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Surviving Spanish Conquest: Yucatec Maya Social and Cultural Persistence

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Surviving Spanish Conquest: Yucatec Maya Social and Cultural Persistence SURVIVING SPANISH CONQUEST: YUCATEC MAYA SOCIAL AND CULTURAL PERSISTENCE by Christopher Adam Thrasher B.A., The University of West Florida, 2014 A thesis submitted to the Department of History College of Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities The University of West Florida In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts 2017 The thesis of Christopher Adam Thrasher is approved: ____________________________________________ _________________ Erin W. Stone, Ph. D., Committee Chair Date ____________________________________________ _________________ Matthew Pursell, Ph. D., Committee Member Date ____________________________________________ _________________ John E. Worth, Ph. D., Committee Member Date Accepted for the Department/Division: ____________________________________________ _________________ Amy Cook, Ph. D., Chair Date Accepted for the University: ____________________________________________ _________________ John Clune, Ph.D., Interim Dean, Graduate School Date TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................................... iv ABSTRACT .....................................................................................................................................v INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................................................................1 A. Cosmology as a Structure: Dualism of Schemas and Resources .....................5 B. Cosmology as a Worldview .............................................................................7 C. “Deep” Structures and the Persistence of Maya Social and Cultural Structures ....................................................................................................... 11 D. The Masses: Archaeology Restores Voices of Non-elites .............................21 CHAPTER I. CONTEXTUALIZING HISTORY: A REVIEW OF MAYA SCHOLARSHIP ....23 A. Forgotten but never Lost ................................................................................26 B. Maya History Takes Shape .............................................................................34 C. Modern Foundations .......................................................................................38 D. Picking up the Pieces (and Tying together Threads) ......................................44 E. Conclusion ......................................................................................................47 CHAPTER II. A CYCLICAL UNIVERSE: AN END IS A BEGINNING ..................................49 A. The “Collapse” Narrative ...............................................................................53 B. New Approaches ............................................................................................54 C. Kingdoms at War ............................................................................................57 D. Ecological Pressures .......................................................................................60 E. Conclusion: Changing Concepts of “Collapse” .............................................65 CHAPTER III. HIDDEN FROM VIEW: MAYA SOCIAL AND CULTURAL PERSISTENCE IN THE SHADOWS OF COLONIAL EMPIRE .................................................70 A. Maya Social and Cultural Structures under Spanish Rule .............................73 B. Maya Religion and Oppression by the Spanish ..............................................76 C. Conclusion ......................................................................................................86 CHAPTER IV. SMOLDERING INCENSE: THE LACANDÓN MAYA AND PRECOLUMBIAN WORLDVIEWS IN DECLINE ...........................................88 A. The Lacandón Maya in Modernity: Ethnogenesis and a Culture Dwindling in the Jungle ........................................................................................................88 B. Agricultural Practices .....................................................................................92 C. Lacandón Maya Ritual and Religion ..............................................................94 D. Conclusion: Intrusion by the Outside and the Decline of Tradition .............101 CONCLUDING THOUGHTS: INDIGENOUS COSMOLOGY IN MODERNITY .................108 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................111 FIGURE REFERENCES .............................................................................................................120 iii LIST OF FIGURES 1. Cozumel beach on the Yucatán Peninsula ...........................................................................4 2. The Kukulcan temple at Chichen Itza before excavation ..................................................20 3. Diego de Landa’s alphabet .................................................................................................25 4. Cenote Xtacumbilxunan, at Bolonchen, Yucatan ...............................................................27 5. The Conquest of Tenochtitlán ............................................................................................31 6. An image by NASA showing the Yucatán Peninsula and Gulf of Honduras ....................39 7. Portion of a Building Called Las Monjas at Uxmal. .........................................................52 8. The Kukulcan temple serpent at Chichen Itza shortly after the March Equinox in 2009 ..78 9. Images from the Dresden Codex, a Maya book from before the Postclassic period .........85 10. A Map of Maya peoples identified by languages of the Yucatán ......................................90 11. Lake Miramar in the Lacandón Jungle, 2007 ....................................................................94 iv ABSTRACT SURVIVING SPANISH CONQUEST: YUCATEC MAYA SOCIAL AND CULTURAL PERSISTENCE Christopher Adam Thrasher After decades of bloody conflict, the Spanish conquistadors eventually ripped away cultural and social independence from the Maya. Despite life under siege by Europeans, the Maya did manage to persist culturally and socially. Many have explained their survival geographically. Maya territory was not at the center of the Spanish Empire. Nor was the region a ready source for material wealth and natural resources. However, practical considerations do not adequately explain Maya persistence in the wake of contact with Europeans. This thesis highlights Maya social and cultural structures and how they contributed to Maya resilience. Thomas Sewell Jr.’s structural theory argued that “surface” structures germinate from “deep” structures. Maya cosmology acted as a “deep” structure in the manner suggested by Sewell. Classic Maya adaptations to rapid transformation during the Terminal Classic period provided opportunities for the Postclassic Maya to act as agents during and after Spanish conquest, reconfiguring their social and cultural structures to respond to new circumstances. These processes continued for centuries—the Lacandón Maya of Chiapas, Mexico continue to reproduce expressions of Maya social and cultural structures today. As a result, this group provides a productive case study in the analysis of cosmology as a deep structure. v INTRODUCTION A STUDY WITH STRUCTURE: INTRODUCTION AND THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS The first gods were perishable gods. Their worship came to its inevitable end. They lost their efficacy by the benediction of the Lord of Heaven, after the redemption of the world was accomplished, after the resurrection of the true God, the true Dios, when he blessed heaven and earth. Then was your worship abolished Maya men. Turn away your hearts from your (old) religion.1 In the forests of the Yucatán, the Maya constructed permanent settlements, massive physical monuments to their gods and a civilization that would last for centuries. This civilization endured conquests by its neighbors, periods of centralization and diffusion, site abandonment, relocation, and reorganization. However, contact with another civilization, alien to the Americas, challenged virtually every aspect of Maya life. Spanish invaders threatened the physical well-being of the Maya, their social and cultural structures, and the vitality of their cosmology. Despite this new adversary’s objective to destroy much of Maya social and cultural life, the Yucatec Maya preserved many elements of their cosmology. Vestiges of this cosmology can still be seen in today’s remaining indigenous groups in the Yucatán: beliefs in many gods or spirits, the centrality of ritual culture bearing great similarity to its pre-Columbian ancestors, and a special relationship to nature bound closely to the respect of unseen powers. As a consequence of transformative events in the ninth and tenth centuries, the sixteenth- century Maya lived in a disparate, decentralized civilization broken into kingdoms and systems of alliance. This lack of centralization, coupled with limited utility of the Yucatán to the Spanish Empire, rendered total conquest by the Spanish a lengthy and impractical venture. The Spanish exercised limited administrative control following their initial conquest of the Yucatán. And as 1 The Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel, ed. Ralph L. Roys, 1933 (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1967), 98. 1 can still be observed in present day indigenous groups of the Yucatán, the Spanish never entirely extinguished distinctly Maya social and cultural structures. This thesis examines how, through their own agency, the Maya preserved
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