 | Introduction/Home Page by Ira Jacknis |
| Introduction to Tzintzuntzan by the Anthropologist George Foster/ Map of Tzintzuntzan/ The First Fieldwork: 194446 |
| Mariano Cornelio, a Tarascan fisherman/farmer, in his boat |
| Vicente Rendon and his compadre Salvador Villagomes harvesting maize |
| Vicente Rendón on the way to market with pottery |
| Family at the grave on All Saints’ Day |
| Jesús Peña making candles |
| Tarascan masked dancers, "owner" and "watcher", at the Octava of Corpus Christi |
| Highway victim |
| Changes in Tzintzuntzan: 194579 and 1979-88 |
| View towards the northwest side of Lake Pátzcuaro |
| Yácatas, reconstructed ruins on the east edge of the village |
| Doña Micaela González, in her small patio |
| Melecio Hernández, husband of Micaela González, making an ox yoke |
| Micaela González’s house; in front are her daughter Virginia Pichu, and William Iler, a UC Berkeley graduate student |
| The new second floor on Micaela González’s house; Mary Foster on the balcony |
| Dolores (Lola) Pichu and her younger sister Virginia Pichu, daughters of Micaela González and her first husband, Pedro Pichu |
| Pachita Villagómez and her husband Faustino Peña |
| Doña Andrea Medina, her daughter-in-law Pachita Villagómez, and her granddaughter Lucía |
| Lupe Calderon and Eustolio Campos coming out of the parish church after their wedding |
| Florentina Dominga, a Tarascan woman, with a midwife’s offering |
| La Soledad chapel |
| The arrival of fireworks (La Obra) at La Parroquia, the Parish church |
| Death dancer, Salvador Maturino |
| Red devil dancer |
| Female attendants of the king and queen figures, Rosa Lara |
| Group of spies entering the house of Ambrosio Zaldívar, to pay homage to the district saint (barrio santo) and to be fed; Holy Wednesday |
| A spy; Holy Wednesday |
| A penitente, with his assistant (cirineo); Good Friday |
| Fish dancer and net in the procession of trades; Corpus Christi |
| Little Old Man Dance (Los Viejitos) |
| House façade decorated for a posada procession; before breaking the piñatas; Christmas season |
| Tarascan women making tortillas by hand, cooked on a wood fire |
| Lola Pichu making tortillas in a press, inside her present old-style kitchen |
| Amalia Felices making pots, by joining two mold-made halves and smoothing the inside |
| Doña Andrea Medina at the kiln in her yard |
| Otilia Zavala, wife of Wenceslado Peña, glazing pottery |
| Pachita Villagómez painting a fish design on a large platter, before glazing |
| Salvador Cuirís and his pottery delivery truck |
| Pottery sellers in the church atrium; Fiesta of Nuestro Señor del Rescate |
| The store, "La Central," and the plaza on the main highway, looking south |
| Lola Pichu inside her family’s store; Christmas |
 | Changes in Tzintzuntzan: 19882000 |
| George Foster Biography |
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Changes in Tzintzuntzan: 1988-2000
Two themes must be emphasized at this point: changes in the village itself, and changes in the data collecting process. The problem of "passing the mantle," i.e., including younger anthropologists in long-term studies and their assumption of major responsibility for the project, has drawn increasing attention among social anthropologists. Events in Tzintzuntzan well illustrate this process. Although I have made about 25 trips to Tzintzuntzan since l988, my role as a serious researcher has diminished greatly. Two former students, Robert ("Van") Kemper and Stanley Brandes, have taken on the role of principal investigators. Although I participated actively in gathering of data for the l990 census, Kemper did the basic analysis. In 2000, he assumed total responsibility, not only for the village and its outlying settlements but also for the migrant population. In addition he has taken responsibility for making available our demographic data to scholars in that field. Brandes, meanwhile, became interested in the ritual life of the villagers, and published a major monograph on the subject in l988. Currently he is writing about Alcoholics Anonymous in Mexico, including Tzintzuntzan. Meanwhile, Scott Anderson, M.D., while a student in the joint UCB-UCSF Medical Anthropology program, completed a doctoral dissertation on chronic diseases of old age, particularly arthritis; and Peter Cahn, a doctoral candidate at UC Berkeley, has just completed a year-long stay in the village gathering data on the inroads of evangelical Protestantism. I am delighted to "pass the mantle" of responsibility, as well as my field notes and photographs, to scholar-friends like these. They will be in good hands.
Mary and I returned from a week in the village on July 4, 2000. This was our first visit since June, 1999, when we observed the Corpus Christi ritual. Almost certainly it will prove to be our final trip: age and accompanying infirmities make it difficult to travel. Moreover, Doņa Micaela González, the wonderful woman in whose home we have lived on all of our visits since 1959, died less than 12 hours after we left the village. The thought of Tzintzuntzan without her presence depresses us greatly. In her 95th year, she had had a remarkable life, living through more dramatic changes than anyone we know. From sleeping on a reed mat on the floor of a one-room hovel to her present home, with automatic hot water in kitchen and bath room, with a flush toilet and sewer to remove waste water, with a parabolic TV antenna that brings more channels to her home than Mary and I (with cable) enjoy in Berkeley, with automatic long-distance telephone, and with a Ford V-8 pickup truck her elder daughter, Lola, drives-the mind boggles at the thought of how a person successfully ingests such changes-as she certainly did. She and her daughters made six trips by airplane to the U.S., staying with my sister Janet in Washington, D.C., my son Jeremy and his wife Angela in Basalt, Colorado, and my brother Gene and his wife Joan in San Diego. All of these people, including many of their children, have enjoyed Micaela's hospitality in the village. In addition, Micaela and her daughters have been guests of the Kempers in Dallas on several occasions, and they have traveled with them in a van through a good deal of the U.S. Southwest.
The changes in Tzintzuntzan noted in earlier accounts have continued, rapidly transforming the physical appearance of the village as well as the life style of its people. According to our year 2000 census there are 3,610 people who call Tzintzuntzan home. While this appears to be a modest increase from the 3,349 recorded in l990, it is in fact a remarkable figure in view of the massive emigration that has taken nearly 2,000 people to major Mexican cities as well as the United States. Twelve years ago I predicted that the population of Tzintzuntzan would not rise above 3,000. Two years later our l990 census proved me wrong. Yet without the remittances from emigrants-especially those living in the U.S.-the village would be unable to support its present population.
I am often asked the question, "Are the villagers better off today than when you first visited Michoacán?" The answer is a resounding YES, INDEED. On a material level the changes for the better are easily documented. In 1945 14% of homes had a flickering electric light bulb; today more than 95% have reliable electric power. In 1945 perhaps 2% of families had radios; today they are ubiquitous. Television first appears in the census of l970, while today nearly everyone has a set. The same with gas stoves: 2 in l960, and more than 500 today. In 1960 there was one battered pickup truck in town; today there are about 150 trucks, pickups, and sedans, including more than 60 taxicabs!
While less easy to document, the non-material changes are even more striking. The "Image of Limited Good," the model I drew up 40 years ago to explain the villagers' apparent reluctance to take advantage of new opportunities, has gone the way of the dodo bird. While I see traces in the behavior of some of my age mates, Limited Good is no longer a brake on progress. Children by the score expect to attend universities and other institutions of higher learning, and the production of medical doctors, nurses, engineers, agronomists, veterinarians, school teachers, and computer specialists continually astonishes me. Until about 1970 I described Tzintzuntzeņos as peasants. But what does the term mean when young men regularly travel to Alaska to spend six months on fishing trawlers, returning to the village with as much as US $20,000? Here, as elsewhere in the world, "peasant" increasingly resembles the word "feudal," a term used by historians to describe a style of life of the past, but characterizing no contemporary community. Tzintzuntzeņos are perhaps best described as Mexicans who live, geographically, farther from Mexico City's central plaza than do their fellow countrymen who live and work in the capital city.
George Foster
Professor Emeritus of Anthropology
UC Berkeley
For more information on George Foster's publications visit: http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Anthro/foster/pub/fo40.html
For more information on George Foster and his research visit: http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Anthro/foster/index.html
Visit the The George and Mary Foster Anthropology Library
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/ANTH/
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