Resumo

GALLEGOS PEREZ, José Carlos  e  RAMON CELIS, Pedro Guillermo. Benhe wlhash: The Zapotec ancestors of the Sierra norte of Oaxaca. Bioarchaeology of community as a decolonizing approach in the Sierra Juarez anthropology. An. antropol. [online]. 2020, vol.54, n.1, pp.133-144.  Epub 15-Jan-2021. ISSN 2448-6221.  https://doi.org/10.22201/iia.24486221e.2020.1.68722.

The Zapotec concept benhe wlhash “very ancient people” is used along the Oaxacan Sierra Norte to refer to their ancestors found in prehispanic tombs. In this article, we present the results obtained from ethnographic fieldwork done in the community of Santa Maria Temaxcalapa during March and April, 2018. Using ethnographic methods and approaches from the bioarchaeology of community, this study reveals different factors that generate a relationship of belonging and identity between human skeletal remains or wlhash, deposited in community’s prehispanic tombs, and the contemporary Zapotec people. In addition, we offer methods that value Temaxcalapa’s peoples’ local knowledge and the notions that they have about their past. We consider this will enrich the archaeological knowledge of the region.

Palavras-chave : Archaeology; Decolonizing anthropology; Eyhnography; prehispanic tombs; Zapotec.