Article Journal of Social Archaeology 2018, Vol. 18(3) 325–347 ! The Author(s) 2018 It’s the journey not the Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions destination: Maya New DOI: 10.1177/1469605318764138 Year’s pilgrimage and journals.sagepub.com/home/jsa self-sacrifice as regenerative power Eleanor Harrison-Buck Department of Anthropology, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, USA Astrid Runggaldier Department of Art and Art History, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA Alex Gantos Belize River Archaeological Project, Archaeology Laboratory, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, USA Abstract This article examines Maya New Year’s rites involving pilgrimage and bloodletting. We suggest that ceremonies today that center around the initiation of young men and involve self-sacrifice and long-distance pilgrimage to the mountains and coast may have pre-Hispanic roots. New Year’s ceremonies express a core ontological principle of dualistic transformation involving physical change (jal) from youth to adulthood and transference or replacement (k’ex) of power in official leadership roles. This distinct way of knowing the world emphasizes one’s reciprocal relationship with it. We conclude that ancient Maya pilgrimage was not about acquiring a particular thing or venerating a specific place or destination. It was about the journey or what Timothy Ingold calls ‘‘ambulatory knowing.’’ The Maya gained cosmological knowledge, linking the movement Corresponding author: Eleanor Harrison-Buck, Department of Anthropology, University of New Hampshire, Huddleston 311, 73 Main St., Durham, NH 03824, USA. Email:
[email protected] 326 Journal of Social Archaeology 18(3) of their body to the annual path of the sun and their sexuality and human regenerative power to earthly renewal, which required blood to be successful.