Law and Social Change in Zinacantan, 1973

Law and Social Change in Zinacantan
Jane Fishburne Collier
The legal system of Zinacantan, a Maya Indian community in the highlands of southern Mexico, is examined by focusing on the various options open to persons involved in a quarrel. Settlement procedures range from hamlet hearings for settling minor disputes, through informal but legally recognized hearings at the Zinacanteco town hall, to the formal courts of the Mexican state government. By examining the factors that influence the litigant's choice of forum, the author charts the interrelation between social change and legal change within the community.
The study treats legal norms as a language for managing the social environment and asks how persons in different relationships phrase disputes in order to influence outcomes. Native terms for crimes and litigations are examined for their underlying conceptual framework, and witchcraft beliefs are described to show the relationship between legal concepts and ideas of cosmic order. A concluding chapter takes up the theoretical implications of these materials. And, throughout, by means of actual cases, the study contrasts the conciliatory basis of hamlet and town hall hearings the relentless pursuit of underlying causes to promote forgiveness and compromise between friends or relatives-with the more retributive and alienating nature of actions in the state courts.
292 pages. I973

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Robert M. Laughlin, Curator emeritus of the National Museum of Natural History