Changes in Tzintzuntzan: 1945-79
Tzintzuntzan, highly traditional in 1945, was still basically conservative in 1965; continuity in custom and world view, rather than change, was the striking impression. Although Tzintzuntzan deals extensively with change and innovation during these 20 years, the overall picture is one of a conservative and traditional peasant village that was bewildered by the rapid changes taking place around it—uncertain as to how it too could participate in these changes.
Since 1965, usually accompanied by my wife Mary, I have made annual visits to the village of from one to three months, most recently in March 1979; not infrequently, when the opportunity offered, I have managed an extra short trip or two. Among the many tasks I have assigned myself is the keeping of a formal record of material and physical changes in the village, the taking of a complete census in 1970, and the recording of births, marriages, and deaths. I have also noted examples of the striking changes in the cognitive orientation of many villagers, their growing "openness," their ability to participate in national affairs.
When Mary and I returned to the village in 1958 to renew fieldwork after a lapse of 12 years we were struck by the relative lack of visible signs of major change. We felt that we were able to take up where we had left off; we "knew" the culture, discovering that we still fitted into it comfortably. In contrast, the 13 years from 1966 to 1979 have been a time of almost unbelievable change. Had we not been in the village during these years, and had we returned only in 1979 after a long absence, it is doubtful that we would have "known" the culture in the same way we did in 1958. The signs of economic progress are today everywhere: television sets, propane gas stoves, hi-fi consoles, trucks and automobiles, new schools, new markets, city clothing, comfortable houses, and stores selling a wide variety of consumer articles. Accompanying these material changes has been a striking shift in world view, particularly among the members of the younger generation. No longer are they bound by the psychological shackles of the Limited Good outlook. They recognize opportunity, believe that with hard work they can exploit it, and demonstrate through their collective achievements the accuracy of this perception. Increasingly well-educated, these young people in aspirations and outlook are broadly Mexican and not narrowly Tzintzuntzeńo.
Hand-in-hand with the acceptance of progress, the villagers have clung to many traditional values, often recasting them in new form, thus invigorating a life they have all known well. . . . This is particularly evident in the florescence of the fiesta system in which, almost unique in Mexico, ritual life today is more interesting and more impressive than two decades ago. Social forms—the compadrazgo for example—likewise continue to have great symbolic meaning, and traditional customs are closely adhered to (1979a).
Changes in Tzintzuntzan: 1979-88
Since the second version of Tzintzuntzan was published in 1979, nine years have gone by. During this time, I have made biannual visits to the village for periods from ten days to one month. In addition, Dona Micaela González (in whose home my wife, Mary, and I live when in Tzintzuntzan), her daughters Dolores and Virginia Pichu, and the school teacher María Flores, have thrice visited us in our Berkeley home. These contacts have enabled me to continue general ethnographic research, particularly in the area of ethnomedicine, to monitor basic patterns of change and modernization, to note the effects of Mexican currency devaluation and monetary inflation, to copy parish and municipal vital statistic records and, with Robert Kemper and Stanley Brandes, to take a 100 percent census in February, 1980—the third since 1945.
The pattern of progress and modernization described in the 1979a Epilogue continues, but it has slowed slightly in recent years because of la crisis, the economic depression that has afflicted Mexico since the early 1980s. . . . In the new Afterward, I have dealt especially with these two phenomena: first, the remarkable economic and cultural development of the village in recent years, as well as extending back to 1945; and second, the consequences of these recent national economic problems as they affect village life. These seem to me to be the most important events of recent years (1988).
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