Mayaness Through Time

Home , Alfred Maudslay, Arthur Demarest, Kay Warren, Maya textiles, Tabasco (former state)

ISSN 1653-2244

MAGISTERUPPSATSER I KULTURANTROPOLOGI – Nr 1

Challenges to ethnic identity and culture from the past to modernity

Ulf Lewin

Master Thesis in Cultural Anthropology (20 Swedish credits) Department of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology Uppsala University

Supervisor: Dr. Juan-Carlos Gumucio June 2005

Master Thesis, Uppsala Universitet, Department of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology, Ulf Lewin, June 2005.

Title Mayaness Through Time: Challenges to ethnic identity and culture from the past to modernity .

Abstract Some six million people in modern Central America are considered to be “Maya” and thereby descendants of an ethnic group that created one of the great early civilizations of mankind. The present study, in a first section, looks in some detail at how the Maya became a group of its own, slowly separating itself from Mesoamerican neighbors, taking on an ethnic identity, markers and boundaries Attention is paid to what can be considered uniquely Maya and what remained features shared with other groups. This historic section follows the Maya until early colonization. The next section gives an overview of modern Mayaness, activism and Maya claims to preserve and revitalize a supposed heritage, taking it into the 21st century. With the historic section as a mirror and background, the study aims at identifying how Mayaness is maintained through time, how silent testimonies tell us about the use in the past of ethnic and cultural markers. Proofs are given of such elements still alive. The text goes on to discuss the future of Maya ethnic identity and culture, its continuity while changing.

Keywords: ethnic identity, ethnicity, culture, Guatemala, Maya, Mayaness, Mesoamerica, Olmecs.

CONTENTS

Foreword 4

1. Introduction 6

2. Identity, Culture and the “Maya” Concept 9 Ethnicity and Ethnic Identity 9 Culture 11 The “Maya” Concept 14

3. Maya of the Past 17 From Archaic through Pre-Classic: The birth of a civilization 18 Classic Maya 22 A Time of Greatness 22 The “Mysterious” Fall: Different interpretations 27 Post-Classic and Early Colonialism 31

4. Maya Today 38 Maya and the Modern Setting 38 From Survivalism to Activism and Pan-Maya Movements 41

5. The Past in the Present 46 Anything left to be “saved”? Language and education 47 Dress 49 Cosmovision, spirituality and religion 51 Four Case Studies 52 Alta Verapaz: Q´eqchí, Tzuultaq´a, and modern archaeologists 52 Yucatan: timeless cosmovision 55 Santiago Atitlán: Tzutujil in incompatible worlds 56 Quiché: San Simón and Popol Vuh 57

6. Remaining Maya. – Are Ethnicity and Culture forever? 59 Further discussion and conclusions Epilogue 65

References 66

Foreword “A strong current runs by its own waves through the sea” Tegnér: Frithiofs saga, 1825.

As part of a different career, I first met Guatemala and Guatemalan society in the late 1980s. Strongly impressed, like all newcomers, by the beauty of the countryside but also of the literally colorful presence of the Maya, it did not take me long to start asking questions. One of them was frequently repeated, particularly considering that the year 1992 was approaching, marking half a millennium since the “discovery of America” – or, at least, a lasting encounter between two worlds. The question to the Maya that I could not hold back was: In case the Guatemalan government one day would say “We cannot compensate you for your long suffering in past centuries, but are willing to seriously consider three claims of yours”, would you be able, among the Maya subgroups, to agree on some top priorities and to choose a few spokes- people to represent all of you? Each time I was sad to hear the negative answer. It opened my eyes to the deep-rooted unwillingness to join forces, this time all Maya against the state, for a purpose that might be extremely important to themselves. So strong was evidently their pride in their sub-Maya ethnic identity and boundaries – or was it, more than anything else, a lack of Maya consciousness? In 1992, the Nobel Peace Price was awarded to Rigoberta Menchú, a Maya Quiché woman who had experienced, personally and through close family, many of the horrors that the Maya people was exposed to still in those days. She did indeed represent Maya suffering. While there were international reactions questioning what she had done herself to qualify for the award, it was generally accepted as a symbolic recognition of all sufferings of indigenous peoples, particularly in the Americas, due to conquest and colonization. This award was extra sensitive in the laureate´s own country where a civil war was still raging, with large numbers of Maya victims of army atrocities. Rigoberta Menchú, whose acting I could follow at close distance, behaved with a considerable courage and was also a strong factor behind the UN nomination of, first a year, then a full decade, of attention to indigenous peoples of the world

But not even with the prestigious award, and with worldwide attention to this woman who was suddenly the spokes-person of indigenous peoples on a global scale, was she accepted by the Maya of Guatemala as a focal point. Again, this seemed to be a forceful illustration of a deep rooted split between the 22 Maya ethnic groups of Guatemala, one that could evidently not be bridged even when the rewards of a joint action seemed to be within reach. It thus became clear to me that the Maya population of Guatemala from an emic perspective is not one Maya people the way it is seen by Guatemalan ladinos and by the international community. To the Maya themselves it is rather a conglomerate of different “peoples” with a common root, genetically, linguistically, ethnically, and culturally. The lack of general indigenous support for Rigoberta expressed a lack of awareness of being Maya. While non-Maya have strong reasons to respect this diversity, we can note that this is a factor debilitating their position in relation to their nation-state. Now, with a theoretical anthropological background, I am anxious to explore how the Maya through time have been dealing with their ethnic identity, culture, and generally, their Mayaness. I feel like the anthropologist referred to by Clifford Geertz (1973, quoted in Fischer 2001: 7) in his words: “The culture of a people is an ensemble of texts, themselves ensembles, which the anthropologist strains to read over the shoulder of those to whom they properly belong”. Let us now see what we are able to read over the Maya shoulder.

1. Introduction Out of the mist of prehistory of man on the American continent, a group later called Maya entered the stage, eventually shaping a profile of its own, including an ethnic identity, boundaries, and a culture, elements that they seem to maintain, to a considerable degree, today – some three millennia later. The large number of present day Maya, some five million of which make up about half the population of Guatemala and most of the others, constituting an important part of the population of Yucatan (Mexico), exert in different ways a strongly visible impact on, particularly, Guatemala and southern Mexico. At the same time, though, different factors in the modern Maya world are on a collision course: on the one hand winds of modernization as well as ambitions of nation-states tending to make the citizens more uniform and, on the other, a Maya activism of a dimension not previously seen - especially not in Guatemala - and a pan-Maya movement encouraged by the new international support for indigenous cultures. After an introductory look at ethnic identity and culture from an anthropological perspective followed by comments on the concept of Maya as such, the present study examines in its Chapter 3 the emergence and maintenance of a coherent Maya identity until the arrival of the first Spaniards. Having followed the Maya through their early history, this paper then, in Chapters 4 and 5, makes a special exploration of the situation for the Maya of today, particularly in Guatemala, with special reference to their continued ethnic identity and culture. This section will show that there is a remaining and striking strength in modern Maya culture. Against the historic background, a discussion will follow (Chapter 6), as to the probability that the Maya of the 21st century, particularly those in Guatemala, will remain an ethnic identity with a clearly defined culture, or if overwhelming odds indicate that the interests of the nation-state and the effects of modernization and/or other factors will result in homogenicized national citizens, deprived of their previous cultural uniqueness.

Hypothesis. The author´s argument is that in spite of various ambiguities that will be explored, it is indeed meaningful to posit the existence of a distinct Maya identity, from early pre-Classic to our times, and that what we currently witness includes elements that can be traced back to early periods as well as

others that are innovative and without precedent. A new form of Maya awareness is today growing and a different Maya concept may be taking shape, less colorful than the traditional one, but one with a content that may finally become more widely accepted by the rest of society. In spite of changes, additions and losses, the author argues that much enough of traditional Maya culture is still maintained, and will persist, to qualify for being recognized as a distinct culture with strong roots in a distant past. A prerequisite for such an opinion and forecast is, though, a fair degree of tolerance when judging the extent to which a culture may change while continuing. This study wishes to bridge the gaps between archaeological research and a rich, but mainly locally oriented ethnographic literature, adding a Maya activist dimension and a forward looking macro perspective.

Earlier studies. The rich field for Maya studies has been and continues to be approached by scholars of many specialities, from archaeologists to social scientists. Part of the fascination lies in the challenges still offered by the enigmatic glyphic script and the interpretation of images. Bishop Landa´s Relación de las Cosas de Yucatán of 1566, rediscovered in the 1860s, has proved to be a most important document. J. L. Stephens and artist Frederick Catherwood published in 1841 Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan that created the first Maya interest in a broad public. Alfred Maudslay, Teobert Maler and Sylvanus Morley are among early 20th century pioneers in Maya studies. Multidisciplinary research has followed. Nevertheless there have been extraordinary individuals contributing to “breaking the Maya code”. Among the first to have an understanding of the advanced hieroglyphic writing were Heinrich Berlin, Tatiana Proskouriakoff, Yuri Knorozov, and Sir Eric S. Thompson. Step by step knowledge has increased from understanding numbers and calendar glyphs to names of places, rulers, words indicating historic events like birth, accession to throne and death. Particularly the three last decades have meant great steps forward in de-coding. Some 70-80% of the glyphs are now understood and the syntax of phrases is by now revealed. Steven Houston, Nicolai Grube and Federico Fahsen are among the foremost epigraphers today. Still in these days hieroglyphic inscriptions are found on overgrown jungle ruins, adding to the corpus of material available to experts. Michael Coe, late Linda Schele, and

Arthur Demarest represent the frontline archaeologists of the last few decades. Wolfgang Gabbert and John Chuchiak IV are important represen-tatives of colonial time Maya studies, Santiago Bastos and Manuela Camus belong to the advanced sociologists in present day Maya studies. A number of scholars are involved in anthropological studies at a number of localities in, primarily, Guatemala and Yucatan. The present study has drawn on the results of scholars like those mentioned. A main work of reference for the historic overview is a recent comprehensive study by Arthur Demarest, Ancient Maya, The rise and fall of a rainforest civilization (2004), since it incorporates positions also of other prominent researchers in the field. The text on the origin of the Maya concept and aspects from colonial time is based mainly on material published by Gabbert. A number of anthropological studies of continuity and change at different localities have also been used. Bastos and Camus are among several sources of information for modern Maya, for which I also take advantage of personal field experience from five years inside the Guatemalan society. Useful here has also been the variety of positions from which scholars today approach Maya studies within anthropology and related fields as reflected in the agenda for a conference in Bonn, December 2004, devoted to aspects of Maya ethnicity. The agenda, abstracts and oral presentations show how the search is on right now for ways in which the ancient Maya used ethnic boundaries and markers. Among the fields under study are how their “others” were illustrated in iconography and texts by diachritic markers as either honored guests or humiliated captives, how Maya elite related to other elites and promoted an identity different from that of their commoners, the use of names, spatial planning of localities, burial patterns, the use of language, life at court, and the introduction of foreign elements in Maya iconography.

2. Identity, Culture and the “Maya” Concept Since ethnic identity and culture are elements vital to the present exploration of the Maya of the past and the present, a summary will be given here of what these concepts represent in aspects of relevance for the following chapters.

Ethnicity and ethnic identity. It should first be recalled that anthropology is a field where many essential concepts are in use without having a well defined and unanimously accepted meaning. Several of them have been in use for long, some change important nuances in meaning as time goes by. Some have a different significance when used by the general public and media from what is meant in academic circles. Race, people, Indian, ethnicity, nationality and culture are examples of words that in this sense are “difficult”. Discussing the fact that ethnicity has become a widely used concept, Brackette Williams has expressed that it is for this like other central terms and ideas, like democracy, the ambiguity that invests it with such power (Banks 1996: 44). Ethnicity and ethnic identity are concepts in frequent use, not least with reference to groups involved in the numerous local and regional conflicts like in the Balkans and different parts of Africa and the often related mass movements of refugees and other migrants. An identity and a belonging, often expressed in more than one way, are central to any human being. Name and kinship is a basis, citizenship, race, ethnicity as well as social categories that others ascribe to us or that we ourselves work to make our surrounding accept, are others. In our daily life most of us change roles and identities while we move between our homes and work or leisure activities. Some roles, like race, sex, and ethnic belonging, are more permanent than others. From time to time the concepts overlap. Fredrik Barth stresses the maintenance of the external boundaries as vital to the ethnic group. Boundaries, he claims, can not be to “nothing” but has to be to a “something”, i.e. another group (Barth 1969: 11). Thomas Hylland Eriksen takes the same position when saying that in practice there can be no ethnicity in totally monoethnic surroundings, since in such a case there is no one to communicate it to (Eriksen 1993: 47). So much more important is ethnicity when exposed to pressure from outside:

Ethnic identities, which embody a perceived continuity with the past, may in this way function in a psychologically reassuring way for the individual in times of upheaval; they seem to tell people that […] there is an unchanging, stable core of ethnic belongingness which assures the individual of a continuity with the past, which can be an important source of self-respect and personal authenticity in the modern world, which is often perceived as a world of flux and make-believe. If one can claim “to have a culture”, it proves that one is faithful to one´s ancestors and to the past. Religion may or may not play an important part here. (Eriksen 2002: 68).

As will be seen later on, this article also draws the attention to the opposite situation – the possibility of abandoning an ethnicity by intentionally crossing an ethnic boundary, particularly one surrounding an indigenous population. Trying to get rid of a belonging to a category exposed to physical and/or cultural suppression is in many a situation a natural ambition. The possibilities vary strongly, though. They do exist for Fredrik Barth´s Patans and for Abner Cohen´s Hausa. Open to Ngoni/Ndebele there are negotiation possibilities, says Eriksen (1993: 42ff). In Peru, Aymara highland Indians have fairly good possibilities, even by legislation, to be accepted, directly or after passing an intermediary cholo stage, as members of the campesino community. It should be noted that such a smooth process is in the interest of the national Peruvian authorities, since it helps disarming a potentially troublesome “Indian problem”. It goes without saying that such boundary crossings are next to impossible when race and phenotypes are clearly involved, discriminating the potential ethno-refugees. But also the degree of tolerance from society may, and does, differ: On the whole, Maya in Mexico and Guatemala face different perspectives in this respect. Over the last few decades, international law has been breaking new ground by including a global concern for human rights. In this process, attention to the situation for members of indigenous peoples has become an important part. Thus, claims for recognition of and special rights for these peoples have received a considerable attention. As a consequence, a new form of identity has been born, one estimated to be shared by 300 million people belonging to some 4.000 different “cultures” (Niezen 2003: XII). Even though the figures might be incorrect, it is evident that it is to a very large number of human beings that life as member of an “indigenous people” may have been associated in the past with suffering, shame, genocide, compulsory mass movements, political marginalization and a disrupted culture. The recent

development has not eliminated this, to use Chandra Mohanty´s expression from another context (Mohanty 1987: 91), “shared oppression”, but it has at least been joined by somewhat of a “badge worn with pride, revealing something important and personal about the wearer´s collective attachment ”, a feeling of sharing this new and global identity (Niezen 2003: 3). Of particular relevance in this process is the access for these people to different international fora, like the United Nations, that has opened up. This way has even offered them a new form of resistance, a use of the podia of the UN - the organ of the states themselves – to criticize abuses committed by state representatives in their own countries (ibid.: 16). While life remains roughly unchanged for indigenous groups in nation-states were they are still living under difficult circumstances and lacking the alternative of “crossing their ethnic boundary”, there are also nations with considerable numbers of individuals now for the first time actively claiming to become recognized as indigenous or native. In these cases, the new pride in being “indigenous” has to a certain degree replaced the shame of the past. In several cases, though, the reason for this new “overflow” in the form of re-identification may be caused by economic stimuli, like tax or scholarship benefits for Native Americans in the United States. It is nevertheless a striking fact that the number of people identifying themselves as Native Americans has increased in the period from 1950 to 1990 from, roughly, 360.000 to 1,9 millions (Nagel 1996: 5). The fairly recent widespread recognition of the sake of indigenous peoples has resulted in not only cases of improvements for them within their respective states but also in a far reaching international cooperation among themselves to promote their interests, reinforcing somewhat of the new global identity as natives or indigenous peoples.

Culture It is easy to realize that culture is another ambiguous term. Eriksen reminds us that A.L. Kroebner and Clyde Kluckhohn in the 1950s found some 300 definitions of this term (Eriksen 1993: 20). A first step could be to establish what it is not, thus finding its external boundary. A primary dichotomy is culture-nature. Marshall Sahlins states that culture is not just nature expressed differently: Rather the reverse: that action of nature unfolds in the terms of culture; that is, in a form no longer its own but embodied in meaning[…] nature as it

exists in itself is only the raw material provided by the hands of God, waiting to be given meaningful shape and content by the mind of man. It is as the block of marble to the finished statue; and of course the genius of the sculptor (Sahlins 1976: 209f).

Ulf Hannerz expresses it differently: “Between what our genes tell us and what we have to know in order to live there is an information gap, and we fill that gap with culture” (Hannerz 1993: 35). But what is culture, really? Hannerz goes on to remind us that “everybody” in society today claims to have his own variety of culture: immigrants, business corporations, youth. Thus collisions are easily at hand. The ambiguity of the term is easily seen in our own distinction between the concept used in anthropology as opposed to what is dealt with by a Ministry of Culture: literature, music, arts. Lisbeth Sachs, like Geertz, points at man´s important capability to shape and use symbols. She stresses that different characteristics become more visible when cultures can be reflected in each other. Thereby other societies “are good to think with” (Sachs 2002: 20). Culture and cultures are often used as a term on another level, referring to limited periods in a people´s or an ethnic group´s history from which there remains an intellectual or material heritage. For an archaeologist it is for instance natural to talk about a dozen different cultures in Peru to have preceded the Inca one. An anthropologist might rather rely on the idea that culture is not a set of individual acts but rather the structure that makes us act in a certain way; thus deviations are identified only by comparisons with a pattern – and culture makes us see what is homogeneous1. Coming to the interrelation between individuals, society and culture, Englund and Leach state the following: “If persons are individuals, then there must be societies which put them in relations with one another and cultures that supply them with repertoires of meaning" (Englund & Leach 2000: 228). Looking particularly at culture over time and physical encounters between bearers of different cultures, we may, for the purpose of the following Maya study, note the following scholarly approaches. Raymond Williams, basing himself on a Marxist tradition, sees culture or tradition as a mixture of things archaic, residual and emergent. For him,

1 Idea suggested orally by M. Kurkiala, Uppsala University, September 2004.

archaic culture is patterns from the past that are no longer effective in the present but nevertheless remain a source of historical identity. Residual culture is one that, while still rooted in the past, nevertheless influences the present. The emergent one, though, is present not only in today´s expectations, values and interactions, but also in the process through which new meanings and relations are continuously created. Williams stresses that thinking of a culture or a tradition as homogeneous, one forgets the fact that a specific society often lives in and with a synthesis of old and new. Even tradition is selective. A society that has been conquered as well as one going through a fundamental internal transformation can cover a rich variety of traditions within what is on the surface a single culture or tradition. This selective tradition can be, but is not necessarily, used for cultural hegemony. Such a hegemony is, in turn, a special form of cultural domination and can be used for conserving a particular social group´s situation in relation to another (Ulin 1984: 163ff). Marshall Sahlins makes several interesting reflections in his 1994 “Goodbye to Tristes Tropes”. He notes, to start with, that a striking element of the second half of the 20th century is that developing countries have become culturally self-conscious after having for centuries hardly been aware of having any culture at all (Sahlins 1994: 378). With reference to what he calls the European use of the Renaissance as a gross and early case of invention of tradition he further stresses, that it should not be forgotten “that the West owes its own sense of cultural superiority to an invention of the past so flagrant it should make European natives blush to call other peoples culturally counterfeit … When other peoples do it, it is a sign of cultural decadence, a factitious recuperation, which can only bring forth the simulacra of a dead past” (ibid.: 381). Another argument of Sahlins´ of relevance here refers to how indigenous groups, in remarkably constructive ways, have often been absorbing goods brought by early visitors from outside. Warning the readers of underestimating the natives, Sahlins stresses that they “turn foreign goods to the service of domestic ideas, to the objectivation of their own relations and notions of the good life” (ibid.: 387). He goes on to discuss the currently fashionable idea that there is nothing useful called “a culture”, no such reified entity, since the limits of the supposed “cultures” are indeterminate and permeable, a lack of closure that again indicates a lack of system. Paradoxically, this argument misreads a cultural power of inclusion

as the inability to maintain a boundary. It is based on an underestimate of the scope of and systematicality of cultures, which are always universal in compass and thereby able to subsume alien objects in logically coherent relationships (Sahlins 1994: 386, emphasis in original).

Sahlins further argues that the possibility of cultural reproduction deteriorates dramatically if a population is brought under a colonial dependence where the state uses discipline and measures of repression. Those defending traditional systems have, according to Sahlins, nevertheless proved successful in working out meaningful compromises in their relations to the dominating culture. After testing some of the cultural news, the natives almost never want a utopian return to primordial days. It may indeed have its superior values, but once the refrigerator has arrived it must stay. It becomes “domesticated” and is included into the local culture. The recipient population shows its strength by its response to the new circumstances (ibid.: 388-93). Scholarly discussions on cultural continuity are often related to the extent to which change, development, the incorporation of new elements and loss of others is accepted by the school of thought which the anthropologist represents. To a particular extent it reflects the anthropologist´s position vis-à- vis essentialism-constructivism and primordialism-instrumentalism respectively.

The “Maya” concept. Before discussing the Maya people and its civilization, let us look at why the term “Maya” or “Maia” began to be used for this specific group of people. This story must by necessity start a bit into their history, at a time when our present knowledge tells us that there was an interaction with “Others” where such a label was explicitly used for or by this group. Wolfgang Gabbert has given particular attention to the term and the meaning of “Maya”, mainly looking at it from a Yucatan perspective. Gabbert, like others (cf Liljefors-Persson 2004), recalls that Columbus on his fourth voyage is said to have come across a merchant canoe southwest of Cuba, the crew of which indicated that they came from a land called “Maia”. Even though it has been suggested that this expression might rather have been a reference just to certain geographic and climatological characteristics of Yucatan, Gabbert seems inclined, after studying early colonial linguistic geography, to interpret “Maia” as a province on the coast of Yucatan. He

discusses the use of “Maya” in colonial documents and in the indigenous Chilam Balam books and focuses on the extent to which “Maya” in these texts refers to the regional language, a political unity or the population, respectively. Gabbert finds that the term Maya appears in several colonial documents not only with reference to the language or the province but also as a designation of human beings (Gabbert 2001a: 25f). However, in the Spanish colonial sources, it is frequently that Maya refers to language, occasionally that it means a region and only rarely when talking about the individuals thereof (ibid.: 26). To some colonial Spanish authors like Ponce, Maya is a political entity, the province of Maya. According to Cogolludo, the name comes from Mayapán, the capital of a kingdom, probably even the League of Mayapán, an alliance of several polities. Several authors, among them Gabbert, also draw the attention to the native designation of the indigenous language of Yucatan, maya´t´an (ibid.: 25ff). Gabbert concludes that it is probable that the term Maya originally referred to the provinces belonging to the “league of Mayapán” and their inhabitants. He goes on to state that Yucatan´s considerable political fragmentation at the time of conquest as well as the use of the Maya term as a prestigious self-identification by ruling lineages of one origin on the one hand and as an insulting ascription by others on the other hand, contradict the idea of a common ethnic consciousness among all speakers of Yucatec Maya. It was rather the influence of the Spanish that resulted in use of the term to include all the speakers of the language. With time, this turned out to become generally accepted. When used as a self-identification, says Gabbert, “Maya” probably referred to the language or claimed a relationship to Mayapán. In both cases, the groups designated by the term meant only part of the Yucatec Maya speaking population. The countless references to community of origin sharply contrast with the rare use of the term Maya. This would suggest that the self-identification of Indians in Yucatan, commoners as well as nobles, was mainly limited to community (kah) and patronym group (chibal) (ibid.: 28, also quoting colonial historian Matthew Restall). Social communities were based on locality, kinship or political vassalage. Political legitimacy, however, was based rather on the claim to a special relationship with God or the gods and ancestors, or to noble descent. Cultural and genealogical differences between rulers and commoners were, says Gabbert, not concealed and minimized as the modern model of ethnicity and nationalism would

require, but were stressed and openly demonstrated (Gabbert 2001a: 28). As will be shown later, self-identification with a locality is a strong, remaining feature even today in the Maya countryside. It should furthermore be stressed, that it is outsiders that, from the conquest on, have used “Maya”, not only for the language but also for the indigenous population of the peninsula. The present day use of Maya as a label for the coherent culture is considered to be an invention by Western scholars in the late 19th and early 20th century. In another article, Gabbert again emphazises that it is misleading to think of an ethnic consciousness as Maya existing in Yucatan. He also recalls that Restall has stressed that there is no evidence that Indians in Yucatan perceived themselves as a cultural unity threatened by Spanish culture (Gabbert 2001b: 467.) Gabbert rather stresses that most speakers of the Yucatan Maya language reject being considered Indian and refuse to identify themselves as Maya. In Yucatan, he claims, class has served as a self-defining category as much as ethnicity (From text introducing Gabbert, Becoming Maya, 2004). Worth mentioning here is that an introductory discussion paper for the Bonn conference mentioned earlier states that the Maya term today is generally used referring to all the cultures within the Mayan language area from late pre-Classic time to the present. Research, says the document, has contributed to homogenizing the idea of “Maya culture” - as viewed in its entire diachronic and regional dimensions – by employing attested and presumed cultural continuities to unravel and understand the cultural concepts involved. The notion of cultural continuity and the methodological necessity of homogenizing for the benefit of understanding, has restrained scholars from asking questions about cultural and even ethnic differentiation of the Maya. In Guatemala of today it is more than anything else by the ladino world and other outsiders that the indigenous population is referred to as Maya. Like in the past, among themselves a very large number of people use other expressions for their self-identification and are not even aware of the Maya concept.

3. Maya of the Past Against this background, we will now this follow the Maya from their emergence to Colonial time with a particular emphasis on what may be seen as characteristic or unique to them in relation to other groups. Their external contacts, probably causing them to make use of ethnic markers and boundaries, will be of special interest. The setting of the story to be discussed in this study is Mesoamerica, a part of Central America covering most of Mexico plus Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador and western Honduras. It is a term used by scholars for this region in a sense of “culture area”, a scene where societies and civilizations have been in constant interaction for millennia. Many cultural traits were shared between the groups of the area. It was also a north-south cultural corridor. Among Mesoamerica´s subregions are volcanic highlands of southern Chiapas and central Guatemala, sloping westward to the Pacific coast. In a strong contrast to the setting and living conditions of the highlands are those of the Maya lowlands, basically defined as the Peten rain forest in northern Guatemala, adjacent parts of Mexico, Belize, and western Honduras. This lowland region was once covered by a subtropical rain forest also in its Yucatan part. What is today perceived as a jungle or rain forest is particularly characteristic of the Peten province of Guatemala; technically however it is a humid subtropical forest. In spite of both areas, the highlands as well as the lowlands, becoming parts of the Maya world, it is important to note that the cultural development did not always go hand in hand in a coordinated way in the two regions. It is on the coastal Pacific plains that the region´s earliest sedentary societies, leading to a Maya civilization, have been found. On the other hand, when it comes to Guatemala, it is the Peten lowlands that later was the main scene for a particularly magnificent Classic period culture (Demarest 2004: 5-12). A general chronology indicates an archaic time as succeeded around 2000 BC by a pre-Classic one, in turn followed by a Classic time from AD 300-900. A post-Classic period was succeeded by the Colonial one around AD 1500.

From Archaic through Pre-Classic Time: The birth of a civilization A widespread popular concept as to the origin of the people claimed to be Maya, is a simple and straightforward one: they are the descendants of an indigenous group that, after a pre-Classic time BC developed, creating a materially and spiritually remarkably advanced civilization with a Classical period from roughly 300 to 900 AD. What followed remains to many an intriguing mystery, probably a sudden collapse for unknown reasons. During a post-Classic period (circa 900-1500 AD) the culture deteriorated, the population diminished and spread. The arrival of the Spaniards initiated 500 years of considerable hardships to the Maya people and their culture. This general picture must, however, be analyzed in more detail. What says that these people are “Maya” – assuming that this is the term we can use for the group and the culture in question -, what does it mean to “be Maya” and has such an identification undergone changes through time? Summing up present knowledge about the early beginnings, Demarest gives the following panorama. The earliest archaeological evidence of human presence in eastern Mesoamerica are spearheads from bands of Paleo-Indian hunters and gatherers shortly before 8000 BC. Thanks to ecological adaptation, they survived climatic changes and became archaic gathering societies and early agriculturers (Demarest 2004: 56). From this process, however, archaeological finds are so far very few. In the period 3000 to 2000 BC the situation is different: strong evidence tells about agricultural villages growing maize, beans, squash etc. in many areas of Mesoamerica. Archaic cultures evidently also combined collecting and hunting with fishing and bird catching. Soon after, from 2000 to 1300 BC, villages show evidence of increased reliance on agriculture and possibly economic complexity. All over the large region, populations increased and technology spread. A growing political complexity resulted in the rise of chiefdoms, maybe even some early states possibly by 1300 BC. The process had probably been accelerated by the introduction, starting shortly after 2000 BC, of ceramics. Its origin, local or imported, is still unclear. Once in the area, it became popular for household use and was made in different size, particularly for cooking and storage. From the time around 1300 BC there is evidence of settled population and some complex societies, even with public architecture, trade, art etc. To Demarest and others,

this suggests the development of social inequality and complexity (Demarest 2004: 60). The first group or culture normally named by scholars is the Olmecs. They had in the period 1300-600 BC much of a distinct civilization on the Tabasco-Veracruz coast. Its most striking feature is colossal stone heads of up to 60 tons, showing faces with what looks like negroid noses and lips. The Olmecs used ceremonial centers, public architecture and complex, carved iconography. Still under intense debate among scholars is the extent to which the Olmecs shall be seen as representing a “mother culture”. Clear is that elements known to and used by the Olmecs were shared by several of the other groups of this geographic area, groups that like the Maya also developed cultural traits of their own that were to characterize them over the centuries to come. Demarest notes that symbolic elements of the Olmecs of 1300 to 600 BC were elaborated as late as by the Classic Maya (ibid.: 62). He stresses, though, that in spite of the somewhat special Olmec role, it is in a confusing mixture of shared cultural elements and architectural styles, in what seems to have been also an ethnic and linguistic mix of populations, that several scholars find a cross-fertilization in art, economy and political alliances. Over the next few centuries, roughly from 600 BC to AD 300, the first clear indications appeared of elements that would later be characteristic of the Maya in their Classic period. Examples of this are found in art style, iconographic and epigraphic inscriptions and the use of a special calendar. In line with the models presented by scholars like Barth and Hylland Eriksen, a need for an identity marker should have arisen among the Maya-to- be as they slowly had made their way out of the common Mesoamerican cultural setting, including a possible coexistence with the Olmecs, sometime around the beginning of the first millennium BC. Very little is known about this process, only that linguists and archaeologists trace elements indicating first steps of a group with some characteristics of their own. With time the separation becomes more distinct in spite of continued close contacts. One example of relations of some kind is the early Maya center Kamilnaljuyu (situated within the limits of modern Guatemala City) regionally transmitting Olmec culture and, a little later, receiving other impulses from the important Mexican center of Teotihuacan. An early site on the Guatemalan Pacific coast, Abaj Takalik, is another example of what seems to be Olmec-Maya

elements in parallel. This illustrates Maya culture at this time taking shape and getting strength over a fairly large highland area as well as on the Pacific slopes. More or less uniform ceramics, figurines, monuments like altars and stelae testify to this. Since 400 BC there had been ceremonial centers and complex regional societies with overlapping art styles and traditions. In the lowlands, early evidence is scarce but by 1000 BC village settlements had clearly been established. Early ceramics of Mamon style, a high quality monochrome pottery, was in use (Demarest 2004: 81, 42) 1000 BC to AD 300, thereafter to be followed by the typically Maya elegantly painted polychrome plates in the Classic period. Michael Coe has concluded that a proto-Maya language was spoken in parts of today´s Maya area as far back as by 2000 BC, thus by the time the Archaic era makes a transition into a pre-Classic one. The common root of Maya languages is generally perceived as one of the strongest coherent factors of Mayaness. Coe further argues that the contours of a special people with a culture of its own can be identified around 800 – 300 BC. By that time, what he calls “Maya peasants” established themselves all over the area and established the very beginning of a culture that would flourish later. To Coe, basically agreeing with the Demarest position, they seem to have continued the tradition earlier represented by the Olmecs (Coe 1988: 32-43). Demarest in turn stresses that the highlands from western El Salvador through eastern and central Guatemala certainly by 500 to 400 BC were occupied by Maya- speaking peoples with close cultural ties. Linguistics is thus a useful tool to modern scholars in tracing origins, early history and interrelations. The fact that the Mayan language family of today is seen as a product of various phases of linguistic differentiation helps our understanding of the present split into many, fairly independent, but still Maya subgroups (Thematic Outline, Bonn conference, December 2004). Identifying the exact circumstances of the birth of a new culture, civilization or identity is evidently a very difficult task. Patricia A. McAnany raises the question whether an artisan tradition of monochromatic orange-red pottery and the masses of monumental architecture that had spread over the lowland by 200 B.C. is a materialization of cultural identity and religious power distinguishing Maya identity. Or is it, asks McAnany without being able to give the answer, alternatively just an eastern variety of generalized Mesoamerican identity? Her colleagues Robert J. Sharer and Loa P. Trakler

argue that in the southwestern Maya area (corresponding to eastern Guatemala, western Honduras and El Salvador), by the Early Classic period there existed a fundamental divide between Maya and non-Maya populations, according to archaeological as well as textual evidence (oral presentations by McAnany, Sharer and Trakler, Bonn conference, December 2004). Demarest, commenting on recent evidence questioning even modern theories as to dates and other information on the early culture, stresses that the internal and external forces leading to the rise of the Maya states now are totally open to debate. He points out, though, the presence of complex scenarios, including the upcoming need in the early communities for internal management and, at the same time, class interests of emerging shamanistic leaders. Already at this time, the beginning is seen of symbolic systems, architectural designs and artifacts later related to sacred power. Of a particular importance is the ruler, taking a role as personified axis of the universe, the beginning of his role as K´uhul Ajaw, the holy lord, that would be characteristic of the lowland kingdoms for the next millennium. Many indications tell us that already in centuries BC the Maya rulers were acting as shaman-kings (Demarest 2004: 88). As seen so far, the earliest group of people that would by scholars later be called Maya had very slowly separated themselves from their neighbors. Demarest finds it probable that, from the origins of Mesoamerican civilizations, ancient patterns of contact formed a lattice of ongoing exchanges of information, iconography, and scientific knowledge, moving in multiple directions between emerging elites in each region. He interprets the situation as an example of regional civilization absorbing or projecting specific concepts and traits without dramatic changes in other aspects of material culture or symbolic systems. Indeed, acceptance or rejection of ´foreign´ styles, symbol systems, or other cultural contacts often can be better explained by the needs of locally evolving elites rather than by reference to conquest, migrations, economic dominance, or other external factors (Demarest 2004: 18f).

Joining this view of Demarest´s, I argue that such a development explains the slow “birth” of a distinct Maya culture. The Mesoamerican setting was to such an extent a pot of boiling cultures, sharing for so many centuries several elements before developing enough characteristics of their own for modern scholars to claim that they can be considered “cultures” of their own. In that

process language, architecture, ideology and religion may be among the decisive elements for the final separation. The necessary slowness in this process is evident, as well as the lack of a date, a year, or even a century of birth. The same goes for the process of emergence of sub-cultures from a “mother culture”, like the Maya into their ethnic sub-groups, which acquire elements of their own while at the same time sticking to several of the common, “pan-Maya”, ones.

Classic Maya A Time of Greatness The Maya civilization of the Classic era, i.e. 300-900 AD, is what particularly has impressed any later observer. In practice, in a continuing development from before, elements have reached maturity at different points in time, some of them even well before 300 AD. It is in the lowlands of Guatemala and in Yucatan that the Classic Maya have left particularly magnificent remains. According to Raxché, the Maya world had by this time reached a size of approximately 325.000 sq km (Raxché 1996: 74). What was now present, says Demarest, particularly in the lowlands and whenever the exact time of maturity occurred, was a remarkable set of common elements characteristic of a variety of Maya city-states, also called small kingdoms, each being ruled by a K´uhul Ajaw, a holy lord. The numerous sites in the rain forest vary from minor ceremonial centers to big cities of well over 50 000 inhabitants. The elites of these societies were linked internally through kinship, political alliances and trade relations. There was an elaborate art, impressive temple buildings and palaces, altars, stelae, dynastic records in iconography and epigraphy, ballcourts, polychrome painted ceramics, a complex elite life, rituals and religion. We also have evidence of the use of an extremely qualified calendar system, astronomical observations and mathematics using both a vigesimal system and the zero that by this time was still unknown in Europe (Demarest 2004: 89). In architecture, the false arch (corbeled vault) was used, and so were roof combs with images of gods, venerated ancestors, and sacred symbols (ibid.: 94, 95). While there were variations among the kingdoms in architectural styles as well as in ecology, agriculture and subsistence strategies, it is still the overwhelming repetition in patterns of layout,

architecture, burials, field systems etc that help the modern scholars interpret what were the important elements that tied a Maya world together. This also goes for the shared symbolic systems, science and mathematics as well as for aspects of warfare and alliance (Demarest 2004: 99, 92). The monumental architecture was strongly influenced by ancestor worship. Demarest stresses that at the core of Maya religion was the veneration of the deceased ancestors and the propriation of them as mediators between forces of the supernatural and their living descendants. Many aspects of Maya high ceremonialism, such as the cult of deified former rulers, were aggrandized forms of this more general philosophy; the great stone temples were in turn magnified versions of the household shrines (ibid.: 176). This view can be further illustrated by the fact noted by Grube that the word for human being, winik, existing as a glyph as well as in spoken Maya in Colonial times, was used also in connection with supranatural phenomena of human shape. This has been interpreted as an indication that our search for the emic among Maya must include the supernatural since they all “lived together” (N. Grube, oral presentation, Bonn conference, Dec 2004). The ancient Maya did not only venerate their ancestors, both elites and nonelites “lived” with them, they were venerated daily as intercessors with the gods and cosmic forces, says also McAnany (Demarest 2004: 296). All of this is likely to have created strong feelings of a commonness that can today be called Mayaness. At the very beginning of Maya Classic period there are strong imprints of Teotihuacan at the important lowland Maya ceremonial center of Tikal. From the rest of the Classic period many similar encounters with “others” are reflected in archaeological objets from trade, tribute or gift exchange, monumental inscriptions like epigraphy or iconography, etc. In many cases it is still not clear under what circumstances the contacts have taken place but most of them probably increased a Maya awareness. With reference to Sugiyama and Cabrera (2003), Demarest draws our attention to ongoing excavations in Mexico showing a surprising interethnic relation: At the important Teotihuacan complex, tombs have been found containing rulers in Classic Maya dress and jewelry (ibid.: 104f). Extremely important was a vision of cosmos and geography as sacred. The Maya heaven had 13 levels, the underworld 9 levels. The political and religious/ideological unity of the Classic Maya culture was reinforced by great rituals at the main temples. These were repeated on a small scale in the

outlying parts of the polities. Some of the ceremonies, like bloodletting, were even duplicated at the individual household shrines. An expression of the always present relation to cosmos was a spatial planning of the localities to reflect the Maya understanding of universe itself and mankind´s place in it (Demarest 2004: 117, 116). Closely related to the cosmovision was the Maya concept of time. Mexican scholar León-Portilla who over several decades has studied it, quotes J. Eric S. Thompson´s words that no other people in history has taken such an absorbing interest in time as did the Maya, and no other culture has ever developed a philosophy embracing such an unusual subject. León-Portilla calls it “a universe whose essence is time” and describes the Maya passion for time as producing a conception of a universe in which space, living things and mankind derive their reality from the everchanging atmosphere of the kinh; they became worshippers of the primordial reality, omnipresent and limitless. To pass over the chronovision of the Maya would be to deprive this culture of its soul, says León-Portilla While kin(h) was a well known concept to many Mesoamericans as a word meaning at the same time sun, day, and time, it had a particularly profound meaning to the Maya as conveying the idea of time as a function of the solar cycles, the day and the sun itself, whose neverending risings and settings govern the fate of all that exists (León-Portilla 1988: XVIII, 102, 112, 20). Every single day had a particular holiness that had to be observed. Essential was also that time was circular, not lineal, an ever repeating cycle of births and deaths. As stressed by Barbara Tedlock, unlike the Europeans, the Maya were interested not only in the quantities of time but also in its qualities, especially in its meaning for human affairs. We have been quick to understand their astronomy, she says, but our efforts to inhabit their symbolic world have proved much more difficult and demanding (B. Tedlock 1992: 1). Demarest underlines that the many impressive buildings and monuments made a dramatic setting for public rituals that periodically brought the populace together and, of particular interest here, “reinforced the identity of the Classic Maya polities and the legitimacy of their rulers” (Demarest 2004: 94). One special entrance to our understanding of Mesoamerican societies, not least Maya, is available through rich archaeological finds of terracotta figurines. The making of such in the area started already by early Preclassic

time, circa 1500 BC. Teotihuacan had a considerable production by AD 100. The main production of distinct Maya figurines started later, around 500-600 AD, most of the material found is from 600 – 1000 AD (Schele 1997: 14). Through these figurines much of Classic Maya life opens up to us. Society is reflected on different levels, from the gods and rulers themselves to war lords, warriors, priests, merchants, dancers, ballplayers, actors etc. In some cases also humble and sick people are represented. So are also hunchbacks and dwarfs, related to the supernatural and the world of the dead. Regalia, normal dress, textiles like capes, blouses and loincloths, sandals, all kinds of jewelry like jade necklaces and jade ear spools, shell pendants, hair styles and hair bands as well as ritual implements and arms, all contribute to our understanding of what was important and what was the use of excavated original objets. The ballplayers tell a special story. Like all other Mesoamerican peoples, the Maya played a game with a solid rubber ball by the size of a soccer ball. Ballcourts for this game are known from almost all important Maya centers. Linda Schele in a study of Maya figurines reports that the game was played between two small teams. The ball should hit markers on the alley walls or the alley floor but could not be touched by hands or feet, only by other parts of the body. The game had a highly ritualized status. Losers in games of political or religious importance were decapitated or thrown down the temple stairs according to myths from the Classic period. Neither the rules nor what happened to the winners is known. There is however, according to Schele, no support in ancient sources for modern myth, saying that the winners were sacrificed (Schele 1997: 124). When it comes to jewelry and other decorations, it is a striking fact that gold hardly entered the Classic Maya world in spite of its strong presence not far away – in northern South America, Panama and even Costa Rica. Jade remained the obsession as the material for the most highly prized jewelry. Thus, representations of different kinds give, combined, a fairly complete picture of early Maya dress, particularly from Classic Maya time. What the few codices to have survived the flames of the European newcomers show, is the situation in late post-Classic time. Material remains of the textiles themselves have, on the whole, not survived climate, humidity etc. Thus, the Maya area has in that sense not left any heritage com-parable to the wealth of original pre-Columbian textiles preserved in the dry desert sands of Peru. Nonetheless, a few finds of the

Mayan area have helped modern scholars considerably, as explained later in the discussion of Maya dress. Court life was a closed one. Illustrations clearly stress how dignitaries are seated above the ground, receive special food and are attended by others. This well known fact from iconography has recently been completed by results from strontium analyses of bone, confirming that there existed special “palace diets”, unique to the members of the court and their specialists (Demarest 2004: 172). In stelae and other stone monuments, dignitaries are represented and, in accompanying texts, presented by elaborate tracing of their descent. Less significant persons, if represented at all, are clearly indicated as such. In many illustrations, temporary visitors are presented in one of two different ways, says Steven Houston: The intrinsic one, where the foreign person is shown as an accepted guest by the side of the main person, and, reversely, the extrinsic one, where he is shown in an opposite and negative way, e.g. as a humiliated captive, naked and deprived of his regalia and sometimes even identified by his name. This is one of the contexts where it was particularly important to express “others” as categorically different, distinguished by ethnic diachritics as markers. (Houston, oral presentation, Bonn conference, December 2004). Interrelations with the outside world is reflected also in other forms. Victories in wars and marriage alliances are recurrent themes in iconography and epigraphy. Trade goods from other cultures have, as well, a lot to tell archaeologists about such relations by local styles and sometimes dedicatory inscriptions, for instance in the case of ceramic gifts to and from foreign rulers. In the local community a strong social distinction is seen in iconography. Additional information comes from the kind of huts used and through the application of a spatial distribution of the living quarters in relation to the center, sometimes - as claimed about Copán - reflecting a miniature of a cosmological order. Also the burial practices have important stories to tell about class and origin. Of Maya art, much had served well through Classic time to legitimate the power of the elite, stress their noble descent and magnify the achievements of the rulers (Demarest 2004: 43).

If many cultural expressions were, to a considerable extent, exclusive to the Maya, and thereby contributing to Mayaness, some parts of epigraphy and calendric system as well as the pan-Mesoamerican ballcourts were important to the Maya but shared with others. Still another group of elements, like the Chaak deities, controlling lightning, thunder and the extremely important rains, were known from Olmec times but incorporated into the elements that were vital to the Maya rulers (Demarest 2004: 183).

The “Mysterious” Fall: Different interpretations While the spectacular and striking achievements of the Classic Maya have become well known, the end to this epoch remains the opposite, an enigma of a corresponding size. Like other parts of Maya research, much remains to be explored, but at the same time new evidence is presently contributing to solve the mystery. A presentation follows here of the status of theories that can be considered to sum up the main scholarly views. It also reflects much of life itself in a Maya kingdom. A 1988 Human Ecology article by Elliot M. Adams and David J. Rue, “The Causes and Consequences of Deforestation among the Prehistoric Maya“, is one important source of knowledge in the search for explanations. The authors, focusing on Copan (Honduras), a major Maya center in a valley about 650 masl, here find a case of considerable deforestation during the late and terminal classic periods, caused by man due to increasing population density. The number of inhabitants at Copan by AD 700 appears to have been 5 000; 150 years later it had increased dramatically to a peak believed to have reached 20 000. It then fell, leaving by AD 1200 only a small residual population of perhaps 2 000 people. Only five decades later the site had probably been totally abandoned. The authors show that the deforestation seems to result from clearing at the foothill level in the valley for agricultural and habitational purposes and in the upland zone for domestic purposes of cooking and heating. This process led to accelerated levels of soil and nutrient loss through erosion, a fact which, according to them, led to political instability and encouraged a gradual abandonment of this important center during the late and terminal classic periods. Three main points made in the article are that a) in the Copan case, wood was needed by every household, thus there was no elite that promoted deforestation, b) soil erosion due to deforestation led to diminished agricultural potential, and c) the particularly

heavy demand on local forests was a consequence of the sharply increasing urbanization. Another approach to the enigma has been through climate and drought. Intense studies, mainly in Yucatan, by an advanced amateur in the field, Richardson B. Gill, author of The Great Maya Droughts: Water, Life and Death (University of New Mexico Press: Albuquerque, 2000) lead to a seemingly convincing theory of a major drought period to be the decisive reason for the end of the Maya Classic. A 1995 article in Nature by David A. Hodell et al., “Possible role of climate in the collapse of Classic Maya civilization”, had argued along the same lines, based on scientific research in the area. The authors present results showing that there was a uniquely dry period – the driest one of the past 8000 years – in the interval between AD 800 – 1000, thus a considerable climatic deterioration in the Maya region during the very terminal classic period. In 2003, Gerald H. Haug et al. elaborated further in a Science article on “Climate and the Collapse of Maya Civilization”. They show by titanium in sediments that a collapse occurred during an extended regional dry period, punctuated by more intense multiyear droughts, centered at approximately AD 760, 810, 860 and 910. This suggests, they claim, that a century-scale decline in rainfall put a general strain on resources, ”which was then exacerbated by abrupt drought events, contributing to the social stresses that led to the Maya demise.” Between AD 550 and 750 there had been favorable climatic conditions due to humidity. Population had increased to the environmental carrying capacity when supported by strategies for water storage. The exceptional drought resulted in “a demographic disaster as profound as any other in human history”. The institution of Maya rulership may have been undermined when neither technology nor ceremonies provided sufficient water, say the authors. A dramatic and very different story is told by Arthur Demarest from multidisciplinary investigations over several years in the Peten rain forest, particularly in a 50 sq km area of Petexbatun. A main center, Dos Pilas, carried on a fairly quiet life including, though, from time to time small-scale warfare. Until roughly the end of the 7th century, the Maya had been living in the rain forest, in an extremely sensitive eco-environment, for about a millennium and a half, and had achieved a high degree of coexistence with their fragile surrounding. Demarest stresses that

few civilizations have managed to achieve this delicate balance between complex human society and jungle ecology (Demarest 1996: 5). Agriculture was applied in a way paying great attention to the complicated setting and imitating it, spreading the cultivations, using small plots, utilizing slash-and- burn in a way that saved particular trees, etc. (ibid.: 14; El Proyecto Arquelógico 1992-94: 7, 11). Archaeological evidence shows that the warfare technique used so far was remarkable. Not only was it carried out by small expeditions avoiding any unnecessary harm to the opposite side. Only very seldom did the wars result in the takeover of part of the opponent´s territory. On the contrary, the limited scope of combat did not affect the population at large of the two sides. The mission seems to have been the capturing of a few members of the nobility of a neighboring state as a marker of prestige and for use as sacrifice to the gods. Particularly noteworthy is the fact that the members of the expedition were dressed in elaborate costumes and equipped with weapons that were far from efficient for military combat. The conduct gives a strong impression of being highly ritualized, particularly since life afterwards continued the traditional way in the kingdoms concerned. Neither society nor the fragile ecology had been affected. As Demarest notes, evidently ecology decreed that warfare had to be limited. Settlements and fields could remain sprawling and defenseless. ”I believe”, he says, ”that this elaborate ritualization and constraint on warfare was part of the very secret of the success of Maya civilization in the rainforest – inseparable from its general ecological adaption…. There is no evidence whatsoever of warfare in image, symbol, artifact, or settlement at this time” (Demarest 1996: 14-15). There seems to have existed an accepted code of conduct limiting warfare. At the end of the 7th century and by the beginning of the 8th century something makes the system break down, warfare takes a new, all-out character. This, according to Demarest, is the beginning of the end of the Maya kingdoms of the Petexbatun region. By AD 760 Dos Pilas, being the main center in the area, partly by introducing the large scale war had reached its maximum extension. The ruler seems to have acquired control over certain trade routes on the few rivers used for exotic goods like pyrite, quetzal feathers, and obsidian. Now however Dos Pilas was subjected to fierce attacks from several neighbors. For the first time a defense system had to be introduced and protection must be given to the hitherto widespread

population. Cultivations had to be established close to and within the city but the intense use resulted in ruining of the soil. The chain effect was a slow but general collapse of a zone that had been living in a remarkable harmony for a particularly long period. A similar fate eventually reached the other kingdoms of the area and the fragile ecological balance finally collapsed totally (Demarest 2004: 249ff). It is evidently this new course in approach to warfare – and our fairly recent understanding of it - that explains a Time article on the Maya quoted by Headland: it debunked the myth that the prehistoric Maya lived in a blissful coexistence with one another and their environment (Lemonick 1993). Time now propounds the revisionist view that the Maya caused their own downfall through vicious uncontrolled warfare with each other and degradation of their own ecosystem to the point that ´there were was almost no tropical forests left´” (Headland 1997: 608).

With time peasants evidently deserted their centers and left, trying to start a new life in the jungle (El Proyecto Arqueológico 1992-94: 4-5; Proyecto Arqueológico Informe preliminar 1992: 380). In this area, however, there never was a real recovery. The jungle vegetation started laying a cover over the kingdoms that would remain for centuries. With reference to a series of anthropologists (Carneiro, Rappaport, Vayda, Webster, Paulsen and Isbel), Demarest notes that it has often been argued that ecological and/or demographic pressures can lead to warfare. ”Here we find the casual order reversed: it was warfare that changed ecology, setting Maya civilization on a disastrous course” (Demarest 1996: 24). His position as to the “fall” or “collaps” is that while many pieces of information are till missing, it is a big mistake to think in terms of one uniform collapse, and one single reason for such a development. Research is now withdrawing from an earlier approach along such lines. There is, says Demarest, an unfortunate tendency to write about “the” explanation, often overinterpreting results from one site as generally valid (Demarest et al. 2003: 2, 10, 12, 14). He adds that the elite sector had grown to become large and burdensome. A strong status rivalry for power and prestige had come to reign, and resulted in an over-burdening of the economic system, endemic warfare, politically induced ecological stress. The leadership had turned shortsighted

and self-focused, inter-elite rivalry affected ecology and demography, elite competition in ritual, construction, warfare and feasting, may have strained the economic systems. Thus, there was a lack of long-term sustainable adaptions and leadership strategies (Demarest 2004: 296f).

x x x Throughout the Classic period, the lowlands seem to have remained a “landscape of fluctuating, expanding and contracting theater-states, galactic polities, and unstable alliances” says Demarest, who also underlines the remarkable fact that the Maya never managed to form a panregional centralized state, like what happened in Mesopotamia and Egypt (Demarest 2004: 238). Nor did they ever have a one common political or religious leader.

Post-Classic and Early Colonialism So, what was the situation like after the “collapse”? What “Mayaness” was there left to survive through post-Classic and the following centuries? Modern scholars like Demarest are very restrictive in the use of the term “collapse” for what had happened, at least as a description of the Maya world as a whole. Indeed, many of the lowland kingdoms did decline or collapse. But others were transformed into a state system that was different from the former one by not building on the “holy lords” that since a millennium had been the political-ideological-religious central element in the Maya worldview (ibid.: 239). Part of the dramatic changes was at the same time the break-up of the traditional rain forest adaptation, the fragmentation into smaller political units, the physical abandoning of certain kingdoms, and streams of refugees moving from the south and east to the north and west. These migrations caused some problematic demographic pressure at the new destinations. In the Maya highlands, the Postclassic landscape was a patchwork of small polities, “then as now” (Thematic Abstract, Bonn conference, Dec 2004). What had come to an end, for good, was the era of spectacular monuments, temples and palaces, and the related rituals. They had all, to a considerable degree, been there to serve the elite and its need for big events in order to manifest their status, power and noble descent. The kind of state succeeding the divine ruler´s as the axis mundi, in a cosmological perspective, was more of a low key one, a society with more

than one prominent family, now with a shared status expressed even in the layout of the towns. There could, as Demarest shows for Iximché, the Kakchikel capital in the highlands at the arrival of the Spaniards, be a city plan with four distinct sections, one for each of such noble families (Demarest 2004: 285). Thus, a different political structure, less dependent on one single mighty ruler, now came in place and seems to have been more resistant to political stress. Also below the individual society´s top level there was a spread and decentralization of power, economy and influences. Contrary to the Classic period, agriculture and gardening became a large scale specialized production with surpluses used for trade and exchange. The village populations lived closer together. It has been argued that, in economic terms, many Postclassic states were “larger and more flamboyant than their Classic period antecedents” (ibid.: 277). There was a full market economy and a long distance trade where the Maya joined existing Mesoamerican systems. A consequence of this was a blurring of cultural elements of diverse origins, making it difficult today to identify exact influences, and whether such had a direct bilateral origin or if elements were part of a flow of ideas coming with products from far away or arriving through commercial intermediaries. In many forms there are signs of influence from different Mexican groups. It is difficult, though, to know to what extent this is a result of diffusion of culture, of the recipient´s active search for status symbols or if the presence of elements at a certain place is the result of external political pressure. An interesting detail is that Maya leaders during part of this era are known to have made efforts to appear as being of a (Mexican) Toltec descent. There clearly was in the Guatemalan highlands in the Postclassic time an unstable political environment, contributing to the mixing of elements of different epochs and political origins. But just like some elements of Classic time had matured before the end of the pre-Classic, not everything in the Postclassic Maya world was “new” and a dramatic break with its past. A good number of the changes had begun earlier and just followed a continuum from late Classic time to reach maturity now. Of course there were also elements that remained more or less intact. Examples are the key role of calendar systems and the ancestor worship. Interethnic contacts continued through Postclassic and Colonial time. Many Toltec groups were present, particularly in the highland of Guatemala

and, according to Barbara Tedlock, even created a conquest state in the Quiché area (B. Tedlock 1992: 13). Thus, some ten generations before the Spanish Conquista, the Maya of the Quiché area were under the influence of these Toltecs and under this leadership soon dominated other groups, Toltec as well as non-Toltec. Other scholars, like Fischer (Fischer 2001: 103), do not agree on the size of this influence in Postclassic time but accept the presence of such non-Maya groups. On the whole, though, there are still doubts as to the degree of influence of the respective parties in many of the encounters. At internal contacts between representatives of the different Maya city-states, language, ideology and culture were elements they had in common. Trade relations, and alliances of different kinds, but also small, later large scale, wars were indeed frequent also among the Maya kingdoms. Similar were the relations to close and distant non-Maya neighbors. An important aspect in this respect is that the elite tended to establish close relations to other elites. There existed an “ésprit de corps”, resulting in elites being closer to their colleagues of other ethnicities than even to their own citizens. Whether the parties meeting were all Maya or if we talk of meetings between Maya and non-Maya, an awareness of a belonging, an ethnic or other identity, must have been present in these contacts. There could hardly be any doubt, though, that an incident on the beaches close to the Maya center of Tulum on the eastern side of Yucatan in 1511 was the beginning of a major change in the Maya world. Bodil Liljefors Persson draws our attention to a Spanish shipwreck just off the coast due to a tropical storm. Two men, whose names are known, survived, reaching land by a small boat. Their arrival started the Colonial encounter between the Maya and the Europeans. By this encounter, says the author, both groups started reflecting on each other, the opposite one in both cases being “the Other”. This was thus the beginning of a mutual process (Liljefors Persson 2004: 1). This incident meant the transition from a Maya knowledge of the “Rather Other” – their traditional neighbors – to one of the “Very Other” with all the implications that was to have. The dramatic new knowledge spread fast. In 1524 the Spaniards had conquered the area of today´s Guatemala, including Iximché, the Maya (Kakchikel) capital. Thus, this happened only 32 years after Columbus had first, at a distance, set eye on the sand banks of the “new” world. Liljefors Persson´s paper indicates that fairly soon the Yucatec Maya did think in terms of a difference between “the close Other” and “ the very/

most distant Other”, the latter being the Spaniards. She stresses, though, that the Yucatec ethnic boundaries change during the Colonial period; the continuity consists in being changeable and contested (Liljefors Persson 2004: 14). A fuller account of the Tulum event gives some additional interesting information: There was a total of eleven men reaching the shore alive after two weeks in the lifeboat. They were all captured, some were sacrificed, some were killed. Of the remaining two Spaniards, one became a scribe, the other a warrior in the service of the Maya (Demarest 2004: 286). For their conquista of Guatemala, the Spaniards under Pedro de Alvarado not only skillfully used Mexican troops but also turned different Maya groups against each other, taking advantage of existing antagonisms. The predominance of a full Maya culture at the time of the conquest has indeed been questioned in light of, particularly, the mentioned Toltec presence since long in the area (Fischer and Brown 1996: 8f). Under all circumstances, the region at this time seems to have been characterized by atomistic polities (Carlsen 1997: 73). The Tzutujil in the Lago Atitlán area had since long been in touch and conflict with other Maya groups in the highland, particularly the Quiché and the Kakchikel. Once established, the Spaniards changed the whole political system, the spatial planning of local communities, eliminated the system with household gardens, and introduced new diseases and the Spanish tax system. There are those who question the generally accepted opinion that the conquista was a total disaster to the indigenous population. Robert Carlsen describes, with reference to MacLeod, the arrival of Pedro de Alvarado as type of hit-and-run campaign, rather a raid than an occupation, and argues that due to lack of attractive resources and limited capacity to control the area, at least large areas of the country did not come under a strict Spanish rule (ibid.: 84). He also means that in the Atitlán area like elsewhere in the highlands, there was an autonomy carefully negotiated by the Maya and he seems to support Dennis Tedlock´s words that “the ´spiritual conquest` [of the Mayas] has in fact never taken place”. He furthermore clearly states that significant Maya cultural aspects survived the conquest (ibid.: 64,71). From colonial time in Yucatan, John F. Chuchiak IV has shown a particularly interesting illustration of disruption and change within Mayaness. He reports how Maya at some places, as a consequence of the Spanish reorganization, split up in two categories acting against each other, strongly

affecting the identity thinking. At the 2004 Bonn conference, Chuchiak orally presented the situation as follows below. The so called reducciones introduced by the Spaniards in 1552 meant in practice a break-up of the Maya social order. Some became “householders”, a status marker for those Indians who accepted the new order, lived in towns and joined the Catholic church, starting a Spanish-style conventional life meaning work and paying taxes. By the turn of the 17th century a considerable part of the householders quit the new life, fled into the forests, establishing communities there. The number of forest dwellers, about a quarter of the local Mayas, is known, and so are even the names of the individuals, due to the detailed lists kept by the Spanish tax authorities. The two groups were the same people, linguistically, ethnically and culturally. The forest people was however persecuted by the Spanish who increasingly claimed that they were uncivilized savage, barbarians and idolaters. In the course of this process, particularly by the end of the 17th century, a very clear split in a former solidarity among the Indians occurred. By this time householders were joining the Spanish soldiers in the hunt for the forest dwellers. They took up the Spanish way of identifying the “savages” as next to animals. Thus, only the householders were now real Maya; those who had fled rejecting Christianity and Spanish values were seen as inferior “others”. Those who, on the other hand, accepted the European order, were seen as ethnic Maya by both themselves and the Spaniards, says Chuchiak. This reconstruction of Maya identity thus enabled one group of Maya to persecute another without feeling that they betrayed their own ethnicity. In spite of all these external influences following the arrival of the Maya Postclassic period, scholars today claim that Maya civilization as well as Maya traditions did continue (Demarest 2004: 276).

x x x What we have seen of Mayaness so far begins in a Mesoamerican melting pot, where a mixture of groups coexist, sharing cultural traits and values. Very slowly emerged with time different groups with some elements in common. One of these was later to be called Maya, another was the one now known as Olmecs. In this Mesoamerican setting, the Olmecs were possibly particularly dominating for some time, others during other periods. While some scholars, especially in the past, used the “horizon” concept for cultures radiating out

their traits from a certain nucleus, like the Olmecs might have done in part of pre-Classic time, Demarest questions the validity of such a model (Demarest 2004: 18). He rather believes in a continuous, intense and unbroken interaction within the Mesoamerican area from the beginning of the pre- Classic time to conquest. With time, though, certain of the traits became ever more characteristic of individual groups. If language was a basic kit among those whom we call the early Maya, another early element among them – one remaining for well over a millennium – was the heavy reliance on divine rulers, the holy lords. Additional elements were successively added to the Maya values and carried on. Among these were their form of iconography and epigraphy, architectural, monumental, ceramic and other art styles, dress, rituals, religion and not least the special ancestor worship. A particularly strong dependence on the complicated Maya calendar was an additional marker. As stressed, while many cultural expressions were unique to the Maya, others like part of epigraphy and calendric system as well as the pan- Mesoamerican ball courts were important to the Maya but shared with others. The Maya worldview (cosmovision) may have remained, fully or almost fully, a permanent common heritage, while dialects and even languages, as noted earlier, may have developed in different directions with time. Reliefs at important ceremonial centers like Palenque (in present day Chiapas) show basically the same hieroglyphs and symbols as those used at the distant Copan (Honduras). The Maya “holy book”, the Popol Vuh, further commented later on, explains parts of the symbols used at Palenque a millennium earlier and some of the ceramic decoration from Classic times. Maya elements thus bridge considerable distances in time and space. All things considered, there is no doubt about the existence of a coherent Maya civilization, a Mayaness, with strong common elements, in spite of the large geographic area they inhabited, the evident internal communication difficulties, and the long time span under discussion. But a harmonious looking surface just covered a microcosmos of entities giving and receiving impulses among themselves and in their relations with the outside. The result was often imprints of a different culture in parallel to efforts to stress, when need arouse, the recipient side’s own ethnic identity and cultural markers. Clear and important regional varieties existed in fields like language, architecture, arts and ceramics, differences that today help modern scholars to trace connections within ideology, art styles, trade and warfare. Step by step

our understanding of Maya use of ethnic and cultural markers and boundaries increases. This goes for personal names, burial habits and grave goods, rituals and even indications of regional identities in the hieroglyphic writing. Other enigma remain, like the sudden appearance of Teotihuacan representations at Tikal of human beings holding torches in their hands or as symbols in headdresses. What important events do they want to communicate – conquest, change of power, foundation of a new dynasty?

4. Maya Today Maya and the Modern Setting. Estimates of the size of the Maya population vary considerably. For Yucatan a figure of 1 million is sometimes used, for Guatemala they range from 4,5 to 8 millions. Figures for their share of the Guatemalan population vary from 40 to 60%. Behind the differences are not only shifting statistical definitions. One leading Maya academic, Demetrio Cojtí, argues that almost all Central American countries practice “statistical genocide” minimizing the existence and number of indians (Cojtí 1996: 49). It is generally assumed that there are vested interests in both over and under representing the Guatemalan figures. Positions like Cojtí´s are contested, a.o. with the argument that it is not a question of ethnic bias, Guatemalan censuses are full of errors also for other groups. Fischer & Brown sum it up, saying that in contrast to official government statistics, most scholars do believe that the Maya constitute 50-60% and explain lower figures by shifting definitions in the censuses (Fischer & Brown 1996: 9). For the purpose of this paper it may be sufficient to know that the Maya represent a large number and a high percentage of the Guatemalan population. Yet, up to around 1940, the Maya of Guatemala had hardly “existed” in the minds of the ladinos, except possibly as servants and workers. They had just been around as indios or indigenas in a pejorative sense, similar to tools to be used. A sad but eloquent illustration to this is the Guatemalan Nobel Prize laureate (1967) Miguel Angel Asturias. His 1923 thesis presented at the Faculty of Law of the National University of Guatemala, entitled Sociología guatemalteca. El problema social del indio, contains the remark “do with the indians what you do with other animal species when they show symptoms of degeneration: new blood, that´s the answer!” (Sam Collop, quoted in Cojtí 1996: 48). By the 1940s though, the indigenous population was paid some attention to, as a reference to them was introduced in the constitution. Over the following decades a slow, troublesome and often painful process took shape, while the indigenous population tried to have attention and recognition from the ladino society. It is only at the threshold of the 21st century that this begins to bear ripe fruit.

The period 1960-1995 was to a large extent characterized by an internal armed conflict in which a guerrilla movement, with time known as URNG, fought against a particularly unequal society. URNG never claimed to represent Maya interests, but the army saw Maya communities in the countryside as at least simpatizantes, thus creating ideological justification for ethnocidal campaigns (Fischer & Brown 1996: 12, 5). Barbara Tedlock states that in the worst period, until 1985, 50-70.000 Guatemalans, mainly Maya, were killed, another 500.000 became internal refugees, and an additional 350.000 escaped to other countries (B. Tedlock 1992: 211). After a long time of negotiations, and under a considerable pressure from the international community, a set of Peace Accords were finally signed in 1995-96. The phrasing led to high hopes of a new era in the nation´s history. The part of the Peace Accords particularly relevant in this context is the Agreement on Identity and Rights of Indigenous Peoples, signed March 31, 1995, and often called by its Spanish initials, AIDPI. AIDPI contains a series of far reaching phrasings that seem to be extremely satisfactory to the indigenous peoples of Guatemala who, during centuries, have been exposed to the form of racism from the small power elite of the country that, to follow Anthias and Yuval-Davis, consists in “making an ethnic group inferior” (Wade 1997: 19). Already the far reaching recognition from the government´s side in the introduction to the Agreement is, considering the Guatemalan environment, close to sensational. Examples of such phrasings are …the question of identity and right of indigenous peoples is a vital issue of historical importance for the present and future of Guatemala… the indigenous peoples have been particularly subject to de facto levels of discrimination, exploitation and injustice, on account of their origin, culture and language and that, like many other sectors of the national community, they have to endure unequal and unjust treatment and conditions on account of their economic and social status… it will be possible to eliminate oppression and discrimination in Guatemala only if due recognition is given to all aspects of the identity and rights of the peoples who have inhabited and continue to inhabit it, all of whom are components of its present reality and protagonists in its development, in all senses…all matters of direct interest to the indigenous peoples need to be dealt with by and with them…

After a recognition of the importance of the identity, the Agreement goes on to specify in a particularly interesting way what is Maya identity:

The identity of the peoples is a set of elements which define them and, in turn, ensure their self-recognition. In the case of the Mayan identity, which has shown an age-old capacity for resistance to assimilation, those fundamental elements are as follows: a) Direct descent from the ancient Mayas; b) Languages deriving from a common Mayan root; c) A view of the world based on the harmonious relationship of all elements of the universe, in which the human being is only one additional element, in which the earth is the mother who gives life and maize is a sacred symbol around which Mayan culture revolves. This world view has been handed down from generation to generation through material and written artefacts and by an oral tradition in which women have played a determining role; d) A common culture based on the principles and structures of Mayan thought, a philosophy, a legacy of scientific and technical knowledge, artistic and aesthetic values of their own, a collective historical memory, a community organisation based on solidarity and respect for one´s peers, and a concept of authority based on ethic and moral values; and e) A sense of their own identity. (AIDPI 1995: I.2.a-e).

An important additional statement says that the fact that there are several sociocultural groups within the Maya people does not prevent them from having a common identity (AIDPI 1995: I.3). After this follows the text of the Agreement as such. The process leading up to the signing had meant that, for the first time in Guatemalan history, all the indigenous peoples of the nation had been able to get together, to negotiate and to agree with the government. The result had been documents promising to be of vital importance for their role in the future of the nation-state, a strong platform to work from in a coming ambition to save and revitalize their status and culture in a wide sense. In spite of the inspiring texts of the Accords, not much has changed in the ten years since they were signed. Indeed, there are areas showing progress, like bilingual education established at a number of places. Another sector with some degree of progress is access for Maya to their traditional sacred places for religious events. But on the whole, the promising breakthroughs from a Maya point of view have not materialized. To modern Maya, like to many poor among the ladinos, life remains highly characterized by “esperanza

cotidiana, injusticicia permanente” (everyday hope, per-manent injustice; text at a photo exhibition in Barcelona, March 2005). And yet, since a few decades there are serious efforts made by groups of Maya to break away from a traditional isolation, a situation where they have been practically neglected by their ladino countrymen and certainly deprived of a role as agents in the affairs of the nation. These efforts have been carried out through a political and cultural activism, in some cases with an ethnical base, in others as part of a class struggle. Since the early 1990s, a main field of operations is as a movimiento, a pan-Maya movement, still trying to find its way.

From Survivalism to Activism and Pan-Maya Movements If survivalism had so far been what life was about to the overwhelming, poor part of the population – including practically all Maya but also many ladinos, times were after all changing a bit from around the 1960s also apart from the armed conflict. Among the new elements were the creation of popular movements. Some of these were strictly indigenous, others were national popular movements, open also to ladinos. The latter kind is illustrated by CUC, Comité de Unidad Campesina. Established in 1974, it is a good example of how an indigenous population, in this case Maya, initiates a class struggle to get attention and to have a basis for future action. Santiago Bastos and Manuela Camus show in an in-depth study of the Maya movement how CUC grows as a class organisation without ever denying that their members mainly are indigenous (Bastos & Camus 2003: 46, emphasis in original). With time a considerable number of other Maya organizations were established, some were closed, others open to ladinos as well. The name of one such organization reflects this: Coordinadora Nacional Indigena y Campesina. On the whole, the national political scene remained tense. The leading circles in the country were next to hostile to organizations like labor unions and popular groups in general as they easily felt a smell of communism. Being identified as a real or potential popular leader might mean immediate danger. Guatemala was, and remains, a nation with a political, economic and military elite reluctant to touch the remarkable absence of equality. Santiago Bastos has described the initial decades of Maya activism, particularly the time around 1960, as its archaic time. The pre-Classic one

was the period leading up to the 1995/96 Peace Accords. 1995-2000 was its Classic period, when Peace was established, the agreements inspired hope for the Maya, promising them a bright future within the Guatemalan society. The international community was present all over the Maya world offering support to their organizations in their efforts. A following referendum, supposed to manifest the progress, was complicated by odd tactics from the authorities and resulted in a confused and disappointing result. That marks, to Bastos, the beginning of the post-Classic time for the modern Maya (Bastos orally at Bonn conference, December 2004). But, to quote Fischer, out of the fire of the Guatemalan holocaust has risen, Phoenix-like, a pan-Maya movement, demanding from the state a recognition (and revindication) of Maya linguistic, social, territorial, political, and economic rights. This movement has grown exponentially since the late 1980s and the accomplishments are, in Fischer´s opinion, extraordinary – given Guatemala´s recent history of political repression. He adds that it is an irony of postmodernity that as time-space distances have undergone “virtual” collapse, there has been a proportionate increase in the symbolic expression of ethnic difference, and thus distance (Fischer 2001: 83). What is behind the current Maya activism and pan-Maya movement is, as described by Fischer and Brown, a search for a culture-based solution to Guatemala´s many problems by working for conservation and resurrection of Maya culture while promoting reforms within the still valid 1985 constitution. The thinking is heavily based on a wide spread perception that “true” Maya culture consists only of elements surviving from the precontact period; additions mean contamination, weakening and pollution. In this perspective, the most evident link to the past lies in Mayan languages. These now serve as an effective marker of in-group allegiances (Fischer & Brown 1996: 13f). In a later work, Fischer continues on this line, noting that the movement´s leaders promote associations based on linguistic groups which they hope will foster broader pan-Maya identification (Fischer 2001: 84, 86). One way of expressing the background to the growth in a pan-Maya activism is to see it as an important transition in the perception of self-identity from an “identity simply perceived, contextualized or accepted, to an identity- belongingness, assumed, chosen, mobilizing, hegemonic and capable of becoming an ideology of identity” (García Ruíz, quoted in Esquit & Gálvez

1997: 41). It is thus, in this case, a new, dynamic way of dealing with one´s Maya identity and Mayaness. A main problem is the strong discrepancy between on the one hand a relatively small urban Maya “elite”, promoting a common Maya banner, on the other the overwhelming part of the Maya population still living in the countryside. The urban activists aim at an instrumental, political all-Maya goal, creating an awareness among the countryside, often traditionalist, Maya of a common Maya identity of the sub-groups and the “need” for joint political action. They may also feel a need to take advantage on the macro level of the window of opportunity that opened in 1995 to assure the Maya a space, particularly a political one, in the Guatemalan society. To the traditionalists in a setting colored by habits, a local language, and a strongly felt belonging to the village itself, this sophisticated “Maya” thinking may seem too abstract, too far away from their realities of everyday life. Convincing them that they should see themselves not only as what they know they are, people of a certain place, but also of an ethnic group whose language they probably speak, like being Kakchikel, Quiché or Tzutujil, may in some cases still be difficult enough as an additional identity. Much more difficult is to convince all the Maya population that they are not only members of the locality and their ethnic (sub)group, but that they in addition to that should act, in many contexts, as proud to be Maya. Even if that is what serves them best in many contexts from a strict utilitarian point of view, such a change in thinking must be allowed take its time. The question is how much time there is left for reinforcing the indigenous political, ethnical and cultural space in Guatemala – ten years after the window opened. The reasonable short term solution seems to be getting used to not just Kakchikel but to Maya- Kakchikel etc as self-identification. Here and there such an approach seems to be gaining some ground. The numerous pan-Maya groups of today theoretically representing all Maya face three main problems. Their lack of coordination does not make them representative as a Maya partner vis-à-vis the government. Nor are they clearly representing their own bases, the countryside Maya. And, being run by a young urban Maya elite, they have an inversed age problem by breaking traditional Maya respect for elder generations. Kay Warren adds that Maya cultural elites working outside home communities in non-agricultural

occupations risk being seen as inauthentic representatives, perceived as neither Maya nor ladino (Warren 1996: 103). For the sake of discussion, it is easy to see the Maya of Guatemala as a pan-Maya – traditionalist dichotomy. In practice, it is evident though that there is a continuum with many Maya in between the extremes. Among them there is the beginning of a middle class of Maya establishing small businesses, others making a career in local administration, others again living much better than before thanks to money transfers, remesas, from relatives that have managed to settle abroad, normally in the United States. And among the urban Maya, there exists an ethno-drain by those still few who manage to cross the ladino boundary, rejecting their Maya origin. To many scholars this considerable gap offers interesting theoretical illustrations to the traditional primordialism-instrumentalism and essentialism-constructivism dichotomies, in spite of the fact that these are normally in the West considered to be outdated. Yet, in the specific case of Guatemala, it does not seem far-fledged to see the real traditionalists as living in a setting dominated by primordialist values when it comes to ethnicity, and, when it comes to culture, in essentialism. The latter statement is here based on their sensation of living a life with roots far back in time, embedded in symbols, a reality within a belonging to the cosmological order. Whitten´s definition may be recalled here: “Essentialism is the affirmation of common style, quality and culture – the oneness of a people – that revitalises a sense of historical depth” (Wade 1997: 116). Representatives of the pan-May movement could be seen as acting in an instrumentalist way, since they use ethnicity as a political tool to bring people together for a distinct purpose, it is a question of working for an ethnic identity that group members are expected to chose to accept. In the words of Banks, fitting here, primordialism is related to the heart, instrumentalism is in your head (Banks 1996: 185). Fischer notes that the form of constructivism that pan-Mayanists practice differs significantly from that of academic theory in its integral engagement with practical issues. Maya academics are self-consciously constructing new bases for Maya identity, he says, and yet their constructivism is based on an essentialist notion of history and the value of authenticity (Fischer 2001: 85)

Well aware about the minefield surrounding these concepts, particularly essentialism, I strongly stress that the Maya case is much of sui generis and that the distinction between the pan-Maya and the traditionalists has been maintained here rather to clarify the discussion. Real life consists, as mentioned, of a population well spread along a continuum.

5. The Past in the Present Anything left to be “saved”? “We are not myths of the past, ruins on the jungle or zoos. We are people and we want to be respected, not to be victims of intolerance and racism.” - Rigoberta Menchú

Guatemala at the beginning of the third millennium is in many ways a modern society but also, to a considerable degree, shows many of the traditional weaknesses of developing countries. The Maya half of the population has so far been excluded from most forms of participation and has experienced pronounced racism. Slight changes have been noted and also Maya in small villages meet different forms of modernity and face questions about inclusion in new activities. This provokes a handling of situations challenging old values, traditions and worldviews. While this situation is new to many in the countryside, it has already been experienced by the fairly numerous Maya living in or close to communities along the main roads, and to an even fuller extent by those who have settled in the capital or other large cities. Some of these have worked on being accepted as ladinos, with or without success, others have become urbanized Maya to a smaller or larger extent. From the town of Momostenango, Barbara Tedlock has given a representative illustration to this ongoing process, reporting how some local Maya, primarily male, while remaining Maya now engage in what were once purely ladino occupations: carpentry, tailoring, butchery, and baking. An even smaller number has amassed enough capital to own and run trucks and a bus line or to buy and sell clothes and blankets in large quantity throughout Central America. These Momostecans, Tedlock writes, have emerged as a new indigenous elite that has begun to dominate the governing of the local municipality (B. Tedlock 1992: 31). Similar trends are easy to find at many places, often reflecting a slowly improving standard of living. Houses along the road to the mountain town of Chichicastenango, famous for its market, look better than they did some years ago, and merchandise to the market, recently carried to a considerable extent by tumpline, is now brought in by private pickups. Here like at other places in

Central America, remesas from relatives now living in the United States alleviate the daily fight for subsistence. Yet, traditions do live on. Raxché, a representative of Comunidad Linguística Kaqchikel, stresses that Maya identity and culture remain strong and that the Maya in large part maintain their worldview and technology, their spirit of service toward community. Above all, says Raxché, they maintain their languages “which are unmistakable symbols of their identity and existence”. The Maya further maintain their ethnic loyalty. The current awakening of the more educated Maya has greatly strengthened the resistance of peasant and other Maya. But, he says, “we cannot ignore the enormous weight of five centuries of continuous assimilationist and integrationist policies that we have suffered” (Raxché 1996: 87). Let us now look at traditions and continuity in three fields of interest to this study.

Language and education As expressed in many contexts, including the Peace Accords, Maya languages are considered to be a central element in Mayaness. All scholars seem to agree that the maintenance of a Maya language is a basic thing. “Maya are we who speak a Maya language” is a recurrent position, taken by a.o. Raxché (ibid.: 74). As shown earlier, the roots of a proto-Maya language can be traced back many centuries BC and the branches that since have sprung out of the trunk are interpreted by modern Maya activists as markers of belongingness to the Maya. The language and educational aspects are however not uncontroversial. The Guatemalan educational system has in the past been particularly weak in its reach into the remote rural areas where poverty is prevailing. To the extent that there have been any teachers at all coming, they have normally been Spanish speaking only. The problems for pupils speaking only a local Maya language, have been evident. A problem apart from the lack in understanding is that not only the teachers´ language but also his values have been those of the nation-state, in this case the ladino one. Education, so badly needed as a tool for an improved quality of life, is a medium of dual use. Enforced assimilating education is sometimes one of the ways by which a dominating society exercises its power over an indigenous population. In Ernst Geller´s words, “school transmitted culture is the

institutional centerpiece of nation-states” (Geller quoted in Niezen 2003: 88). Monopolizing knowledge might be one effect. Bourdieu discusses the situation resulting from a dominating language and a dominating culture becoming the only legitimate ones while other languages and cultures are rejected as inferior. When one particular language or culture is made normative, all others are marginalized. By such a process, a few people may, according to Bourdieu, monopolize the universal, depriving all others of it. These others are thereby, in a sense, mutilated in their humanity (Bourdieu 1999: 97). It could be argued that Maya language and traditional culture have tended to remain less influenced from outside where there have been no teachers through the school system. Now that the beginning of a bilingual education is seen, it is important that it is used by teachers respecting the local language and culture, thus not only to create harmonized Guatemalan citizens. An educational system may lead to a higher awareness of identity used against the state. All compulsion that the state exerts in its normal ambition to create a uniform national culture, tends to provoke different forms of resistance. One result may be exactly what the state does not want – a feeling of identity as indigenous population or a particular ethnic group. In Foucault´s well known words, “where there is power, there is resistance” (Foucault 1976: 121). Results are seen of governmental efforts to live up to commitments to offer bilingual education. A general opinion is that the supply is still far too limited, geographically as well as age-wise. Where it exists at all, it is only offered in the primaria and a good deal of the teachers do not understand the children´s cultural background But the problem is even more multifaceted. Both Maya and non-Maya alike, argues McKenna Brown, often conceive of Spanish language acquisition as somehow un-Maya and Mayan monolinguism as somehow “purer” than the bilingual in Spanish and Maya. However, he says, since the Spanish invasion, the survival of the Maya culture has often depended on the successful mastery of Spanish cultural elements, including language, as an addition to, but not replacement for, Maya culture. Undeniably, acquisition of the Spanish language and other accoutrements of the Western world not only enhances the Maya ability to stay Maya but also provides the arms, as it were, to do battle against many types of hegemony. As an excellent example he

refers to Rigoberta Menchú (1985) who accounts how she learnt Spanish, the language of her oppressors, to communicate with Maya of other language groups and ultimately to argue for her people within a global forum. Thus, Spanish acquisition is not incongruous with the Maya identity; bilingualism can be seen as a linguistic manifestation of the ability to straddle the divide between two worlds (Fischer & Brown 1996: 16, Cojtí 1996 :48, Brown 1996: 166-67). I argue, says McKenna Brown, that whether the modern Maya preserve and, more important, gain control over their ancient cultural traditions, among which language is a prime example, is one of the most pressing issues facing Maya studies today (Brown 1996: 166, my emphasis). Nora C. England repeats the message, saying that the focal point for Maya cultural revitalization in Guatemala is language (England 1996: 178). These categorical statements seem to indicate in a unanimous way that the maintenance of any of the Maya languages is seen as important, not just for its use but as a strong marker of identity. While there is a clear movement to increase the space for Maya languages in modern society, it should be noted that this takes place in parallel with a diminishing total knowledge of them. Yet, there is one additional important dimension: Within parts of the pan-Maya movement, an interest in the old glyphic script is growing and symbols based on glyphs are increasingly being picked up. Circe Sturm, one of several scholars to follow this development, has observed that [m]odern Maya who use the glyphs are reclaiming their past, with the hope of encouraging greater autonomy in the Maya´s future. The past they reappropriate helps to build a larger pan-Maya identity, based on a common pre-Columbian history. For example, the glyphs, associated with lowland language groups in precolonial times, are at present written by highland language speakers. This blurring of historical and geographical detail becomes a practical and powerful tool with which to subvert non-Indian hegemony and construct a sense of pan-Maya community (Sturm 1996: 117).

Dress To any visitor to Guatemala, the Maya dress is the most striking sign of a meeting with another culture. Particularly one notes the richness in styles and colors in the traditional women´s blouses, the huipiles. It does not take long to learn that they normally are representative of the community of origin of the wearer. Typically men no longer wear their corresponding traje. These are today seen in only a few areas of the country. One scholar in this field, Irma

Otzoy, explains this situation by saying that men are more directly exposed to the social, economic and cultural pressures from the ladino society while women have been characterized as being “more valient than men” (Otzoy 1996: 147f). Another, Carol Hendrickson, goes a little further, saying that women can balance the dress situation elegantly, a man in traje is seen as “less” masculine, serious or competent – unless as of lately seen in Maya “bomber jacket”, signaling revitalization (Hendrickson 1996: 162). It is often said that the use of the dress, particularly the huipil, almost came to a stop during the recent, long lasting civil war, since it was dangerous to be identified with many of the communities during the military campaigns against supposed guerrillas and their simpatizantes. But often pending in the air remains the question about the origin of the Maya dress as seen today. Wolfgang Gabbert has noted that the order introduced by the colonial state in Yucatan included establishing Indians (indios) as one of the social categories. As part of their status, Indians were expected to pay tribute, were regarded as minors, were forbidden to bear arms or ride horses. Only Spaniards were allowed to wear European clothing, Indians and mestizos were expected to dress in white shirts and trousers, straw hats and sandals. The women´s dress was the ipil, which in the case of the Indians was of lesser quality (Gabbert 2001b: 465). While the history of the Maya dress does not yet seem complete, there are indeed important additional elements to put together. Archaeological monumental iconography as well as pottery figurines give many examples of not only the kinds of male and females dresses used already in Classic time, but also of their specific, de-tailed designs and patterns. As mentioned in the discussion of the Classic period, a few textile fragments have been preserved. Carlsen (1986) has, according to Irma Otzoy, reported that Maya textiles from a tomb of that epoch “bears resemblance to modern Queqchí weavings by their subtle white-on-white design in woven huipils”. She stresses that pre- Columbian fragments have contributed both to the understanding of change and continuity in Maya art and established a sociocultural connection between the ancient and modern Maya (Otzoy 1996: 146). Elaborating further on the continuity aspect, she remarks that the relative isolation of Maya communities for centuries has functioned, to a certain point, as a social barrier that contributed to the survival of Maya culture. Maya wore, like they still do, their distinctive dress, she says, as a

symbol of their identity and as a tie to a local and linguistic community. – As a personal note I would add here, lacking evidence to the contrary, that it seems probable that the variety of designs among villages is a conscious reflection of ties and pride, rather than a compulsory identification sup-posed to have been introduced by the Spaniards to keep track of the indios. But, says Otzoy further, the growing number of Maya today living in cities have to coexist and interact with non-Maya. In these encounters, Maya create new strategies for sociocultural continuity. A very important new phenomenon is that, in a strong contrast to the recent past when some Maya resorted to wearing non-Maya clothing to avoid racial and cultural discrimination in the cities, now the opposite takes place: Maya students and professionals directly challenge the discrimination by wearing Maya dress and maintain other visible cultural elements. In this way Maya create new forms of cultural survival (Otzoy 1996: 153). At the same time, traditional Maya textiles remain highly appreciated by foreign visitors to Guatemala. Even here a new trend is coming, new designs and combinations resulting in a parallel market for an “ethnic chic” version. While this is hardly of interest to the Maya themselves, they do accept another trend, a mixed dress, a creation in new forms, as well as allowing themselves to use the “wrong” huipil, still a clearly Maya ethnic signal but no longer a marker of the very community of origin of the wearer, rather a sign of Mayaness.

Cosmovision, spirituality and religion There are clear indications that Maya worldview, the cosmovision, spirituality and religion are still strong, particularly in the countryside. Thinking in terms of time according to the ancestral agricultural calendar and particularly of time as circular, not lineal, remains deep-rooted. At the same time, many Maya are caught in a power struggle between the Catholic church and the many next to aggressive evangelical churches. These today, taken together, are considered to be about as important as the Catholic church. The evangelists very clearly reject “pagan” Mayan customs. Yet traditions persist. Maya religious ceremonies are seen ever more frequently, for instance as part of the opening of many events. The access to traditional Maya ceremonial sites, including those within archaeological complexes that can now be claimed by the Maya for present day religious acts

as a consequence of AIDPI, has also contributed to a certain degree of rebirth of pre-Conquest traditions. A recent Ph.D. thesis concludes that “the religious believes of the Maya peoples are a key to their ethnic-cultural identity and determine the forms of their political participation and representation”. This statement is based on field investigations that, according to the author, show that even if people have been exposed to transculturization, and have moved to cities, their actions, thinking, principles, and values remain largely unchanged (Similox 2004: 426). The author further argues that the pillars of Maya cosmovision turn into arms to legitimize their political, social, and economic struggle. Believes, principles, and values are the basis for their identity, resistance, and ethnic revitalization. This way the indigenous people turn their cosmovision into a tool to save and construct their cultural identity. Religion in the native communities seems tied, he says, to political participation and representation. All other dimensions of collective life contain a constant reference to the religious dimension, in the sense of supranatural powers etc. on which they depend and which make them behave in a special way (Similox 2004: 426). This panorama of dress, language and cosmovision thus illustrates fields where Maya ethnicity, identity and culture are expressed today in ways that clearly indicate roots far back in time through elements that are characteristically Maya. Within each of these, there are forces acting in opposite ways, resulting in some parts losing out to modernity, assimilation and integration, while others tend to come out stronger than before after successful resistance in provocative encounters with a new time. That in this sense “negative” forces are at constant work needs no extra comments here; I now rather wish to argue also through specific examples from some different geographic areas of Guatemala that, to a considerable extent, there is a Mayaness that is well and alive – so far.

Four case studies Alta Verapaz: Qéqchí, Tzuultaqá and modern archaeologists In the Alta Verapaz department, 90% of the population, a total number of 360 000, are Maya belonging to the Qéqchí ethnic group. The small non-Maya population consists almost exclusively of ladinos. Characteristic for the

Qéqchí is their special relation to the earth which, like the landscape itself, is holy to the members of the group. Every mountain is perceived as anthropomorph, is male or female, and is itself or is owned by a mountain spirit, a Tzuultaqá, capricious, sometimes malevolent, and with influence on agriculture and fertility. Every individual Qéqchí feels particularly related to the closest mountain´s spirit. The Tzuultaqá is an intermediary between heaven and earth but also a “container for all Qéqchí perceptions” (Wilson 1995: 53). Detailed rituals, including collective sacrifices, are carried out, particularly at the beginning of maize planting season. Traditionally people have called themselves “sons and daughters of the earth” or “the people of the maize fields”. Alternatively they have self- identified themselves by the name of their village. Only indirectly may they, by their language, be aware of being Qéqchí. Still more far-fledged to them has been the idea that they are Maya, a word used in a somewhat pejorative sense about neighbors that are strangers to them. Wilson stresses how ritual and religion are focused on their own mountain spirit, it is to him that they sacrifice to be allowed to continue using the earth and the maize it produces. After a successful hunt, thanks go not to the hunter but to the Tzuulaqá. It is by him that the community leader in his dreams is informed about which days are convenient for carrying out different tasks. From the 17th century, there are reports about blood-letting rituals still carried out in the caves like they had been in Maya Classic times. Ceremonies adapted to later times have since continued. Wilson further notes that “the Tzuultaqá figure has been constructed out of pre-Columbian, colonial and postcolonial experience” (Wilson 1995: 58). Dates for ceremonies related to maize planting are often still established according to the old Maya calendar. Here, like in other parts of Mesoamerica, the Maya cross is used, a “cross” that since Classic time is in reality the Maya world tree. Before planting, sexual abstination is respected. Planting is a holy act. Earth is female. A man must not fecundate his wife while planting his seed in the earth. Men fast before planting and the whole collectivity walks to the mountain cave to ask the mountain spirit for permission to plant. A nightlong vigil with prayers, incense and music is part of the ritual as well as a pilgrimage to the cave for additional ceremonies. In Wilsons words: “In qéqchí discourses on the mountain spirits, we can see Gramsci´s ínfinity of

traces´ left by the pre-Columbian period, the colonial experience, the Catho- lic church, war, the modern Guatemalan military and so on” (Wilson 1995: 14). Development, not least in the form of more active presence by the Catholic church and its catequistas and of the particularly active Evangelical churches, has however resulted in the holiness of the mountain spirits being questioned. As a consequence, the sacrifice ceremonies in the caves have almost ceased. With the catequist movement, the elders have lost their traditional monopoly on knowledge and much of their former status. The reduced role for the mountain spirit is also an effect of the ladinos having deprived many Qéqchí of their land. As phrased by Wilson, “[l]andlessness is ultimately incompatible with the traditional religion, which is specifically centered on a sacred geography and ensures human and maize fertility” (ibid.: 282). During the long lasting civil war, a large number of Qéqchí had to leave their communities to become refugees. Already breaking up from coexistence with their own Tzuultaqá was difficult for these Qéqchí. Those among the elders who could much later return, have found it difficult to reestablish their rituals, particularly those that should be performed with the community as a collective. The Catholic and Evangelic religions that now in a more specific way than before has established a presence, contribute to the Qéqchí losing their previously strong local ties. They may, says Wilson, possibly become more receptive to a pan-Qéqchí thinking. In the long run this may even go for a pan-Maya ideology. But still a presence of continuity and cultural heritage remains. From the latest Maya complex to be excavated so far, Cancuén in the same department, David García has reported about a new approach to local Qéqchí communities from a project management. More than at any previous project the incoming archaeologists have in this case shown a deep respect for the people of the neighboring communities. Not only have they attended to the wishes of the Qéqchí to keep parts of the site reserved for religious ceremonies. They have also held meetings resulting in the villagers taking great responsibilities for the site and for safeguarding of the heritage. Very important is that the project management has joined the villagers in a number of sacrifices and other rituals to make sure that the local Tzuultaqá does not mind the visitors´ intrusion to the site, nor the villagers´ introduction of new

machinery and tools. Taking part this way in the local spiritual life, the visitors help the villagers reaffirm the importance of the traditional ceremonies. García confirms Wilson´s accounts of the holiness of the landscape. He also shows how the interrelation with the archaeologists convince the Q´eqchí that they are not just villagers of El Zapote and La Unión, nor just Q´eqchí, but at the same time Maya, descendants of the people who lived at the important Cancuén trading center of Maya Classic time with its magnificent palace, still coming out of the jungle vegetation with their own help (García 2003: 50, 90).

Yucatan: timeless cosmovision Certain motives were recurrent in Classic Maya iconography. Among these were presentations of the creation of Cosmos, how the human world was organized and how the existence of the gods and the ancestors in the Otherworld was arranged. In Maya Cosmos, an important work within Maya research, David Freidel shows how a ceremony in Yucatan in 1989, arranged by a Shaman to make the rain god Ch´a-Chak produce rain, is a very serious thing to the local population, suffering seriously from drought. In this ceremony, the very altar becomes Cosmos itself. All the villagers witness the climax of the ritual and experience at the same time Maya knowledge as a millenniary heritage. The author eloquently expresses “the mild embarrassment of the villagers caught between their faith in ancient knowledge and their aspirations to become ´modern´ people” (Freidel et al. 1995: 33). The Shaman carrying out his ritual creates once more order in Cosmos and combines the two worlds, the one of mankind and the Otherworld, through the portal he built on his altar. It is, says the author in another context, an expression of Cosmos that has been transmitted from Shaman to Shaman for almost a hundred generations (Freidel et al. 1995: 57). In Freidel´s words: Maya shamanism as a social institution has survived the last two and a half millennia because the shamans help their neighbours to re-create this view of reality over and over again – when they heal a sick child, or bless a new home, or renew the nurturing bonds between the inhabitants of this world and those of the Otherworld. Through participation in these rituals, the Maya, both exalted and ordinary, reaffirm their culture´s deepest truths (ibid.: 39)

The authors also stress how easily the Maya at the time of conquest accepted the Christian cross as a symbol – since it was similar to the world tree being the center of their own Cosmos. The ruins of the magnificent Palenque complex from the Maya Classic period still hold great representations of this symbol. What even today looks like respect among Maya for the Christian cross, may be because of its similarity to the World tree, a stylized cross with elements of the maize plant so central in Maya life, since it reflects the role of maize as the origin of Maya body and soul. As a whole, this is characteristic of what so often has happened since the conquest: acceptance on the surface but yet a continuation of the old, continuity in spite of adaptation, a kind of civilian disobedience. In spite of centuries of pressure and development, this Maya World tree maintains its role and continues functioning as somewhat of a Troyan horse, introducing Maya symbolism in the Catholic church.

Santiago Atitlán: Tzutujil in incompatible worlds The Tzutujil Maya group at Lago Atitlán, particularly in the town of Santiago Atitlán, is our nex example of continuity in traditions expressed in dress, ritual, religion, and maintained identity. Robert Carlsen, who followed them for 15 years, points out how they live in “incompatible worlds” of tradition and modernity. The Tzutujil ethnic group is one of the fairly few in the country where even many men still wear traditional dress. Also female dress is special. This contributes to modernity appearing not least in the form of tourists coming in daily by boat to spend some hours in a particularly colorful setting. A brutal more form of modernity reached the town during the civil war with a well-known massacre on the local population. Poverty is general. As a consequence, well meaning donors in the US have shipped large amounts of second hand cloths to the people of Santiago Atitlán. These have been sold locally at comfortable prices, lower than the cost price for their own huipiles, a striking example of development vis-à- vis tradition, of living in the interface between tradition and modernism. More specific elements that seem to have their roots in pre-Columbian times is the time concept jaloj-k´exoj, “a concentric system of change within change” (Carlsen 1997: 51), comparable to the longue durée. Apart, special rituals are illustrated by a yearly procession with the town´s saint, Santiago. When the sculpture representing him leaves church, carried by the Tzutujil, it

is a Catholic event only on the surface, says Carlsen. What really happens is that Santiago is carried on a pilgrimage from the center of the Maya world, marked on the very floor of the church itself, to the four corners of the Maya world, symbolically marked on the square outside the church. At one moment during this ritual, Santiago is brought to the place that to the Maya is the dividing line between life and death, the past and the future. In the course of intense ceremonies, the brotherhood, cofradía, in charge delivers Santiago, explains that their time is out, hands Santiago over to new cofrades in order for life to go on; the members of the old one die symbolically (Carlsen 1997: 167). Another remarkable thing with the 16th century Santiago Atitlán church is its large altar piece, cut in wood, since it is crowned by Maya World tree, mentioned in earlier cases. It also contains a few panels with Maya religious elements that have been re-created and included as late as after a 1976 earthquake (Christenson 2001: 4f). That a power struggle still goes on is illustrated by the fact that as late as 2003, the priest has compelled the artist to replace a figure on the front of the pulpet representing the Maya maize god (Nicolás Chávez, the artist, pers. com. Aug. 2003).

Quiché: San Simón and Popol Vuh The last example of continuity is taken from Momostenango in Quiché, the department from where the earlier mentioned Maya “holy book” Popol Vuh comes. Here a particular amount of rituals and traditions related to Lent and Easter week is respected. Garret Cook discusses the strange San Simón- figure, dressed as a parody of a ladino patron and the object of unique ceremonies over the Maya highland. Cook stresses how San Simón, always having a burning cigarette in his mouth, can be related to the underworld, Xibalba, and may be seen as a descendant of the old cigar smoking Maya god “L”. This one in turn is the prototype for One Death, one of the leading lords of Xibalba according to Popol Vuh. To the hot coast, a real life Xibalba, is where the Quiché Maya travel to get the branches and leaves to be used for decorating the cemetery and the crosses of Momostenango (Cook 2000: 210). Popol Vuh is the Maya account for how Cosmos was created and organized. It was by 1701 written down by Quiché Maya in their own language but in the Roman letters they had recently learnt to write down Christian prayers in Maya language. But, as said by Dennis Tedlock, “[j]ust

as Mayan peoples learned to use the symbolism of Christian saints as masks for ancient gods, so they learned to use the Roman alphabet as a mask for ancient texts” (D. Tedlock 1996: 25). This alphabetic version that may have had a predecessor written in Maya glyphs, has an exceptional value as a link between scenes in stone and ceramics from Classic Maya time on the one hand and continuing traditions on the other. Taken together, these examples eloquently reflect the degree to which ancient Maya traditions are still alive. It is against this background that it has been argued, like by Carlsen and D. Tedlock, that the conquista never was finished and that a rich variety of forms of resistance have been applied. Nevertheless it must be kept in mind that continuity is a tricky concept. Widmark has recalled though Estellie Smith´s proposal that we in stead of the dichotomy tradition-change pay attention to the very process of continuity (Widmark 2003: 32).

6. Remaining Maya. Are Ethnicity and Culture forever? Further discussion and conclusions

This study started by questioning where the people that we call Maya came from historically, why Maya is the name used for the group, with what right they may be, and are, considered to be a people different from others. In short, if we consider what we call Maya to be an ethnicity, a culture, a civilization, what process led up to its “birth”, the Maya ethnogenesis? We have then followed the Maya through time, identifying what has been special about Mayaness, about being and remaining Maya. The initial chapters show how the area named Mesoamerica has been inhabited since at least 8000 BC. Probably for a long time many people coexisted in a dynamic inter-relation. Only very slowly was there a separation expressed in language and cultural elements that may eventually have stretched from household ceramics to religious ideology and architecture, making, in this case, the “Maya” stress such symbols externally as markers of their commonness when needed because of exposure to non-Maya. Barth, originally thinking like others of his days in terms of relations between groups that already had their own cultural distinctions, later focused on what makes ethnicity emerge in an area. The question that Eriksen picks up is how initially homogeneous groups are split in two or several distinct ethnic groups. Barth had argued that occupational specialization and the development of some form of group complementarity could start a process of distinction. Eriksen agrees, saying that cultural discontinuity is likely to have happened more or less in this way in a variety of geographic settings but also notes the evident problems in confirming this where a long time has passed since these processes took place (Eriksen 2002: 79). In another context, Eriksen makes an additional comment that I find of interest in this discussion. The people in Nigeria that would later come to know themselves as Yoruba, he says, would in pre-colonial times recognize their affinity with others through shared language and/or shared customs. “Since customs were to a great extent shared with members of other groups, language eventually became the most important vessel for Yoruba identity. This language-based identity was codified and spread..." (Eriksen 2002: 76, my emphasis).

The people to become called Maya, in its slow process coming out of a mixture of Mesoamericans, might in my view have gone through a similar development, based on its language identification and culture. The latter, in the Maya case, would most probably have been in the powerful form that ideology took, from early on, through cosmovision and its expressions by elements like holy lords and public architecture. It might be worth noting here that, according to Barth, a group´s common culture does not create solidarity but is a consequence of it (Barth 1969: 11). If we accept Maya as a label, for sure an almost coincidental one but hardly disputed, to be used for the group we have followed through its long history - and there seems to be no superior name to use – we can indeed establish that there is a good reason to talk about a Maya people, ethnicity and culture and yet respect their internal differentiation when it comes to languages or dialects. The same goes for internal variations in other ways in which they express themselves, from daily life to dress, utilitarian objects, decorations, architecture, religion, cosmovision and others. This study has rather shown the remarkable uniformity in the Maya world, considering the enormous time span and the geographic circumstances complicating togetherness and coordination. The people thus being Maya, have they remained and, if so, will they continue remaining Maya? How is their Mayaness, their ethnicity and culture, affected? The continued presence of a Maya ethnicity is not questioned neither by the Maya themselves nor by the opposite side – national authorities and the ladino society in general. The phrasing in the Peace Accords is clear enough in favor of a Guatemalan Maya ethnicity including its subgroups. That ethnicity theoretically under certain conditions can be changed by self- ascription and skilful handling is true, but is relevant to modern Guatemalan Maya only on a very small scale, particularly since it also requires acceptance from “the others”. Already at the outset of this text (Chapter 2) examples are given from other parts of the world where a change of ethnic belonging has been possible. As has been briefly mentioned, the Maya of Guatemala have so far had a minimum of such possibilities. To some extent phenotype, but rather their cultural background, has made a reluctant society keep them apart. The exceptions to the rule have been rare. Individuals may manage to change but

Maya ethnicity will remain. On the whole, Maya in Mexico have been considered to have more options when it comes to joining the ladinos. Ironically, however, it is also in Mexico that the political development in Chiapas has led to a contrary development, resulting in campesinos starting to identify themselves as Maya. Guatemalan Maya do have their counterparts to what Jean Jackson reports from the Amazon where “Tukanoans are learning how to be proper Indians from non-Tukanoan Indian images and values” (Wade 1997: 91). We have seen what must be considered a convincing set of elements brought forward in time, being testimony to a remarkable ethnic and cultural consistency with roots far back. Rituals, concepts of time and cosmovision are among them. The Maya use in pre-Classic, Classic, post-Classic and Colonial times of markers of their ethnic identity and boundaries, has been reflected in the text above as have the many related topics that are today under scholarly scrutiny to further advance our understanding. The work is not easy due to the considerable time that has passed and the absence of need to reflect ethnicity in a largely monoethnic setting like the widespread ancient Maya “empire”; it is, in line with Barth and in the words of Eriksen, only when it is perceived as under threat that ethnic identity becomes crucially important (Eriksen 2002 : 76). It seems evident that the Maya, particularly from their Classic time on, have been well aware of themselves as an ethnic group and a culture of their own, using markers and boundaries that make them maintain a “Mayaness” distinguishing them from their neighbors. Maya “art”, architecture and expressions of ideology are clear manifestations. Clearly, though, not everything in the Maya culture, nor in any other culture, has prehistoric roots. This leads us to basic questions of continuity and change Let us first recall some of the scholarly positions. Williams reminded us that when thinking of a culture or a tradition as homogeneous, we tend to forget that a society often lives in and with a synthesis of old and new, and that even tradition is selective. Okely argues that “all cultures are provisional” (Okely 1996: 4). Sahlins´ observations about the skill with which indigenous groups absorb new phenomena are particularly relevant. As noted earlier, he stresses that we underestimate the Other´s cultural power of inclusion, misreading it as an inability to maintain a boundary. So often they are successful in working out meaningful compromises in their relations to

the dominating culture; they domesticate things and include them into the local culture. This text has repeatedly noted a high degree of such a capacity by the Maya, often used as part of a conscious or unconscious resistance strategy. A specific illustration to Sahlins´ words is the superficial acceptance of the Christian cross, often to the Maya remaining their ancient World tree, like at the altar piece in the church of Santiago Atitlán. A particularly clear example of domestication is found in the way the Q´eqchí of Cancuén still in the 21st century make sacrifice to Tzuultaq´a to obtain permission to use new kinds of tools when working at sites under the spirit´s custody. Other aspects facilitating what looks like acceptance of a new faith without necessarily being so, is a special Maya habit of taking on new elements – but, contrary to traditional Western behavior, adding them without eliminating the previous ones. In the case of culture, change seems to be a permanent part of continuity. Any culture meets, checks, absorbs and rejects new elements. A national culture may receive impulses from abroad that later are accepted as part of the recipient country´s national cultural heritage. Carlsen in his studies of Guatemala says that to remain stable, a culture must add and will subtract, attributes (Carlsen 1997: 64). Fischer, more poetically, expresses the same saying that “[o]ften overlooked… is the fact that man weaves culture with largely borrowed strands” (Fischer 2001: 7). Language as a marker of Mayaness has been shown throughout this text, from the early proto-Maya language already by 2000 BC until its present day role in Maya activism and pan-Maya movement. The importance of the Maya language family was recently codified by the Guatemalan government´s signing of the AIDPI in 1995. The Guatemalan Maya of today with its 22 ethnic groups big enough to be officially accepted as such, are often, but not completely, linguistically and culturally distinct from each other. Ethnic borders do not fully correspond to linguistic ones. Combined with the fact that the “Maya” label was introduced by the Very Other - in the form of Western scholars - to the groups speaking any of the languages of this linguistic family, it is hardly surprising that so many Maya still do not see themselves as anything but - if not just local villagers - Quiché, Kaqchikel, or Tzutujil etc. A persistence in claiming relationship to a locality rather than even to an ethnic group has been reflected through this text, from colonial Yucatan to modern Verapaz. It is still non-

Maya who keep telling the members of the subgroups that they are also “Maya”. The outsiders arguing this are now joined by Maya activists who take political advantage of the Maya concept, constructing and introducing a Maya identity to people who since well over a century, by outsiders abroad and by their own nation-state, are known as Maya. To the extent this awareness spreads, Mayaness gets an additional meaning. Fernand Braudel has said that history moves in slow breaths. This, indeed, goes for the Maya people and there are some changes. In Guatemala, a growing number of Maya have a better education than before, some getting training through unions, NGO activities and Maya movements. As expressed by Carol Hendrickson, “the battle for indigenous rights and an active presence in Guatemalan society is being fought with no little success by Maya who are pursuing their education far beyond the levels attained by their parents” (Hendrickson 1996: 156). In income terms, some traditional Maya vs ladino discrepancies are diminishing as the beginning of a Maya middle class is seen, often through business. In this process, a new internal Maya dividing line becomes accentuated: While a few Maya in an ambition to adapt to a new life for their family actively try to de-identify themselves as Maya, others become tougher in pride, resistance and revitalization of Maya values. The greatest challenge now facing the pan-Maya movement, says Cojtí (1996: 133), is reconciling local concerns… with the broader goal of fostering pan-Maya unity and ethnic consciousness. A good reflection of the dilemma facing the movement is in a phrasing of Cojtí´s quoted by Warren:

The Maya movement is at once predominantly conservative on the cultural plane and predominantly innovative and revolutionary on the political and economic plane. For that reason, it is said that Maya movement´s path leads not only to Tikal (traditionalism) but also to New York and Tokyo (modernism) (Warren 1998: 3).

One aspect is if the bases, the members of the ethnic subgroups, accept self- ascribing themselves with a Maya prefix, identifying themselves as Maya- Quiché etc. That might be one step promoting a politically and maybe culturally useful more general Maya thinking. It should though be observed that there still remains a distance even between the representatives of these groups as such and the locally focused individuals that are their supposed members, aware of it or not.

Returning to my beginner´s question of 15 years ago why the Maya subgroups do not join forces, I feel that it might still have some validity. Today, with a new insight, I must realize though, that also the opposite position is well founded: Who are we to ask some five million Maya to get together for a common political position? How different is this from the way a superpower unsuccessfully tried to create the “Soviet man”? And how different is it from the way parts of the Old world today try to create a consciousness of being “Europeans”? An even closer parallel to the Mesoamerican situation might possibly be if an effort is initiated from outside, suggesting “Germanists” to be a new ethnicity and commonness accepted by the main part of the populations speaking the interrelated Germanist languages. This hypothetical remark, helping us to understand the difficulties, is based on the fact that both groupings, the Maya and the Germanist, would each belong to a common linguistic family and have much of culture in common. My conclusion is that Maya ethnicity will not disappear even if the doors to the ladino world will open up a little. There may very well be a strengthened Maya pride serving as a factor working in the opposite direction. Fischer has noted that building a pan-Maya identity seemingly goes against the grain of centuries of Maya tradition in which the community serves as the primary point of identity reference but he still indicates a fairly strong optimism about the Maya future (Fischer 2001: 84, 246ff). Similox argues that the Maya movement presently is like an oil patch or an octopus penetrating all over (Similox 2004: 287). Barbara Tedlock, too, seems to join the hopeful side when talking about new communal cultures of resistance to Western domination clearly emerging today in the Mayan diaspora. “Mayan languages”, she says, “traditional dress, the sacred earth, and the ancient 260- day calendar have emerged as key cultural values and core symbols in the construction of a transnational pan-Mayan identity. What we can read in these symbols is that Mayan peoples are demanding their own conceptual world, their own ethnic identity, their own land, and, as always, their own time” (B. Tedlock 1992: 213). Non-specialist admirers of the Maya experience a feeling of sentimen- tality and sadness, noting on the superficial side how the widespread use of the colorful huipiles is declining in favor of western dress and materials, how traditional markets are less “pittoresque” than 15 years ago and how

modernity takes its toll. They wonder if Guatemala will be much less “Maya” in another 15 years. But whatever the inside changes, there will not be what some might fear as a “Maya culture light”. All cultures are “full”. Changes, whatever “we” think of them, must be respected. I join Barth´s position that while maintenance of the exterior border is central to an ethnic group, what is inside this border may change over time (Barth 1969: 14). This text has shown that Maya ethnicity and Maya culture are anchored far back in time and have withstood numerous encounters with the Other in different forms, be they Olmecs, Teotihuacanos, Toltecs, Spaniards or ladinos, maintaining Maya markers and boundaries. The Maya people, and the Maya culture, will remain, now challenged by modernity, by racism, by the nation-state with politicians and other members of a small elite and by ladino countrymen at large, reluctant to cede political space to the Maya. The Maya will remain as an ethnicity and as a culture, but the latter one permanently changing content. The changes may not please romantic admirers of the traditional, visible ways of expressing Mayaness. This one may become reduced in its extension but its core may harden, contributing to its continued survival. Still valid, though, is a question raised 15 years ago by Urban & Sherzer – if the smoky images in the crystal ball foretell the tightening grip of forced assimilation, or if we can glimpse a great garden of lushly flourishing pluralism (Urban & Sherzer 1991: 15).

Epilogue In a way we have followed the Maya from prenaissance to renaissance. To the extent possible, we have been staying on an anthropological path, running through rain forests, highlands – and time. In doing so, we have touched on, but ambitiously tried to avoid merging with, the political science highway. Several aspects, like the absence of what many see as a critically important political Maya coordination and the dangers for their sake resulting from the ten-year delay in taking full advantage of formal government concessions from the Peace Accords of 1995, are situated in a kind of anthropological/political interface. Still, in the interest of not straying away from the anthropological path, most political aspects have been left outside this text. Hopefully though the anthropological part of the Mayaness story will be duly observed and respected when the future of Maya ethnicity, culture and political space is under discussion.

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