Comments on Kaufman and Justeson: “The History of the Word for Cacao in Ancient Mesoamerica”

As the authors point out (Kaufman and Justeson 2007:232) in reference to the work of Dakin and Wichmann (2000), one word cannot be used to establish the speech of Teotihuacan. The linguistic analysis by Kaufman and Justeson is comprehensive and, as far as I am able to evaluate its technical aspects, convincing that the term kakaw has its origins in the Mije-Zokean family. They conclude this based on empirical critiques, as well as distinct approaches to analysis. Just as processual or symbolic archaeologists will approach the same data differently stemming from their commitment to one set of theoretical assumptions or another, something similar seems to be happening here. I for onewould like to see a better explanation of the differing principles that lead Dakin and Wichmann to focus on phonemic bases for comparison while Kaufman and Justeson focus on phonetic rules (pointed out in Kaufman and Justeson 2007:196). Surely these are problem-driven choices, and this is arguably the level at which archaeologists require tutelage rather than the nitty-gritty of a phonetic analysis itself. I assume that I am not alone among archaeologists in hoping for some alternative approaches to synthesis that better convey linguistic conclusions to those less accustomed to dealing with those data. I appreciated the authors’ spatial characterization of identifiable loan words from Mije-Zokean into other Mesoamerican language families (2007:Figure 6), and further visualizations of this sort would go far in presenting specialized data to an audience of non-linguists. I similarly found myself wishing for charts arranged vertically (by relative time), with horizontal indicators of loans from one level of proto-language reconstruction into another, so as to better tease out the linguistic stratigraphy of Mije-Zokean loans now variously attributed to Gulf Coast Olmec or Teotihuacan interregional interaction. This could encapsulate some conclusions more succinctly. I am also convinced that Mesoamerican linguists could make use of Christopher Ehret’s (1976 and later publications) categorization of borrowing events between African languages, in which he associates the kinds of words and scale of borrowing with the nature and intensity of contact. With such a deductive approach, the significance of a single term like kakaw (and apparently, sacatl “grass”? ) could be better contextualized without reference to an elaborate culturehistorical edifice. My perspective on the issue stems largely from an interest in the Nawa migrations. There are two basic models for the appearance of Nawatl in Mesoamerican prehistory, with sub-variants for each. The first sees Nawatl speakers as having participated in agriculture and been in contact with Mesoamerican peoples for a very long time (Hill 2001). A second model would see Nawatl as an introduction from outside Mesoamerica, citing the known linguistic ties to Southern Yuta-Nawan languages in western (Wichol, Kora) and northwestern Mexico (Taraumara, Kájita, etc.), and models would then vary on the timing, nature of the introduction, and so on (Fournier and Bolaños 2007 vs. Smith 1984). Although the models seem distinct enough, there is a tangle of underlying assumptions that perpetuate miscommunications between scholars. Many publications continue to associate Nawatl with “Chichimecs”, which is then assumed to indicate that Nawas were nomadic, and further assumed that they were therefore outside of the orbit of Mesoamerican practices. The sixteenthcentury sources make it clear that the term Chichimec included a range of adaptations from nomadic hunter and gatherer to agriculturalist, and encompassed speakers of Otomi, Nawatl, Pame and other languages (Viramontes 2000:33–48), many of whom shared in Mesoamerican practices to varying degrees. On the other hand, Hill’s (2001) argument that Southern Yuta-Nawan speakers were agriculturalists from northwestern Mesoamerica does not automatically default to central Mexico, much less Teotihuacan. Mexico west of the valley of Toluca continues to be excised from discussions of Mesoamerican dynamics despite years of productive research (Beekman 2010). Contact period linguistic data place Korachol languages, of which Nawatl should have been a neighbor, in northern Jalisco and Nayarit. Kaufman and Justeson leave a blank hole on their