Discussions of the factors contributing to violence usually focus on the role of men, ignoring women participants or portraying them as silent onlookers and victims.

Al­though there have been some ethnographic studies of women's participation in vio­lent behavior, as well as female resistance to it, there has been little attention to the roles that women play in circumventing or quelling violence.

This chapter examines how godmothers act to reduce the seriousness of violent encounters among men in a Zapotec village in the Oaxaca Valley of southeastern Mexico. In this village violent acts do occur, especially when men are drinking at fi­estas; but senior women who are godmothers are called upon to calm arguments, stop fights, and restore order. The expectation is that no man would argue with or strike his godmother, for she above all others deserves his respect and gratitude. Nevertheless, the social changes associated with increasing modernization, mass me­dia images, and external political conflict have undermined community ties and the traditional high status of godmothers, leading to increased and more severe violence.