Telling tales is a means of dealing with contemporary issues in a society. This can be observed in the fact that all members know the tales through socialization processes and language acquisition. The tales confer meaning to current ways of living and thinking. The oral tradition’s dynamics provide the chance to adapt the tales to new realities, to divergent views on the treated subject, and to manifold representations --each in its own variant. However, the study of the oral tradition’s position in culture is too broad a subject to be studied and must be limited. This study aims to analyze the interrelation between the socio-cultural reality and oral tradition on identity issues. Identity comprises active and complex processes of identification (naming and classifying) in which ideas about who we are and whom we live with are reconstructed to establish and value what characterizes us and others. A collective’s ideas about the proper characterization should not be interpreted as a fixed quality but as an internal process in which the values and norms that constitute this identity are constantly adapted. This means that identity is variable. The adjustments are made along two lines. In time the ideas about the proper characteristics shift; studies about identity should take this dynamic into account and not attribute fixed characterizations to a changing entity. Also, a collective defines identity in relation to others, which makes the concept an interpersonal one: biological, social, economic, religious, territorial or other types of characteristics can only be valued when compared to those of the Other (Barth 1998; Schipper 1999). On identity issues one has to acknowledge first, then, that the concept is relative and depends on the context in which it is studied to fully grasp its contents, expressions and significance as attributed by the entity itself.
Identity is, furthermore, a subjective concept, for it is created around a shared consciousness about a person’s or a collective’s supposed characteristics. To the members, these characteristics are real, but to an external observer, they may seem to be attributed (Devereux 1975).
Huastecan Nahuas ascribe themselves characteristics that differ from those mestizos associate with them (see, for example, Sandstrom 1991). Depending on the nature and recurrence of interaction between the parties, one’s characterization of the Other has a more realistic or more biased base. In the worst scenario, mestizos see indigenous people as lazy-bones and drunks who obstruct Mexico’s economic progress (as observed by Bonfil Batalla 1990, among others), while indigenous peoples confer more favorable characteristics to themselves, as was seen in the previous chapter.
In society there is divergence about the contents of its identity, which makes the concept have a vital heterogeneous aspect in which multiple manifestations exist. Voluntary self-definition does not imply that every member agrees on the elements that characterize the collective, or that all have the same idea about how it is articulated in daily practice. Even though there must be a common base among all individuals that constitute a society, identity can be understood as all the characteristics which people use according to their needs and preferences at a given moment to express their adherence to a certain society (cf. Baud et.al. 1994).
Identity has an emotional load as well. What characterizes us as a person or member of society is not just something that places us in a particular social context, but rather, gives certain values to a person or collective, which, in turn, strengthens one’s attachment. This way, identity is intricately related to a society’s norms and values. People are proud of their society and, consequently, of their belonging to it. They treasure the characteristics attributed to it with an appreciation based on their society’s cultural structure and the values generated within. The Other is represented as one with norms and values that deviate from one’s own. These norms and values are expressed in fields as diverse as language, economic position or social organization (cf. Bartolomé 1997:75-98).
Thus, identity is a complex concept because of its dynamic qualities like relativity, interpersonality, emotional load, heterogeneousness, and adaptability. Its contents have to do with an individual’s or a collective’s qualities that are of multiple kind, such as personal, juridical, socio-cultural or historical ones. These qualities’ conservation and articulation can be defined as identity’s reconstruction. Reconstruction mechanisms of Nahua identities through its oral tradition are our subject of research here. I examine the process’ development, dynamics and representations during tale telling --not its product.
In the Mexican context, the anthropological study of identity is well developed. Because of the country’s multi-ethnic character, this study is highly beneficial; how to understand people with differing cultures is an issue
confronted daily. Many contributions have been made to the discussion of identity questions that range from theoretical frameworks regarding indigenous identities (Bartolomé 1997) to the study of identities of a specific indigenous people (Ariel de Vidas 1997, Boege 1988, Sandstrom 1991), Mexico in general (Bartra 1996) or a geographical area like the Huasteca (Lomnitz Adler 1992), to identities as expressed in oral traditions (Gossen 1999), to name just a few. All these studies try to grasp this concept against the background of the ideological, political and economical contingencies of contemporary Mexican society. In a country where neither language nor cultural expressions may be trusted as expressions of identity --for cultural continuums run across ethnic and linguistic borders--, where people who speak the same indigenous tongue live in distinct areas without coming into contact and on occasions deny speaking this language for strategic reasons, and in which the dominant culture, despite its official discourse on multiculturalism, negates indigenous rights in political and social practice, the subject of identity is a complex matter.
Despite current trends of cultural and linguistic unification in Mexico, it must be taken into account that modification and loss of cultural expressions is part of a natural process within a given society. Rituals tend to modify in form and adapt their meaning according to new circumstances. These new circumstances are not necessarily imposed from the outside; they can emerge within the group and correspond to changing necessities and viewpoints. Like in every other society, the dynamics of indigenous societies allow constant development and change. The question should not be whether change in indigenous societies is desired or needed, since change is inherent to every society. It is necessary to see whether the modifications and developments in indigenous societies enrich or strengthen the indigenous population, whether or not they run along the lines the participants want, and, most importantly, whether or not the changes are led by the indigenous peoples. Official pressure to abandon certain cultural expressions can be an important factor to accelerate change in indigenous societies. It is necessary to study whether these ideological pressures interfere with the autonomous process of the indigenous people’s self determination.
On the other hand, ideological and other concerns can also cause a reinforcement of ethnic affiliation and expression. Strategic use of ethnic affiliation may benefit the group. Nahuas who stood together as a unified ethnic force under the name of the Consejo de Pueblos Nahuas del Alto Balsas (CPNAB) managed to stop a federal project to construct a hydroelectric dam that would inundate their communities and some Mesoamerican archeological sites (Flores Farfán, pers. com.). Huicholes from Nayarit and Nahuas from Guerrero have found a willing consumer market that buys their indigenous handicrafts at a fair price. Governmental
aid programs for indigenous peoples make it necessary for communities to profile themselves as indigenous if they want to be considered as a beneficiary group. International laws on indigenous autonomy have paved the way to claim long-lost rights and denounce discriminatory actions, even if the legal struggle to safeguard these rights is a long one in a nation where federal authorities have invariably diregarded them. In this process of ethnic reaffirmation, cultural or linguistic traits are used to distinguish ethnic affiliation. Distinctive traits are bestowed with symbolic meaning; they are now emblems of ethnic expression. Bartolomé (1997:79) calls this struggle in favor of all cultural referents that a society assumes as fundamental to its identitary configuration at a given moment in history: a “culture of resistance”.
So identity is relative, changing and otherwise dynamic, the indigenous peoples’ situation in Mexico is one of margination and exclusion, and the meaning of oral tradition is heterogeneous and depends on situational and other contexts. Consequently, the study of Huastecan Nahua tales and their relation to contemporary identity issues in this society implies a careful examination of all the factors that contribute to each performance’s meaning. Yet, these factors are manifold: the narrator and his background, the situational context, the theme and events of the narrative text itself, time and space concepts, language use, and the public’s appreciation are but a few elements that contribute to the creation of meaning when telling a tale. For this study, I was forced to set limits in order to discuss only a number of these elements and not get lost in the abundance of interrelations that narrating oral tales entails. However, the elements I deal with are still substantial enough in number and in expressiveness to demonstrate the interrelations’ complexity between text and context in Nahua oral tradition today, and show how this tradition expresses and reconstructs Nahua identities and interrelates with its socio-cultural background. Thus, this study is meant to be an exercise to draw attention to oral tradition as a means of constructing identities in present-day society. To do so, an interdisciplinary study has been undertaken which, despite its limitations, wishes to contribute to the understanding of Huastecan Nahua oral tradition, Huastecan Nahua culture, and the reconstruction of Huastecan Nahua identities today.
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