Maya

LOCATION: Southeastern Mexico; Guatemala; Belize; Honduras;El Salvador
POPULATION: About 8–10 million
LANGUAGE: Spanish; English; various Mayan dialects
RELIGION: Folk Catholicism; evangelical Christianity

INTRODUCTION

Today's Maya are descended from one of the great civilizations of the Americas. They live in the same regions of Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, and Honduras as their ancestors and retain many of their ancient traditions. Mayan history reaches back some 4,000 years to what is called the Preclassic period, when civilization first began in Mesoamerica. However, it was during what came to be known as the Classic period—from roughly ad 250 to 900—that Mayan culture reached its peak and the Maya achieved their celebrated advances in architecture, mathematics, agriculture, astronomy, art, and other areas. During this period Maya civilization was formed by more than 40 cities, such as Tikal, Uaxactun, Copan, and Bonampak, among others. Each of these cities had an average population that would have oscillated between 5,000 and 50,000 dwellers.

They built spectacular temples and palaces, developed several calendars, including one reaching back to 3114 bc, and developed a numerical system capable of recording a number that today would be expressed as 142 followed by 36 zeros. They developed a complex system of writing and, beginning in 50 bc, were the first people in the Western hemisphere to keep written historical records. Around ad 900 the construction of buildings and stelae (stone slabs inscribed with names and dates) ceased abruptly, and the advanced lowland civilization of the Maya collapsed, creating a mystery that has fascinated scholars for many years. Possible causes that have been proposed include warfare, drought, famine, and disease. Later investigations suggest that the sudden decline could have been occasioned by war-related disruptions of river and land trade routes.

The Spanish campaign to subdue the Maya and conquer their lands began around 1520 and ended nearly 200 years later when Tayasal, the last remaining Mayan region (in present-day Guatemala), fell to the conquistadors in 1697. The Spanish seized Mayan lands and enslaved their populations, sending many to labor in the mines of northern Mexico. In addition, thousands of Maya died of diseases spread by the Europeans, especially smallpox. During the first half of the 19th century, the Central American lands won their independence from Spain, but the lives of the Maya did not improve. They labored on vast tobacco, sugarcane, and henequen plantations, in virtual slavery enforced by their continuing debt to the landowners. In the Yucatan, many joined in a protracted rebellion called the Caste War that lasted from 1847 to 1901.

After the revolution of 1910, the Maya in Mexico gained increased legal rights and better educational and job opportunities. However, a steep drop in world prices for henequen—the "green gold" from which twine was made—turned the Yucatan from one of Mexico's richest regions to one of its poorest. In Guatemala, the disenfranchisement and poverty of the Maya (comprising roughly half the population) continued unchanged into the 20th century. Since the 1970s, political violence has forced many Maya to flee to Mexico, where they remain as refugees. In Chiapas, Maya of the Tzeltal and Tzotzil tribes took part in the Zapatista uprising of January 1994.

LOCATION AND HOMELAND

The modern Maya live in southeastern Mexico and northern Central America, including Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador. Altogether, their homelands cover an area of approximately 323,750 sq km (125,000 sq mi) with a varied terrain that encompasses both northern lowlands and southern highlands. Volcanic mountains dominate the highlands, which are home to the rare quetzal bird of the tropical rain forest. The fertile soil of the highland valleys supports the largest segment of the Maya population. While many Maya have settled in cities, particularly Merida and Cancún, and adopted an urban lifestyle, most remain rural dwellers.

Reliable figures for the total number of Maya are unavailable. Estimates range upward from 4 million. The true figure is probably between 8 and 10 million, including about half of Guatemala's total population of 10 million, close to 2 million Maya in the Mexican Yucatan, and additional numbers in Mexico's Chiapas state, as well as Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador. Among the larger individual groups are about 750,000 Quiché (K'iche') in the midwestern highlands of Guatemala; 445,000 or more Cakchiquel in several Guatemalan departments (provinces); and over 500,000 Mam in southwestern Guatemala and southeastern Chiapas.

LANGUAGE

Mayan languages are wide spread in Mesoamerica and northern Central America. According to recent estimations, it is plausible to suggest that Mayan languages are spoken by about 7 million indigenous Maya in Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala. In addition, most Maya today speak Spanish, the official language of the countries where they reside (except for Belize, where the official language is English, but much of the population speaks either Spanish or an English-based Creole that contains elements of Spanish and African languages).

The Mayan languages (alternatively: Maya languages) form a language family spoken in Mesoamerica and northern Central America. Mayan languages are spoken by at least 6 million indigenous Maya, primarily in Guatemala, Mexico, and Belize.

The two Mayan languages of the Classic period, Yucatecan and Cholan, have subdivided into about 30 separate languages, some of which are not mutually intelligible. The most widely spoken are Mam, Quiché, Kekchí, and Cakchiquel. Advocates of Mayan cultural autonomy protest against the relegation of their indigenous languages to limited use (often in remote rural areas) while Spanish remains the language of government, education, the church, and the media. The following example is drawn from a creation myth in the Popol Vuh, the Mayan holy book:

Keje k'ut xax k'o wi ri kaj nay puch, u K'ux Kaj.
Are ub'i ri k'ab'awil, chuch'axik. (And of course there is the sky, and there is also the Heart of Sky. This is the name of the god, as it is spoken.)

FOLKLORE

The greatest body of Mayan tradition is contained in the Popol Vuh, an ancient text first transcribed into Latin and later translated into Spanish that preserves both sacred and secular lore. According to its creation myth, the gods made three different attempts at creating life in earth.

In Maya mythology, Tepeu and Gukumatz, also known as Kukulcan and as the Aztec's Quetzalcoatl, are indicated as the universe makers. They were two of the first beings to exist and were as wise as they were sage. Other deities, such as Huracan, the Heart, and Heaven, are also present in these narrations. According to Mayan traditions, Tepeu and Gucumatz decided that to preserve their legacy it was necessary to create a race of beings who would worship them. During this process, the gods made several attempts, but false starts complicated the procedure.

Animals were created first but since all were howling and squawking and did not worship their creators, they were banished forever to the forest. Man was first made of mud, but they just dissolved and crumbled away. The second version was made of wood and proved deficient because they were without emotions, souls, and reason because they soon forgot their makers. Finally, men were formed from a paste of corn dough by more gods. At last their work was complete. Even though perfect beings were fashioned, this new version was modified. The gods decided to protect the new beings by limiting the extent of their knowledge, reason that explains why gods determined to damage their eyes so humans could not see too much, and the resulting beings were the first Maya. As such, the Maya believed that maize was not just the cornerstone of their diet, but they were also made out of it.

RELIGION

From a general viewpoint, Mayan religion was based upon the existence of a group of nature gods, such as the sun, the moon, rain, and corn. A priestly class was in charge of elaborating rituals and ceremonies. Closely related to Mayan religion was the impressive development of mathematics and astronomy. Mayan astronomy shows a complex system capable of estimating the solar year (18 months of 20 days each, plus an unlucky 5-day period) and the sacred year of 260 days (13 cycles of 20 named days). Another fact that proves the astonishing Mayan skills as astronomers at that time was their ability to predict solar eclipses.

The traditional religions of the Maya were based on a cosmology that embraced the world, the heavens, and an unseen underworld called Xibalba. When Spanish missionaries introduced Catholicism to their regions, the Maya tended to graft it onto their existing religion, creating a unique brand of folk Catholicism. Their traditional gods that belonged to the natural world, such as corn, rain, and the sun, became associated with Christian saints, and various rituals and festivals were trans-muted into forms approved by the church.

Since the 1960s, evangelical Christianity, mostly promoted by churches in the southern United States, has been adopted by large segments of the Mayan population. Entire towns have embraced conservative forms of Protestantism, which have not proven as amenable as Catholicism to the retention of customs related to traditional folk religions, such as the use of alcohol in association with religious rituals or the retention of the sacred brotherhoods—known as cofradias in Guatemala and as cargos in Chiapas—which traditionally oversee village festivals and other aspects of civic life.

Even though almost all Mayas are nominal Roman Catholics their Christianity is mixed with their native religion. Its cosmology is typically Mayan, and Christian figures are commonly identified with Mayan deities. Public religion is basically Christian, but traditional domestic rites of their native pre-Columbian religion are still practiced in the privacy of their homes.

MAJOR HOLIDAYS

Most holidays currently observed by the Maya are the holy days of the Christian calendar, although many of their observances retain a shamanistic character resulting from the grafting of a Christian framework onto the ancient nature worship of their ancestors. The most important celebrations are generally Holy Week (the week leading up to Easter in late March or early April) and Christmas (December 25). The Maya living in the Chamula region of Chiapas are known for their five-day Carnival celebration, called Crazy February, whose Christian significance (the period preceding Lent) merges with the older observance of the five "Lost Days" at the end of the Maya solar calendar. Religious societies called cargos sponsor the festivities, which include ceremonial dances, feasting, processions, and ritual reenactments of both religious and historic events, including a mock "manure war."

RITES OF PASSAGE

Major life transitions (such as birth, puberty, and death) are marked by religious ceremonies, many of which combine Christian and ancestral traditions.

INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS

The religious societies known as cargos in Chiapas and cofradias i n Guatemala have been an important vehicle of social cohesion among the Maya. Charged since colonial times with organizing Catholic religious festivals, they provided the means for the Maya to conform nominally to the customs of their colonizers while privately preserving their own religion, traditions, and worldview. Mayan villages today have both civil and religious cargos, whose officials may ascend through a hierarchy of positions to ultimately become respected village elders, or principales.

LIVING CONDITIONS

Housing varies among the different regions and groups of Maya. The Mam, who live in southwestern Guatemala and southeastern Chiapas, inhabit houses with adobe walls; small, shuttered windows; roofs of tile or corrugated metal; and a floor of hard-packed dirt. The K'iche' in the Guatemalan highlands build rectangular houses with double-pitched tile roofs and walls of adobe, thatch supported by boards or poles, or other materials. Increasing numbers live in more modern homes built from brick or lumber with tin roofs.

The health of the Tzotzil and Tzeltal Maya of Chiapas has been compromised by their inadequate diet, which consists of fewer than 500 calories a day—one-fifth of the minimum standard set by the United Nations. Life expectancy is only 44 years, and the infant mortality rate is 150 deaths per 1,000 live births. Another factor endangering both infant and adult health is the prevalence of adolescent pregnancies. Maya folk medicine includes the ministrations of ritual healers called curanderos and female herbalists who may double as midwives. Common cures include prayers, offerings, herbal remedies, and sweat-baths.

The main means of transport for most Maya is the bus. Buses in Maya areas may be crowded as early as 4:00 or 5:00 am, often with people traveling from remote villages to the larger market towns. By late afternoon and evening there are fewer travelers on the road. In the Yucatan, human travelers share narrow country roads with a variety of wildlife ranging from lizards to swarms of butterflies, and speed bumps abound on roads in the vicinity of virtually every village. Trains in the Maya regions—like those in many parts of Central and South America—are generally slow, old, and unreliable. In some areas, boats are used for public transportation.

Economically, today's Mayas are agricultural oriented. This Amerindian people raise a wide variety of crops such as corn, beans, and squash. Socially, today's Mayas live in communities organized around central villages and live on farm homesteads except during fiestas and market days.

FAMILY LIFE

Both nuclear and extended families are found among the Maya. Couples generally marry in their late teens or early 20s. Traditionally, all marriages were arranged, but since the 1950s it has become increasingly common among some groups for young people to choose their own mates. In arranged marriages, contact may be initiated by the couple, followed by negotiation between the two families. Gifts are generally exchanged, and in some cases the bride's parents receive a payment to compensate them for having raised her. Couples often have both civil and religious ceremonies, and they may live with the groom's parents until their first child is born.

Family structure may alternate between nuclear and extended, with the addition of newly married couples who will eventually leave to establish their own homes, or elderly parents who come to live with the family when it becomes hard for them to manage on their own.

CLOTHING

The Maya wear both modern Western-style clothing and traditional garb (although the latter is more commonly worn by women). Dress is mainly traditional, particularly for women. It is much more common to see men wearing modern clothing. Men generally wear trousers and sport shirts or guayaberas, dress shirts with decorative tucks worn outside the belt in place of a jacket. Women wear either traditional woven and embroidered clothing, or stylish dresses and skirt-and-blouse outfits. Traditional women's attire includes the huipil, a long, sleeveless tunic; the quechquémitli, a shoulder cape; and the enredo, a wrap-around skirt. Maya garments are commonly decorated with elaborate and colorful embroidery. The designs, which include humans, animals, and plants, often have some religious significance, and every Maya group and village has its own distinctive patterns of decoration. The decorative designs for huipiles are often said to appear to women in their dreams. Men often wear the traditional tunics over store-bought shirts. Fajas are sashes that hold garments in place and also serve as pockets. Domestic spinning and weaving, once common, are becoming rare, and most clothing is made of factory-woven cloth.

FOOD

The Maya generally eat three meals a day: breakfast (el desayuno), lunch (la comida), and supper (la cena). Corn, the most important food of their ancestors, remains the central ingredient in their diet today. Throughout the region, women make daily trips to the village grinder with their corn kernels, returning with dough, or masa, from which to make tortillas, the most important food staple, or tamales, which are also popular. After corn, beans (frijoles) are the most basic staple, served boiled, fried, or refried. Soups, many of them actually thick stews, form a large part of the Mayan diet. One of the most popular is lime soup (sopa de lima), made from chicken, limes, and a variety of spices.

Poultry, either turkey, which is native to the region, or chicken, which was introduced by the Spanish, forms the basis of many meals. Plentiful seafood caught on the coasts of the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico is also an important dietary staple. The Yucatan is known for its ceviche, a cold dish made with fish prepared with an acidic marinade (usually lime juice), served with onions, chiles, and cilantro. Popular desserts include flan (a custard introduced by the Spanish) and Torta del Cielo (Heavenly Cake), a cake made with rum, almonds, and 10 eggs that is served at weddings and other special occasions.

One of the best-known foods of the Maya is Cochinita Pibil, a pork dish that dates back to pre-Columbian times, when it was made from wild boar cooked in a coal-filled pit. Domesticated pigs, introduced by the Spanish, have replaced the boar, but the dish is prepared with the same seasonings as it was in the past.

Cochinita Pibil

10 whole black peppercorns ? cup lime juice
¼ teaspoon cumin seeds
2 pounds lean pork, cut in 2-inch cubes
5 cloves garlic
Banana leaves or aluminum foil
3 Tablespoons achiote paste
3 fresh xcatic or other spicy chilies
1 teaspoon dried oregano
Sliced purple raw onions
2 bay leaves
String

The cumin seeds and black peppercorns should be ground to a fine consistency, combined with the garlic, and pureed in a food processor or blender. Mix the spice puree with the lime juice, achiote paste, bay leaves, and oregano. Cover the pork with this mixture and marinate for at least 3 hours, or overnight. Place banana leaves on the bottom of a roasting pan, and put the pork, with the marinade, on top of the leaves. Add topping of onions and chiles. After folding the leaves over the meat, tie with the string. Preheat oven to 32°F and bake in covered pan for 1½ hours. Serve with beans, salsa, and heated corn tortillas.

Serve with warmed corn tortillas, beans, and salsa.

EDUCATION

The Maya are educated at either public or Catholic schools. In Guatemala, a half-dozen Catholic-run boarding schools are the main source of education for those wishing to progress beyond the basic education available in the villages. Maya concerned with preserving their culture argue that the formal education traditionally available to them has attempted to assimilate them into mainstream Western culture by causing them to lose touch with their own. The Guatemalan Academy of Maya Languages (Academia de Lenguas Mayas) is at the center of a movement to preserve the languages of the Guatemalan Maya by codifying their grammars and alphabets.

CULTURAL HERITAGE

The Maya have preserved many aspects of their ancient culture, including their traditional clothing, folklore, agricultural techniques, family structure, language, and dance. Many elements of their ancient religions have also survived for centuries under the guise of Catholic religious observances, although these are now threatened by the growing prevalence of Protestant evangelical sects.

WORK

In rural areas, the Maya farm their maize fields, or milpas, much as their ancestors did thousands of years ago. Forested sites are turned into new fields by felling the trees and burning the brush (today known as "slash-and-burn" agriculture). Maize kernels are then planted into holes made with digging sticks. Where the ancient Maya used stone tools for clearing and hardened the end of the digging stick with fire, today's farmer uses a steel machete and metal-tipped stick. Because this type of agriculture rapidly depletes the soil, fields must be left fallow for periods ranging from 7 to as many as 20 years. Besides farming, Maya also work as laborers and artisans or own small shops. In urban areas, they work in jobs involving textiles or computers, for example.

SPORTS

The ancient Maya played hip-ball, a game that involved keeping a hard rubber ball aloft with any part of the body other than the hands, head, or feet. In some regions, the ball had to be hit through a set of stone rings. Soccer and bullfights are two popular sports in the regions inhabited by the Maya of today.

ENTERTAINMENT AND RECREATION

Sunday afternoons after church are the most popular time for recreation. Most businesses are closed, and many people take the time to stroll the village streets or relax in local parks. Popular forms of musical entertainment include marimba teams and mariachi bands.

FOLK ART, CRAFTS, AND HOBBIES

Maya women are famous for their weaving, often using locally handspun yarn and natural vegetable dyes. Using the pre-Columbian back-strap loom of their ancestors, they produce striped and plain white cloth for shawls, shirts, and children's clothes, some with designs that are over 1,200 years old. Colorful hammocks are woven from fine cotton string. Other craft items include both glazed and unglazed pottery, ceremonial wooden masks, and goods woven from palm, straw, reeds, and sisal.

For centuries, traditional Maya dances have been preserved by the religious men's fraternities called cofradias. These dances were performed for both ceremonial and entertainment purposes. The Pop Wuj dance depicts the four stages of humankind's development: the Man of Mud, who is destroyed because he does not recognize the gods; the Man of Wood, who is too rigid and ultimately burns; the Monkey Man, who is too silly; and the Human Being, who respects and prays to the gods. The K'iche' Maya of Chichicastenango have a dance that centers around Sijolaj, a harvest king whom the Spaniards identified with St. Thomas.

SOCIAL PROBLEMS

The Maya of Yucatan, like many other Mexicans, suffer from overpopulation, unemployment, and periods of political unrest. In Guatemala, Mayan farmers have been crowded onto mountainous areas with poor land, and laborers are forced to work for extremely low wages. The most serious problem for the Maya in that country has been over two decades of violent political repression by the military and right- and left-wing death squads. Thousands have been murdered or "disappeared," and many have fled the country for Mexico or the United States.

GENDER ISSUES

Maya peasant society is characterized by a strong interdependence and equality of responsibilities between husband and wife. As in all societies with a subsistence economy, husband and wife provide goods and services for one another. While the husband contributes the corn and beans he has produced, the wife prepares the food to nourish the family, weaves hammocks, embroiders huipiles, and cares for the children. Maya women are most responsible for passing along the Maya traditions to the next generation.

Although cultural values encourage a complementary division of labor, they also give men the right to rule over women and to move about freely. These inconsistencies generate tensions in male-female relations and lead to an ambivalence towards women, especially with the arrival of modernity and globalization to Mayan territory.

The Mexican tourist industry began to demand easy access to cheap labor and most of the Maya communities in Yucatan provided this labor to Cancun. Mayan women were separated from the extensive network of their extended peasant families and migrated to Cancun, where they complemented their domestic roles by joining the wage labor force and market. Among migrant families, male and female relations within the household, life ways, and worldviews have been, transformed from the traditional peasant system, and female income has become a complement to men's wages.

Regarding politics, Mayan women have also acquired posts of authority throughout the Yucatan Peninsula. During the early 1990s, Mayan women took the political center stage of Yucatan state by winning the three most powerful positions in state government: governor, chief justice of the state supreme court, and mayor of Merida, Yucatan's largest city and state capital. Mayan women were the majority on the state supreme court (three of five Justices) and headed three of the state's major political parties. Women also held the mayorships of two of the largest and most economically important cities outside of Merida, Progreso, and Tizimin.

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revised by C. Vergara