Chol Ritual Language
with Terrence Lee Folmar, Heidi Altman, Ausencio Cruz Guzmán, and Bernardo Pérez Martínez
©1996 J. Kathryn Josserand and Nicholas A. Hopkins

Contemporary Chol Sociopolitical Organization

Ejido settlements are governed by prescribed structures (an ejido commissioner and councils), but often function more democratically, with men meeting daily for public discussions, and more formal public assemblies weekly, decisions being made by consensus. Religious authorities exercise considerable authority over community members. Highland and urban settlements have legally prescribed systems of governance under federal law (municipal authorities), balanced against a traditional "cargo" system, which now has mainly religious functions but nonetheless constitutes a political power base capable of opposing civil authority. The traditional cargo system (ch’ujulbä ’e’tel ’holy work’) survives best in Tila, where more than 50 citizens at a time hold ritual offices for one-year terms, with responsibilities for organizing festivals, caring for sacred images, receiving petitions from and interceding on behalf of supplicants, including pilgrims from outside the community. Marriage is a prerequisite for these offices, and cargo holders’ wives also have ritual obligations, as they do in other Mayan communities.

In Tila, each saint represented in the central cathedral has a mayordomo; four of these mayordomos are hierarchically superior to the others and carry special staffs of office; they are charged with the organization of the major festivals. Lesser mayordomos organize minor festivals. A still-lower rank of mayordomos are the capitanes ’captains’, who bear red flags as their symbol of office. Additional ritual advisors and assistants fill out the ranks of the cargo holders. All these officials constitute the ’principal men’ or trensipal (from Spanish principal). Elder men who have passed through various offices gain the status of respected elders (local Spanish tatuches, Chol lak tatna’ob, literally ’our ancestors’).

In Tumbalá, religious cargos are partially merged with political offices, and include captains (organizers of saints’ festivals), church caretakers, rural police, and mayordomos. Completion of a series of offices results in the status of respected elder. Ritual staffs are carried by cargo holders as well as state-sanctioned civil authorities (such as the Presidente Municipal, or ’mayor’ of Tumbalá), and some cargo holders and the respected elders carry flags during ceremonial activities.

The political organization prescribed by federal law is the Ayuntamiento, headed by the Presidente Municipal. In Tila, this organization is counter-balanced by the cargo holders, on the one hand, and the official church hierarchy (bishop, priests, etc.) on the other. While there are no formal ties between these three institutions, they communicate and mediate problems informally. In Tumbalá, the state-sanctioned offices have largely replaced the political roles of cargo holders, while the strong presence of Protestants has weakened the political influence of the Catholic church hierarchy.

Apart from legal institutions introduced from outside, social control is largely through socialization and internal social control. Individuals believe they are responsible for their acts not only to others, but to the supernatural world, and that bad actions will result in illness and other forms of supernatural discipline.

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