The Book of Lamentations can be read purely as a roadmap to the political situation in Chiapas. Those who reread it in the aftermath of the 1994 Zapatista uprising will testify that it provides an excellent guide, down to the uncanny parallels between Subcomandante Marcos, the eloquent Ladino outsider who refuses to be called the Zapatista’s leader, and Fernando Ulloa. But the lucidity of its vision transcends its regionalism; it can tell us about the place that used to be Yugoslavia, about certain regions of Africa, about any conflict between groups that are bound together yet set against one another. Castellanos has provided us with a vision of the incalculable consequences of force, the terrible, inexorable momentum that builds once it has been unleashed. If we know how to read it, this novel can help us stop looking for innocence and start trying instead to understand the ways that force destroys the soul.

Teresa Entzín López, the nana, the almost invisible woman who passes unnoticed between the Caxlán’s world and the Indian’s, is given the final word. As she weaves her myth, Teresa is Castellanos’s own counterpart, making a leap of understanding from the other side of the cultural divide. And what Teresa sees, what the myth she so artfully devises tells us, is that the lines of battle are not ultimately between ethnic groups, races or genders, but between the force that ceaselessly works to render the world inanimate and the animate humanity that struggles to persist.

—Esther Allen

A Brief Glossary of Tzotzil and Spanish Terms

A BRIEF GLOSSARY OF
TZOTZIL AND SPANISH TERMS

The following glossary does not include a number of words taken from Spanish and Nahuatl—finca, jícara, capataz, brujo, cabildo, querida, vaquero, nixtamal, petate, campesino, caudillo, ejido, latifundio, etc.—which appear in Webster’s Third New International Dictionary.

The glossary was prepared with the extremely kind and expert assistance of Jan Rus, who cautions that three of the terms— canán, tatic, and winikón—are not Tzotzil words but are taken from a contiguous Maya language, Tzeltal (spoken in the area around Comitán, the Chiapas town where Rosario Castellanos grew up).

Without going deeply into the complexities of Tzotzil pronunciation, readers may find it helpful to know that the Tzotzil “x” is pronounced “sh,” and the Tzotzil “j” is the equivalent of a strong “h.”

—EA

ajwalil (Tz) Master, lord. A term of reference and address for a powerful, highly respected man, usually a Ladino.

alcalde (Tz/Sp) A high-ranking official with both political and religious duties. (In Spanish, mayor.)

alférez (Tz/Sp) Religious official of a higher rank than the mayordomo, also assigned to care for a particular saint. (In Spanish, second lieutenant.)

Castilla (Sp) Chiapas slang for Castellano (the Spanish language).

Caxlán (Tz) Any Spanish-speaking person; derived from the Spanish word Castellano (Castilian).

canán (Tz) Star.

chulel (Tz) Innate soul.