On October 15, 1983, a young mother of six was murdered while walking across her village of Huitzilan de Serdan, Mexico, with her infant son and one of her daughters. This woman, Victoria Bonilla, was among more than one hundred villagers who perished in violence that broke out in 1978 soon after the Mexican army chopped down a cornfield that had been planted on an unused cattle pasture by forty Nahuat villagers. In this anthropological account, based on years of fieldwork in Huitzilan, James M. Taggart turns to Victoria"s husband, Nacho Angel Hern?ndez, to try to understand how a community based on respect and cooperation descended into horrific violence and fratricide. When the army chopped down the cornfield at Talcuaco, the war that broke out resulted in the complete breakdown of the social and moral order of the community. At its heart, this is a tragic love story, chronicling Nacho"s feelings for Victoria spanning their courtship, marriage, family life, and her death....