[Aztlan] Mexico's Unconquered Maya Hold Tight to Their Old Ways

[Ryan Kashanipour]

No, I am sorry, I do not believe it to be great to see THIS type of attention given to the so-called Lacandon. First of all, as Elaine Schele points out, there have been many who have worked on Lacandon related issues-- for example see works from Jon McGee (mentioned below), Didier Bormanse, James Nations, Nicholas Hellmuth, Franz Blom, Trudy Duby (Blom), and this does not begin to mention the Mexican anthropologists.  I would forward that, per capita, there is no group that has been the topic of as much research as the Lacandon.  The problem, however, is the general narrative of most of these works.   The National Geographic piece is emblematic of the idealized and essentialist narratives of the so-called Lacandon as resistant Mayas and unconquered Indians.  

-Ryan 

R.A. Kashanipour
Mellon Fellow
Department of History 
The University of Arizona


> Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 23:36:47 -0600
> From: elaineschele at gmail.com
> To: ekbalam at windstream.net
> CC: Aztlan at lists.famsi.org
> Subject: Re: [Aztlan] Mexico's Unconquered Maya Hold Tight to Their Old Ways
> 
> Hi Everyone,
> 
> It's great to see the attention that National Geographic has given to
> the Lancandon Maya as well as to the great work that Joel Palka and
> Sánchez Balderas's have been doing in their observation of this
> fascinating group, but the statement that NG made - "Joel's is the
> only project that follows the cultural transformation of the free
> Lacandon from the 16th century to the present" - is a little
> simplistic.
> 
> We should not forget R. Jon McGee's ethnographic work (Texas State
> University in San Marcos) on the contemporary Lacandon Maya ("Watching
> Lacandon Maya Lives" and "Life, Ritual, and Religion Among the
> Lacandon Maya" on Google Books at http://books.google.com/).
> 
> I noticed also that the article does not mention Tozzer's 1907 "A
> Comparative Study of the Mayas and the Lacandones"
> 
> Elaine
> 
> On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 9:47 PM, Edward Allen <ekbalam at windstream.net> wrote:
> > List Members;  Interesting article on post-conquest Maya that resisted assimilation in remote areas such as Chiapas and the Lacandon.
> > http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/01/090114-unconquered-maya-missions.html
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> 
> 
> -- 
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