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Life Ritual And Religion Among The Lacandon Maya
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Book Synopsis Life, Ritual, and Religion Among the Lacandon Maya by : R. Jon McGee
Download or read book Life, Ritual, and Religion Among the Lacandon Maya written by R. Jon McGee and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis Watching Lacandon Maya Lives by : R. Jon McGee
Download or read book Watching Lacandon Maya Lives written by R. Jon McGee and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2023-02-22 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although romanticized as the last of the ancient Maya living isolated in the forest, several generations of the Lacandon Maya have had their lives shaped by the international oil economy, tourism, and political unrest. Watching Lacandon Maya Lives is an examination of dramatic cultural changes in a Maya rainforest farming community over the last forty years, including changes to their families, industries, religion, health and healing practices, and gender roles. The book contains several discussions of anthropological theory in accessible, jargon-free language, including how the use of different theoretical perspectives impacts an ethnographer’s fieldwork experience. While relating his own mishaps, experiences of community strife, and conflicts, Jon McGee encourages students to shed the romantic veil through which ethnographies are usually viewed and think more deeply about how events in our own lives influence how we understand the behavior of people around us. New to the Second Edition: Revised Introduction incorporates the author’s recent work with the Lacandon and discussions of anthropological writing, culture theory, and how events in the author’s personal life have changed his approach to anthropological fieldwork. Revised chapter, “Finding an Income in the Lacandon Jungle” focuses on families who have shifted from a subsistence farming economy to earning revenue by renting facilities to tourists, owning small community stores, working as hired labor for archaeologists, or make use of a variety of government rural aid programs created in the last two decades (Chapter 5). New chapter, “Forty Years Among the Lacandon: Some Lessons Learned,” discusses what the author’s 40 years of experience as an ethnographer has taught him about the discipline of anthropology and the concept of culture (Chapter 8)
Book Synopsis Lives of the Gods: Divinity in Maya Art by : Joanne Pillsbury
Download or read book Lives of the Gods: Divinity in Maya Art written by Joanne Pillsbury and published by Metropolitan Museum of Art. This book was released on 2022-11-14 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An introduction to the complex stories of Mesoamerican divinity through the carvings, ceramics, and metalwork of the Maya Classic period Lives of the Gods reveals how ancient Maya artists evoked a pantheon as rich and complex as the more familiar Greco-Roman, Hindu-Buddhist, and Egyptian deities. Focusing on the period between A.D. 250 and 900, the authors show how this powerful cosmology informed some of the greatest creative achievements of Maya civilization.
Book Synopsis Death and the Classic Maya Kings by : James L. Fitzsimmons
Download or read book Death and the Classic Maya Kings written by James L. Fitzsimmons and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Like their regal counterparts in societies around the globe, ancient Maya rulers departed this world with elaborate burial ceremonies and lavish grave goods, which often included ceramics, red pigments, earflares, stingray spines, jades, pearls, obsidian blades, and mosaics. Archaeological investigation of these burials, as well as the decipherment of inscriptions that record Maya rulers' funerary rites, have opened a fascinating window on how the ancient Maya envisaged the ruler's passage from the world of the living to the realm of the ancestors. Focusing on the Classic Period (AD 250-900), James Fitzsimmons examines and compares textual and archaeological evidence for rites of death and burial in the Maya lowlands, from which he creates models of royal Maya funerary behavior. Exploring ancient Maya attitudes toward death expressed at well-known sites such as Tikal, Guatemala, and Copan, Honduras, as well as less-explored archaeological locations, Fitzsimmons reconstructs royal mortuary rites and expands our understanding of key Maya concepts including the afterlife and ancestor veneration.
Download or read book The Maya written by Michael D. Coe and published by Thames & Hudson. This book was released on 2022-11-29 with total page 503 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive history of the Maya, fully updated with the latest archaeological studies and featuring full-color illustrations. The definitive history of the Maya, fully updated with the latest archaeological studies and featuring full-color illustrations. The Maya has long been established as the best, most readable introduction to the ancient Maya by experts Michael D. Coe and Stephen Houston. In this new edition, this classic has been updated by distilling the latest scholarship for the general reader and student. This edition incorporates the most recent archaeological and epigraphic findings, which continue to proceed at a fast pace, along with full-color illustrations. The new material includes evidence of the earliest human occupants of the Maya region and the beginnings of agriculture and settled life; analysis from lidar on swampy areas, such as Usumacinta, that show enormous rectangle earthworks, including Aguada Fe´nix, dating from 1050 to 750 BCE; and recent advances in decoding Maya writing and imagery. This revised edition also expands information on the roles of women, courtiers, and outsiders; covers novel research about Maya cities, including research into water quality, marketplaces, fortifications, and integrated road systems; and includes coverage of more recent Maya, including their displacement and mistreatment, along with growing affirmations of their cultural identity and legal rights. The Maya highlights the vitality of current scholarship about this brilliant culture.
Book Synopsis Contemporary Theatre in Mayan Mexico by : Tamara L. Underiner
Download or read book Contemporary Theatre in Mayan Mexico written by Tamara L. Underiner and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the dramatization of local legends to the staging of plays by Shakespeare and other canonical playwrights to the exploration of contemporary sociopolitical problems and their effects on women and children, Mayan theatre is a flourishing cultural institution in southern Mexico. Part of a larger movement to define Mayan self-identity and reclaim a Mayan cultural heritage, theatre in Mayan languages has both reflected on and contributed to a growing awareness of Mayans as contemporary cultural and political players in Mexico and on the world's stage. In this book, Tamara Underiner draws on fieldwork with theatre groups in Chiapas, Tabasco, and Yucatán to observe the Maya peoples in the process of defining themselves through theatrical performance. She looks at the activities of four theatre groups or networks, focusing on their operating strategies and on close analyses of selected dramatic texts. She shows that while each group works under the rubric of Mayan or indigenous theatre, their works are also in constant dialogue, confrontation, and collaboration with the wider, non-Mayan world. Her observations thus reveal not only how theatre is an agent of cultural self-definition and community-building but also how theatre negotiates complex relations among indigenous communities in Mayan Mexico, state governments, and non-Mayan artists and researchers.
Book Synopsis Lacandón Maya in the Twenty-First Century by : James D. Nations
Download or read book Lacandón Maya in the Twenty-First Century written by James D. Nations and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2023-09-12 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the ancient traditions of the Lacandón Maya comes an Indigenous model for a sustainable future Having lived for centuries isolated within Mexico’s largest remaining tropical rainforest, the Indigenous Lacandón Maya now live at the nexus of two worlds—ancient and modern. While previous research has focused on documenting Lacandón oral traditions and religious practices in order to preserve them, this book tells the story of how Lacandón families have adapted to the contemporary world while applying their ancestral knowledge to create an ecologically sustainable future. Drawing on his 49 years of studying and learning from the Lacandón Maya, James Nations discusses how in the midst of external pressures such as technological changes, missionary influences, and logging ventures, Lacandón communities are building an economic system of agroforestry and ecotourism that produces income for their families while protecting biodiversity and cultural resources. Nations describes methods they use to plant and harvest without harming the forest, illustrating that despite drastic changes in lifestyle, respect for the environment continues to connect Lacandón families across generations. By helping with these tasks and inheriting the fables and myths that reinforce this worldview, Lacandón children continue to learn about the plants, animals, and spiritual deities that coexist in their land. Indigenous peoples such as the Lacandón Maya control one-third of the intact forest landscapes left on Earth, and Indigenous knowledge and practices are increasingly recognized as key elements in the survival of the planet’s biological diversity. The story of the Lacandón Maya serves as a model for Indigenous-controlled environmental conservation, and it will inform anyone interested in supporting sustainable Indigenous futures. A volume in the series Maya Studies, edited by Diane Z. Chase and Arlen F. Chase
Book Synopsis Function and Meaning in Classic Maya Architecture by : Stephen D. Houston
Download or read book Function and Meaning in Classic Maya Architecture written by Stephen D. Houston and published by Dumbarton Oaks. This book was released on 1998 with total page 588 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These articles mark a significant stage in the study of Maya architecture and the society that built it. They represent advances in our understandings of the past, point toward avenues for further studies, and note the distance yet to travel in fully appreciating and understanding this ancient American culture and its material remains.
Book Synopsis Histories of Maize in Mesoamerica by : John Staller
Download or read book Histories of Maize in Mesoamerica written by John Staller and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-06-16 with total page 648 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume reprints 20 chapters from the editors’ comprehensive Histories of Maize (2006) that are relevant to Mesoamerican specialists and students. New findings and interpretations from the past three years have been included. Histories of Maize is the most comprehensive reference source on the botanical, genetic, archaeological, and anthropological aspects of ancient maize published. Included in this abridged volume are new introductory and concluding chapters and updated material on isotopic research. State of the art research on maize chronology, molecular biology, and stable carbon isotope research on ancient human diets have provided additional lines of evidence on the changing role of maize through time and space and its spread throughout the Americas. The multidisciplinary evidence from the social and biological sciences presented in this volume have generated a much more complex picture of the economic, political, and religious significance of maize.
Book Synopsis Studies in Culture Contact by : James G. Cusick
Download or read book Studies in Culture Contact written by James G. Cusick and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2015-03-05 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: People have long been fascinated about times in human history when different cultures and societies first came into contact with each other, how they reacted to that contact, and why it sometimes occurred peacefully and at other times was violent or catastrophic. Studies in Culture Contact: Interaction, Culture Change, and Archaeology, edited by James G. Cusick,seeks to define the role of culture contact in human history, to identify issues in the study of culture contact in archaeology, and to provide a critical overview of the major theoretical approaches to the study of culture and contact. In this collection of essays, anthropologists and archaeologists working in Europe and the Americas consider three forms of culture contact—colonization, cultural entanglement, and symmetrical exchange. Part I provides a critical overview of theoretical approaches to the study of culture contact, offering assessments of older concepts in anthropology, such as acculturation, as well as more recently formed concepts, including world systems and center-periphery models of contact. Part II contains eleven case studies of specific contact situations and their relationships to the archaeological record, with times and places as varied as pre- and post-Hispanic Mexico, Iron Age France, Jamaican sugar plantations, European provinces in the Roman Empire, and the missions of Spanish Florida. Studies in Culture Contact provides an extensive review of the history of culture contact in anthropological studies and develops a broad framework for studying culture contact’s role, moving beyond a simple formulation of contact and change to a more complex understanding of the amalgam of change and continuity in contact situations.
Book Synopsis HISTORIES OF MAIZE by : John Staller
Download or read book HISTORIES OF MAIZE written by John Staller and published by Left Coast Press. This book was released on 2006-05-15 with total page 706 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Histories of Maize is the most comprehensive reference source on the botanical, genetic, archaeological, and anthropological aspects of ancient maize published to date.
Download or read book Chocolate written by Louis E. Grivetti and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-09-20 with total page 1556 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) 2010 Award Finalists in the Culinary History category. Chocolate. We all love it, but how much do we really know about it? In addition to pleasing palates since ancient times, chocolate has played an integral role in culture, society, religion, medicine, and economic development across the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Europe. In 1998, the Chocolate History Group was formed by the University of California, Davis, and Mars, Incorporated to document the fascinating story and history of chocolate. This book features fifty-seven essays representing research activities and contributions from more than 100 members of the group. These contributors draw from their backgrounds in such diverse fields as anthropology, archaeology, biochemistry, culinary arts, gender studies, engineering, history, linguistics, nutrition, and paleography. The result is an unparalleled, scholarly examination of chocolate, beginning with ancient pre-Columbian civilizations and ending with twenty-first-century reports. Here is a sampling of some of the fascinating topics explored inside the book: Ancient gods and Christian celebrations: chocolate and religion Chocolate and the Boston smallpox epidemic of 1764 Chocolate pots: reflections of cultures, values, and times Pirates, prizes, and profits: cocoa and early American east coast trade Blood, conflict, and faith: chocolate in the southeast and southwest borderlands of North America Chocolate in France: evolution of a luxury product Development of concept maps and the chocolate research portal Not only does this book offer careful documentation, it also features new and previously unpublished information and interpretations of chocolate history. Moreover, it offers a wealth of unusual and interesting facts and folklore about one of the world's favorite foods.
Book Synopsis Foreigners Among Us by : Christina Halperin
Download or read book Foreigners Among Us written by Christina Halperin and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-09-14 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Assessing key questions such as who the foreigners and outsiders in ancient Maya societies were and how was the foreign a generative component of identity, Foreigners Among Us reassess the arrival of foreigners as part of archaeological understandings of Pre-Columbian Maya and questions not only who these foreigners might have been but who were making such designations of difference in the first place. Drawing from identity studies, standpoint theory, and ideas on alterity, Foreigners Among Us highlights the diverse ways being foreign was constituted, imitated, and marked – from quotidian practices of making corn tortillas to ceremonial acts between king and captive and their memorialization in scenes on sculpted stone monuments. Rather than treat the foreign as axiomatically determined by geographical distance or fixed at birth, the book considers the foreign as much performed as inherited. It examines practices of captivity, cuisine, body ornamentation and dress, diasporic objects, relationships with deities, migration, and pilgrimage. The book focuses, in particular, on diverse peoples in the Maya area during the Classic and Postclassic periods, but also necessarily peers into contacts, engagements and relations throughout Mesoamerica, the Americas more broadly, and with Europeans during the Colonial period – all the while insisting that outsider status must be approached as multi-scalar, relational, and intersectional rather than as neutral, intrinsic, and static. Contributing broadly to intellectual investigations on foreign identities from an anthropological perspective, this book enriches the understanding of Maya society for students and researchers of Mesoamerican archaeology and art history.
Book Synopsis Ancient Psychoactive Substances by : Scott M. Fitzpatrick
Download or read book Ancient Psychoactive Substances written by Scott M. Fitzpatrick and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2020-03-17 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A well-founded and presented description of the integral role that psychoactive substances played in ancient societies. . . . A unique addition to ancient history collections.”—Choice “Very informative, well referenced, and well illustrated.”—Latin American Antiquity “A diverse and interesting introduction to the evidence for psychoactive use in the past, including consideration of the physical techniques and interpretative methods for understanding these practices.”—Journal of Psychedelic Studies "This well-researched and fascinating volume not only demonstrates the important cultural role of psychoactive substances in ancient societies but also points the way to an emerging research field. The unveiling of the past history of drug use becomes a lesson for present-day society."--Jan G. Bruhn, founding editor, Journal of Ethnopharmacology "Presents a broad overview of drug plants and fermented beverages by using anthropological, ethnological, archaeological, iconographic, chemical, and botanical approaches. Essential reading."--Elisa Guerra Doce, author of Drugs in Prehistory: Archaeological Evidence of the Use of Psychoactive Substances in Europe Mind-altering substances have been used by humans for thousands of years. In fact, ancient societies sometimes encouraged the consumption of drugs. Focusing on the archaeological study of how various entheogens have been used in the past, this volume examines why humans have social and psychological needs for these substances. Contributors trace the long-term use of drugs in ancient cultures and highlight the ways they evolved from being sacred to recreational in more modern times. By analyzing evidence of these substances across a diverse range of ancient cultures, the contributors explore how and why past civilizations harvested, manufactured, and consumed drugs. Case studies examine the use of stimulants, narcotics, and depressants by hunter-gatherers who roamed Africa and Eurasia, prehistoric communities in North and South America, and Maya kings and queens. Offering perspectives from many different fields of study, contributors illustrate the wide variety of sources and techniques that can provide information about materials that are often invisible to archaeologists. They use advanced biomolecular procedures to identify alkaloids and resins on cups, pipes, and other artifacts. They interpret paintings on vases and discuss excavations of breweries and similar sites. Uncovering signs of drugs, including ayahuasca, peyote, ephedra, cannabis, tobacco, yaupon, vilca, and maize and molle beer, they explain how psychoactive substances were integral to interpersonal relationships, religious practices, and social cohesion in antiquity. Scott M. Fitzpatrick, professor of archaeology at the University of Oregon, is coeditor of Island Shores, Distant Pasts: Archaeological and Biological Approaches to the Pre-Columbian Settlement of the Caribbean. Contributors: Quetta Kaye | Victor D. Thompson | Thomas J. Pluckhahn | Sean Rafferty | Mark Merlin | Matt Sayre | Constantino Manuel Torres | Zuzana Chovanec | Jennifer A. Loughmiller-Newman | Justin Jennings | Daniel M. Seinfeld | Shannon Tushingham | Scott M. Fitzpatrick
Book Synopsis In the Maw of the Earth Monster by : James E. Brady
Download or read book In the Maw of the Earth Monster written by James E. Brady and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2013-04-01 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As portals to the supernatural realm that creates and animates the universe, caves have always been held sacred by the peoples of Mesoamerica. From ancient times to the present, Mesoamericans have made pilgrimages to caves for ceremonies ranging from rituals of passage to petitions for rain and a plentiful harvest. So important were caves to the pre-Hispanic peoples that they are mentioned in Maya hieroglyphic writing and portrayed in the Central Mexican and Oaxacan pictorial codices. Many ancient settlements were located in proximity to caves. This volume gathers papers from twenty prominent Mesoamerican archaeologists, linguists, and ethnographers to present a state-of-the-art survey of ritual cave use in Mesoamerica from Pre-Columbian times to the present. Organized geographically, the book examines cave use in Central Mexico, Oaxaca, and the Maya region. Some reports present detailed site studies, while others offer new theoretical understandings of cave rituals. As a whole, the collection validates cave study as the cutting edge of scientific investigation of indigenous ritual and belief. It confirms that the indigenous religious system of Mesoamerica was and still is much more terrestrially focused that has been generally appreciated.
Download or read book Chocolate written by Meredith L. Dreiss and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2008-10-15 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of chocolate, from its discovery as a food source to today's gourmet chocolate recipes and European chocolatiers.
Book Synopsis In the Realm of Nachan Kan by : Marilyn A. Masson
Download or read book In the Realm of Nachan Kan written by Marilyn A. Masson and published by University Press of Colorado. This book was released on 2015-04-01 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The prevailing view of the lowland Maya during the Postclassic period (A.D. 1050-1500) has been one of an impoverished, "degenerated" society devoid of cultural accomplishment. However, Marilyn A. Masson offers a fresh interpretation of this society as one that represented a complex, sophisticated, extensive organization of semiautonomous units that were closely integrated, yet embraced a decentralized political economy. In the Realm of Nachan Kan opens a window on Postclassic Maya patterns of cultural development and organization through a close examination of the small rural island of Laguna de On, a location that was distant from the governing political centers of the day. Using diachronic analysis of regional settlement patterns, ceramic traditions, household and ritual features, and artifacts from the site, Masson tracks developmental changes throughout the Postclassic period. These data suggest that affluent patterns of economic production and local and long-distance exchange were established within northern Belize by the eleventh century, and continued to develop, virtually uninterrupted, until the time of Spanish arrival. In addition, Masson analyzes contemporary political and religious artistic traditions at the temples of Mayapan, Tulum, and Santa Rita to provide a regional context for the changes in community patterns at Laguna de On. These cultural changes, she maintains, are closely correlated with the rise of Mayapan to power and participation of sites like Laguna de On in a pan-lowland economic and ritual interaction sphere. Offering a thoroughly new interpretation of Postclassic Mayan civilization. In the Realm of Nachan Kan is a must for scholars of Mesoamerican history and culture.