To Die in this Way: Nicaraguan Indians and the Myth of Mestizaje, 1880-1965

by Jeffrey L. Gould

Challenging the widely held belief that Nicaragua has been ethnically homogeneous since the nineteenth century, To Die in This Way reveals 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 Way critiques 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.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Latin American History

336 pages, Paperback

First published June 16, 1998

Reviews

[Daniel Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book explores the myth of mestizaje in Nicaragua - how a country in which around 80% of the population was unambiguously Indian after independence became a country in which most people are utterly unaware of even the existence of the Comunidades Indígenas. The basic process that the book explores is "ladinoization" - how the "indios bravos" became "indios ladinos", i.e., the cultural loss of language, distinctive dress, distinctive religious practices, together with land appropriation and proletarianization. The author primarily looks at Western Nicaragua (with the occasional tantalizing reference to the Atlantic). There are 7 chapters that explore: the highland Indians from 1880 - 1925, Boaco from 1890 - 1930, Sutiaba from 1900 - 1960, gender and politics in the imagination, indigenismo from 1930 - 1940, activism and repression from 1940 -1954, and indigenous participation in peasant movements from 1954 to the Revolution. The epilogue and conclusion look at the relationship between indigenous movements and the Sandinistas.

[Nranger7 · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just couldn't get into this one. What really ticked me off is that he would use Spanish words repeatedly without translating or having a glossary. argh