The Protestant Ethic and Development Ethos: Cacao and Changing Cultural Values Among the Mopan Maya of Belize Erik Nathaniel
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The Protestant Ethic and Development Ethos: Cacao and Changing Cultural Values among the Mopan Maya of Belize Erik Nathaniel Stanley Orlando, Florida M.A Anthropology. University of Virginia, 2009 M.A. Anthropology, Florida State University, 2005 B.A. Anthropology, University of Central Florida, 2003 A Dissertation presented to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Virginia in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Anthropology University of Virginia May, 2015 Erik Stanley Title: The Protestant Ethic and Development Ethos: Cacao and Changing Cultural Values among the Mopan Maya of Belize Abstract: My dissertation employs a Weberian perspective to explore the cultural manifestation of Protestantism and the Spirit of Capitalism in indigenous Mopan Maya society. To this end, I trace how cacao has been transformed from a once sacred plant at the heart of Mopan spiritual ecology to a secular commodity bound for the world market. Cacao's deep history and spiritual importance among the Mopan make it an ideal focus for examining culture change and continuity, hegemony and counter- narrative. The recent availability of markets for cacao in southern Belize has allowed for significant expansion of cacao among the Belizean Mopan and Q'eqchi' Maya with many people expanding their cacao cultivation beyond the home garden to extensive cacao plantations. Drawing on ethnographic encounters in the Mopan Maya village of San Jose Belize, my dissertation explores how Protestantism and development enhance the latent possibilities within one another and reinforce a configuration of society congruent with hegemonic western modernity. In the midst of these changes, cacao lies at the center of competing ideologies between traditional Mopan values of Kustumbre (tradition) and those of western modernity. I argue that Protestant conversion has laid the ground work for adoption of development by religiously sanctioning an individualistic Weberian capitalist ethic and condemning indigenous spirituality, providing the moral foundation in which development projects for commercial cacao could take root. While visible social inequality was previously held in check through fear of obia / pulyah (black magic), Protestant denunciation of indigenous spirituality as witchcraft/demon worship has undermined the enforcement of economic equality, allowing for the emergence of capitalist values. At the same time, indigenous environmental ritual has become a fault line in Maya communities between "New Testament People" – Protestants and younger Catholics who reject ritual practice - and Catholic elders who continue to practice "Old Testament" ways. I suggest that the ‘New Testament’ world view promulgated through evangelism provides a cultural narrative consistent with the goals of high modernist development. As cacao’s sacred symbolism has declined, many Mopan increasingly view cacao as the object of agronomic improvement and as a fungible commodity. Protestant condemnation of nature spirits reconfigures the relational landscape of Mopan Kustumbre into a collection of natural resources ripe for maximization and efficient management. Human domination of nature through capitalist development not only provides material wealth, but also is a public proclamation for New Testament people that they no longer fear retribution from the spirits of nature, in the same way that they no longer fear the obia of their jealous neighbors. In both Protestantism and development, environmental calamities are no longer the manifestation of disrespected spirits or a lapse in relationality. Rather, they are constructed as a technical problem which can be managed through the application of resources and ingenuity. Committee George Mentore (Chair) Fred Damon Eve Danziger Roy Wagner Hank Shugart Table of Contents - Title Page - Abstract - Table of Contents - Summary of Argument Part 1 – Kustumbre 1. Introduction – Chapter 1 provides an overview of the central themes of my dissertation which uses cacao to speak more broadly about the transition from the values of Kustumbre to modernity in Mopan society. To explore these changes, I introduce the case study of cacao farmers in San Jose, Belize. 2. Background – The background chapter describes the ethnographic, historical and ecological context of my dissertation, focusing on the intersection of the Mopan, Belize and cacao cultivation throughout the pre-colonial and colonial eras. This investigation sets the stage for the subsequent discussions of the major changes brought by Protestantism and development. 3. The Sociality of Drinking Cacao – Chapter 3 forefronts the ways that cacao creates convivial relations between different members of society as part of the larger Mopan culinary grammar. I then describe important occasions for the consumption of cacao in the "old ways" including weddings, baptisms, collective labor, and fiestas. 4. Sacred Ecology - In this chapter, I investigate traditional Mopan understanding of cacao within a cosmology of nature that that is alive with spirit owners (yum) who share familiar social principles of respect, exchange and kinship that form the basis for inter-spiritual relationality. 5. Feeding the Sacred – Building off of the previous chapter's discussion of the relationality of Mopan nature cosmology, chapter 5 explores the place of cacao in the ritual process. Before the coming of Protestant missionaries to San Jose, sacrifices were conceived of as "feeding" the spirits and were used to woo their favor in rituals for agriculture, hunting, consecrating houses and villages, healing and for communing with the spirits of the dead. Part 2 – Protestantism 6. Protestant Conversion and Social Schism - In chapter 6, I first give an account of the coming of Protestant missionaries to southern Belize, describing how conversion has transformed Mopan society by valorizing individualism, textual authority and rupture from the past. Religious schism and secularization in the aftermath of conversion has led to the desacralization of cacao as an implement of sacred sociality, allowing for imported goods to take its place in the Mopan culinary practices. 7. The Demystification of Nature and Ritual Abandonment - Chapter 7 examines the role of Protestant conversion in the vilification of nature spirits, the abandonment of environmental rituals and the demystification of the environment. I argue that the Protestant condemnation of Kustumbre has desacralized cacao as a sacred ritual instrument, allowing for it to be repositioned as a profane commodity in the context of agricultural development in which humans have legitimate dominion over their environment. Part 3 – Development 8. The Development of Maya Society - In this chapter, I describe how the creation of a commercial cacao industry has sought to reconfigure indigenous social values to conform to “modern” values of economic individualism, inequality, investment, and wage labor. I then explore how different actors in the Belizean cacao industry juxtapose Belizean Maya identity with cacao as a form of authentic cultural heritage. The emphasis on the tangible markers of ethnic identity, rather than indigenous spirituality, has allowed for a local reinterpretation of Mopan culture as secularized tradition which seeks to heal the social divisions brought by religious schism. 9. The Post-Development of Nature - Chapter 9 explores changing Mopan relations with the natural world in the context of the commercialization of cacao and the emergent cacao fungus Monilia. Through numerous development projects and agricultural extension training classes, the old ways of Mopan animistic environmental relations are challenged by western ideologies of mononaturalism which privilege scientific mastery of nature. I argue that the transformation of the "old ways" Mopan cacao farming to modern commercial agriculture is amplified by Protestant environmental theology which encourages dominion over nature as a proclamation of faith against the superstition of Kustumbre. Religious change prevents indigenous spirituality from acting as a counter-narrative to the hegemonic discourses of scientific agronomy. Part 4 – Conclusion 10. Conclusion – The conclusion reviews the central arguments of the dissertation, describing the transformation from the old spiritual and social uses of cacao to its current place as a profane commodity. I then examine the interactions between Protestantism and development which enhances the efficacy of these modernizing institutions in transforming indigenous societies. Finally, I explore future research directions suggested by this study. 11 Bibliography Summary of Argument My dissertation explores the Mopan Maya's relationship with cacao as a means to speak to larger issues of changing social, environmental and spiritual values. Cacao's deep history and spiritual importance among the Mopan make it an ideal focus for examining culture change and continuity, hegemony and counter-narrative. My dissertation argues that Protestant missionization serves as an ideological catalyst for the remaking of ‘modern’ selves in Mopan society. I suggest that the ‘New Testament’ world view promulgated through evangelism provides a cultural narrative consistent with the goals of high modernist development. I explore the complex relationship between Protestantism and development by tracing and historicizing the social life of cacao a once sacred plant at the heart of Mopan spiritual ecology that has become repositioned as a secular commodity bound for the world market.