(autonomous, but authority depended on the State) called tecúhyotl, lordships; 5.- The State (independent) called hueytlahtocáyotl, great government; and 6.- The State Federation called Tlatacaicniuhyotl, brotherhood or governors friendship, or tecpíllotl, principals complexes or palaces.
B.- The institutional, centralized Government hierarchies, which could be: local (religious organization, industrial groups, lords societies) or federal (educational, administrative, fiscal, judicial, governmental or political hierarchies, the commercial and military).
The Government of any group, both territorial and institutional, corresponded to an elder’s assembly or subject experts, elected by the members of the grouping. "Nothing was done, according to chroniclers, without assembly consultation ". This was invariably led by two heads, whose posts were usually lifelong; one was administrator and the other executor, almost always the first was an elder person with succession right, and the other younger, elected by the Assembly, depending on the particular circumstances of each group, the determination of rules and procedures for implementation. The Assembly was called in cohuáyotl, circle or as a snake". (Ignacio Romerovargas Yturbide. 1978)
This complex system of social organization took the Anahuac civilization several millennia to filter and perfect it. The truth is that at the decline of the Olmec culture it was already formed and was the same found and even used by the Spanish invaders. Currently some structural elements of this system are still alive in the indigenous and farming communities. The "charge system", communal lands, tequio,[1] work tasks, assembly, the council of elders, the stewardships, the temple committees, schools, drinking water, etc., bear witness of the survival of this ancient wisdom of social organization.
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- ↑ The tequio (from the Nahuatl tequitl, labor or tribute) is an organized form of work for the collective benefit, consists in that members of a community must provide materials or its workforce to perform or to build a community work, e.g. a school, a well, a fence, a path, etc.
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