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Popular Speech and Social Order in Northern Mexico, 1650–1830

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Cheryl English Martin
Cheryl English Martin
Affiliation:
University of Texas, El Paso
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Extract

In recent years historians of Europe and North America have discovered the importance of the spoken word in past times and have explored the ways in which language reflects particular social contexts. Retrieving fragments of popular speech from police reports, court records, and other sources, these scholars have sketched colorful vignettes which reenact such mundane activities of daily life as a game of cards or an argument over a stray calf. Their work has shown that seemingly trivial face-to-face encounters offer valuable clues for understanding social hierarchies and community values of a given time and place. Abstract relationships of class, gender, and social rank take concrete form in the routine conversations of men and women in streets, taverns, and markets, as “ordinary” people tell us about the societies in which they lived—sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly, but always in their own words. The historian of popular speech moreover recognizes that the social order, far from being static, remains subject to continuous modification not only by the powerful but also by those in subordinate positions, whose words and gestures may either reinforce or undermine accepted standards of behavior and social precedence.

Type
Power and Popular Culture
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , April 1990 , pp. 305 - 324
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1990

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References

1 Representative examples of this new scholarship include Moogk, Peter N., “‘Thieving Buggers’ and ‘Stupid Sluts’: Insults and Popular Culture in New France,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d series, 36:4 (10 1979), 524–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Norton, Mary Beth, “Gender and Defamation in Seventeenth-Century Maryland,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d series, 44:1 (01 1987), 3–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Garrioch, David, “Verbal Insults in Eighteenth-Century Paris,” in The Social History of Language, Burke, Peter and Porter, Roy, eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 104–19Google Scholar; Garrioch, David, Neighbourhood and Community in Paris, 1740–1790 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), especially 16–55Google Scholar; George, Robert St., ‘“Heated Speech’ and Literacy in Seventeenth-Century New England,” in Seventeenth-Century New England, Hall, David D. and Allen, David Grayson, eds. (Boston: Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 1984), 275–322Google Scholar; Sharpe, J. A., Defamation and Sexual Slander in Early Modern England: The Church Courts of York (York: Borthwick Institute of Historical Research, 1980)Google Scholar; Ruggiero, Guido, Violence in Early Renaissance Venice (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1980), 125–37Google Scholar; Burke, Peter, “Introduction,” in Burke and Porter, The Social History of Language, 1–20.Google Scholar

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5 For a concise and up-to-date summary of this literature, see Rodney Anderson's opening remarks in his article, “Race and Social Stratification: A Comparison of Working-Class Spaniards, Indians, and Castas in Guadalajara, Mexico in 1821,” Hispanic American Historical Review, 68:2 (05 1988), 209–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Kicza, John E., “The Social and Ethnic Historiography of Colonial Latin America: The Last Twenty Years,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d series, 45:3 (07 1988), 453–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Although studies of colonial náhuatl have revealed significant new insights on the adaptation of colonial Indians to Spanish rule, these works have concentrated on analyzing the written language, as expressed in wills, town council records, and other sources, rather than the spoken word. See, for example, Anderson, Arthur J. O., Berdan, Frances and Lockhart, James, eds., Beyond the Codices: The Nahua View of Colonial Mexico (Los Angeles: Latin American Center, University of California at Los Angeles, 1976)Google Scholar; Kartunen, Frances and Lockhart, James, Náhuatl in the Middle Years: Language Contact Phenomena in Texts of the Colonial Period (Berkeley, 1976)Google Scholar; Anderson, Arthur J. O., Frances Berdan, and James Lockhart, The Tlaxcalan Actas: A Compendium of the Records of the Cabildo of Tlaxcala (1545–1627) (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1986).Google Scholar

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8 Chihuahua and Parral are located approximately 225 and 340 miles south of El Paso, Texas, respectively.

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13 See, for example, Archivo del Ayuntamiento de Chihuahua, microfilm copy at the University of Texas at El Paso Library [hereinafter cited as AACh, UTEP #491], 105–25. Note: there is no guide to the microfilmed collections of the Chihuahua archives, other than a rough index compiled by the author. “Expediente” numbers have been assigned to the documents according to the order in which they appear on each reel. On some occasions, several contiguous but unrelated loose documents have been grouped into a single “expediente.” Citations in this article give first the reel number, followed by a hyphen and then the “expediente” number.

14 West, Robert C., The Mining Community in Northern New Spain: The Parral Mining District (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1947)Google Scholar; Swann, Michael M., Tierra Adentro: Settlement and Society in Colonial Durango (Boulder: Westview Press, 1982), 15–31Google Scholar; Jones, Oakah, Los Paisanos: Spanish Settlers on the Northern Frontier of New Spain (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1979), 85–86Google Scholar; Jones, Oakah, Nueva Vizcaya: Heartland of the Spanish Frontier (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1988).Google Scholar

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16 Archivo Municipal de Parral, microfilm copy (hereinafter cited as AMP), reel 1788a, frame 167; McCaa, Robert, “Calidad, Clase, and Marriage in Colonial Mexico: The Case of Parral, 1788–1790,” Hispanic American Historical Review, 64:3 (08 1984), 477–502.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 Archivo del Ayuntamiento de Chihuahua, Second Supplement, microfilm copy at the University of Texas at El Paso Library thereinafter cited as AACh, UTEP #502, 7–28; AACh, UTEP #491, 83–8; 113–31.

18 Archivo del Ayuntamiento de Chihuahua, First Supplement [hereinafter cited as AACh, UTEP #501], 4–23.

19 AACh, UTEP #49I, 20–7, 32–38, 40–10, 68–19, 78–7; 79–11; 93–8; 113–14; 113–17; AACh, UTEP #501, 4–38; 5–36; 6–13; 6–22; AACh, UTEP #502, 8–6; AMP, reel 1775, frame 708; reel 1716b, frame 1315; reel 1672b, frame 1262; reel 1674d, frame 2042.

20 AACH, UTEP #491, 10–12, 21–12, 33–6, 51–19, 69–20, 109–12; AMP, reel I676d, frame 2284; reel 1685d, frame 1785.

21 AACh, UTEP #491, 15–5.

22 AACh, UTEP #491, 143–17; 90–22, 105–25.

23 AACh UTEP #491, 10–33, 21–12, 26–14, 33–6, 66–22, 66–25, 78–7, 105–25.

24 AACh, UTEP #501, 6–40.

25 AACh, UTEP #491, 66–22.

26 AACh, UTEP #491, 68–19.

27 AACh, UTEP #491, 109–12.

28 AACh, UTEP #491, 105–25.

29 AACh, UTEP #491, 78–7; 105–25; AACh, UTEP #501, 4–36.

30 AACh, UTEP #491, 121–20.

31 AACh, UTEP #502, 3–23; Swann, , Tierra Adentro, 329.Google Scholar

32 AMP, reel 1779d, frame 2305; AACh, UTEP #491, 62–6; 104–12; 104–22.

33 AACh, UTEP #491, 116–25.

34 On charivaris, see Davis, Natalie, Society and Culture in Early Modern France (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1975), 97–123.Google Scholar

35 AACh, UTEP #491, 114–19; AACh, UTEP #502, 3–16; AMP, reel 1792b, frame 1129.

36 AMP, reel I789b, frame 1255; AACh, UTEP #491, 47–14; 51–19; 83–8; 113–31; 113–33; AACh, UTEP #502, 7–18; 7–28.

37 AACH, UTEP #491, 73–5; 109–12.

38 AACH, UTEP #491, 50–10.

39 McCaa, , “Calidad, Clase, and Marriage,” 477.Google Scholar

40 Jones, , Los Paisanos, 95–97Google Scholar; West, Mining Community, 55Google Scholar; Hadley, Minería y sociedad, passim.; Marcelo Carmagnani, “Demograffa y sociedad: la estructura social de los centros mineros del norte de Mexico, 1600–1720,” Historia Mexicana, 21:3 (01-03 1972), 419–59.Google Scholar

41 AACh, UTEP #501, 5–4.

42 AACh, UTEP #491, 64–45.

43 AMP, reel 1729c, frame 1717.

44 AACh, UTEP #491, 101–1.

45 AACh, UTEP #491, 101–30.

46 AACh, UTEP #501, 1–30; 3–18; 4–25. According to Taylor, these epithets were also used in a nonliteral sense in central and southern Mexico. See Drinking, Homicide, and Rebellion, 82.Google Scholar

47 AACh, UTEP #491, 90–22.

48 AACh, UTEP #501, 6–13.

49 AACh, UTEP #501, 4–24.

50 AMP, reel 1705, frame 647.

51 AACh, UTEP #491, 109–20; 167–3; AMP, reel 1795, frame 655. See also Taylor, , Drinking, Homicide and Rebellion, 82Google Scholar; Taylor, , “Amigos de sombrero,” 12, 25, 27, 34.Google Scholar

52 AACh, UTEP #491, 158–4.

53 Santamaria, Francisco J., Diccionario de mejicanismos, 2d ed. (Mexico City: Editorial Porrua, 1974), 397–400Google Scholar; Paz, Octavio, The Labyrinth of Solitude: Life and Thought in Mexico (New York: Grove Press, 1961), 74–80.Google Scholar

54 Taylor, , Drinking, Homicide and Rebellion, 82Google Scholar; Taylor, , “Amigos de sombrero,” 34.Google Scholar

55 AACh, UTEP #502, 8–22. “Chingar” had evidently become prominent in popular slang in Texas by the 1830s; William B. Travis used it frequently in recording his numerous sexual exploits in his diary. See his The Diary of William Barrett Travis: 08 30, 1833-06 16, 1834 (Waco, Texas: Texian Press, 1966), passim.Google Scholar

56 AACh, UTEP #501, 4–34.

57 AMP, reel 1700, frame 416.

58 AACh, UTEP #491, 87–14.

59 AACh, UTEP #491, 20–7.

60 AACh, UTEP #491, 20–23.

61 AACh, UTEP #491, 56–8.

62 Garrioch, , Neighbourhood and Community, 227.Google Scholar

63 Ibid., 37–55.

64 AACh, UTEP #491, 105–20.

65 AMP, reel 1697b, frame 1071.

66 AACh, UTEP #501, 3–5.

67 AACh, UTEP #491, 15–5.

68 AACh, UTEP #502, 9–11.

69 See, for example, Nandy, Ashis, The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983)Google Scholar; Scott, Joan, “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis,” American Historical Review, 91:5 (12 1986), 1053–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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71 See, for example, Goldwert, Marvin, Machismo and Conquest: The Case of Mexico (Lanham, Maryland: 1983)Google Scholar; Paz, Labyrinth of Solitude, 85–88; Alan Riding, Distant Neighbors: A Portrait of the Mexicans (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985), 7–9.Google Scholar