Ethelia Ruiz Medrano, “Mexico’s Indigenous Communities: Their Lands and Histories, 1500-2010” (University of Colorado Press, 2010)

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I'm so excited. We haven't talked in a long time, and it's great to have you live. Will you tell me a little bit about your background? Tell me about your family and how you got involved in the study of what you study. Well, you know, in Mexico, every way you look at, you find Indigenous people. And as Mexicans, we are also Indigenous descendants. Though there's a sort of a common place that we are like a mestizo country, but that depends. If you're talking in a cultural way, we are mestizas, but if you're talking in a biological way, I mean, most of the Mexican population, we are Indians, our grandfathers, our grandmothers, and everybody, it's, you know, from one or two or maybe three Indigenous communities from all over the country. So for me, it was easy to start working with Indigenous people. I really wanted to know more about them. And ever since I was little, my dad used to take us to small town churches and talk to us about cultural representations made by Indigenous people and all the things they made and how wonderful they were and all the archaeology and everything. So, you know, it was clear for me that I wanted to study history since I was a bachelor. And then since 25 years ago, when I started my PhD, that was a long time. I decided to focus on Indigenous communities. First, because that's the way life was with me, I had the opportunity to do a PhD in Spain, basically in the University of Sevilla. So I had the opportunity to work for five years in the National Archive of India, which is the most important administrative archive. So for my PhD, I had a very good idea of how this big, bureaucratic machine work that is the administration of the Spanish Kingdom of Castilla all over Latin America. And then my professor, he was a specialist in Peru. So I read a lot of things about Peru and I had the opportunity of having a semester, being a student for a semester with John Muraf who was in Sevilla. And that really changed my way of seeing things and everything. I really admire very much his work. And so I started working on how the colonial system tried to integrate Indigenous people, because usually we have two ways of seeing Indigenous society. Either Indigenous people after the conquest, they are always revelling themselves and resisting all the time, which I believe it's quite tiring for them. And I don't think it is like that at all. Or you have this point of view like they were just like the sad Indians, poor things like small birds, old broken their wings, and just things coming over them without them doing anything to stop them. So I start seeing when I work for my disease that it wasn't neither one of these things that the Indigenous people threw their authorities and themselves did a lot of negotiation with the colonial state. They move around, they move pretty well, they learn pretty well how the system worked, they shape the system towards their interests, since they were the vassals of the crown. So they took advantage of this. And then I started seeing that it was necessary to go ahead and see how they work in 1718 century. And then, well, you know, like seven years ago I thought, well, maybe it's time to move forward and see if they kept negotiating with the national state in the 19th and 20th century after the Mexican Revolution. And so I started like my own, I don't know how you can call it, like I start reading about this and looking in the archives and trying to manage one line of argumentation, which was how the Indigenous people search for their history as a political weapon to negotiate with the colonial state and with the national state. And well, seven years ago I thought, well, I think it's the time to go and look for some Indigenous community who really are very much interested in their history and see if they can work with me and I can work with them and, you know, just exchange knowledge. And well, I was lucky enough. I found Santa Maria Coquila and the high makes thick. It took me a long time to find them because no or none of my anthropologist friends wanted to take me to the field. They are very jealous about their historians alone. Just keep out. You know, I'm stubborn. So I found a friend of ours, an anthropologist who really wanted to know how to work on an archive that it's a local archive in the high makes thick. And she said, okay, let's do some exchange. I'm very Indian in that. Thank you. Yeah, I like to exchange. You give me this. I give you that. Okay. And we move forward. So I told her, okay, I'll go with you to this local archive, which you want to know how to work on. And you take me to your Indigenous community where you work. So with that, she took me to the high makes thick, which is around 10 hours drive from Mexico City. I've never been there. And there was this wonderful archive. It used to have a lot of documentation from the colonial period, but it was, you know, it was destroyed because nobody cares about this documentation anymore. And it wasn't the city of Tlajaco. And well, Ronald Spors, who is one of the greatest, you know, archaeologists and and historians of the high makes thick, he managed to have some sort of agreement with the University of Vanderbilt where he was working. And so he saved the archive also with Professor John Monet. Yeah, he, John Monet, who is, I think, the best ethnologist of the high makes thick or of all, I believe that even of Wajaka. Wow. And he's a professor at the University of Chicago, Illinois. And both of them saved the archive, but the colonial part was lost. And but it had a lot of documentation about 19th century, very local, local history of this remote town that nobody cares about that deeply, deeply have a deep history in our incredibly rich in traditions and culture and everything. So I start working with her, thought her how to move and the archive. And then she said, okay, it's the time to take you to the community where I work with just it's not Santa Monica has another community. But the problem is that this community had a lot of land conflicts. And there was some shooting and everything. And it was in the news. And well, I said to my friend, she's a French anthropologist as their cats. I told her, well, you know, I'm not really training this. So and you really look like a green girl around America. So I don't think it's a good idea to go with you, you know. And she said, oh, nothing will happen. I'll go by myself and I say, okay, I'll stay in dark a couple of days and then I'll go back to Mexico. And I was sad because I say, okay, I'm a coward. But, you know, Audora, my daughter was only one year old, so I thought, well, I better, you know, live a little bit more. And there I was in the archive when the director of the archive said, "You have a lot of codices that it's native manuscript painting in your computer. I wonder if you have some from this region, from the high mixtape." And I said, "Sure, this, like, look at this one, was a century, a 16th century map." And he said, "Oh, that's from the town of Santa Maria Guquilla, it's a beautiful town. It's very clear. It's very near from here. Why don't we go and they have a community museum, which is a very interesting thing that many indigenous communities have in Guajarca. They have community museums, and so I say, "Great, let's go." So I went there, there was this community museum full of, of part of the history, this town has 2,000 years of history. Wow. They have never been congregated or very little. So they have an enormous archaeological site that nobody works on, and that it's almost the size of Montelvan. Wow. They have a beautiful 17th century church, and everybody speaks mixtape and Spanish. And of course, some of them even speak English because they have been congregated and come back from the United States. Wow. So I was there, and then I saw in the museum some 16th century documentation that they kept there. And I was looking at it through the glasses that they have, and you know, like a small pure nature where they keep them, and I was looking at this documentation and then the peasant in charge of the museum because everybody takes, you know, they are all authorities and all the communities community for the small health center, the schools, everything. It's community thing, policemen, everything, and they do it as a service for the community. Even the high authorities, nobody charges. They serve for a year, or even for three years, and they do it on their own. You know, they have to do it because it's for the good of the community. So they are very united, and they are very proud of it. So there was this peasant who now is my compadre, and then he said, "Don Emiliano Melchone," he said, "Can you read this?" And I said, "Yeah, sure, why?" He said, "Oh, we, you know, we wanted to know what it says. We think it says something about our lands, and we really like to know what it says." And I said, "Nobody has read it to you?" And he said, "No, no, no. Nobody." And I said, "Oh, sure. I can read them for you." And then, you know, in a moment, the museum was locked. I was stuck in it, was a lot of people, children, and women and men were surrounding me, and I was, you know, with my computer transcribing the document for the next 10 hours. Wow. Yeah, for them, because they really wanted it, and I mean, you just can't say no. Sure. They know how to convince you. Right. So, they were happy with this. We took it to the small town of La Chiaco, where the archive is, and where I was working. And we printed out everything, because the director of the archive was still waiting for me at 11 o'clock, you know, PM. Wow. And we printed the document, and then I signed it, because I said, "Maybe it has, you know, some legal interest for you, because it is transcribed by a professional historian, so maybe you can use it for something." And they were very happy, and I thought, "Well, that will be it. But no, the next day, they came with the other three things." And they say, "Well, we want you to come to our town whenever you are around here." And yeah, let's be friends, and I said, "Wait, so I started searching for their documentation, it turned out, you know, that they had a lot of colonial documentation in their National Archive, also in their Grya and Archives, and I had picked up, managed to paintings from the 16th century in their National Archive, and then they had a very rich history. So I started working with them, and then I started learning Mixtec with them, you know. And well, now I do some help with some projects they tried to do, because from the museum, all the relationship with, it's not only about history, but it's also about getting organized for doing this, you know, doing things that can bring some future for themselves, small things, because I'm just a researcher, I can't do much. But we have started many projects that are in a web page that is called Community, that is Indigenous and Movimiento. We'll put that in the blog too, so that anybody that's interested can go visit. Yeah, and we have there, thank you, Jenny, and we have there some productive projects. So I work with them at a level of, at not history, and also doing field work. And then I started working with other communities, you know, that have a huge amount of history. Most of the region has more than 2,000 years of history recorded in Stelas and in archaeological sites and in painted manuscripts, some of them even kept in the communities. And well, the local archives are very rich and hardly known. And so, well, that's what I've been doing. So the book, it's more about general idea and more than 200 cases of Indigenous communities in from Central Mexico and Wahaka doing the legal recuperation of their history as a political tool. And the last chapter is an ethnological, an ethnology chapter about this community trying to recuperate his history, because with that they can gain hope for the future, you know. That's it. It's fascinating, it's a fascinating read and I'm so excited because it really shows, first of all, how we need to collaborate, how hard those anthropologists work to get in those communities and you were adopted immediately. Well, yeah, the thing is that they wanted something from me and wanted me to be friends with them. It's about sharing and collaborating exactly. I think that's fascinating, I did have a professor that told us the whole class one time that there are hundreds or maybe thousands of little churches in Mexico with all these documents and all this information and they're there and you have to do your homework. But there's amazing things to be found. Oh, yes. And very, very amazing things is just that what we have to do as researchers and university professors is try to open our heart and our mind. And do more exchange. One of the professors that I admire more because they work like this and that I really love his work. It's an example for me. It's professor Frank Salomon who works in Peru and also professor Thomas Abercrombie from NYU. He works in Bolivia. Both of them do a lot of exchange and friendship with indigenous communities and have found amazing things, especially professor Frank Salomon. I believe he's one of the most important at Moistorians in the world. He worked with the Wado Chidi, right? Is that him? No, he works in projects in the Indian and in the Peruvian region of Wado Chidi. He wrote the Wado Chidi manuscript and then he started doing research with ethnographical tools and exchange and he has a beautiful book about the core keepers. He found this beautiful keepers in the community and if he had been there like 40 years before, he would have still found people who knew how to read them. But anyway, there's a lot of ritual and organization and exchange around this core keepers and he did a beautiful book that has to do with the history of writing and also with the history of recording and also work of history and ethnology. Now he's working in a high place of 4,000 meters above the sea that is called Rappas. They have a Kippu house and an archaeological site that has to do with the Kippus also. And he's working with Andine with the Ketua Restorers and with the Ketua woman of this community. Restoring the keep us also. Oh, man. No, he is you have to see his page. It's I can't send it to you so that you can put it in the vlog. Okay, yeah. Right. I'll send it, you know, to your email right away. Perfect. And he's a professor at the University of Wisconsin. And last year he was also I invited him to come here and took him to Kokila. He just loved the town because he said that he was very much interested that all the political assemblies were made in in in mixtec. And that this kind of of assemblies in in traditional languages, indigenous languages were well a lot lost in Peru. So he really liked Kokila and he gave me very, very good tips about how to work there. Wonderful. Well, the water TD is all about water rights, too. And water rights do come up in in some of the manuscripts that you were looking at. Talk about. Well, let's let's go through. Let's talk a little bit more about your book. You do start with pre Hispanic constructions of legal issues and and courts and how how things were negotiated. And so you want to you want to start at the beginning. And kind of work through the whole idea of advocating for your position and and how that worked in in Meso America. Well, yeah, the idea is that since I had a lot of information about how the the administrative structure work towards the Indians, I knew that the justice system was very important and that it was created. After the conquest in around, you know, the very early like 12 years after the conquest, they tried to do some the administration from Castilla, the king of Spain and its council, tried to work some system to attract the Indians to this legal arena where they could. Resolve some of their problems and to do so, they have to work with them in their own costumes, you know, like using pictographical material, indigenous languages in which the friars were very much advanced. So it was kind like not a mixture, but you know, Spaniards were used to working with the others and conquering other people. No, they did this with the Muslims, this with the Jews, this with the Canarian population. And so why not with indigenous people, you know, so and indigenous communities were used to negotiating because before the conquest, most of them had to negotiate with Mexico, the Nostez, and before that with small kingdoms, they were always negotiating tribute and labor and moving from here from there. So, you know, of course it was, it was a terrible conquest in a social and political and cultural way, but the indigenous people had enough strength to try to move forward and negotiate with this people. So I start with this history about justice, you know, how the indigenous people have, we know that they have what we can call justice systems that were, that they were not unified, you know, you have them from different regions and it worked differently, but it was very hierarchical because indigenous communities had a lot of interest in hierarchy. And it's not that everybody is the same, that it's important, the one who has the worth, the one who has the power, the one who has the knowledge. So they're very used to that and of course, Europeans were also used to this kind of very hierarchical social and political structure. So in that, as James Lockhart says, you know, there were some kinds of things. So I start, you know, working about this and then moving forward and then because of complex context that I work in the book, I looked at well for the Spanish administration at the end of the 16th century, it was enough of experimentation. And that the indigenous people really had to go into the normal justice system, you know, accidental way of thinking and things like that. And they wanted to control the friars who were, you know, some of them very much near the political interest of the indigenous, let's say, kings or I don't know how could we say rulers. And also from the incommanderos or the Spanish conquerors, the first and the second generation. And so there was no space for the indigenous people to negotiate anymore. So it seems. So I started looking how the system kept working on the 17th and 18th century and found out that the indigenous people open again the discussion about their history. Because for them, it was very important to prove that they were original people, but not only original people, but they they had a rich history of land, right. And that though in the 16th century, we have a lot of subjects that indigenous people negotiate about after the 17th century, the most important issue was the land. The land because the land is where the ancestors are, where the sacred caves are, where the idol saw, where the shrines are, where they eat, where the, you know, it's everything. It's them and it's also the gods, only the gods give the land. So it was a very important issue for them. And of course, Spaniards, local Spaniards were taking the land out of them. And so they started negotiation with saying here's our history. They start showing laps of pictorial manuscripts and also given written records and many and language indigenous languages about their history, how they came. Oh, 1000 years before, let's say, of course, the idea of time is different. So I start working on this. Also, it's the only like not much, but a little, you know, not theoretical, because I use a lot of what the sense of history is not in non-oxidental cultures. Right. And it seems that if for accidental people, history has to do with reading only that for non-oxidantals, and especially for non-oxidantals in America's continent, it had to do with the five senses with looking, smelling, also hearing. So I had to do with dancing, music, pray, incensaries, scene, pictorial manuscripts, all of the five senses are integrated. Yes, yes, that's right. And so, and of course, history for them is not if like I ask you, Professor, you need to talk to me about your grandma and your grandpa, and you can do it right away and not ask me, well, you can ask me, well, OK, I'll do it. But for indigenous people, it's not like that. You can just sit down and say, OK, tell me about your ancestors, because they will stand up and say, you know, I got a lot of things to do. See you later. So, no, for them, you know, history, their history, their local history has to do with problems they have in the present, freshers, which are a lot, they have in the present. And so, they take knowledge from the past, they can mold it, they can change it. It has not unified narrative. It has many narrative. It depends upon the, the problem of the present that takes them by the hand to go to the, that takes them to the past. And when they do that is because they need that this past can solve or at least put on the negotiation table, their problems in the present, and, and pushes them or takes them towards the future. So we're talking about. Applied history as opposed to abstract in a book history and that's right. You said beautifully. Yeah, that's right Yeah, yeah, they're very practical, you know, they're pissing societies So they're very practical and then they can change it. They can mold it. They can put it in and if In one language into language they can go to one office to another office to talk to one authority to another authority take all documentation and and the revolutionary these You know make it new again and with different objects. They adapt it to the need That's right. Yeah, totally. One of the critiques that they always say about ancient Cultures is that they they can't I mean the whole idea of Linear society versus circular society that that they couldn't see history in the present and it's it's silly That that's a silly way to look at it. That's a really badly thought out plan Yeah, well, yeah, so that is, you know what I they're adapting. Yeah, yeah, and that is the history About how more than almost 200 towns do this through the 16 17 18 19 20 century and And right now And I now like to talk about local history instead of memory right because for me memory is like what you eat the day before Right, and history has to do with more deep sense right and why does Italian or French or Spaniards have history and why doesn't indigenous communities have history what they talk about their past is more like memory right and No, I think it's history. It's just that it's local history You know, it's the way they build history. Well, and they may not use a book to trigger the memory of it And that's right. That's right. They use other things. Yeah, like people's in in Peru or manuscript paintings in In Mexico or a song or a mask That's right. Yeah, or you know some important Hunting retools or Many things yeah, you you know, you just have to look at it then see how wonderful things are doing about this more And in a very strong way, you know, I tried to build a history more about not defeated people right but proud people who are you know doing their best and not all of the communities Have survived right but the ones at least in Mexico that we have are the ones who could organize better and understand what their identity was about and for them relying on their The rich culture and this are the ones that survive exactly and it may change but Things still continue that are necessary for that culture so they may forget stuff But there's other stuff that they add and it changes depending on their needs. Yeah, that's right. That's right So as you went through the different centuries were you surprised at the consistency of the effort? Continued to be surprised that you know, they're still still doing it. It's still vibrant. Yeah, they're moving and of course I especially because you know In Mexico, there is a general idea that the colonial period was terrible, which it was But you know, I found out that the most terrible part of history You know where the Indians were more Denied less than the 19th century right by Our national governments liberal or conservatives, you know, they could fight all the time one against each other But they had one point in which they were you know How do you say this they were they they could agree and that was that the Indians were the backwardness that you know, they were something that had to be You know just eliminated Well, yes, you see that in the United States. You see that in Argentina. That's a tip that happened in many 19th century places Yes, and Chile also Yes, that's that's right. So it also happened in Mexico, and also I was surprised that even though they have this you know Moments very crucial moments all through those five centuries. They kept moving on and learning how to do this and Adapt to the new whatever new twist the government shows. Yeah, and adapting themselves and everything and so that is a really An impressive cultural political achievement of Of humanity sure. No, it's fascinating. Yes, and well for me and one thing that I was surprised, you know And that has to do with the United States is that before I started reading And going to the 19th century archives that I chose and for looking at this problems of Indigenous recuperation of history and negotiating with it in political ways Towards the national state. I thought oh my god. I'm gonna find a Thousand books about indigenous history in 19 and 20th century especially in Mexico or in Spanish right and well, I found almost none wow The best books about about indigenous history of Mexico at least were written in English by American specialist Wow, so that's god in those guys. No, no, no, no, no, no. No. Well, press cut, you know, he wasn't Everybody's though. No, I don't know. That's a I'm sorry. No, I don't know Contemporary. Ah, yes. Yeah, it's like so the first Historian who wrote about the indigenous participation in the great independent movement who fork us on Indigenous people was written in 2001 published by Stanford University Press by professor Eric Manjong. Wow That is the first book and and the last one. Wow. That's crazy It is and of course this book is was translated to Spanish because nobody Work on this and we are still waiting for the great book that can talk to us about the indigenous participation in the Revolutionary movement. Well, it's even with what is in the middle of everything Yeah, even yeah, because what does you know they know they always say and the biographies He was born in Gila Tau which is in the high mantis of the Sapoteca region and then that's it and goodbye No more indigenous identity in him, you know, he is more like Abraham Lincoln or You know, you know, we have a statue of him in New Orleans. Oh really? Is a statue of Benito because he went he came to New Orleans when he escaped Of course. Oh, yeah, he had a lot of admiration to the United States because of course they were going through this kind of You know independent process too and trying to consolidate A national state So for him it was very important this is an example, you know that surprises me that in the 19th century such little Attention is paid to that when it was such a rallying cry Well, you know, they pay attention to Benito Quares as a political figure and a historical figure in a way but not because he Not at his indigenous background or at his indigenous contemporaries, right? They just pay attention to the fear like if it was just Mexican, right? Like you said like Abraham Lincoln. Yeah, yeah, something like that a liberal political Man very intelligent and well, it's you know, they say and I believe that he was our best president Funny that he was indigenous, huh? Not so funny Not a surprise, right? Yeah, well, let's go back to your book because that go ahead keep going No, just just uh, you know, I just wanted to say that that It's very very little the interest that we have in the Mexican Academy Towers indigenous people and it's getting more narrow Every day and it's difficult to understand why this is well Let's talk about Santa Maria Coquila a little bit more. I want to talk about the idea that They are of course Citizens of the 21st century, but yeah, but they're There's this big idea that the indigenous communities before the conquest were this sort of utopian space and And then they're sort of disembodied after they just disappear like you said There's some stuff in the early 16th century But in the academic discourse It doesn't occur anymore except the idea of the indigenous communities, but there's still Different communities all over Mexico who are thriving like you said and we're or facing many issues, too We talked before we were started recording about the mish teko's that come to the United States. And Mrs. Cipi, our largest population of immigrants coming from Mexico come from the mish teko alza. So, but a lot of them, like Santa Maria Cucuila, are continuing the same arts and the same stories and the same, there's not this disappearance locally. And so I want to go back to what you were saying about the whole idea of local history and and reconnecting or or reintroducing the rest of the world to the idea of local history. So what's going on in Santa Maria Cucuila about that? Well, like in many indigenous communities like Santa Maria Cucuila, what I've seen is a very dynamic dynamical way of integrating new things. You know, it's it's very interesting how ideological, flexible indigenous people are. And that they are very oriental, you know, like the Chinese and the Japanese. They can integrate new things. And when they're all things or traditional things, if you want to say it in more, you know, academic away. Okay, they are not useful. You know, when they are not working, you know, they are more like a problem that I think that helps them. They just leave it and take the new thing that it's useful, but they don't merge them. They go like one way and the other like moving one hand. Like if you move your hand up and down with the other one, you know, so they can they just go on and on and on ahead ahead ahead. And they have the traditional things that are very important and they are integrating new things. But they are very clear that this new things don't overlap the old things, you know, they go parallel. And when the new things are not working or the ancient things are not working, they change. Right. And keep the fundamental things. So it's very interesting when you see, for example, in the high mixtec people going to the highest places to use their cell phones to talk to in mixtec, of course, to talk to the family in Missouri or in Washington or Mississippi and arranging the future weddings of the families that are living there. Wow. And everything in mixtec, when you see the kids 15, 18 year old kids in the mixtec communities, that they are chatting in mixtec, or when you see them in the traditional dress. Internet chatting. Yeah. Yeah. Internet chatting in mixtec. That's right. I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In mixtec or in sapotec or in freaky. And also when you see them in the traditional dresses and in their traditional ceremonies, and then suddenly somebody is, you know, taking some tape recording of the situation and then using a cell phone to talk to somebody in Mexico City and the neighbor and the great neighbor her of Nesawa Koyot, what indigenous people live, you know, and re-creating things. And they are very much interested in technology, for example. And they integrate it very well when they can get it, when they can have it and use that for their own purposes. And also they are very proud of their traditional languages, their religion. So they are very dynamical in that way. And that is how Kukilanos are doing, you know. They take this, they give this, they exchange this, you know, as a concept, as a political tool, as a cultural tool also. And yeah, all the time moving forward, you know, it's very, very much interesting. And yes, and of course they are, you can see that this are very poor regions, but I can tell you, and I'm sure everybody knows, that Mexico is now in a very violent moment. We are having a lot of violence, but I can tell you that I've been traveling and visiting, not only Santa María Kukila, of course, there are my best friends there. But I've seen a lot of indigenous communities this seven years and talked to them, work with them. And I can tell you that violence, it may sound, you know, like not none through to you, well not to you, but to many people, that I can tell you, I see no violence there, not inside their communities. They stick together. The social issue is in very good, good health in traditional indigenous communities. And traditional, not because they're backwards or because they're not molder. But I mean, the ones that are together, you know, around their authorities, moving towards together, you know, in a very interesting and very historical dip, community unity, and you see no violence there. There's no violence there. You can see violence in the mestizos cities and towns. And of course, even when they have problems with mestizos who are into this violent movements, they stick together and they close their communities and defend themselves. And as they, you know, they try to negotiate this state to look at them and send them some help. And sometimes this state just doesn't help them. So they stick together and do it like, for example, right now, some indigenous communities in Michoacán and in Chihuahua. And that's how they're moving on. So yeah, I think the social issue is, isn't the indigenous community. And in that way, I believe that they are the future. Right. Well, they have to take, take it themselves because there's no one else there. I mean, that's also part of it. That's interesting. Yeah. One of my friends was in a small town in Yadalgo and they got electricity there, but there wasn't anybody to put up the polls. So they organized a work group and they carried these polls, huge humongous polls that were in a stack, up the mountains so that they could string the electricity so they could have it to their, to their, they just did it themselves. They said, okay, we'll take care of it. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And the hymns said they do the same, you know, they build and it's beautiful because when you see them doing this work that that is called generally, take you, the unity work, I've seen them doing this work very late, very tired, especially the man, the woman bringing food, the children playing around. And I've seen them and hear them sing. They do the community. Singing. And it reminds me of what the indigenous chronicles and also the Spanish chronicles say about the way that the traditional work was made in the ancient pre-spanic Mexico that they sang, that they dance, that they eat and everything. And I've seen that, you know, like a month ago in Cucila doing community work while singing, telling jokes, laughing. And then everybody's stopping for lunch with huge, very beautiful and good tortillas and eating and laughing and children running around and everybody, you know, yeah. Well, go ahead. Yeah, no, that's, that's what I wanted to talk about. No, I have, thanks. I want to go there now. I want to come visit Cucila. All right. You're just invited. Wonderful. Great. So tell me where you're going now. What's your new project? Well, right now, I, the book, you know, it's a general history of negotiation, as I said, and the history is a political weapon, but in Central Mexico and in Oaxaca, right now, I only want to focus on the high mixtec. And do again, this kind of research of long-due with history and ethnography that focusing on the chiefdoms, on what was the local power through five histories, the way this local power negotiate with the colonial state and with the national state. Wow. And what this local power which survived because we have this lineages in the mixtec region that were still in power in the 19th century. And so it was, uh, very special the way that the mixtec people saw their local authorities and their local lords. It seems that they have more in common to the Incas in this image of power and to the Mexicas. I think there's some divinity in them for their commoners and so that is very interesting to see how this operates in the since from after the conquest until now when you don't have in power this royal families that steal the authority you know they have the worth they have the moral and ethical authority to negotiate and what they think about being in charge of the community and I've been working since eight months ago with my mixtec high mixtec teacher which is a student from Santa Maria Coquila who is doing her linguistic studies here in Mexico City. Oh wow and I'm only doing this interviews with the ancient authorities in mixtec. Wow. So I have this beautiful discourses about being in in charge of the community and when I translate them with my teacher I see this sacred discourses that we have in the 16th century grammar made by the Dominic and Friars. I don't know father Fri Antonio de los Reyes you know who was a big cardio of the poscolula and who has a very beautiful art and a language mystica. Wow. The publishing in 1593 and he talks about a sacred discourse that was only known by the by the rulers and not by the commoners. Right and you can see the remnants the remnants that you have in the mixtec discourses of the authorities. Wow. When they say in a lot of metaphors why and how and what it means to be in charge of the community and it's beautiful because they they say repeatedly that they are the heyes and heia it's a word that comes from the pre-spanic times and that is record by the Friars who spoke mixtec and published this beautiful book. Yes and my mixtec professor she's only 23 no she says I don't know how to translate heia and I say don't translate it we leave it because heia it's it's very important and we have it and you know I've seen this because they remember of course they don't they know they were they had native rulers and they talked to of them they especially the old people about them they said that they could bring water they they could move rocks they were powerful and things like that. One of them blew up one of the mountains right? Yes that's right. I love that story. And and that they also could do many wonderful you know they protected the the boundaries of the towns in their flying horses that's what they now and that they're very interesting thing about this is that these rulers are mixed in the mythology because they were so very important and they even remember the names of some of them that I have track and archives that come from the 16th century. Wow. And also once I was talking to an old peasant friend well not friend because he's a very distinguished old man of the Kokila town but well as a student of him I was talking to and I said okay so why these heia's had so many powers and he said well because they have them and I said but but why and then I think he got tired you know because he said this lady doesn't understand anything and then he looked at me like closing a little bit his eyes and he said well you know I don't know the only thing I can tell you is that the heia's were not like you and me so yeah so this is what I want to study now this heia's and then how the the local authorities initiated this power in in some ways and this respect and could unify the communities and some of them survived through the 19th century and the 20 and how they were negotiating with the national and with the colonial and national state until our days and what's going on right now is it going well badly oh no it's I have a lot of information you know so yes I have a lot of um oh I'm adding Kokila oh well how they're going to negotiate yeah well very good they're doing their best um you know they are working a lot to well this is working on some new some new cultivars right different kind of beans did I see that yes uh yes uh my sister in law she's um biologist who works in biotechnology and she has developed a being resistant to drug because the land is very dry and it it's been you know that land since with almost no water I believe even before the conquest though they have this cherished system that after the conquest and it was you know broken and forgotten uh but I think these beans can help them and we are trying to get some funding to you know work with this because my sister in law has given them some seeds and uh in a Natalia workshop about how to blow this bean uh but she gave some samples but we for I don't know like two hectares how do you say that yes but we need more and so we're trying to get some you know some institution to be interested in in developing this with the help of my sister in law uh professor Beatriz the Ruiz and also uh I convinced the national initiative of anthropology where I work when I um researcher to help with the building revealed in the community museum ecological and local materials and so an artisania store for the artisanian uh things they sell and also a restaurant and um experimental um feel for their medicine plants wow and uh I have the all the project made by the architech young architect Daniel Filogi who works at uh architect uh faculty of the national university of Mexico the UNAM and we have everything ready and I you know it helped me a lot I have to say that last year I was invited as professor um in the University of Hardware it not only helped me to learn a lot of things and also to be in a wonderful environment for research but it also helped me because I don't know if Hardware University knows this but you know it's it's uh it's very much admire this thank you I think they know that right and in Mexico also so my authorities were very impressed when they give David Rockefeller scholarship and also this uh invitation to give a seminar at the history department which I'm very grateful for uh at Hardware and when they knew this and I came back I have to take the chance of this and I show them the project and they say okay we're in and so very rightful. Good job. That's great. So right now I'm negotiating that. Oh, we'll keep our fingers crossed. Okay. Thank you, Jenny. Yeah. We've been talking with Etelea Ruiz Medrano, the author of Mexico's Indigenous communities, their lands and histories from 1500 to 2010. Check out this book. It's fabulous. It's very exciting and it's written as she talks. It's fabulous. Enjoy. You get free nights every night all year long plus a 25% bonus toward your daytime use all summer. It's a first of its kind plan created for how Texans actually use energy. TXU Energy. Energy for everything. Visit TXU.com for more information Rep. 1-0-0-0-4.