Surviving in the Rainforest:
The Realities of Looting in the Rural Villages of El Petén, Guatemala

Glossary of local words

The following glossary of the most common terms highlights a small part of the vocabulary used by the forest workers and looters in El Petén, They reflect and illustrate the ideas people have about Precolumbian remains and how archaeological objects are classified. Local and Spanish expressions are written in italics.

Caballo:  literally "horse". Term used to describe the small mounds (small structures) with elongated shapes. Name given because of the slightly curved edges of the mound, resembling the horse’s back.

Canasta:  literally "basket". Architectonic compound or building where several burials can be found. According to the looters’ opinion, "canastas are not so frequent, but excavating one can assure a profit of thousands of quetzales." Because of their size and shape, it can be suggested that these canastas could be acropolis buildings or multiburial platforms.

Caritas:  literally "little faces". Face or head fragments of ceramic figurines, usually whistle figurines or solid anthropomorphic or zoomorphic figures.

Compuesto:  vault or chamber, room. A structure can have one, two, or three compuestos.

Dioses:  literally "gods". Synonym for "figures" or "characters".

Duende:  spirit or ghost in the form of a little man, sometimes with the body covered with long hair or wearing a big black hat. It is said that he haunts during the evening or at night, and likes to bother girls with long hair and big eyes, or ride the horses and mules inside the corrals.

Gobernante:  Lord, a character portrayed on polychrome ceramic vases, standing or sitting, but in fully decorated attire and headdress. Usually, he appears sitting on a throne or carried on a palanquin. The main characteristic is that he appears with attendants or visitors paying homage to him. Synonym: Rey; see Reyes.

Hebra de pelo:  literally "hair shaft". Refers to the Codex-Style ceramics ⁴⁰   or Chinos black-over-white ceramics, ⁴¹   both of which are painted with fine black and brown line over cream or white background. Term commonly used in the area of Carmelita. Synonyms: línea negra and maíz blanco.

Huaxca:  ceramic vessels that are not suitable for sale, due to the lack of artistic attributes that define high quality, in manufacturing techniques and decoration. Also referred to with a diminutive (not necessarily disrespective) term: huaxquerita. In other documents it can be spelled Waxca.

Huaxquero:  looter. Term derives from Huaxca. In Petén this term is not used as much as huechero. Other spelling: Waxquero.

Hueche:  armadillo (Dasypus novemcinctus); looted object; short for huechero or looter.

Huechero:  looter. Name derived from the Maya word huech or armadillo, an animal who opens holes in the ground, according to popular knowledge. The name, however, emphasizes the act of excavating. The rest of the process is known as huechería.

Huechería:  term derived from the word hueche. Name for the looting business, which encompasses the entire art dealing process, from looting to dealing.

Indios:  human characters portrayed in painted ceramic objects. Usually it’s referred to as indios pintados or "painted indians". See personaje.

Jade:  gem quality silicate mineral in the pyroxene family. It has two forms, jadeite and nephrite.; Generic term used by the local population to refer to all kinds of greenstones. Jadeite is the form of jade that has been found frequently in the tombs of the elite in the Petén Lowlands, usually in the form of necklaces (beads), carved pendants, celts, pectorals, earflares, bracelets, and all kinds of carved ornaments. Greenstones, and jadeite, were some of the fine goods transported throughout Mesoamerica by long distance trade networks. (See Jadeite and Muñeco).

Jadeita:  sodium aluminum silicate (NaA1Si₂O₆), one of the forms of jade. It was highly valuable by the Precolumbian Maya because of its green color symbolizing water, life (vegetation), and the center of the earth. Deep green to greenish-black varieties are called chloromelanite and are colored by iron. Jadeite sources are rare and occur only in metamorphic rocks. Of the seven sources of jadeite around the world, only three are located in America; the main source for Maya jade is in the Motagua River Valley in Guatemala, exploited for trade and manufacture in Precolumbian times. (See Jade and Muñeco).

Leyenda:  literally "legend". It refers to the glyphic text on ceramics, sculpture, or architecture. It’s mainly used for ceramics, in which the objects (vase, bowl, plate, or others) can have different categories of "legends".

1. Horizontal:  Around the rims of bowls and vases, or around the central figure in plates. This type of text is often the Primary Standard Sequence or PSS. ⁴² 

2. Vertical:  The secondary texts that are usually written in front of or next to figures, and are the ones that identify the settings and the participants.

3. En forma de 7:  "in the shape of a 7". Refers to the secondary texts arranged in cruciform or T-shapes, and in any other way permitted by the space available. It has the same function as the vertical text.

Línea negra:  fine black line characteristic of polychrome, Codex-style and black-over-cream ceramics. Contour line. Synonym for Hebra de pelo and maíz blanco.

Maíz Blanco:  literally "white corn". Code word used commonly in the Uaxactún area and among dealers in Guatemala City. It refers to the ceramic vessels that have white slip paints as backgrounds, mostly Codex-Style and Chinos ceramics.

Mancha:  literally "spot" or "stain". Used for polychrome ceramics and refers to the paintbrush strokes that color both the figure and background, without respecting the contours. figure with no black line for contour. An object with this characteristic is considered of poor quality.

Muñeco:  literally "doll" or "figure"; figurine. It refers to solid figurines made of clay or different kinds of stone. The dream of all looters is finding a muñeco de jade or "jade figure". They are described as standing or seated lords with a height of around 5 to12 inches. Folklore characterizes them as lucky charms associated with rich tombs (see Jade and Jadeite). ⁴³ 

Penacho:  headdress. Refers to the headdresses made with bird feathers (quetzal, macaw, parrot) and other materials such as palm.

Personaje:  figure or character. It refers mainly to human or god characters, not to animals. Other synonyms are indios (indians) or reyes (kings).

Personaje con arte:  literally "character with art". These are characters that show full action, like a standing figure with arm movement; seated lord receiving offerings or homage; kneeling figure in front or behind a lord; dancers, and others.

Pito:  whistle. This category also includes whistles with anthropomorphic or animal figures and ocarinas. Synonym: Silbato.

Plantel:  flat open area. Plaza surrounded by buildings.

Plato:  plate. Usually has a ring base.

Plato ceremonial:  literally ceramic "ceremonial plate". It is the local term used to identify the finely manufactured and decorated tripod plates. Polychrome ⁴⁴   or Chinos black-on-cream plates (with or without kill-hole) are the main objects that belong to this category.

Reinado:  literally "kingdom". This term implies a subtle idea of European medieval kingdoms (popular because of fairy tales) with kings, princes, and palaces. It refers to the archaeological site in which the mounds or structures are over 20 feet tall and has several architectonic groups. If a site or compound has smaller mounds, it is commonly considered as a subject of a bigger "kingdom".

Reyes:  literally "kings". Characters portrayed in polychrome ceramic objects, standing or sitting, but in fully decorated attire and headdresses. The same idea can also be referred as indios pintados or "painted indians". See Personaje. Synonym: Gobernante.

Ruina (s):  literally "ruin (s)". Archaeological site or mound. In El Petén, most of these are covered by the jungle.

Saque:  looter’s excavation or hole in a structure or mound. Trenches cut into the structures are also classified in this category.

Tiempos:  tiers or registers of characters or scenes. Some vases or bowls have their surfaces divided horizontally or depict figures distributed on upper and lower levels. Vases with this characteristic usually display two rows.

Tocado:  headdress that is made of white or decorated cloth, such as turbans. Can also refer to feathered headdresses.

Vasija:  literally "vessel". It usually refers to ceramic bowls or lidded-bowls, or ceramic containers with three dimensional shapes.

Vaso:  vase. Can be cylindrical, barrel-shaped, or squared.

Vaso Ceremonial:  literally "ceremonial vase". Identifies the ceramic vase that is painted with deities or anthropomorphic characters (in action) and glyphic texts. Usually polychrome or black-over-white vases with high quality decoration and manufacture.

Vaso Mudo:  literally "mute vase". It is the vase that doesn’t have glyphic texts that can "talk" about the vase or about the characters displayed.

Waxca:  See Huaxca.

Endnotes

40. Codex-Style is the distinctive tradition of North-Central Petén during the Late classic (c.a. 700-830 A.D.). Besides the black-brown line, artists of this style used diluted red paint to decorate hieroglyphs, selected images, and rims. The available pictorial space was filled with glyphs, gods images, and animals. Workshops for these ceramics have been located around Nakbé, Pacaya, and El Mirador (Reents-Budet et al., 1993:1-11).

41. Belonging to the Palmar Ceramic Group, the artists of this style never diluted the black paint, so all the imagery was created with the same density of slip paint (a clay + water mix). Also, large portions of the vessels’ surfaces were left blank, using horizontal glyphic texts around the rims or diagonal texts covering the pictorial space. Blank spaces were filled by a few simple iconographic motifs like an element similar to a fleur-de-lis. The workshops of this ceramic style have been located in Eastern Petén and Belize, mostly around Holmul, Naranjo, La Sufricaya, and Buenavista (Reents-Budet et al., 1993:1-11). Recorded as BW or "Black and White" in The Maya Vase Book by Justin Kerr (Vol. 2, preface).

42. PSS: Primary Standard Sequence, originally discovered and named by Michael D. Coe. Recent research on these texts (see Reents-Budet, 1994:109-121) has deciphered many of the glyphs, making it possible to identify the five sections that make up the PSS: 1. Presentation (dedication and presentation of the vessel); 2. Surface Treatment (glyphs tell if the vessel was painted, carved or blessed with writing); 3. Vessel Type (the use of the vessel is identified as "his/her drinking vessel", "his plate", "his tripod plate" or "his vase"); 4. Contents (glyphs record the intended contents of the vessel, like cacao or corn gruel); and 5. Closure (names and titles of the owner or the patron of the vessel).

43. The dream of the "Jade figure " is probably influenced by the discovery of the lidded jade mosaic vases found in Tikal and exhibited at the National Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, in Guatemala City. The lid handles of these vases are anthropomorphic heads with hairdos and ornaments.

44. Ceramic vessels that are painted in several colors; the colors can be painted either before firing or paint can be applied over a thin layer of stucco (plaster) after firing.

Previous Page  |  Table of Contents  |  Next Page

Return to top of page