The Historical Content of Oral Tradition: A Case from Belize

Abstract

Ethnographic fieldwork carried out with Southern Paiute informants three decades ago provided support for the view that oral tradition could contain historical fact transmitted over very considerable periods (Pendergast and Meighan 1959). That possibility, which ran counter to positions taken by earlier writers on the subject (Lowie 1917: 161-167), was subsequently disputed (Raglan 1960; see also Meighan 1960). In ensuing years the existence of oral tradition with verifiable historical content has been documented extensively, and the functions of such tradition have been subjected to equally extensive analysis (Vansina 1985). Although the occurrence of real historical record in orally transmitted folktale and folk history is known to characterize a variety of parts of the ethnographic world including that of the Maya, the opportunity to weigh such material against archaeological data is comparatively rare. In the course of protracted excavation at the ancient Maya site of Lamanai in northern Belize, a further example of archaeologically verifiable historical content in folk tradition has come to light. Though it involves a type of contact and a historical content quite different from those exemplified in the Paiute case, it provides insight into the durability of valid information outside the framework of formal oral history. The archaeological record at Lamanai is unusual, and in the early years of the excavation appeared to be unique, in that occupation of the site extended from the Preclassic, ca 1500 B.C., to and beyond the period of Spanish hegemony in northern Belize from 1544 to 1641 (Pendergast 1981, 1986). The rupture of Maya-Spanish relations in the Lamanai area in 1641, a product of the rebellion that began in 1633, proved in the end to be total. Although the Spanish continued to exercise limited influence over the important site of Tipu, near Belize's western border, until near the end of the 17th century (Graham, Jones, and Kautz 1985:210), there is no evidence of Spanish presence at Lamanai, or of contact between Europeans and a remnant Maya population at the site, after the community's inhabitants turned apostate and burned the church and other buildings early in 1641 (Lopez de Cogolludo 1971: bk. 11, chs. 13 and 15). As a result, not only the particulars of community form and of the functions of various structures but also the very existence of the community remained unrecognized at the formal level until at least the mid-19th century. A small number of Maya, surely part of the pre-1641 population, returned to Lamanai shortly after the last passage of Spaniards by the site in that year. In addition to erecting a stela within what had been the nave of the second church built at the site, the remnant occupants built a small altar in the area and placed several offerings near the wall that separated the sanctuary from the nave. Either during this activity or following it, at least one family dwelt in the sanctuary. The period of occupation cannot be determined with anything that approaches accuracy, but midden