During our class discussions on indigenous people in Latin America, I have been very interested in their systems of government, how their leaders are portrayed, and what duties did these leaders have to fulfill and that is why I chose to read and analyze the cacique article. I believe the article is start-class and a few adjustments have been made by other Wiki users in recent years. The discussion on the talk page is centered around spelling of ‘cacique’ and determining which sources are most credible.

The article’s author attempts to keep a neutral tone but the facts presented appear to give off a Euro-centric perspective. I attribute this to the lack of written primary sources available from the colonial era. Majority of the sources cited are scholarly articles published through American universities. There is also a link to a reading about elite indigenous women but I did not see any women or their role mentioned in the article.

The origins of the cacique pre-colonial contact and the origins of the branch term ‘caciquismo’ are not emphasized in the article. The author quotes Murdo J. Macleod, a Scottish historian, whom states the terms, “either require further scrutiny or, perhaps, they have become so stretched by the diversity of explanations and processes packed into them that they have become somewhat empty generalizations.” The generalization of the terms may be due once again to the lack of primary sources which we have discussed about in class on September 10.

The history section of the article primarily focuses on the relationship between the cacique and colonial rule. Now the recurring theme behind us not knowing traditional ways of past indigenous peoples has been we do not have enough primary sources. My issue is that the indigenous people’s way of life may not be accurately represented in these articles and that a Euro-centric perspective is perceived as absolute.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akab_Dzib

The wikipedia article that I chose to look over is Akab Dzib. This is a mayan structure at the Chichen Itza site. Now the reason I chose this was it sounded cool because I never knew that some of the buildings on the site actually had names. When I went to the wikipedia article associated with it, I was kind of disappointed. There are no images of said structure that was mentioned and there are only two refferences. I feel that there would be more sources of information out there that can be used to make this article better. As well as a picture of the building!

Now as for what this article has. It’s pretty neutral for the most part and that is good since going through the Wikipedia training, they really want an emphasis of a neutral opinion. There description it gives of the building in question is pretty bland but overall gives a good idea of what it is. The author(s) describe the building in question well and talk about the various details across the structure.

If I were to improve the quality of this article, I would add a picture of Akab Dzib and try to find more sources from scholars. That would make this article a whole lot better in my opinion.

For my Wikipedia evaluation, I looked at the page on the Nahuatl languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. The article began with a concise summary of what the Nahuatl languages were, and then branched off into the history and current status of the language, as well as the different branches and geographical locations that Nahuatl is or was spoken. I thought that the page was well organized. After a couple paragraphs of basic information, there were additional sections for the terminology of Nahuatl’s many varieties, a deeper look into its history, and multiple sections that broke apart learning the language.
I found the article to be unbiased and written with a very neutral tone. Then again the article did not cover a very controversial topic, so it was easier to stay unbiased. I also found that the content on the page was evenly distributed between each section. The vocabulary section could use a little more information, but for the most part every aspect of Nahuatl was thoroughly covered.
The links I checked brought me right to the correct pages. These pages were relevant to the Nahuatl language, and unbiased sources. One link brought me to the “General Law of Linguistic Rights of Indigenous Peoples” which laid out the linguistic rights and regulations of indigenous people. There were two links of people’s names within the article that did not have a page set up yet.
To see if this article was up to date, I checked the modern history section, because I thought that would be the most prone to change. Most of the sources were from the early 2000’s. I didn’t see any sources from after 2010. I think this could possibly be an area that could use an update, since indigenous rights and support have changed a lot since the early 2000’s.
The talk page identified the Nahuatl section as one of the best articles featured on Wikipedia, which verified my positive overview of the page. I also found that the page was completed in 2008. The talk page had some edits, but I’m wondering if it could use a little more updating in some of the more current sections of the page.
Overall, this was a very good article that did a great job breaking down all aspect of the Nahuatl language in an unbiased way. The citing was accurate, and in the information was distributed fairly evenly throughout the sections. I think the current history and status of the language could use a little updating, but nothing on the page seemed to be inaccurate.