Chol Ritual Language
with Terrence Lee Folmar, Heidi Altman, Ausencio Cruz Guzmán, and Bernardo Pérez Martínez
©1996 J. Kathryn Josserand and Nicholas A. Hopkins

Research on Chol Ritual Vocabulary, 1995

As a first step in the systematic investigation and documentation of Chol ritual language, a pilot study was carried out in Tila during the summer of 1995, using funds granted by the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc. (FAMSI, Project 1994.018, "The Ritual Vocabulary of Tila Chol," Dr. J. Kathryn Josserand, Florida State University, Principal Investigator) and by the Council on Faculty Research Support. Project personnel included Dr. Kathryn Josserand (Department of Anthropology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida); Lee Folmar and Heidi Altman, research assistants (undergraduate and graduate students, respectively, at FSU); Dr. Nicholas A. Hopkins (Department of Anthropology, FSU), and Ausencio Cruz Guzmán, a native Chol speaker from Salto de Agua and long-time research associate of the principal investigator. A principal contact and informant in Tila was Maestro Bernardo Pérez Martínez, a Chol-speaking bilingual schoolteacher resident in Tila. Of the two student assistants, Lee Folmar, an undergraduate Anthropology major, is currently writing his Honors thesis on the ethno-zoological classification of animals in Chol, based on materials gathered during this project. Preliminary results of his analysis are presented in Appendix III. Heidi Altman, now in a doctoral program at the University of California, Davis, included material gathered during fieldwork in her M.A. thesis in Anthropology at Florida State University on some of the defining characteristics of myths and folktales in Chol.

Previous Page  |  Table of Contents  |  Next Page

Return to top of page