
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Terry Stocker and Michelle Steward
Terry Stocker is an archaeologist who spent twenty-two years
working in Mexico. Currently he is organizing a foundation to
document ancient Native American cultures on the verge of
extinction. Micelle Steward is a freelance writer with a
background in cultural anthropology. |
The Otomi Indians are the largest ethnic group found in the highlands of Mexico. Their villages dot a region (known to the ancient Aztecs as Teotlalpan) immediately north to Mexico City, they are a people famous for their innovative culture, their production of bark paper, stone implements for grinding, an alcoholic beverage made from local plants, and homes constructed from desert cactus. Few indigenous groups have created so much with so little.
But today, the Otomi language and way of life face extinction. It is the consequences of acculturation and the lures of modernity, not external threats that endanger their culture and technologies. The Otomi have maintained their ethnicity for centuries. Why then are their language and culture about to disappear?
Two Cultures meet
When Christopher Columbus and Hernan Cotes sailed into this hemisphere, they found cultures and customs radically different from those of Europe or Asia. The tribes they encountered did not use the wheel for transportation, nor did they have knowledge of horses, steel, or gunpowder. These critical cultural and technological differences led to a rapid domination of the Indian tribes. The Europeans, in turn, were exposed to a whole new world of manners and cuisine.
For example, spices were one of the market commodities Europeans were seeking, and in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries they found in Mexico vanilla, as well as new food resources including chocolate and tomatoes. As tomatoes could not be transported dried, they had to be taken back to Europe in seeds form for cultivation. Despite their popularity today, tomatoes were disdained in Europe for centuries because their red juices were associated with blood. Imagine French cuisine without tomatoes or chocolate! In fact, the words tomato and chocolate are derived from the Nahutal words tomatl and chocolatl.
Besides material differences, the Europeans found unparalleled ethnic diversity. They encountered over 250 groups in North America, far more than remain today. The majority of the tribes were decimated by disease and warfare. In Mexico, many ethnic groups, like the Otomi, continued to exist well into this century. A primary reason for their continuance is that Mexico has been a Third World country, and thus these groups have-not been exposed to the influences of First World industrial technology. This is no longer true. Many of the poorest of Latin American Indians have a radio that blasts them into
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