ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on some aspects of the acculturation of the colonial Indian of Mesoamerica. It is limited to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and most of the evidence by far comes from the southern part on the region. Acculturation, of course, is both cognitive and noncognitive. In this context it is the events, processes, and periodizations whereby Indians adopted, rejected, or had forced upon them, Spanish and European styles of dress, diet, daily habits, attitudes, religion and language. Acculturation has been of concern to anthropology for some time, and there are many works of theoretical sophistication written from this point of view. Some have looked at acculturation in illuminating ways — but with time almost completely neglected as a factor. Other anthropologists have used an ethnic and geographical approach, which, in some cases, has the advantage of introducing economic and demographic pressure as a much more central factor. In the context of Mesoamerica the taxation was the Indian tribute.
