To Die in This Way

by Gould, Jeffrey L.

• ISBN13: 9780822320845
• ISBN10: 0822320843
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1998-06-01
• Publisher: Duke Univ Pr

Summary

Challenging the widely held belief that Nicaragua has been ethnically homogeneous since the nineteenth century,To Die in This Wayreveals the continued existence and importance of an officially "forgotten" indigenous culture. Jeffrey L. Gould argues that mestizaje-a cultural homogeneity that has been hailed as a cornerstone of Nicaraguan national identity-involved a decades-long process of myth building.Through interviews with indigenous peoples and records of the elite discourse that suppressed the expression of cultural differences and rationalized the destruction of Indian communities, Gould tells a story of cultural loss. Land expropriation and coerced labor led to cultural alienation that shamed the indigenous population into shedding their language, religion, and dress. Beginning with the 1870s, Gould historicizes the forces that prompted a collective movement away from a strong identification with indigenous cultural heritage to an "acceptance" of a national mixed-race identity.By recovering a significant part of Nicaraguan history that has been excised from the national memory,To Die in This Waycritiques the enterprise of third world nation-building and thus marks an important step in the study of Latin American culture and history that will also interest anthropologists and students of social and cultural historians.

Table of Contents

About the Series	ix	(2)
Acknowledgments	xi	(2)
Chronology	xiii
Introduction	1	(25)
1 "XXXVana Ilusion!": The Highlands Indians and the Myth of Nicaragua Mestiza, 1880-1925	26	(43)
2 "Not Even a Handful of Dirt": The Dawn of Citizenship and the Suppression of Community in Boaco, 1890-1930	69	(33)
3 "The Rebel Race": The Struggles of the Indigenous Community of Sutiaba, 1900-1960	102	(32)
4 Gender, Politics, and the Triumph of Mestizaje, 1920-1940	134	(43)
5 "En Pleno Siglo XX": Indigenous Resistance, Indigenismo, and Citizenship, 1930-1940	177	(26)
6 Crimes in the Countryside: Burning Bushes, Stolen Saints, and Murder, 1940-1954	203	(25)
7 Memories of Mestizaje, Memories of Accumulation: The Indigenous Dimension in the Peasant Movements, 1954-1965	228	(45)
Epilogue	273	(10)
Conclusion	283	(12)
Selected Bibliography	295	(6)
Index	301