Yucatec Maya Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Over the years, research in ethno-linguistics contributed to gather corpora in a wide range of languages, cultures and topics. In the present work, we are investigating ritual speech in Yucatec Maya. The ritual discourse tends to have a cyclic structure with repetitive patterns and various types of parallelisms between speech sections. Previous studies have revealed an intricate connexion between a speech’s structure and vocal productions, in particular through temporal aspects including rhythm, pauses and durations of different speech sections. To further investigate our findings by relying more strongly on the acoustic recordings, automatic speech recognition tools may become of great help, in particular to test various linguistic and ethno-linguistic hypotheses. Unfortunately, Yucatec Maya, with less than one million native speakers, is an under-resourced language with respect to digital resources. As a total, 24 minutes of ritual speech from three performances were manually transcribed by expert linguists in Yucatec and a basic pronunciation dictionary for Yucatec was created accordingly. The transcribed acoustic recordings were then automatically time-aligned on a phonetic and lexical basis. Automatic segmentations were used to measure tempo changes, durations of breath units as well as to examine their link with the structure of the ritual text.

- by and +1
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- Ethnolinguistics, Phonetics, Yucatec Maya, Tempo
- by Cédric Becquey and +1
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- Mayan Linguistics, Ergativity, Voice, Topic
- by Valentina Vapnarsky and +2
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- Linguistic Anthropology, Mayan Studies, Yucatec Maya, Maya K'Iche

Es un compendio de investigaciones en materia de arqueoastronomía y etnoastronomía en entre los grupos mayas prehispánicos y contemporáneos. El libro versa sobre el desarrollo de las prácticas astronómicas en tierras mayas, aborda los... more

The 2012-phenomenon includes apocalyptic fantasies regarding an impending collapse of our contemporary society, supposedly prophesized by the ancient Maya and their Long Count calendar. Sometimes connections to the ancient Maya collapse are made. That also happens to be the quite common in academic circles. Some academic researchers believe we can learn from the past failures for future solutions. The objects that were involved in the ancient Maya collapse were not the same as now and therefore we have little to learn from the Maya collapse in relation to our own ecological crisis. The ancient and contemporary Maya’s sensual profiles of ecology, time and space were/are quite different from those found within the “2012-phenomenon” and academia.

- by Johan Normark
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- Resilience, Apocalypticism, Mesoamerican Archaeology, Ecology

Este ensayo revela algunas de las tensiones y contradicciones que moldearon la evolución de la industria turística mexicana. El objeto de estudio es relevante por la significativa aportación económica del sector que durante las últimas décadas ha conocido su más importante crecimiento. El artículo intenta una deconstrucción de los imaginarios del nacimiento y las transformaciones del turismo en México, proponiendo una narrativa histórica alternativa. Una hipótesis del ensayo es que la falta de estudios consistentes (reflejada como un problema de olvido y trivialización de los problemas del sector) sobre la evolución turística en México tiene su correlato en decisiones gubernamentales que la han afectado sustantivamente, sea bajo la forma de políticas equívocas o en el hecho de ser un sector regulado predominantemente por los sectores privados. Aunque el ensayo enfatiza su estudio en Yucatán también hace referencias comparativas a otras regiones del país.

- by Revista Memorias Uninorte
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- Mexico, Yucatec Maya

This publication, a slight revision of my MA thesis from 1967, is the first published report showing the modern Maya use of palygorskite (then called attapulgite), a clay mineral used by the ancient Maya to make Maya Blue, an unusual pigment that is resistant to weathering and retains it rich blue color over time. Most of the report is devoted to demonstrating that the potters of Ticul used palygorskite in their temper, and that they recognized its unusual properties. The report suggests that nearby Sacalum and perhaps Ticul were sources of the pigment used to obtain palygorskite for Maya Blue since those communities are so close to Mayapan where the pigment was widely used. (In this report, II thought that Maya Blue was made locally and traded widely, but I no longer believe that this is the case.)

- by Dean E Arnold
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- Archaeology, Ethics, Iconography, Art
- by Christian W. R. Klingler
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- Iconography, Architecture, Alchemy, Magic

El universo y nuestro planeta están en constante diálogo. Desde el origen del hombre y de la formación y el entramado de las civilizaciones más antiguas, ha existido la necesidad humana de imaginar y explicar el inicio de la vida, el planeta y la humanidad. Los mayas no fueron excepción a la regla. En el marco de esa idea largamente estudiada por hombres y mujeres de todas las épocas, la sexta edición del Festival Internacional de la Cultura Maya 2017 tendrá como concepto original " La cosmogonía y la preservación del planeta " , en un evento que se llevará al cabo del 19 de octubre al 5 de noviembre próximos. De esta manera, Yucatán volverá a ser sede del mayor encuentro académico, científico, intelectual, artístico y estético que ha sido el FICMAYA desde su fundación en 2012. En esta ocasión, el país invitado será Canadá y la Ciudad de México la entidad invitada. Del programa de actividades destacan la mesa redonda, " La Cosmogonía y la Mitología entre Los Mayas " , y, especialmente, la conferencia mundial " La Cosmogonía y la Mitología de las Civilizaciones Milenaria en Preservación del Planeta " , que se realizará del 24 al 26 de octubre.

- by Raul Mendoza
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- Classic Maya (Archaeology), Ancient Maya Knowledge, Maya Archaeology, Maya Art

El 16 de junio pasado, el Fondo Nacional de Fomento al Turismo (Fonatur) entregó a la Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (Semarnat) su Manifestación de Impacto Ambiental (MIA) para la llamada Fase 1 del Proyecto Tren Maya, en las regiones ubicadas en el recorrido desde Palenque (Chiapas), Tabasco, Campeche, hasta Izamal (Yucatán). En este texto quiero resaltar algunas consideraciones sobre un proceso que lo atraviesa transversalmente pero suele pasar desapercibido entre los aspectos ambientales, socioeconómicos y turísticos. Una realidad constitutiva de estos territorios de la Frontera sur-Península de Yucatán, que ha moldeado la región por décadas y lo seguirá haciendo: las (in) movilidades humanas y sus múltiples expresiones (movilidad interna, migración internacional, desplazamiento forzado, desalojo, migración en tránsito, deportaciones, retornos…).

- by John B Carlson
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- Religion, Native American Religions, Comparative Religion, Sociology
- by Diana Lope-Alzina and +1
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- Agroecology, Homegardens, Yucatec Maya, Ethnobotany, Ethnobiology, Ethnoecology

A sophisticated, state-of-the-art study of the remaking of Christianity by indigenous societies, Words and Worlds Turned Around reveals the manifold transformations of Christian discourses in the colonial Americas. The book surveys how Christian messages were rendered in indigenous languages; explores what was added, transformed, or glossed over; and ends with an epilogue about contemporary Nahuatl Christianities.
In eleven case studies drawn from eight Amerindian languages—Nahuatl, Northern and Valley Zapotec, Quechua, Yucatec Maya, K'iche' Maya, Q'eqchi' Maya, and Tupi—the authors address Christian texts and traditions that were repeatedly changed through translation—a process of “turning around” as conveyed in Classical Nahuatl. Through an examination of how Christian terms and practices were made, remade, and negotiated by both missionaries and native authors and audiences, the volume shows the conversion of indigenous peoples as an ongoing process influenced by what native societies sought, understood, or accepted.
The volume features a rapprochement of methodologies and assumptions employed in history, anthropology, and religion and combines the acuity of of methodologies drawn from philology and historical linguistics with the contextualizing force of the ethnohistory and social history of Spanish and Portuguese America.
With a foreword by William B. Taylor. Contributors: Claudia Brosseder, Louise M. Burkhart, Mark Christensen, John F. Chuchiak IV, Abelardo de la Cruz, Gregory Haimovich, Kittiya Lee, Ben Leeming, Julia Madajczak, Justyna Olko, Frauke Sachse, Garry Sparks.

- by David Tavárez
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- Latin American Studies, Anthropology, Indigenous Studies, Colonialism

Una mujer de Maxcanú Yucatán se transforma ritualmente en hombre para poder ejercer como j-men. Este artículo narra su proceso de iluminación chamánica. Por otro lado cuestiona las aproximaciones de los investigadores con las personas y... more

- by Miguel Vassallo
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- Classic Maya (Archaeology), Maya Archaeology, Maya History, Mesoamerica
- by Akihito Ido
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- Social Anthropology, Museum Studies, Identity (Culture), Yucatec Maya

Maya Blue is a colour that is more than a pigment; it had roles in status, ritual and performance, being daubed onto pots and people before sacrifice. Here researchers use experimental and historical evidence to discover how it was made, including direct scientific analysis of Maya Blue on a pot thrown into the sacred well at Chichén Itzá. The results indicate that the formation of the color was actually part of the ritual.

- by Dean E Arnold and +1
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- Religion, History, Ethnohistory, Archaeology

Inequality and changing responses to food scarcity may create a stigmatization complex around certain foods. Here, we conduct a literature search to develop a working definition of "famine foods" in the Maya lowlands, centering qualities such as hardiness, productivity, nutrition, preparation, and stigmatization complexes. An analysis of the nutritional characteristics that might make up such a food yields the idea that famine foods are likely members of a time-and place-specific arsenal of plant resources. We compare the results of the literature search to botanical data from a rejollada survey from Xuenkal and a solar (house garden) survey conducted in Yaxunah. Examining the data through the lens of a history of manipulation of food access, shifting relations of power, and modern responses to food insecurity illuminates cultural plasticity and resilience in diet and agricultural strategies in the Maya lowlands. We conceptualize solares and rejolladas as food-related resilience strategies.

- by Traci Ardren and +1
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- Archaeology, Foodways (Anthropology), Gardens, Maya Archaeology

Maya blue is a turquoise paint used by the ancient Maya for pottery, murals, sculpture and for covering human victims before they were sacrificed. In the 1960s, its composition was identified as indigo and the clay mineral palygorskite. The resistance of Maya Blue to acids, solvents and other reagents, and its persistent color over centuries in one of the world’s harshest climates has captured the attention of many scholars. Since the 1960s, however, the cultural context of the constituents of the paint, the cultural significance of the pigment, and the discovery of how the Maya made the pigment have been possible because of the collaboration of anthropologists with those who have expertise in the physical sciences. This collaboration was also responsible for the discovery of palygorskite in Yucatan in 1965, its cultural significance among the contemporary Maya, and for identifying the way in which the ancient Maya made the Maya Blue. This paper presents the preliminary results of the analyses of palygorskite samples recently obtained in Yucatán and underscores the importance of collaborative research between anthropologists and physical scientists for find a source for the ancient palygorskite that was used in the production of Maya Blue. Research on Maya Blue also raises questions of intellectual properly rights: Who owns the rights to make Maya Blue for economic gain, and who should benefit from a sale of a synthetic Maya Blue for modern commercial purposes? (Files for text and power point are attached below)

- by Dean E Arnold
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- Classic Maya (Archaeology), Ancient Maya Knowledge, Maya Archaeology, Maya Art
- by James Brady
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- Archaeology, Prehistoric Archaeology, Landscape Archaeology, Cultural Landscapes

This paper illustrates how different sections of pots are joined by potters in Mexico, Guatemala and among the ancient Incas. Potters in Ticul, Yucatan and Mexico join portions of vessels using moulding and large coils that are drawn up and thinned with a gourd scraper. Potters in the northern Valley of Guatemala also use large thick coils, but join them to mould-made bases. In both locations, potters make very thick joints by a variety of techniques and then thin them with a gourd scraper. Among the ancient Incas, however, potters appeared to use smaller coils. For the base of vessels they used clay discs (for large arybalus) and clay cylinders (cooking pots) to which slabs of clay and parts of the vessel were attached. Both the edges of the coils and the edges of the discs were scored using various patterns to make the clay stick across the joints.

- by Dean E Arnold
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- History, Anthropology, Pottery (Archaeology), Ceramic Technology
- by Shigeto Yoshida
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- Mayan Studies, Yucatec Maya, Literatura Indígena

Se propone hacer una comparación entre la tradición profética maya del centro del estado mexicano de Quintana Roo, bien conocido por ser el núcleo del culto al Santìisima o “Cruz Parlante,” y la de Kantunilkín, cabecera del municipio de Lázaro Cárdenas, ubicado al norte del mismo estado, para entender, esencialmente, cómo se piensa en cada una de ella acerca de los dzulob, es decir, los mexicanos u otros “extranjeros” con los que los mayas comparten ahora su territorio ancestral.
La investigación de campo que respondiera a esta propuesta se propondría elucidar cinco cosas: en primer lugar, si estas dos tradiciones proféticas son “esencialmente” distintas o no, es decir, si una sirve para construir un sentido de la identidad “maya” basado en la rivalidad con los dzulob y la otra no; en segundo lugar, identificar cuáles son las nociones que explican los rasgos constitutivos de la identidad de los pobladores de cada una de las dos zonas, si se comprobara que en efecto existenten diferencias significativas entre ellos; en tercer lugar, cómo los mayas construyen distintas identidades para los dzulob—al diferenciarlos entre aquellos a los que combatirán en “la guerra del fin del mundo” y aquellos que les ayudarán en tal conflicto—y cuáles son los factores que contribuyen en la estabilidad o fluctuación de tales identidades en la memoria social maya; en cuarto lugar, ¿qué tanta fuerza tienen entre los mayas de Quintana Roo la ideas de que una reconciliación con los dzulob es posible y de que, por lo tanto, la guerra profetizada contra ellos es evitable?; en quinto lugar, ¿se puede identificar a ciertas profecías como el origen de estas ideas?

- by Bernardo Pérez Soler
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- Race and Ethnicity, Maya History, Mayan Studies, Power relations
- by James Loucky
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- Evolutionary Biology, Health Sciences, Nutrition and Dietetics, Anthropology
- by Andres Dapuez
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- Development Studies, Globalization, Ritual, Gift Exchange

El curso de lengua maya 1 contiene cinco unidades, para el aprendizaje de: 1: los saludos y despedidas, 2: información personal, 3: objetos y frases básicas, 4: relaciones familiares y 5: actividades cotidianas.
Para la elaboración del Cuaderno de Actividades de Aprendizaje de Lengua Maya I se ha partido primordialmente del enfoque comunicativo, el cual trata de la capacidad de comunicarse adecuada y efectivamente en un contexto determinado.
El Cuaderno de Actividades de Aprendizaje, Lengua Maya I integra de manera coherente y progresiva, la enseñanza de las cuatro destrezas comunicativas: la comprensión auditiva, la expresión oral, la comprensión lectora y la expresión escrita, dentro del marco de la comprensión de lo cultural y entendiéndolas como un todo, cuyo principal objetivo es la comunicación cotidiana, es decir, el uso de la lengua en circunstancias reales de interacción comunicativa.

- by Miguel Oscar Chan Dzul
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- Yucatec Maya, Lenguas mayas, Enseñanza de lenguas, Maaya t'aan

The article, originally published in Mesoweb's The PARI Journal <mesoweb.com/pari/journal/archive/PARI1103.pdf> depicts and analyzes two stelae from Chichen Itza. A prominent display of "Fire Bird" on Stela 2 prompts a review and... more

- by Bruce Love
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- Classic Maya (Archaeology), Maya Archaeology, Maya Art, Maya History

Chichen Itza is one of the best-known yet most enigmatic cities of the ancient Maya. Important scholarly debates still surround its basic chronology and the people who built and lived in the city. These academic discussions are complemented by a colorful background of popular speculation. Early explorers, such as Augustus Le Plongeon, merged the two and sometimes created wild tales involving lost continents, unrequited love, sacrificial virgins, and ancient Egypt. These narratives still fuel contemporary interest in Chichen Itza, as do the more recently developed tenets of New Age spirituality. Although there is no reason to think that Chichen Itza was built by aliens or Queen Moo of Atlantis, the city remains a focus of both scholarly and popular interest. In this introductory chapter, we hope to lift—or at least peek under— the veil of confusion surrounding Chichen Itza. Because we are archaeologists, we concentrate on the history of archaeological exploration and the interpretation of colonial and ancient texts concerning the site. Our goal here is to provide a background to " how we know what we know " about Chichen Itza and to hint at why we still do not know so many important things about this ancient Maya city.

- by Beniamino Volta and +2
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- Mesoamerican Archaeology, Maya Archaeology, Maya Art, Maya Epigraphy
- by John B Carlson
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- Archaeology, Ethnoarchaeology, Cosmology (Anthropology), Mesoamerican Archaeology

Underlying Maya cosmology, history and religion are several key mythological narratives explaining the origins of the world, and providing sacred charters for civilized/moral behavior. Key elements from these narratives—including shared mythemes, characters, and toponyms—have long been known to recur in various regions of Southeastern Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize, in the oral traditions of several groups speaking distinct but related Mayan languages. One such is a widespread narrative concerning an aged god of the mountains whose daughter, granddaughter, or wife runs away with a young culture hero: a parable often echoing acute concerns about female marital fidelity in contemporary christianized Maya communities. Naturally enough, the contexts of these modern myths have occasioned some concern that they may be little more than thinly disguised retellings of Biblical stories of unfaithful wives, such as Hosea and Gomer. Yet several Late Classic Maya vases and monuments from the late 7th and early 8th century AD apparently reference episodes from this same narrative, here explicitly involving Huk Xib (later Huk Siip), the aged Lord of the Deer, whose wife is spirited away by Juun Ixiim, the youthful Maize God, in a union which may have produced the famed Hero Twins. Epigraphic and iconographic analysis of the texts and imagery reflecting this lost myth, coupled with cautious comparison with potentially related modern Maya myths, allow us to reconstruct many of the basic events of this ancient tale, although several mysteries remain. Such continuity reminds us that myths can be surprisingly durable, even in the wake of military conquest and centuries of colonial rule and religious conversion. Nonetheless, still unresolved is the extent to which these various early fragments allow the confident reconstruct of a single, underlying myth. It is suggested that various regional and temporal variants may find expression or emphasis in these texts, raising questions about many of our reconstructions of ancient mythic narratives.

- by Marc Zender
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- Comparative Religion, Mythology And Folklore, Mythology, Classic Maya (Archaeology)
- by Shigeto Yoshida
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- Yucatec Maya

La presente tesis es un estudio acerca de los marcadores de aspecto y modo (MAM) en el Maaya T’aan. La investigación se particularizó a la región Oriente del estado de Yucatán. La importancia de trabajar el tema de los marcadores de AM como tesis radica en que es necesario analizar y definir criterios para el reconocimiento de los marcadores como tales, esta necesidad conllevó a identificar cuántos, cuáles y las características particulares de los marcadores de AM en uso en la región Oriente.

- by Miguel Oscar Chan Dzul
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- Mayan Linguistics, Yucatec Maya, Lenguas mayas, Aspecto Verbal

Ix Tab, the ancient Maya suicide goddess, appears in various settings in the contemporary popular culture of Yucatán, Mexico. In a state where the suicide rate is double the Mexican national average, discourses about Ix Tab feed misconceptions about indigenous proclivities to suicide and render Maya people exotic. In an effort to unravel the origins of Ix Tab and the contemporary beliefs about indigenous suicide, we studied the ethnohistoric origins of Ix Tab in Diego de Landa's Relación de las cosas de Yucatán and reviewed iconography from art databases and more than forty-four hundred pages of published works to identify either an ancient Maya suicide deity or suicide by hanging as a motif in ancient Maya art. Our research found no iconographic evidence of a suicide deity, and we came upon only two images of humans hanging by the neck, neither representing suicide. This indicates that there was no ancient Maya suicide deity and that suicide by hanging was not a significant motif among the ancient Maya.

- by John B Carlson
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- Religion, Ancient Egyptian Religion, New Religious Movements, Comparative Religion

En el libro El Calendario Maya podrás conocer sobre: Los números mayas, Los días mayas, El Calendario Sagrado de los mayas: El Tzolkín; Los meses mayas, el calendario civil: El Haab y La Rueda Calendárica; La Cuenta Larga: El Baktún, Katún, Tún, Uinal y Kín; Los ciclos mayas: El ciclo de los 13 baktunes; El ciclo de los 13 katunes; El katún que actualmente estamos viviendo; El ciclo de 13 katunes que actualmente estamos viviendo y las Fechas gregorianas que le corresponden a los ciclos mayas.

- by Raul Mendoza
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- Mayan Studies, Ancient Maya, Yucatec Maya, Mayas

(Parergon 35 (2), 2018) I argue in this paper that a number of concepts of the Maya of the Postclassic Period in the Yucatan (900-1539 CE) can be understood as hybrid concepts based on a synthesis of Maya and Central Mexican ideas. Focusing on the deities of Kukulkan and Itzamna as well as the concept of itz (essence), I argue that Maya concepts were reconstituted based on Central Mexican cultural forms, a process that helped bring about the development of a new Maya and ultimately new Pan-Mesoamerican identity, including the idea of the “Toltec” as a distinct people and the basis of migration myths.

- by Alexus McLeod
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- Maya Archaeology, Maya History, Mayan Studies, Mesoamerican Religion
- by Yusran Rahim
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- Yucatec Maya

Este trabajo presenta un desciframiento de los glifos nominales de los personajes del Templo Superior de Jaguares en Chichén Itzá, quienes se identifican con el linaje de los Cocom, de acuerdo a documentos coloniales de la colección Willard. Se traza el origen del linaje desde el periodo Clásico Terminal y su adaptación a la llegada de los Toltecas. Posteriormente se examina su papel en el gobierno de Mayapán hasta el episodio de la matanza que conllevaría su enemistad con el grupo de los Tutul Xiu, y que marcaría el papel de cada linaje en la guerra de conquista de los españoles. Posteriormente se presenta la historia de Nachi Cocom y su asentamiento en Sotuta. Finalmente proponemos que el significado de Cocom como una enredadera de flores amarillas corresponde con la vainilla.

- by Peter Biro and +1
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- Classic Maya (Archaeology), Maya Archaeology, Maya Art, Maya History

This study explores the multifaceted Maya Deluge Myth, from its pre-Columbian origins to current fantasies about a great world-destroying flood at the 13 Baktun period ending of the Maya Long Count on 21 (or 23) December 2012. No such flood is prophesied in any Maya records for this date, and the famous scene on Dresden Codex page 74 is discussed in its context as a symbolic depiction of the annual world-renewing downpours at the onset of the rainy season in springtime in the Maya world. The presiding gods of warfare and blood sacrifice were the agents of fertility and the regeneration of nature, and not the agents for the destruction of the Maya in a world-ending deluge. The misinterpretation of Dresden page 74 has propagated, unchallenged, for over a century of Maya scholarship and found its way into “new age,” fringe, and popular culture. This research helps to set the record straight along with providing a history of the meme.

- by John B Carlson
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- Religion, Comparative Religion, Mythology And Folklore, Cultural History