Download or read book Modern Mayan Women s Religious Choices written by Allison Hooper and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Ancient Spirituality of the Modern Maya written by Thomas Hart and published by UNM Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The myth and ceremony of Maya beliefs have been sustained for over five hundred years in spite of massacres, persecution, and discrimination.
Download or read book Contemporary Maya Spirituality written by Jean Molesky-Poz and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2009-06-23 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An authoritative study of the indigenous religion still practiced in Guatemala based on extensive original research and participant observation. Jean Molesky-Poz draws on in-depth dialogues with Maya Ajq’ijab’ (keepers of the ritual calendar), her own participant observation, and inter-disciplinary resources to offer a comprehensive, innovative, and well-grounded understanding of contemporary Maya spirituality and its theological underpinnings. She reveals significant continuities between contemporary and ancient Maya worldviews and spiritual practices. Molesky-Poz opens with a discussion of how the public emergence of Maya spirituality is situated within the religious political history of the Guatemalan highlands, particularly the pan-Maya movement. She investigates Maya cosmovision and its foundational principles, as expressed by Ajq’ijab’. At the heart of this work, Ajq’ijab’ interpret their obligation, lives, and spiritual work. Molesky-Poz then explores aspects of Maya spirituality, including sacred geography, sacred time, and ritual practice. She confirms contemporary Maya spirituality as a faith tradition with elaborate historical roots that has significance for individual, collective, and historical lives, reaffirming its own public space and legal right to be practiced.
Download or read book Religions of the World written by Charles River Charles River Editors and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-01-19 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures of art depicting Mayan gods and goddesses. *Explains the Mayan calendar, ball game, sacrifice rituals, and other religious tenets. *Explains the evolution of the religion after the arrival of the Spanish. *Includes a Bibliography for further reading. "More than a collection of quaint mythology and exotic rituals, [Maya] religion was an effective definition of the nature of the world, answering questions about the origin of humanity, the purpose of human life on earth, and the relationship of the individual to his family, his society, and his gods. It is a religion which speaks to central and enduring problems of the civilized human condition: power, justice, equality, individual purpose, and social destiny." - A Forest of Kings: The Untold Story of the Ancient Maya In the years leading up to 2012, there has been much interest in the Maya calendar. Largely, this is because the calendar will complete its 5,200-year cycle on December 21, 2012, and this auspicious event has been misinterpreted as signaling the end of the world. For the Maya, the endings of calendar period of all lengths (cycles ranged from 20 days to centuries in length) were very important and required various types of rituals and offerings to be properly recognized. Often, the best acceptable "offering" was human blood, and Maya elites engaged in autosacrificial bloodletting to appease the deity presiding over the transition in question. Combined with the detailed Maya knowledge of astronomy, the calendar system functioned as a way for Maya priests and elites to know which particular god in their crowded pantheon was ruling at a particular moment. The Maya believed that each interval of time, embedded in units like the day, the night, the solar year, the k''atun (20 year cycle), the lunar cycle, and Venus''s cycle, was governed by a certain deity. Such knowledge was considered vital in Maya cosmology and allowed the elites to maintain and consolidate power, effect political change, and lend religious veracity to monumental building projects. The blending of technologies and religion extended to writing for the Maya, who used a writing system to codify and standardize religio-political beliefs. It''s also important to remember that though the Maya mysteriously disappeared in the middle of the last millennium, their culture survived and was passed down among peoples in the region. As a result, the religion has also evolved, and the conflation of traditional Maya religious beliefs has largely involved a shift from animistic polytheism to quasi-monotheism with continuing aspects of animism. The forest surrounding ancient Maya settlements was considered to be filled with spirits, some malevolent and some benign, and to protect their settlements, modern Maya villagers set a cross and a balam or "jaguar" spirit at each of the four entrances to the village. This demonstrates a clear blending of Catholic symbols (the cross) and Maya spiritual beliefs (the balam guardians) and cosmology (the four directions). The onset of Catholic religious hegemony influenced all aspects of Maya society, including religious life, and in a move that is typically Mesoamerican, Maya practitioners included aspects into Maya religious practices. Ritual sacrifice continued long after the arrival of the Spanish, and colonized Maya incorporated crucifixion as a method of human sacrifice. Also, though the last recorded Maya human sacrifice occurred in 1868, animal sacrifice continues to this day, and some Maya continue to make ritual offerings of animals (usually chickens), food, and drinks at mountain or cave shrines. Religions of the World: The Religion of the Maya examines the history and evolution of the Mayan religion, including its main tenets, the similarities it shares with other religions and the differences that make it unique. Along with pictures of important figures and places, you''ll learn about the Maya religion like never before.
Download or read book Religions of the World the Religion of the Maya written by Charles River Charles River Editors and published by . This book was released on 2013-08-23 with total page 38 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures of art depicting Mayan gods and goddesses. *Explains the Mayan calendar, ball game, sacrifice rituals, and other religious tenets. *Explains the evolution of the religion after the arrival of the Spanish. *Includes a Bibliography for further reading. "More than a collection of quaint mythology and exotic rituals, [Maya] religion was an effective definition of the nature of the world, answering questions about the origin of humanity, the purpose of human life on earth, and the relationship of the individual to his family, his society, and his gods. It is a religion which speaks to central and enduring problems of the civilized human condition: power, justice, equality, individual purpose, and social destiny." - A Forest of Kings: The Untold Story of the Ancient Maya In the years leading up to 2012, there has been much interest in the Maya calendar. Largely, this is because the calendar will complete its 5,200-year cycle on December 21, 2012, and this auspicious event has been misinterpreted as signaling the end of the world. For the Maya, the endings of calendar period of all lengths (cycles ranged from 20 days to centuries in length) were very important and required various types of rituals and offerings to be properly recognized. Often, the best acceptable "offering" was human blood, and Maya elites engaged in autosacrificial bloodletting to appease the deity presiding over the transition in question. Combined with the detailed Maya knowledge of astronomy, the calendar system functioned as a way for Maya priests and elites to know which particular god in their crowded pantheon was ruling at a particular moment. The Maya believed that each interval of time, embedded in units like the day, the night, the solar year, the k''atun (20 year cycle), the lunar cycle, and Venus''s cycle, was governed by a certain deity. Such knowledge was considered vital in Maya cosmology and allowed the elites to maintain and consolidate power, effect political change, and lend religious veracity to monumental building projects. The blending of technologies and religion extended to writing for the Maya, who used a writing system to codify and standardize religio-political beliefs. It''s also important to remember that though the Maya mysteriously disappeared in the middle of the last millennium, their culture survived and was passed down among peoples in the region. As a result, the religion has also evolved, and the conflation of traditional Maya religious beliefs has largely involved a shift from animistic polytheism to quasi-monotheism with continuing aspects of animism. The forest surrounding ancient Maya settlements was considered to be filled with spirits, some malevolent and some benign, and to protect their settlements, modern Maya villagers set a cross and a balam or "jaguar" spirit at each of the four entrances to the village. This demonstrates a clear blending of Catholic symbols (the cross) and Maya spiritual beliefs (the balam guardians) and cosmology (the four directions). The onset of Catholic religious hegemony influenced all aspects of Maya society, including religious life, and in a move that is typically Mesoamerican, Maya practitioners included aspects into Maya religious practices. Ritual sacrifice continued long after the arrival of the Spanish, and colonized Maya incorporated crucifixion as a method of human sacrifice. Also, though the last recorded Maya human sacrifice occurred in 1868, animal sacrifice continues to this day, and some Maya continue to make ritual offerings of animals (usually chickens), food, and drinks at mountain or cave shrines. Religions of the World: The Religion of the Maya examines the history and evolution of the Mayan religion, including its main tenets, the similarities it shares with other religions and the differences that make it unique. Along with pictures of important figures and places, you''ll learn about the Maya religion like never before.
Download or read book Mayan Religious Instruction Degree Three with Twelve Revelations No 9 written by The Mayans and published by . This book was released on 2013-10 with total page 18 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a new release of the original 1936 edition.
Download or read book I Rigoberta Menchu written by Rigoberta Menchu and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2010-01-12 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Nobel Peace Prize winner reflects on poverty, injustice, and the struggles of Mayan communities in Guatemala, offering “a fascinating and moving description of the culture of an entire people” (The Times) Now a global bestseller, the remarkable life of Rigoberta Menchú, a Guatemalan peasant woman, reflects on the experiences common to many Indian communities in Latin America. Menchú suffered gross injustice and hardship in her early life: her brother, father and mother were murdered by the Guatemalan military. She learned Spanish and turned to catechistic work as an expression of political revolt as well as religious commitment. Menchú vividly conveys the traditional beliefs of her community and her personal response to feminist and socialist ideas. Above all, these pages are illuminated by the enduring courage and passionate sense of justice of an extraordinary woman.
Download or read book Ancient Maya Women written by Traci Ardren and published by Rowman Altamira. This book was released on 2002 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The flood of archaeological work in Maya lands has revolutionized our understanding of gender in ancient Maya society. The dozen contributors to this volume use a wide range of methodological strategies--archaeology, bioarchaeology, iconography, ethnohistory, epigraphy, ethnography--to tease out the details of the lives, actions, and identities of women of Mesoamerica. The chapters, most based upon recent fieldwork in Central America, examine the role of women in Maya society, their place in the political hierarchy and lineage structures, the gendered division of labor, and the discrepancy between idealized Mayan womanhood and the daily reality, among other topics. In each case, the complexities and nuances of gender relations is highlighted and the limitations of our knowledge acknowledged. These pieces represent an important advance in the understanding of Maya socioeconomic, political, and cultural life--and the archaeology of gender--and will be of great interest to scholars and students.
Download or read book The Popol Vuh written by Lewis Spence and published by New York : AMS Press. This book was released on 1908 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Moon Guatemala written by Al Argueta and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2015-11-03 with total page 795 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This full-color guide includes vibrant photos and detailed maps to help with trip planning. Part-time Guatemala resident Al Argueta provides travelers with an insider's view of Guatemala's best, from idyllic surf spots to popular volcanoes. Argueta offers in-depth coverage of Lake Atitlan and La Antigua, as well as Guatemala City's diverse selection of museums. With expert advice on where to eat, sleep, relax, and explore, Moon Guatemala gives travelers the tools they need to create a more personal and memorable experience.
Download or read book Indigenous Bodies Maya Minds written by C. James MacKenzie and published by University Press of Colorado. This book was released on 2016-04-07 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Indigenous Bodies, Maya Minds examines tension and conflict over ethnic and religious identity in the K’iche’ Maya community of San Andrés Xecul in the Guatemalan Highlands and considers how religious and ethnic attachments are sustained and transformed through the transnational experiences of locals who have migrated to the United States. Author C. James MacKenzie explores the relationship among four coexisting religious communities within Highland Maya villages in contemporary Guatemala—costumbre, traditionalist religion with a shamanic substrate; “Enthusiastic Christianity,” versions of Charismaticism and Pentecostalism; an “inculturated” and Mayanized version of Catholicism; and a purified and antisyncretic Maya Spirituality—with attention to the modern and nonmodern worldviews that sustain them. He introduces a sophisticated set of theories to interpret both traditional religion and its relationship to other contemporary religious options, analyzing the relation among these various worldviews in terms of the indigenization of modernity and the various ways modernity can be apprehended as an intellectual project or an embodied experience. Indigenous Bodies, Maya Minds investigates the way an increasingly plural religious landscape intersects with ethnic and other identities. It will be of interest to Mesoamerican and Mayan ethnographers, as well as students and scholars of cultural anthropology, indigenous cultures, globalization, and religion.
Download or read book The Ch ol Maya of Chiapas written by Karen Bassie-Sweet and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2015-04-08 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Ch’ol Maya who live in the western Mexican state of Chiapas are direct descendants of the Maya of the Classic period. Exploring their history and culture, volume editor Karen Bassie-Sweet and the other authors assembled here uncover clear continuity between contemporary Maya rituals and beliefs and their ancient counterparts. With evocative and thoughtful essays by leading scholars of Maya culture, The Ch’ol Maya of Chiapas, the first collection to focus fully on the Ch’ol Maya, takes readers deep into ancient caves and reveals new dimensions of Ch’ol cosmology. In contemporary Ch’ol culture the contributors find a wealth of historical material that they then interweave with archaeological data to yield surprising and illuminating insights. The colonial and twentieth-century descendants of the Postclassic period Ch’ol and Lacandon Ch’ol, for instance, provide a window on the history and conquest of the early Maya. Several authors examine Early Classic paintings in the Ch’ol ritual cave known as Jolja that document ancient cave ceremonies not unlike Ch’ol rituals performed today, such as petitioning a cave-dwelling mountain spirit for health, rain, and abundant harvests. Other essays investigate deities identified with caves, mountains, lightning, and meteors to trace the continuity of ancient Maya beliefs through the centuries, in particular the ancient origin of contemporary rituals centering on the Ch’ol mountain deity Don Juan. An appendix containing three Ch’ol folktales and their English translations rounds out the volume. Charting paths literal and figurative to earlier trade routes, pre-Columbian sites, and ancient rituals and beliefs, The Ch’ol Maya of Chiapas opens a fresh, richly informed perspective on Maya culture as it has evolved and endured over the ages.
Download or read book Religious Transformation in Maya Guatemala written by John P. Hawkins and published by University of New Mexico Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on over fifty years of research and data collected by field-school students, Hawkins argues that two factors--cultural collapse and systematic social and economic exclusion--explain the recent religious transformation of Maya Guatemala and the style and emotional intensity through which that transformation is expressed.
Download or read book Women and Indigenous Religions written by Sylvia Marcos and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2010-07-01 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the critical and often undervalued contributions of women to the culture, well-being, and subsistence of their communities as active, powerful, and wise ritual specialists. From the Dalit midwives in India to the women of the Nahua region in the state of Morelos, Mexico, from the indigenous nations in Turtle Island in Canada to the shamans (male and female) of South Korea and Vietnam, there are still many vital indigenous cultures around the world in which women often hold positions of religious authority and leadership. Women and Indigenous Religions addresses specific issues in the study of religion, such as the multifaceted tensions between indigenous traditions and gender and the genealogy of positions of authority in religion or spiritual matters. A close examination reveals that native religions, with their women specialists, are still a source of inspiration for millions of men and women even in the "advanced" areas in the world. This fact challenges the opinion that indigenous cultures are becoming extinct.
Download or read book Maya History and Religion written by John Eric Sidney Thompson and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 1990 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this volume, a distinguished Maya scholar seeks to correlate data from colonial writings and observations of the modern Indian with archaeological information in order to extend and clarify the panorama of Maya culture.
Download or read book Choice written by and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 620 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Animals and the Maya in Southeast Mexico written by Eugene Newton Anderson and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2005-01-01 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In MexicoÕs southeastern frontier state of Quintana Roo, game animals and other creatures that depend on old-growth forest are disappearing in the face of habitat destruction and overhunting. Traditionally, the Yucatec Maya have regarded animals as fellow members of a wider society, and in their religion animals enjoy the status of spiritual beings. But in recent years, the breakdown of cultural restraints on hunting has spiraled so far out of control that almost everything edible within easy reach of a road has become fair game. This book combines the insights of an anthropologist with the hands-on experience of a Maya campesino with the aim of improving the management of Quintana RooÕs wild lands and animal resources. E. N. Anderson and Felix Medina Tzuc pool their knowledge to document Yucatec Maya understanding and use of animals and to address practical matters related to wider conservation issues. Although the Yucatec MayaÕs ethnobotany has been well documented, until now little has been recorded about their animal lore. Anderson and Medina Tzuc have compiled a wealth of information about traditional knowledge of animals in this corner of the Maya world. They have recorded most of the terms widely used for several hundred categories of animals in west central Quintana Roo, mapped them onto biological categories, and recorded basic information about wildlife management and uses. The book reflects a wealth of knowledge gathered from individuals regarded as experts on particular aspects of animal management, whether hunting, herding, or beekeeping. It also offers case studies of conservation successes and failures in various communities, pointing to the need for cooperation by the Mexican government and Maya people to save wildlife. Appendixes provide an extensive animal classification and a complete list of all birds identified in the area. Even though sustainable forestry has finally come to the Yucat‡n, sustainable game use is practiced by only a few communities.Animals and the Maya in Southeast Mexico is a complete ethnozoology for the region, offered in the hope that it will encourage the recognition of Quintana RooÕs forests and wildlife as no less deserving of protection than ancient Maya cities.
