456 UNIT 4 MESOAMERICAN CULTURAL FEATURES
Women’s groups began to emerge in the 1920s. One was the Consejo Feminista
Mexicano(Mexican Feminist Council), affiliated with the Mexican Communist Party,
which tried to engage women, especially those working in factories, in the fight to rad-
ically transform the country’s socioeconomic structures. The major aim of this group
was not the liberation of women but the triumph of the proletariat over the bour-
geoisie. The Council dismissed the feminist quest to improve the situation of women,
claiming that this pursuit played into the hands of conservative powers weakening the
revolutionary movement.
Another women’s group was attached to the ruling revolutionary party. This
group’s platform pursued the vindication of women’s rights, promising to fight
against the exploitation of Mexican women. The group pledged to improve women’s
working conditions and to organize day-care centers, health centers, communal
houses, and legal advice centers for women. The two groups clashed with each other
as they endeavored to win the hearts and minds of Mexican women.Box 12.3 Women in the Cuscat UprisingIn highland Chiapas, a nativistic movement developed in response to the despair and confusion
that prevailed following the independence period in Mexico. It began in 1867 when Agustina
Gómez Checheb, a young Chamula girl, claimed to have seen three stones falling from the sky
while she pastured sheep in the fields. Pedro Díaz Cuscat, an assistant to the priest in Chamula,
took over the organization of the cult. He declared that Gómez Checheb had given birth to the
stones and that she was, therefore, “the Mother of God.” The stones were alleged to speak to
people through Gómez Checheb. She was identified with Saint Rose, an important deity in the
Chamula pantheon.
Díaz Cuscat incorporated the cult into the traditional festival cycle and cofradía(religious
confraternities) organization. He established a market that attracted a large number of people,
who were then recruited into the cult. The movement ended in open confrontation with mestizo
authorities, as nine Tzotzil-Mayan towns participated in the revolt. The confrontation between the
Indian and the mestizo armies left many people dead on both sides. Like the Virgin cults of 1712,
this so-called “War of Saint Rose” expressed the aspirations of native peoples to establish a cult
that would unite them in the worship of a distinct, native deity.
The stones that ignited the spark for the rebellion may be interpreted as another expres-
sion of the female Earth and her wealth, defined in terms of crops, animals, or money. Tzotzil-
Mayas today tell of how in the past, people received money magically from the earth. Sometimes
they found it under a stone. In contemporary prayers to restore health to problem drinkers, heal-
ers refer to money and stone interchangeably (Eber 2000:189).
The participation of women went beyond igniting the spark for the rebellion. They fought
alongside their husbands in the battles against mestizo soldiers. According to highland Chiapas
folklore, women decided to join in the struggle with the hope that their “cold” female genitals
would “cool” the guns (“hot” male object) of the Mestizos. This account substantiates the con-
temporary view held in many highland Chiapas indigenous communities that female genitals are
cold in nature, in direct association with the coldness of the Earth’s womb. The account also re-
veals the solidarity of husbands and wives and the decision of men and women to fight their op-
pressors jointly in a final attempt to rescue their society from seemingly inevitable destruction.