Author: Ronald Loewe
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442601426
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 225
Book Description
This multifaceted and beautifully written ethnography of Maxcanu, a small Maya town in the Yucatan region of Mexico, offers both an historical and a contemporary understanding of the way external pressures to modernize are often met with forms of resistance that are rooted in rituals and oral tradition. The Maya of the Yucatan have long been drawn into the Mexican state's attempt to create modern Mexican citizens (mestizos). They have also been drawn into the North American and global economy through agriculture and, more recently, tourism and US-based evangelical organizations. Despite the many pressures to turn Mayas into mestizos, the citizens of Maxcanu use subtle forms of resistance, including humour, satire, and language, to maintain aspects of their traditional identity. Maya or Mestizo? skilfully weaves the history of Mexico into a compelling tale of a community caught between tradition and modernity.
Maya Or Mestizo?
Author: Ronald Loewe
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442601426
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 225
Book Description
This multifaceted and beautifully written ethnography of Maxcanu, a small Maya town in the Yucatan region of Mexico, offers both an historical and a contemporary understanding of the way external pressures to modernize are often met with forms of resistance that are rooted in rituals and oral tradition. The Maya of the Yucatan have long been drawn into the Mexican state's attempt to create modern Mexican citizens (mestizos). They have also been drawn into the North American and global economy through agriculture and, more recently, tourism and US-based evangelical organizations. Despite the many pressures to turn Mayas into mestizos, the citizens of Maxcanu use subtle forms of resistance, including humour, satire, and language, to maintain aspects of their traditional identity. Maya or Mestizo? skilfully weaves the history of Mexico into a compelling tale of a community caught between tradition and modernity.
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442601426
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 225
Book Description
This multifaceted and beautifully written ethnography of Maxcanu, a small Maya town in the Yucatan region of Mexico, offers both an historical and a contemporary understanding of the way external pressures to modernize are often met with forms of resistance that are rooted in rituals and oral tradition. The Maya of the Yucatan have long been drawn into the Mexican state's attempt to create modern Mexican citizens (mestizos). They have also been drawn into the North American and global economy through agriculture and, more recently, tourism and US-based evangelical organizations. Despite the many pressures to turn Mayas into mestizos, the citizens of Maxcanu use subtle forms of resistance, including humour, satire, and language, to maintain aspects of their traditional identity. Maya or Mestizo? skilfully weaves the history of Mexico into a compelling tale of a community caught between tradition and modernity.
The Maya Calendar
Author: Weldon Lamb
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 080615778X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 359
Book Description
By 1,800 years ago, speakers of proto-Ch’olan, the ancestor of three present-day Maya languages, had developed a calendar of eighteen twenty-day months plus a set of five days for a total of 365 days. This original Maya calendar, used extensively during the Classic period (200–900 CE), recorded in hieroglyphic inscriptions the dates of dynastic and cosmological importance. Over time, and especially after the Mayas’ contact with Europeans, the month names that had originated with these inscriptions developed into fourteen distinct traditions, each connected to a different ethnic group. Today, the glyphs encompass 250 standard forms, variants, and alternates, with about 570 meanings among all the cognates, synonyms, and homonyms. In The Maya Calendar, Weldon Lamb collects, defines, and correlates the month names in every recorded Maya calendrical tradition from the first hieroglyphic inscriptions to the present—an undertaking critical to unlocking and understanding the iconography and cosmology of the ancient Maya world. Mining data from astronomy, ethnography, linguistics, and epigraphy, and working from early and modern dictionaries of the Maya languages, Lamb pieces together accurate definitions of the month names in order to compare them across time and tradition. His exhaustive process reveals unsuspected parallels. Three-fourths of the month names, he shows, still derive from those of the original hieroglyphic inscriptions. Lamb also traces the relationship between month names as cognates, synonyms, or homonyms, and then reconstructs each name’s history of development, connecting the Maya month names in several calendars to ancient texts and archaeological finds. In this landmark study, Lamb’s investigations afford new insight into the agricultural, astronomical, ritual, and even political motivations behind names and dates in the Maya calendar. A history of descent and diffusion, of unexpected connectedness and longevity, The Maya Calendar offers readers a deep understanding of a foundational aspect of Maya culture.
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 080615778X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 359
Book Description
By 1,800 years ago, speakers of proto-Ch’olan, the ancestor of three present-day Maya languages, had developed a calendar of eighteen twenty-day months plus a set of five days for a total of 365 days. This original Maya calendar, used extensively during the Classic period (200–900 CE), recorded in hieroglyphic inscriptions the dates of dynastic and cosmological importance. Over time, and especially after the Mayas’ contact with Europeans, the month names that had originated with these inscriptions developed into fourteen distinct traditions, each connected to a different ethnic group. Today, the glyphs encompass 250 standard forms, variants, and alternates, with about 570 meanings among all the cognates, synonyms, and homonyms. In The Maya Calendar, Weldon Lamb collects, defines, and correlates the month names in every recorded Maya calendrical tradition from the first hieroglyphic inscriptions to the present—an undertaking critical to unlocking and understanding the iconography and cosmology of the ancient Maya world. Mining data from astronomy, ethnography, linguistics, and epigraphy, and working from early and modern dictionaries of the Maya languages, Lamb pieces together accurate definitions of the month names in order to compare them across time and tradition. His exhaustive process reveals unsuspected parallels. Three-fourths of the month names, he shows, still derive from those of the original hieroglyphic inscriptions. Lamb also traces the relationship between month names as cognates, synonyms, or homonyms, and then reconstructs each name’s history of development, connecting the Maya month names in several calendars to ancient texts and archaeological finds. In this landmark study, Lamb’s investigations afford new insight into the agricultural, astronomical, ritual, and even political motivations behind names and dates in the Maya calendar. A history of descent and diffusion, of unexpected connectedness and longevity, The Maya Calendar offers readers a deep understanding of a foundational aspect of Maya culture.
Maya Wars
Author: Terry Rugeley
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 9780806133553
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256
Book Description
"The documents included in this book came from British, U.S., French, German, Maya, and Hispanic-Mexican authors and were written over a span of a hundred years"--P. [xi].
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 9780806133553
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256
Book Description
"The documents included in this book came from British, U.S., French, German, Maya, and Hispanic-Mexican authors and were written over a span of a hundred years"--P. [xi].
Of Wonders and Wise Men
Author: Terry Rugeley
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292774710
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 372
Book Description
2004 – Harvey L. Johnson Award – Southwest Council of Latin American Studies In the tumultuous decades following Mexico's independence from Spain, religion provided a unifying force among the Mexican people, who otherwise varied greatly in ethnicity and socioeconomic status. Accordingly, religion and the popular cultures surrounding it form the lens through which Terry Rugeley focuses this cultural history of southeast Mexico from independence (1821) to the rise of the dictator Porfirio Díaz in 1876. Drawing on a wealth of previously unused archival material, Rugeley vividly reconstructs the folklore, beliefs, attitudes, and cultural practices of the Maya and Hispanic peoples of the Yucatán. In engagingly written chapters, he explores folklore and folk wisdom, urban piety, iconography, and anticlericalism. Interspersed among the chapters are detailed portraits of individual people, places, and institutions, that, with the archival evidence, offer a full and fascinating history of the outlooks, entertainments, and daily lives of the inhabitants of southeast Mexico in the nineteenth century. Rugeley also links this rich local history with larger events to show how macro changes in Mexico affected ordinary people.
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292774710
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 372
Book Description
2004 – Harvey L. Johnson Award – Southwest Council of Latin American Studies In the tumultuous decades following Mexico's independence from Spain, religion provided a unifying force among the Mexican people, who otherwise varied greatly in ethnicity and socioeconomic status. Accordingly, religion and the popular cultures surrounding it form the lens through which Terry Rugeley focuses this cultural history of southeast Mexico from independence (1821) to the rise of the dictator Porfirio Díaz in 1876. Drawing on a wealth of previously unused archival material, Rugeley vividly reconstructs the folklore, beliefs, attitudes, and cultural practices of the Maya and Hispanic peoples of the Yucatán. In engagingly written chapters, he explores folklore and folk wisdom, urban piety, iconography, and anticlericalism. Interspersed among the chapters are detailed portraits of individual people, places, and institutions, that, with the archival evidence, offer a full and fascinating history of the outlooks, entertainments, and daily lives of the inhabitants of southeast Mexico in the nineteenth century. Rugeley also links this rich local history with larger events to show how macro changes in Mexico affected ordinary people.
Moral Ecology of a Forest
Author: José E. Martínez-Reyes
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816531374
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 214
Book Description
Conclusion. Conservation Rebels: Blocking Land Grabs, Post-Conservation, and Decolonizing Coloniality -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816531374
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 214
Book Description
Conclusion. Conservation Rebels: Blocking Land Grabs, Post-Conservation, and Decolonizing Coloniality -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index
Handbook of Middle American Indians, Volume 6
Author: Robert Wauchope
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 1477306684
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 622
Book Description
Social Anthropology is the sixth volume in the Handbook of Middle American Indians, published in cooperation with the Middle American Research Institute of Tulane University under the general editorship of Robert Wauchope (1909–1979). The volume editor is Manning Nash (1924–2001), Professor of Anthropology at the Center for Study of Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago. This volume provides a synthetic and comparative summary of native ethnography and ethnology of Mexico and Central America, written by authorities in a number of broad fields: the native population and its identification, agricultural systems and food patterns, economies, crafts, fine arts, kinship and family, compadrinazgo, local and territorial units, political and religious organizations, levels of communal relations, annual and fiesta cycles, sickness, folklore, religion, mythology, psychological orientations, ethnic relationships, and topics of especial modern significance such as acculturation, nationalization, directed change, urbanization and industrialization. The articles rely on the accumulated ethnography of the region, but instead of being essentially historical in treatment, they aim toward generalizations about the uniformities and varieties of culture, society, and personality found in Middle America. The collection is an invaluable reference work on Middle America and a provocative guide to scholars engaged in furthering understanding of humans and society. The Handbook of Middle American Indians was assembled and edited at the Middle American Research Institute of Tulane University with the assistance of grants from the National Science Foundation and under the sponsorship of the National Research Council Committee on Latin American Anthropology.
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 1477306684
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 622
Book Description
Social Anthropology is the sixth volume in the Handbook of Middle American Indians, published in cooperation with the Middle American Research Institute of Tulane University under the general editorship of Robert Wauchope (1909–1979). The volume editor is Manning Nash (1924–2001), Professor of Anthropology at the Center for Study of Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago. This volume provides a synthetic and comparative summary of native ethnography and ethnology of Mexico and Central America, written by authorities in a number of broad fields: the native population and its identification, agricultural systems and food patterns, economies, crafts, fine arts, kinship and family, compadrinazgo, local and territorial units, political and religious organizations, levels of communal relations, annual and fiesta cycles, sickness, folklore, religion, mythology, psychological orientations, ethnic relationships, and topics of especial modern significance such as acculturation, nationalization, directed change, urbanization and industrialization. The articles rely on the accumulated ethnography of the region, but instead of being essentially historical in treatment, they aim toward generalizations about the uniformities and varieties of culture, society, and personality found in Middle America. The collection is an invaluable reference work on Middle America and a provocative guide to scholars engaged in furthering understanding of humans and society. The Handbook of Middle American Indians was assembled and edited at the Middle American Research Institute of Tulane University with the assistance of grants from the National Science Foundation and under the sponsorship of the National Research Council Committee on Latin American Anthropology.
Unfinished Conversations
Author: Paul Sullivan
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 1101874570
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 398
Book Description
A century ago, European and North American archaeologists first came upon the extraordinary ruins of Chichen Itza and Tulum—and started to converse with the Mayas who inhabited the forests of the Yucatan. In this thought-provoking history of a century-long "unfinished conversation" between the indigenous Indians and the white intruders, paul Sullivan shows how each party to the dialogue shaped the cross-cultural encounters to their own ends. North American anthropologists preferred to see the Mayas as a primitive people and studied them, they claimed, with scientific neutrality. Yet the anthropologists hid their real intentions and lied to the Mayas, pretending to be chicle dealers or explorers, and they also (in certain important cases) worked for the United States government as covert intelligence agents. Similarly, the Mayas had their own hidden agendas—wanting guns and money from the Americans to fight the central Mexican government—and consequently charged the Americans for the tribal lore and religious secrets they imparted. Sullivan asks us to view the history of Western-Maya dialogue as a Maya would—setting the prophecies of his ancestors, the advice of his grandparents, and the events of last week in a long continuum that extends way into the future and can foretell the end of the world. By taking this view, once can see how this particular Central American people has constituted a new life, a new past, and a new future out of the ruins of great suffering and defeat. This surprising, moving, and intellectually stimulating book will remind us how even actions initiated with the best intentions can be perverted when tested by the realities of political violence, acute dependency, mutual ignorance, and fear.
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 1101874570
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 398
Book Description
A century ago, European and North American archaeologists first came upon the extraordinary ruins of Chichen Itza and Tulum—and started to converse with the Mayas who inhabited the forests of the Yucatan. In this thought-provoking history of a century-long "unfinished conversation" between the indigenous Indians and the white intruders, paul Sullivan shows how each party to the dialogue shaped the cross-cultural encounters to their own ends. North American anthropologists preferred to see the Mayas as a primitive people and studied them, they claimed, with scientific neutrality. Yet the anthropologists hid their real intentions and lied to the Mayas, pretending to be chicle dealers or explorers, and they also (in certain important cases) worked for the United States government as covert intelligence agents. Similarly, the Mayas had their own hidden agendas—wanting guns and money from the Americans to fight the central Mexican government—and consequently charged the Americans for the tribal lore and religious secrets they imparted. Sullivan asks us to view the history of Western-Maya dialogue as a Maya would—setting the prophecies of his ancestors, the advice of his grandparents, and the events of last week in a long continuum that extends way into the future and can foretell the end of the world. By taking this view, once can see how this particular Central American people has constituted a new life, a new past, and a new future out of the ruins of great suffering and defeat. This surprising, moving, and intellectually stimulating book will remind us how even actions initiated with the best intentions can be perverted when tested by the realities of political violence, acute dependency, mutual ignorance, and fear.
Handbook of Middle American Indians, Volume 16
Author: Robert Wauchope
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 1477306919
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 333
Book Description
The publication of Volume 16 of this distinguished series brings to a close one of the largest research and documentation projects ever undertaken on the Middle American Indians. Since the publication of Volume 1 in 1964, the Handbook of Middle American Indians has provided the most complete information on every aspect of indigenous culture, including natural environment, archaeology, linguistics, social anthropology, physical anthropology, ethnology, and ethnohistory. Culminating this massive project is Volume 16, divided into two parts. Part I, Sources Cited, by Margaret A. L. Harrison, is a listing in alphabetical order of all the bibliographical entries cited in Volumes 1-11. (Volumes 12-15, comprising the Guide to Ethnohistorical Sources, have not been included, because they stand apart in subject matter and contain or constitute independent bibliographical material.) Part II, Location of Artifacts Illustrated, by Marjorie S. Zengel, details the location (at the time of original publication) of the owner of each pre-Columbian American artifact illustrated in Volumes 1-11 of the Handbook, as well as the size and the catalog, accession, and/or inventory number that the owner assigns to the object. The two parts of Volume 16 provide a convenient and useful reference to material found in the earlier volumes. The Handbook of Middle American Indians was assembled and edited at the Middle American Research Institute of Tulane University with the assistance of grants from the National Science Foundation and under the sponsorship of the National Research Council Committee on Latin American Anthropology.
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 1477306919
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 333
Book Description
The publication of Volume 16 of this distinguished series brings to a close one of the largest research and documentation projects ever undertaken on the Middle American Indians. Since the publication of Volume 1 in 1964, the Handbook of Middle American Indians has provided the most complete information on every aspect of indigenous culture, including natural environment, archaeology, linguistics, social anthropology, physical anthropology, ethnology, and ethnohistory. Culminating this massive project is Volume 16, divided into two parts. Part I, Sources Cited, by Margaret A. L. Harrison, is a listing in alphabetical order of all the bibliographical entries cited in Volumes 1-11. (Volumes 12-15, comprising the Guide to Ethnohistorical Sources, have not been included, because they stand apart in subject matter and contain or constitute independent bibliographical material.) Part II, Location of Artifacts Illustrated, by Marjorie S. Zengel, details the location (at the time of original publication) of the owner of each pre-Columbian American artifact illustrated in Volumes 1-11 of the Handbook, as well as the size and the catalog, accession, and/or inventory number that the owner assigns to the object. The two parts of Volume 16 provide a convenient and useful reference to material found in the earlier volumes. The Handbook of Middle American Indians was assembled and edited at the Middle American Research Institute of Tulane University with the assistance of grants from the National Science Foundation and under the sponsorship of the National Research Council Committee on Latin American Anthropology.
Ritual Humor in Highland Chiapas
Author: Victoria Reifler Bricker
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292791763
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 298
Book Description
Zinacantan, Chamula, and Chenalhó are neighboring Mayan communities situated in highland Chiapas, Mexico, near the city of San Cristóbal Las Casas. The inhabitants of the three communities speak dialects of the Tzotzil language. Five religious fiestas, celebrated by these communities in honor of their saints, provide the data for Victoria Bricker's comparative study of ritual humor. In Chenalhó and Chamula performances of ritual humor are concentrated in the five-day period of a single fiesta, while in Zanacantan similar performances are distributed over threee fiestas. In these fiesta settings, performers in distinctive costumes make obscene and sacreligious remarks in the context of religious ritual. These performances are defined as ritual humor because they occur only in ritual settings. Bricker's study constitutes a controlled cross-cultural comparison of ceremonial or ritual humor in its social and cultural setting. Much new information is provided in verbatim texts, recorded during actual fiesta performances. The study reveals that, although the three communities share a common pool of ritual symbols, they elaborate them differently in ritual humor. The study analyzes the symbolic expression of values, social organization, and interethnic relations.
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292791763
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 298
Book Description
Zinacantan, Chamula, and Chenalhó are neighboring Mayan communities situated in highland Chiapas, Mexico, near the city of San Cristóbal Las Casas. The inhabitants of the three communities speak dialects of the Tzotzil language. Five religious fiestas, celebrated by these communities in honor of their saints, provide the data for Victoria Bricker's comparative study of ritual humor. In Chenalhó and Chamula performances of ritual humor are concentrated in the five-day period of a single fiesta, while in Zanacantan similar performances are distributed over threee fiestas. In these fiesta settings, performers in distinctive costumes make obscene and sacreligious remarks in the context of religious ritual. These performances are defined as ritual humor because they occur only in ritual settings. Bricker's study constitutes a controlled cross-cultural comparison of ceremonial or ritual humor in its social and cultural setting. Much new information is provided in verbatim texts, recorded during actual fiesta performances. The study reveals that, although the three communities share a common pool of ritual symbols, they elaborate them differently in ritual humor. The study analyzes the symbolic expression of values, social organization, and interethnic relations.
Dédalo
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Archaeology
Languages : en
Pages : 418
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Archaeology
Languages : en
Pages : 418
Book Description