Maya Town Research Articles

The use of virtualization for the recreation of historical events: The case of the 1562 Auto de Fe of Maní (Yucatan)

Virtual modelling is a growing discipline which has become an important tool in the context of heritage preservation. From this point of view, its usefulness is not limited only to the reconstruction of artifacts and built structures, but it also can be an essential tool for the reconstruction of historical events. Utilizing virtual modeling it is possible to create an interactive educational experience aimed at a large audience. Praeteritas Urbes, in collaboration with the National Institute for Anthropology and History’s (INAH) Museo Regional de Palacio Cantón in Mérida, Yucatán led a multidisciplinary group of researchers in the reconstruction of an important historical event for the history of the colonial period in the Maya area: the Auto de Fe of Maní held on July 12, 1562. This article discusses the methodology and the workflow used to complete the project, starting from the architectural reconstruction of the former convent of St. Michael the Archangel in the Maya town of Mani, as well as the virtual recreation of the historical characters, the built space, and the recreation of the scenario of this historical event. An important part of this project involved the digitalization of the museum’s collection of archaeological pieces used for the special exhibition on the Auto de Fe of Maní entitled, Ídolos: Resistencias y Persistencias.

Rehabilitating El Pozito, Northern Belize: a Classic Maya town and its socioeconomic history as reflected in ceramics and architecture

AbstractThis article revisits a long-neglected site in Northern Belize, the Classic Maya settlement of El Pozito, located in the Orange Walk District. Investigations led by Mary Neivens and Dennis Puleston explored the site between 1974 and 1976, documenting its architecture and recovering a substantial quantity of artifacts. Afterward, events conspired to bring these investigations to a close, leaving the site in a half-century scholarly limbo. The research here seeks to rectify this. Combining extant field notes with sporadic publications and recently conducted ceramic analysis, the authors reconstructed El Pozito's sequence of construction, occupation, and usage over 20 centuries. This new research revealed a settlement of surprising complexity, combining aspects of urban functionality amid a landscape of rural complexity. This article argues that the best way to understand such complexity is through the conceptual lens of a “town.” Neither a city nor a dispersed rural settlement, El Pozito functioned as a critical node that connected local, agrarian Maya with each other as well as the whole of the Classic Maya world. In this way, the research here seeks to rehabilitate this site, rescue it from its scholarly limbo, and restore its place in understanding the complex pre-Columbian landscapes of Northern Belize.

CHALLENGES IN BUILDING ARCHAEOLOGICAL CHRONOLOGIES IN THE STANN CREEK DISTRICT

Key to archaeological research is our ability to recognize and define material-culture patterns and organize such patterns in time and space. Since 2014, the Stann Creek Regional Archaeology Project (SCRAP) has focused on understanding processes of settlement development and growth at the Ancestral Maya town of Alabama in East-Central Belize, constructed and occupied primarily during the transition period between the late facet of the Late Classic to Terminal Classic periods. While we may never know precisely who settled Alabama and why, we aim to answer questions about the where, when, and how of its development in our ongoing research. In following these lines of inquiry, we have had to grapple with several obstacles that have frustrated standard practices of building archaeological chronologies at the site. Such barriers include earthen-core architecture with minimal artifact refuse within platform cores. Additionally, local and regional soil conditions that result in a poorly preserved and highly fragmentary ceramic assemblage and no preservation of human or faunal remains to date. Finally, we face the difficulties of constraining the radiocarbon calibration curve during the primary period of Alabama’s settlement and growth. This paper details these problems and outlines our various approaches in their confrontation.

How the Guatemalan civil war became a genocide: Revisiting the 2013 trial of General Efraín Ríos Montt

AbstractThe 2013 trial of Efraín Ríos Montt cemented Guatemala's reputation as a land of genocide. Most of the survivors who testified about army crimes during his 1982–1983 regime came from the Ixil Maya town of Nebaj. Oddly, some Nebajenses credit Ríos Montt with ending army massacres and saving their lives. This article focuses on the genocide debate in the municipio of Nebaj. It concludes that command responsibility for war crimes would have been a more effective indictment than genocide.

Implementation of a Diabetes Self-Management Education and Support Intervention in Rural Guatemala: A Mixed-Methods Evaluation Using the RE-AIM Framework.

IntroductionTo address the global diabetes epidemic, lifestyle counseling on diet, physical activity, and weight loss is essential. This study assessed the implementation of a diabetes self-management education and support (DSMES) intervention using a mixed-methods evaluation framework.MethodsWe implemented a culturally adapted, home-based DSMES intervention in rural Indigenous Maya towns in Guatemala from 2018 through 2020. We used a pretest–posttest design and a mixed-methods evaluation approach guided by the RE-AIM (Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, Maintenance) framework. Quantitative data included baseline characteristics, implementation metrics, effectiveness outcomes, and costs. Qualitative data consisted of semistructured interviews with 3 groups of stakeholders.ResultsOf 738 participants screened, 627 participants were enrolled, and 478 participants completed the study. Adjusted mean change in glycated hemoglobin A1c was −0.4% (95% CI, −0.6% to −0.3%; P < .001), change in systolic blood pressure was −5.0 mm Hg (95% CI, −6.4 to −3.7 mm Hg; P < .001), change in diastolic blood pressure was −2.6 mm Hg (95% CI, −3.4 to −1.9 mm Hg; P < .001), and change in body mass index was 0.5 (95% CI, 0.3 to 0.6; P < .001). We observed improvements in diabetes knowledge, distress, and most self-care activities. Key implementation factors included 1) recruitment barriers for men, 2) importance of patient-centered care, 3) role of research staff in catalyzing health worker involvement, 4) tradeoffs between home and telephone visits, and 5) sustainability challenges.ConclusionA community health worker–led DSMES intervention was successfully implemented in the public health system in rural Guatemala and resulted in significant improvements in most clinical and psychometric outcomes. Scaling up sustainable DSMES in health systems in rural settings requires careful consideration of local barriers and facilitators.

Conocimiento y aprovechamiento tradicional de vertebrados silvestres en la comunidad maya de Zavala, municipio de Sotuta, Yucatán, México

The relationship between Mexican ethnic groups and wildlife is known by its use for nutritional and medicinal purposes. Particularly, in the Maya culture ornamental and ceremonial uses have been attributed to the fauna. Similarly, different beliefs, stories and legends have been developed around it. The studies conducted to document these relationships in the state of Yucatan are scarce; therefore this work was raised to determine the uses and beliefs of the wildlife in the Maya town of Zavala. 174 semi-structured interviews were conducted among men and women of different ages. The significant species were then divided into seven categories of use: food, medicine, pets, ornamental, ceremonial, mythical, and ominous. 54 species related with the worldview of the residents were identified, and divided into three classes, 20 orders, 38 families, and 54 genera. The birds were the most represented with 30 species, followed by Mammalia class with 19, and Reptilia with 5. Mammals were the group with the highest general use index. With this work, it was concluded that the inhabitants of Zavala preserve in their daily activities the ancestral uses and knowledge of the wildlife. Likewise, the information collected contributes to the knowledge of ethnozoology in Yucatán.

“Speaking with the Fire”: The Inquisition Confronts Mesoamerican Divination to Treat Child Illness in Sixteenth-Century Guatemala

Abstract Indigenous midwives and female healers who treated infants and children in late-sixteenth-century Guatemala were medico-religious specialists who mediated the natural and supernatural realms to treat child illness. Their socially critical roles are examined through the lens of an Inquisition investigation in the tributary Maya town of Samayaq in colonial Central America into indigenous and mixed race women’s use of divination as a strategy to treat child illness, and in particular mollera caída, or fallen fontanel.

Information-seeking behavior and information providers in a K’iche’ Maya community

The study investigated the information-seeking behavior and information provision practices among bilingual (Spanish and K’iche’) students and adults in a Maya town in highland Guatemala. The research combined participant observation ethnography (spanning a total of fifteen months from 2008-17) and interviews with current and retired teachers, Internet café founders and employees, the municipal librarian, students aged 10 and up as well as recent graduates and professionals. Ethnographic insights guided the identification of ‘information,’ the selection of study participants and the nature of questions they were asked. Although a rudimentary library in one form or another has been present since the early 1980s, employees of the library are not, and have never been the primary information providers in Nahualá. Rather, in the past teachers have played that role and many locally important and respected men continue to do so, while currently the employees of one Internet café in particular serve many of the functions characteristically served by librarians in the developed world.

Language ideology, space, and place-based identity formation among the Tzotzil Maya of Chiapas, Mexico

In this paper we explore notions of within-group language variation in a Tzotzil Maya town of Chiapas, Mexico. Integrating GIS mapping, cultural domain analysis, and ethnographic research we find that the Tzotzil of Chenalhó hold a center-diffusion model of language variation in their municipality. We show that, counter to dichotomous models of identity, people see variation between communities as continuous and use spatial distances as a proxy for estimating linguistic differences. However, contrary to our expectations, people do not estimate linguistic distances from their own community; instead, they use the presumed pre-conquest center of the larger ethnic group as a point of reference from which variation emerges. Estimations are further influenced by a notion of a linguistically homogeneous center as well as by socio-political knowledge and stereotypes. These findings suggest that spatial cognition, combined with social and historical factors, may play a pivotal role in processes of identity formation and maintenance. Linguistic ideologies inscribe both deeply buried histories as well as people's conceptualization of space and their place in it.

El huerto familiar, la milpa y el monte maya en las prácticas rituales y ceremoniales de las familias de X-Mejía, Hopelchén, Campeche

Se presenta el estudio de la interrelación de ciertas prácticas rituales con los huertos, la milpa y el monte en X-Mejía, Hopelchén, Campeche. Con el análisis de las percepciones y prácticas rituales relacionadas con los sistemas productivos que hombres y mujeres realizan para preparar platillos, bebidas y dulces ceremoniales. Se muestra que el huerto y la milpa aportan más de 50 % de los ingredientes necesarios para realizar estos platillos, y que son indispensables los espacios físicos y socioculturales de este pueblo maya peninsular.

Chronic Malnutrition, Breastfeeding, and Ready To Use Supplementary Food in a Guatemalan Maya Town

Ready To Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) and Ready To Use Supplementary Food (RUSF) have proliferated in recent years to treat acute and chronic malnutrition. Biomedical research has established the efficacy of these products, yet little is known about their actual effectiveness in real world settings. This article reports on an ethnographic study of the acceptance and use of RUSF within households in a rural Maya community in Guatemala (a country with the world's third highest rate of chronic malnutrition). We find a number of surprising obstacles to RUSF effectiveness. There is a strong commitment to breastfeeding (supported by public health messages of local NGOs as well as culturally perceived benefits) that leads to sub-optimal complementary feeding after six months. We also found instances of off-label sharing and confusion over relative nutritional values. We present a framework for maximizing RUSF effectiveness that involves nutritional education, positive peer support, and the framing of the product ...

Nahua Patterns of Colonization in Maya Towns of Guatemala, 1524 to 1582: The Indigenous Records

This article seeks to further contribute to our understanding of the outcomes of earlier Nahua-Spanish alliances after Guatemala was pacified. The richly documented struggles of the Maya-Pok'omam communities around Lake Amatitlan in Guatemala between 1524 and 1580 reveal - in microcosm - the larger processes some of them stretching back into the pre-contact period that Mesoamerican scholars call ‘conquest-after-conquest.’ As this essay highlights, fifteen years after the initial phase of the Spanish conquest of Guatemala had ended, Nahua conquistadors from Central Mexico initiated their own colonization of Maya-Pok'omam towns, mobilizing both Nahua and Kaqchikel migrant groups to settle there. Within these Maya towns, the Nahua conquistadors impinged upon Maya economic assets, sharing them with their Dominican allies while maintaining political and social control over their local Maya subjects. Nahua economic and political encroachment of Maya assets finally brought about distinct and recognizable currents of Maya dissent against their foreign overlords, in parallel to the revival of local historical legacies of self-rule.

Evaluation of a Diabetes Education Video Among the Tz'utujil Maya in Guatemala

The prevalence of diabetes is rising throughout Latin America, particularly in the Tz’utujil Maya town of Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala. Major gaps in biomedical knowledge about the causes, chronicity, and long-term complications of diabetes have been reported in rural Guatemala among diabetes patients. In one rural Guatemalan study, respondents believed that ‘‘strong emotions’’ caused diabetes. Diabetes education services are limited in Santiago Atitlan, as the primary language for 94% of the population is Tz’utujil Maya, one of 21 distinct Mayan dialects spoken in Guatemala, and few biomedical clinicians are conversant in this non-written language. To address this need, a health education video was developed for a target audience of Tz’utujil-speaking community residents living with type 2 diabetes mellitus for use by the local hospital and other healthcare posts. Health education videos are an increasingly utilized medium of communication, with over 500 American hospitals currently having produced publicly available health education videos. The purpose of this letter is to provide an evaluation for this Tz’utujil-language diabetes education video. Mixed qualitative and quantitative methods for this study included semistructured interviews and preand post-testing of the video’s content immediately before and after the video screening as a rough metric of understanding and retention. The stratified random sample included 20 community residents (stratified as 17 urban and three rural) who were selected via randomly generated Global Positioning System points on a satellite map of the town. A Tz’utujil–Spanish translator was present to assist with each semistructured interview. Responses from the interviews were captured on digital audio recordings and paper-based field notes. Interviews were conducted between 09:00 and 15:00 h Monday– Friday in March 2010 and typically lasted 30–60 min. SPSS version 12.0 for Windows (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL) was used to analyze preand post-video responses using v tests and t tests for comparisons of means. The study was approved by the Committee on Human Research at the University of California, San Francisco and the Mayor and Ministry of Health of Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala.

Designing and implementing their own future: Grassroots efforts among the Maya of Guatemala

In the Kaqchikel Maya town of San Jorge La Laguna, Guatemala, a fight to reclaim lost land in 1992, though unsuccessful, eventually led the community to become one of the first Maya towns on Lake Atitlán to have a garbage dump, a drainage system, and an environmental education agenda. The efforts of San Jorge, along with the efforts of other communities, have led to the creation of national organizations such as Coordinadora Nacional Indígena y Campesina (CONIC), and have attracted the a ention of foreigners with organizations such as Mayan Families. By striving to improve their immediate environment and learning about the global impact of their actions, the people of San Jorge La Laguna are providing both a physical and an ideological space for themselves in the future.

REVIEW: The War for the Heart and Soul of a Highland Maya Town

REVIEW: The War for the Heart and Soul of a Highland Maya Town

Circulating smallpox knowledge: Guatemalan doctors, Maya Indians and designing Spain's smallpox vaccination expedition, 1780–1803

Drawing on the rich but mostly overlooked history of Guatemala's anti-smallpox campaigns in the 1780s and 1790s, this paper interweaves an analysis of the contribution of colonial medical knowledges and practical experiences with the construction and implementation of imperial science. The history of the anti-smallpox campaigns is traced from the introduction of inoculation in Guatemala in 1780 to the eve of the Spanish Crown-sponsored Royal Maritime Vaccination Expedition in 1803. The paper first analyses the development of what Guatemalan medical physician José Flores called his 'local method' of inoculation, tailored to material and cultural conditions of highland Maya communities, and based on his more than twenty years of experience in anti-smallpox campaigns among multiethnic populations in Guatemala. Then the paper probes the accompanying transformations in discourses about health through the anti-smallpox campaigns as they became explicitly linked to new discourses of moral responsibility towards indigenous peoples. With the launch of the Spanish Vaccination Expedition in 1803, anti-smallpox efforts bridged the New World, Europe and Asia, and circulated on a global scale via the enactment of imperial Spanish health policy informed, in no small part, by New World and specifically colonial Guatemalan experiences with inoculation in multiethnic cities and highland Maya towns.

Socializing Puros Pericos (Little Parrots): The Negotiation of Respect and Responsibility in Antonero Mayan Sibling and Peer Networks

This article examines family and peer practices of socialization that illuminate a culture specific social ontology of intentions (Duranti 2006). An interpretive approach to the study of children's language socialization and peer talk is adopted to analyze how local beliefs concerning children's socialization and development are afforded within multiparty participation frameworks that involve teasing and shaming routines. These routines are powerful discursive strategies in the everyday negotiation and co‐construction of peer politics and kin group social relationships. Data include ethnographic observational and naturally occurring video‐recorded quotidian interactions collected March 1998–March 1999 in San Antonio Aguas Calientes, a highland Guatemala Kaqchikel Maya town. [responsibility, intentionality, language socialization, peer talk‐in‐interaction]

Structure and meaning in human settlements

Foreword 1. Building and knowing 2. Animal settlements: ecological functionalism of animal architecture 3. Settlement patterns in Americanist archaeology 4. The idea of a Maya town 5. Cosmological structures of ancient Egyptian city planning 6. Mohenjo-Daro: the symbolic landscape of an ancient city 7. Holy mountains 8. The ontological structure of mediance as a ground of meaning in architecture 9. Three gestures in a poetics of place : Chinese settlement and disruption 10. The language of cultural memory in Chinese gardens 11. A culture without a temple: ritual landscape sanctuaries and female superiority in state religion in Ryukyu 12. Etruscan boundaries and prophecy 13. Razing the roof: the imperative of building destruction in Danhome (Dahomey) 14. Signs of the ancestors: an archaeology of mesa villages of the Pueblo revolt 15. Imagining the past 16. The oasis model 17. The evolution of settlement: fieldwork at Zuni Pueblo 1995-97 18. The primitive origins of modern architecture: Le Corbusier's Voyage to the East 19. Symbolic settlements: the American ideological tension between private homes and public housing 20. Transplanting the New Jersey Turnpike to China 21. Landscape ecology and cities 22. Settlements after now 23. 21st century nomadism and settlement 24. Materials matter in urban architecture

Nothing to See Hear

In this paper, I recount narratives of two violent events, and of enduring feelings of blame, guilt, and complicity in Tecpán, Guatemala, a mostly Maya town in the highlands. Many locals had followed all the coverage of September 11. Just months later, this city that always sleeps witnessed its own arresting moment, the "tragedy of June 10 (2002)," an anti-tax demonstration that began peacefully but became violent when, it is said, local gang members tried to assassinate the mayor. In this emerging democratic public sphere, being seen or heard can be politically empowering and potentially dangerous. Social experiences of the protests had to conform to "post-war" idioms that increasingly privilege ideals of compromise, equality, and harmony. But, casting those ideals against televised experiences of 9/11, locals produced ways of seeing and hearing violence—and conceptualizing blame—that differ from both the discourses of retaliation and innocence that overwhelm the U.S. and the flattening idiom of democratic compromise that dominated so-called "reconciliation meetings" with the mayor. The protests speak to a number of contradictions involved in processes of economic and political decentralization in Guatemala. Silently embedded in local claims that "there is nothing to see here" is a history of violence, ongoing forms of social suffering, and the hard feelings that continue to link this sleepy little town to "decentralized" agencies. That Guatemala is not yet decentralized enough emerges finally as the dream of one local daykeeper, who already saw the tragedy of June 10 in his sleep months prior, who didn't warn his friends since they would not have believed him, and who still feels guilty.

Common Origins/"Different" Identities in Two Kaqchikel Maya Towns

Kaqchikel Maya residents of San Antonio Aguas Calientes and Santa Catarina Barahona (neighboring towns in Guatemala) tell the same origin story. This story is used to root historically their concepts of collective identity and community. However, residents in each town hold that those in the other town have no real claim to the story. Both towns can equally claim this origin story, but the debate between residents of these towns offers an opportunity to discuss how the meaning of place is related to the historical and ethnographic contexts of which that place's residents are part. By weighing the story and residents' explanations about why it is theirs against previous historical accounts, I show that Spanish colonialism, religious evangelism, economic competition, and development contributed to divisions between the towns and skewed their concepts of origin.