Description
Book SynopsisIn Watching Lacandon Maya Lives, the author follows three generations of one Lacandon Maya family. Readers track the subjects' lives as they shift through events such as marriage, parenthood, and religious conversion, all set against a backdrop of increased tourism, road construction, and the murders of two people in the community. This book encompasses both ethnography and a critique of ethnographic writing. At one level, the book is about social, agricultural, technological, and religious changes that have occurred in a Lacandon Maya community in Mexico. At a second level, the book is a critique of those who invented a Utopian picture of a "traditional" Lacandon past that never really existed. For cultural anthropologists, or anyone interested in learning more about this Mayan culture.
Table of ContentsIntroduction
Chapter One: The Myth of Lacandon Origins.
Romantic Images
Archaeological, Linguistic, and Historical Sources.
Sixteenth-Seventeenth Centuries: Chol-LacandonEighteenth Century: Yucatec Lacandon
Lacandon in the Nineteenth Century
Lacandon in the Twentieth Century
Lacandon 1980-2015
Chapter Two: Reconstructing the Historical Lacandon:
Who Is Lacandon?
What Does Traditional Lacandon Mean?
Lacandon Life from 1790-1903
Men and Women’s Work
Religion
Marriage and Household Life
Selling Lacandon Religion
Two Case Studies and Concluding Thoughts
So, How Can I Write About “the Lacandon”?
Chapter 3: Watching Life in a Lacandon Community
An Overview of Women, Men, and Work.
Women’s Work
Men's Work
Family Examples
Chan K?in Viejo and his Household
Koh III and Koh IV, Summer1985
Child Birth, and Infant Mortality
The Death of Nuk
Chapter 4: 1970-2020, Five Decades of Change
Government, Oil and Immigration, an Overview
Family Relations, Work, and Historic Lacandon Horticulture
Roads, Bows and Arrows, and Tourism
Adapting Agricultural to Tourism: Comparing Two Communities
Men, tourism, and Agriculture in Nahá.
Agriculture and Tourism in Lacanha.
Women, Tourism, and Work
“Traditional” women
Women in households oriented to tourism
Widows
Chapter 5: Finding an Income in the Lacandon Jungle
Providing Food and Lodging for Visitors
Household-Level Entrepreneurial Activities
Archaeology in Mensäbäk
Working for CONANP
Four Families in Mensäbäk
Economic and Cultural Changes
Shifting to a Money-Based Economy and Culture Change
Changing diet and health
Changing household-based reciprocity
Changing status
Changing household demographics
Growing Up in a Changing World: The Cases of K?in and Chan K?in Quinto
Chapter 6: Decline of Non-Christian Religion
Cosmology
Ritual Places: Classic Period Ruins
Caves and Rock Shelters
God Houses
Ritual Implements
Types of Offerings
Edible Offerings
Ritual and Agriculture
Healing and Ritual
The End of the World
Conclusions: The End of Non-Christian Religion
Chapter 7: Changing Healing Practices
Lacandon Categories of Sickness
Curing Through Prayer
Therapeutic Incantations
Curing Strings
Medicinal Plants
Decline of Healing Rituals
Chapter Eight: Forty Years Among the Lacandon: Some Lessons Learned
What is Lacandon Culture?
What People Say is Different from What They Do
Marriage, Fatherhood, and McGee’s Position in the Community
The Fire: 6/9/99
Glossary References Cited
