MESO-AMERICAN INDIAN

Distribution of Meso-American Indians. member of any of the aboriginal peoples inhabiting Mexico and Central America (roughly between latitudes 14 N and 22 N). Meso-American Indian cultures had a common origin in the pre-Hispanic civilizations of the area. Most Meso-American peoples belong to one of three linguistic groups: the Macro-Mayan (or Mayan), the Oto-Manguean, or the Uto-Aztecan. Macro-Mayan peoples, with the exception of a northeastern enclave, the Huastecs, live at the southeastern extremity of Meso-America. Oto-Mangueans are to be found in a wide area of Meso-America between Uto-Aztecan peoples to the north and east and Mayan and other peoples to the south. Oto-Manguean languages (now extinct) were spoken south of the Mayan area along the Pacific coasts of El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua; and one Oto-Manguean language, North Pame, spoken in the central desert of highland Mexico, is outside Meso-America to the north. The main branches of the Oto-Manguean family are Oto-Pamean, Amuzgoan, Popolocan, Chinantecan, Mixtecan, Zapotecan, Manguean, and perhaps Huave and Tlapanec. The Tlapanec and Chontal languages of Oaxaca, spoken on the Pacific coast of Mexico, are held by some scholars to be related to the Hokan Coahuiltecan (sometimes termed the Hokaltecan) languages farther north. As a result of the expansion of the Aztec Empire centred in the valley of Mexico, Uto-Aztecan enclaves are found throughout the area. Tarascan, a language the filiation of which is still in doubt, is spoken in the highlands of Michoacn, Mexico. (See also Meso-American Indian languages.) Additional reading Ethnographic materials include Ralph L. Beals, Ethnology of the Western Mixe (1945, reprinted 1973); George M. Foster, Empire's Children: The People of Tzintzuntzan (1948, reprinted 1973); Robert Redfield, A Village That Chose Progress: Chan Kom Revisited (1950, reissued 1970); Oscar Lewis, Life in a Mexican Village: Tepoztln Restudied (1951, reissued 1963); William Madsen, The Virgin's Children: Life in an Aztec Village Today (1960); Evon Z. Vogt, Zinacantn: A Maya Community in the Highlands of Chiapas (1969); Phillip Baer and William R. Merrifield, Two Studies on the Lacandones of Mexico (1971); Robert Wasserstrom, Class and Society in Central Chiapas (1983), on the Zinacantn and Chamula; Walter F. Morris, Jr., and Jeffrey J. Foxx, Living Maya (1987), also on modern peoples in Chiapas; Robert M. Carmack (ed.), Harvest of Violence: The Maya Indians and the Guatemalan Crisis (1988), on the effect of violence on the indigenous peoples; Carol A. Smith and Marilyn M. Moors (eds.), Guatemalan Indians and the State, 1540 to 1988 (1990); Macduff Everton, The Modern Maya: A Culture in Transition (1991), a heavily illustrated essay on the Maya of the Yucatn Peninsula; Richard R. Wilk, Household Ecology: Economic Change and Domestic Life Among the Kekchi Maya in Belize (1991); and W. George Lovell, Conquest and Survival in Colonial Guatemala: A Historical Geography of the Cuchumatn Highlands, 15001821, rev. ed. (1992). The Editors of the Encyclopdia Britannica