On the Rise and Fall of Tuláns and Maya Segmentary States

An approach integrating ethnohistory, ethnography, and settlement pattern archeology allows a series of "ontogenetic stages" with segmentary lineage behaviors to be delineated for the Post-classic Quiché-Maya state at Utatlán, Guatemala. Comparisons to the Postclassic states in lowland southern Mesoamerica (e.g., Chichén Itzé, Mayapán) assess the segmentary state model. In each, intrusive lineages migrated to coalesce into confederacies that exemplified decentralized authority and common descent. Then the polities suddenly dissoluted, with disarticulated segments again migrating to commence the cycle anew. As a documented case of growth and near collapse of a Maya segmentary state, the Quiché are traced from intrusive, nearly egalitarian Putún lineages through successive tiers of "confederation" in which various ethnic peoples first voluntarily allied and then were coerced into subordination. Utatlán inherited the mantle of rulership of the Lowland Maya "great tradition," heretofore vested in the Tuláns. By so doing, the Quiché acquired symbols of rulership, such as full quadripartition of the calendar and a literary tradition, whereby the Popol Vuh presented general Mayan mythology and specific Quiché history. Incipient economic specialization occurred after state formation within otherwise mechanical solidarity-like lineages linked according to the cardinality of the calendar.