article
Death as a way of life: the increasing resort to homicide in a Maya Indian community
American anthropologist • 69 • Published In 1967 • Pages: 455-470
By: Nash, June C..
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
In this article Nash reports on her study of 37 homicides between 1938 and 1965 in the town of 'Teklum,' a fictitious name given to the Tzeltal community where she lived in 1964 and 1965. The cases were analyzed on the basis of various components: who was killed, the context, the agency, and motivation. The increasing homicide rate reflected the change of social control systems in the community -- the conflicts arising from competition in new economic enterprises, the rising suspicion of curers' abuse of their supernatural power, and the loss of belief in the guardianship of the spiritual ancestors.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Offenses against life
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Tzeltal
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 1995
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- Middle America and the Caribbean
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Maya Area
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- article
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Ethnologist
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- Cheng-ruey Ma
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- 1964 and 1965
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- not specified
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- 'Teklum' (probably Amatenango del Valle), Chiapas, Mexico
- NotesAdditional notes
- [by] June Caprice Nash
- Bibliography: p. [470-A]
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 17015424
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Tzeltal Indians