Mayan People Within and Beyond Boundaries by Peter Hervik

Author:Peter Hervik [Hervik, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Anthropology, General, Cultural & Social
ISBN: 9781135392963
Google: lA1EAgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-12-02T05:54:57+00:00

CONCLUSIONS

We have seen two broad prototypes, or cognitive schemas, of Maya culture and people: Maya and “mestizo.” The Maya prototype have pyramids, ballcourts and other architectural remnants as its most frequent associations or referential foci. The perceived attributes consist of cultural achievements of the Maya civilization through undefined length of time. Nesbitt and other holders of the Maya prototype, either conceive contemporary Maya people as survivors and sources to the past or the degenerated product of modern affluence. The “mestizo” prototype—on the other hand—consists of perceived attributes of living people and their customs, rituals, clothes, and occupation.

We found that the two categories Maya and “mestizo” contains distinct features; not variations on an analogue scale but different types of perceived attributes. They are incongruent and comprise different sets of unrelated qualities. The notion of schema refers to a cognitive model for organizing knowledge. Schema theory cannot itself account for how it is used. Instead it provides a potential resource for understanding and reflexivity. The so-called local mayanists define the existence of the “mestizo” prototype in the context of socio-economic conditions. They reason that any Maya person who holds the “mestizo” schema and is unfamiliar with the ancient Mayas, is so as a result of being uneducated, exploited, and acculturated. Such people lack knowledge of the Maya civilization and of their own position in relation to that civilization. Local Maya experts seem to agree with Bonfil Batalla’s argument that Maya culture continues to be “Maya” despite cultural elements originated in foreign places and post-Columbian times, as long as the cultural control of a certain minimum of elements are in the hands of the local community. They see it as their goal to inscribe the Maya past, which they have acquired through written sources, into the self-identification of fellow “mestizos.” They recognize that the contemporary Maya people are substantially embedded in the larger society and that traits to a significant extent have been produced by interaction with other sectors of the society (Jackson 1991: 31). Their cultural activities enhance a conceptualization of ethnic cultural identity that rests on non-ethnic notions of culture.

Many external Maya experts, including anthropologists, seem to ignore the implications of the “mestizo” social category and its embedded schema. This explains why Nesbitt and others use the same term to categorize ancient, colonial, contemporary Mayas. These mayanists retain the historical category and attach no importance to the fact that people decide to switch category as an expression of a changing perception of self.

We may say that the rain-gods, bearing the same name (chaaks) and many of the same attributes, are the same rain-gods of the ancients. But today they are captained by Saint Michael, they ride on horseback, and so riding are plainly confused with the horsemen of the apocalypse (Redfield 1933: 60).

Or, they failed to recognize that contemporary Mayas do not see themselves as survivors of a lost civilization, but rather as modern people in a modern nation. I would claim that these scholars categorize the Mayas in a traditional “objectivistic” manner (Lakoff 1987), i.

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