is an indigenous community on the coast of the state of Michoacán
in Mexico. This was the first area to be colonised by the Spaniards
after Hernán Cortés conquered Tenochtitlan, the
capital of the Aztec empire. What is remarkable about Ostula and
the neighbouring Náhuatl-speaking communities of Coire
and Pómaro is that they have succeeded in maintaining unbroken
control of their communal lands from the colonial period until
the present day.
This
website provides an introduction to the contemporary society
and
culture in Ostula and a summary of the history of the wider region.
It contains video clips with sound as well as pictures and
text, along with transcriptions (in modernized
Spanish) and photographs of some of the original historical documents
used in the study.
Xayacates,
December 13th, 2001. Click in the picture to start the video.
Autonomy
Although the main point of this site is to enable
more people to get to know about Ostula, its people and its traditions,
the community is playing its part in the movement for indigenous
rights and autonomy. Since the coastal region suffers severe problems
of poverty and social exclusion, the stakes are high.
At the forefront of indigenous peoples' demands
for justice in many countries is the right to exercise autonomy
or self-determination in managing their own resources and deciding
on their own futures. Because Ostula has been unusually succesful
in defending its autonomy in the past, it has much to contribute
to the debate within the broader indigenous movement.
The
indigenous people of this region successfully reconstructed their
society and culture during the 17th century after a catastrophic
first century of colonial exploitation. There were originally
more Náhuatl-speaking communities in the area, but those
of Coalcomán and Maquilí had ceased to exist before
the Mexican Revolution of 1910. Understanding why and how Ostula
defended its territorial integrity more succesfully than any other
community is a central part of the historical analysis of this
project. Two other communities, Huizontla and Aquila, were temporarily
extinguished but recreated later in the 20th Century.
Ostula
not only successfully defended its exclusive control of virtually
all the lands that made up its ancestral territory but has remained
a religious centre for the whole region. Although it is best known
today for its celebration of the fiesta of the Virgin of Guadalupe
in December, there is a major religious festival in the community
every month. This website enables you to watch videos of many
of these and appreciate the community's rich traditions of music,
choral singing, dance and ritual theatre. An important element
of these cultural traditions is the way they express a spirit
of defiance against both the spiritual and secular domination
of Europeans, criollos and mestizos.
I gratefully
acknowledge the support provided to this research by the Mexican
Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología
(CONACYT) and by the UK Economic and Research Council
(ESRC).
This
site is a complementary resource to a book published by El
Colegio de Michoacán in 2004, Cultura
y Desafío en Ostula: Cuatro Siglos de Autonomía Indígena
en la Costa-Sierra Nahua de Michoacán.
I am also grateful to Lucio Jaimes Sánchez,
who worked as my research assistant on the ethnographic study of
Ostula, and
to Elena Calvo González, who translated the original English
text of this site into Spanish. Juan Manuel Mendoza Arroyo helped
me with the transcriptions of the Hijuelas de Coalcomán and
some of the other archival research.
