Mesoamerican Ethnographic Interpretation

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Introduction

Maya people constitute of a diverse range of people from the Native American and live in the southern Mexico and the northern Central America. Even though these people have varied ethnic backgrounds and embrace diverse traditions, cultures and historical identities, they share a certain common cultural and linguistic heritage. The Maya people initially lived in southern Mexico and Guatemala, but their ancestors abandoned this land later and relocated in Panama after they experienced colonial oppression, scholarly attention and engagement. Arturo, (13), says “Mayas have been enslaved, oppressed and discriminated against.”

The civilization of these people faced strong influences from the people in the non-Maya cultures which include the Olmecs of Mexico and the Izapa cultures of people who lived in the Pacific coast. However, certain cultural practices were deeply rooted in the people such that even after the interaction with other people with varied cultural beliefs, they still remained. For instance, the knowledge of the four cosmological directions and colors associated with them used in rituals and ceremonies such as the curing ceremony which were not predictable. Tortillas, (84), say “these rituals of affliction are not life-crisis rituals that are performed for all in the course of their lifecycles. The situations which trigger them are not predictable…”.

The famous scandals regarding the misrepresentation of Maya people

Some of the famous scandals regarding the misrepresentation of the Maya people include being undermined. The knowledge and information that they produced and shared with the government, some of which ought to have assisted it in the operation of governing the country was often considered obscure and was not implemented. Information from these people, which was more applicable in some situations, was taken to be marginal as compared to the plenty of information that was provided by the merchants, missionaries and administrators. Professional anthropologists were nominated and others provided their services as experts for free concerning social life of the dominated people. However, their expertise was never deemed central to the process of empowerment.

The Maya people’s development of art and writing was greatly influenced by the art and iconography of Izapa community which had the Olmec legacy. David Friedel argued that the culture of Izapa along with that of Kaminaljuyu influenced the culture of the Mesoamericans to a great extent and gives evidence of the early development of the hieroglyphics and its writings that reached the lowlands. This demonstrates the development of the Maya culture in different geographic regions.

Certain religious beliefs that belonged to the Maya people were dishonored, some of which include the use of the cross and a special kind of tree that was used while performing certain rituals and ceremonies. These people were forced to believe, adopt and assimilate the other people’s way of life. These include the beliefs and practices, art and the writing skills. The people who interacted with the Maya people did not accept their way of life and viewed it as wrong and therefore took all means possible to force these cultural believes and practices out. However, the Maya people on the other hand, strongly believed and held their culture to an extent that controversies resulted.

Details of the scandal(s)

The scandals regarding the misrepresentation of the Maya people have some details. The Maya people lost their identity following the efforts of the scientific historians who used different mechanisms to translate the culture of the Maya people. The Mesoamericans also lost the historical flow of their life and also their heritage.

The late period displayed a uniformity of culture in the material objects made between the Maya people and the other cultures. The fact that there was uniformity in terms of the objects made is an evidence of the scandal regarding the misrepresentation of this community. It shows that these people interacted and with time, they acquired the cultural practices of their neighbors that were at the immediate exposure and who they interacted with in their everyday activities.

The involved

Social scientists such as the anthropologists and ethnographers were involved in creating the famous scandals that regard the misrepresentation of the Maya people as they failed to make the way of life and culture of the Maya people to become believable, acceptable and worthy of consideration among the other communities that were interacting with them. The two groups of people were at the central point and had the opportunity to or not to distribute information concerning the Maya people. The ethnographers idealized the differences in culture between the Maya people and the immediate neighbors and as a result, this increased the contrast to undesirable comparisons among the people. The culture difference was the major cause of the scandals that happened.

The government was involved in contributing to the scandals that regarded the misrepresentation of the Maya people. This is because, even though the Maya people had quality knowledge and information which it confronted the government with, it failed to implement it. On the centrally, the government treated these people as inferior by the fact that it accepted other services which involved information from merchants, missionaries and administrators. In addition to this, it nominated professional anthropologists to provide these services as experts.

How these scandals become controversies

These scandals became controversies when the Maya people displayed their resistance to assimilation into the national societies of Mexico and Guatemala, the warfare and the state of terrorism that happened against them and the neighboring communities in the early 1980s. Language was also an issue that brought about the controversies. Hastrup, (28), say “I believe that there are serious limitations on local words and writings as sources of genuine anthropological understanding”.

This created the anthropologists’ attention on the economic inequalities and political injustices of the country that surpassed the racist and cultural dimensions of the Maya people. Rituals for instance, were considered ironic. Marcus and Fischer, (54), say “American public rituals have been described as increasingly ironic and this seems to be an especially modern condition”.

The Maya people had strong beliefs which bared much of the symbolic applications. For instance, the cross had a strong meaning to them. In addition, certain trees such as the Ceiba tree were regarded as the tree of life by the Maya people. After interaction, other communities had a different perception of the tree and tried to eliminate the meaning of the tree to the Maya people and this brought about to the controversies as they could not accept.

The Maya people fought against the colonialist and capitalist exploitation that was happening by then. These people were not represented well as other people from the immediate neighborhood were represented and thus, they were against this exploitation. They stressed to get equal representation and thus in the process, controversies resulted.

Voices and perspectives that were included and those that were excluded and the reasons for this

Some of the voices and perspectives that were included are visual objects, theaters and texts that were from the ethnographers and anthropologists. These voices were aimed at being rooted into some enduring and depersonalized culture of the Maya people and those at the immediate neighborhood. This was aimed at presenting the readers with an evocative impression rather than rendering off how others experience and view the world they are in and that substantiates the cultural difference. Other perspectives such as antipathies and affiliations between the people involved were used, but this worsened the situation of misunderstanding of culture and misrepresentation.

Even though these voices and perspectives were included by the ethnographers and the anthropologists to distribute the information on cultural diversity and understanding of the people, they excluded other voices and perspectives that ought to have made the information clear to the people targeted than how it was at that time. These include socialization and political involvement.

The people were given few chances to engage themselves in politics. In addition to this, they lacked the chance to interact and socialize with a certain class of people in an effort of ensuring that they remain uninformed of their rights to retain their cultural beliefs and practices. They were suppressed whenever they try to come up. Chakravorty, (67), say “we are unable to touch [power] in any point of its application without finding ourselves confronted by this diffuse mass, so that we are necessarily led…”.

The role of social scientist like historians and anthropologists in creating the controversies

The social scientist like historians and anthropologists played a major role in creating the controversies that arose out of the misrepresentation of the Maya as a people since they were at the center of informing the world of the true nature of their culture and way of life as the little information that is available in the world needed their expert opinion to be understood. For instance, in as far as the original Mesoamerican languages are concerned, the first anthropologists who were often tied to Spanish missionaries sought to identify and interpret them in relation to their Spanish background and this has been identified as the root cause of the current inefficiencies on the understanding of the Mesoamerican compositions and distribution of families in the Maya region.

According to Justeson, and Broadwell, (368), the prehistoric Aztec and Mixtec spelling which was critical in the pictographic representation of the Maya religion and geography in regard to their gods, people and places, lost their meaning as the early historians and anthropologists employed translation mechanisms that made the languages ambiguous which later made the information on the true nature of the Mesoamerican life shallow. Though modern historians and anthropologists are trying to rectify this it may not be enough as the erosion of information that currently persists as well as the injustices that were perpetrated against the Maya as a people, cannot be salvaged or rectified. Justeson, and Broadwell, (361), say “the scientific knowledge produced by anthropologists has been appropriated by the dominant elite and used in school textbooks in Guatemala as the ‘truth about the Maya”.

The misrepresentation of the Maya could also be blamed on the methods used by the early historians and anthropologists used. This means that it may have been unavoidable as the capacity of historians and anthropologists was not enough to allow them to fully exploit the richness of the Mesoamerican history to the satisfaction of modern scholars, historians and anthropologists who are now identifying the inefficiencies since they are now exposed to more efficient tools of studying the Mesoamerican history (Tomas, 87).

The issue of language has been identified as the critical in the controversies surrounding the misrepresentation of the Maya as Strum, (125) says, “The relation between languages and ethnicity may have been closer in the past, before Spanish started to replace native languages in large portions of native groups.” This suggests that the use of Spanish by historians and anthropologists is inefficient in providing the true picture of the Mesoamerican ethnicities since it is totally disconnected from them.

How the controversy might have been avoided

The controversies have been identified to revolve around the misrepresentation of the Mesoamerican ethnicities, culture and way of life. This could have been avoided if the understanding of the Maya as a people could have been left to be tacked by the Maya themselves. This is because they were in a position to give a more accurate account of their ancestors’ ways of life than any other person since they have the capacity to understand the deeper meaning of the evidence presented of their own cultures.

The fact that outsiders were allowed to define the modern understanding of the Maya, exposes the current history to biases related with misrepresentation of facts due to insufficient understanding especially of the more complex aspects of their culture such as language and religion. This is perhaps the reason as to why Pan-mayanism is mainly based on the self-representation of the Maya so as to define themselves rather than having to be defined by people who are not even remotely related to them (Wantanabe, 16). Wantanabe, (16) says that, “the current revitalization of Maya culture reflects also the continental mobilization of indigenous people seeking self determination on the American continent.

It is quite perplexing to identify that most of the individuals that exposed the Maya people to the injustices they suffered in the last five hundred years were the same people who were the main players in defining them while they were not even remotely related to them. This is probably the reason as to why the Maya identity has gone through construction, dismantling and reconstruction many times in the pre-classic, classic, post-classic, historic and modern Maya periods.

This has exposed them to discrimination as they have been split up by those who do not understand their lives into states that have very little to do with their ethnicity and culture. They have also suffered as their ethnicity was eroded to the advantage of foreign forces that sought to take advantage of the weakness that results after the erosion the identity of societies (Strum, 118). The resolution to redefine the Maya and their culture should be left to the Maya people and the mandate to interprete history should squarely rest on the Maya people.

It has been identified that autonomy is key in the reconstruction of the Maya since outside interference will only fuel aggression as it has been evident throughout history. It has been identified that there were massive massacres of the Maya people any time they tried to reconstruct themselves since the foreigners who invaded their territories, who were the major perpetrators of them injustices suffered by the Maya, felt that they would lose the rich resources that they enjoyed from their domination of the Maya people. This cannot be ignored as the spirit of pan-mayanism continues to grow since there are those whom will again feel threatened by it and will again seek to demoralize the Maya by extending new forms of injustices against them as was the case with state exclusions in the 1930s in Venezuela.

Lessons learnt from the “crisis of representation”

The crisis of representation as it has been highlighted by the case of the Maya as a people cannot be assumed to be limited to the Mesoamerican history only. There are many other cultures that suffer the same or had previously suffered the same. The consequences of the misrepresentation of ancient ethnicity have been identified to be quite tragic as was the case of the Maya especially where resources that are considered of value are at the center of the conflict that is evidenced between the oppressors and the oppressed.

Though it has been identified that the historians and anthropologists were perhaps the ones mandated with the observance as well as the interpretation of historical evidence that is often used to define culture and were, therefore, responsible for the crisis of representation that is currently evidenced, there are still other forces that contributed heavily to the erosion of the Mayan history as well as the shooting down of any efforts of reconstruction of the Maya cultures.

It is important therefore, to view history without the biases that come with vested interests of the people who give an account of historical facts since this often leads to distortion. The individuals who defined Mayan history have overtime victimized the Maya people since they knew that any self-representation ideas that may be adopted may lead to equality as the Maya demanded for the observance of their rights, which could then mean that they would lose their domination and right to exploit the vast resources that lie in Mayan territories (Montejo, 57).

Who gets to define the history of indigenous communities

In regard to who gets to speak or define a culture, the task should squarely rest with individuals who are directly related to that particular culture or incases where a culture may be extinct, individuals with backgrounds related to that culture may be in a position to give an accurate account of the same. The contribution of external historians and anthropologists should, however, not be ignored as they often play an important role in the explanation of ancient cultures though from a global perspective as their background and studies often dictate that they have prior knowledge of other cultures, but not any new cultures that have not been discovered yet.

The common biases that are often related to interests in the self-definition of other cultures should be avoided. This is because they are the main reasons behind the inclusion of external cultures in the histories of a particular culture which then ends up distorting the whole historical account of a certain indigenous community.

Conclusion

The ethnographic interpretation of Mesoamerica provides great insight into the deficiencies that lie in the forms of interpretation of history especially where foreigners are involved. This has over the centuries led to the erosion of the Mesoamerican identity due to the influence of outside forces. The quest of Mesoamerican cultures such as the Maya to redefine their culture as they know it as well as their quest to promote they self-representation has seen numerous injustices extended to them by their neighbors and other foreigners who view this as an uncertainty on their control of Mayan resources. According to Strum, (123), who says, “after burning the Maya codices in the Yucatan in 1560, bishop Diego de Landa decided to re-write the Maya history he was so instrumental in destroying”. The bias of those representing a culture erodes historical accounts and distorts the true nature of historical facts.

Work Cited

Arturo, Arias. “Rigoberta Menchú’s History within the Guatemalan Context” The Rigoberta Menchú Controversy Arturo Aria, Ed. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Pp. 3-28. 2001. Print.

Chakravorty, Gayatri, Spivak. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. Nelson, Cary and Lawrence Grossberg, eds. Pp. 52- 124. 1988. Print.

Hastrup, Kirsten. “The Language Paradox” A Passage to Anthropology: Between Experience and Theory. New York: Routledge. Pp. 26-44. 1995. Print.

Justeson, John and Broadwell, George. “Language and Languages in Mesoamerica” The Legacy of Mesoamerica. Robert Carmack, Janine Gasco, and Gary Gossen, Eds. New Jersey:Prentice Hall. Pp. 352-378. 1996. Print.

Marcus, George and Fischer, Michael. “Conveying Other Cultural Experience” Anthropology as Cultural Critique: An Experimental Moment in the Human Sciences. Pp. 45-76. 1986. Print.

Montejo, Victor. “Pan-Mayanism:” The Complexity of Maya Culture and the Process of Self-Representation In Maya Intellectual Renaissance: Identity, Representation and Leadership Pp. 45-78. 2005. Print.

Strum, Circe. “Old Writing and New Messages. The Role of Hieroglyphic Literacy in Maya Cultural Activism” Maya Cultural Activism in Guatemala. Eds. Pp. 114- 130. 1996. Print.

Tortillas. “Rituals of Affliction” Description Interpretation and In Tortillas for the Gods: A Symbolic Analysis of Zinacanteco Rituals. Norman. Pp. 61-96. 1993. Print.

Tomas, David. “Tools of the Trade: The Production of Ethnographic Observations on the Andaman Islands” In Colonial Situations: Essays of the Contextualization of Ethnographic Knowledge. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. Pp. 75- 108. 1991. Print.

Wantanabe, John. Unimagining the Maya: Anthropologists, Others, and the Inescapable Hubris of Authorship. Bulletin of Latin American Research. 14(1) Pp.16-45. 1995. Print.

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