Chinamit and Molab: Late Posclassic Highland Maya Precursors of Closed Corporate Community

Resumen

This article explores the extent to which documentary evidence from the early Colonial period in Guatemala can be used to demonstrate the existance of closed corporate community as an organizing principle of basic Highland Maya socio-cultural units during the Late Postclassic period (ca. AD 1200-1524). Our ability to detect various aspects of closed corporate community among the ancient Highland Maya allows a more ethnographic characterization of Late Postclassic society, particularly at the non-elite level. The existance of closed corporate community as a principle of organization both during the Late Postclassic and today also raises questions of continuity and the extent of cultural change brought about as the results of the Spanish conquest and colonization.