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Culture and History: Subregional Variation Among the Maya

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Liliana R. Goldin  and
Brenda Rosenbaum
Liliana R. Goldin
Affiliation:
State University of New York, at Albany
Brenda Rosenbaum
Affiliation:
State University of New York, at Albany
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Extract

Mayas from Guatemala and Chiapas, Mexico, narrate strikingly similar stories that are part of their oral tradition. These similarities reflect the fact that Mayas from both areas share a common cultural tradition dating to pre-Hispanic times and a basic pattern of beliefs central to the Mesoamerican cultural complex. At the same time, the stories contain notable differences that can be explained historically and traced both to pre-Hispanic or post-Hispanic developments as they combined with ecological conditions. In this study, we compare the present expression of a series of Earth Lord accounts and explain interesting differences that we observed between two groups of Maya Indians. Our results suggest that the differences can be traced to the diverse ways by which peasants are incorporated at various degrees into the capitalist system, mainly through trade or through wage labor or combinations of these with other forms of production.

Type
Changing Tradition
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , January 1993 , pp. 110 - 132
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1993

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