power of large landholders, the army, and
the Catholic Church, and favored central-
ized political and economic power.
chia: a sage plant whose seeds were used in
ancient Mesoamerica for oil and in a
drink.
Chichimec: a general term applied to the
nomadic peoples originally from, in some
cases, the northern desert area of Mexico.
The term was used to denote ethnic
groups in ancient Mesoamerica.
chiefdom: a complex society characterized
by social inequality, limited full-time occu-
pational specialization, and economic and
political institutions headed by hereditary
authority (a chief).
chinampa: Nahuatl term for raised field, a
highly productive farming method in
which artificial plots are created in swamps
or shallow lake-beds from layers of mud
and vegetation.
chronicle: a historical record; annals.
científicos: generally, the elite scientists
and technicians who created the economic
infrastructure in nineteenth-century
Mesoamerica; in nineteenth-century Mex-
ico, the group of intellectuals, landowners,
and bankers who served as advisers under
the Porfirio Díaz regime in Mexico.
Classic period: the period from approxi-
mately A.D. 200 to A.D. 900, marked in
many areas by the development of large-
scale political states and a florescence in
the arts.
codex (plural, codices): generally, any pre-
conquest or colonial manuscript with pic-
torial content produced by native artists.
Codices are frequently named for their lo-
cation, discoverer or former owner, or
place of origin. Preconquest codices were
constructed of fig tree bark paper (amate)
or deerhide, coated with a layer of plaster,
and then painted and rolled up like a
scroll or folded up accordion-style into a
GLOSSARY 535screenfold. Codices dating to the Colonial
period may be painted on European paper
and bound like a book. Known codices
record historical, religious, astronomical,
or economic information.
cofradía: religious confraternity dedicated
to the cult of a particular saint or aspect of
the Christian deity.
compadrazgo: ritual kin ties between god-
parents and biological parents.
CONAVIGUA: National Coordinator of
Guatemalan Widows. Human rights group
formed by widows from Chimaltenango,
Guatemala. The group was founded in
1988 in order to counter the “abuse, rape,
and exploitation” by the Guatemalan right
wing military forces.
congregación: Spanish colonial policy of
concentrating Indian populations of dif-
ferent and dispersed communities into a
single new community.
conversos: Jewish converts to Christianity.
core: in world-system theory, the dominant
region or regions that are the recipients
of resources (luxury goods and labor)
from the peripheral regions.
corregidor: Spanish royal official charged
with the administration of a district known
as a Corregimiento; corregidor de indios
was in charge of an Indian district; similar
in functions to the acalde mayor.
creoles: Spaniards born in the New World.
dialect: variation within one language.
doctrina: a parochial or parish district made
up of Indian communities.
domestication: the process by which hu-
mans select for specific traits thereby caus-
ing the evolution of wild plants or animals
into forms advantageous to human use.
ejido: community lands; in twentieth-cen-
tury Mexico, the program that expropri-
ated land from large landholders and
redistributed the land to agrarian com-
munities.