Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant:: Household Ritual and Ideology in the Classic Maya Polity of Yaxha, Northern Guatemala

University Of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh PA

Investigators

Abstract

Under the supervision of Dr. Olivier de Montmollin, Laura Gamez will study religious ideology and ritual practices related to commoner households at the ancient Maya capital of Yaxha. Yaxha headed a Maya kingdom during the Classic Period (AD 300-900) in what is now northern Guatemala. Like other political capitals of its time, Yaxha had socially diverse residents, ranging from royals to nobles to commoners. It is suspected that a key element in the social diversity concerned differences and similarities between religious ideology and rituals associated with 1. elite royals and nobles (state religion) and 2. commoners (folk religion). It remains to be learned how the folk and state religions meshed together and how the commoners might have been active participation in their kingdom's state religion. Basic research questions for Yaxha are: 1. What kinds of ritual activities took place within differently ranked households? 2. What kinds and degree of participation did commoners have in the formation and maintenance of their state religion (with strategies ranging through assent, neutrality, and resistance)? 3. Were commoner households all using identical strategies or was there strategic pluralism among commoner households? For Yaxha, NSF funds support archaeological survey and excavation of commoner households in an outer 'hinterland'. Wenner-Gren Foundation funds are supporting excavation of commoner household in a Residential Zone. Earlier projects have already recovered evidence from noble and royal residences in a Core Zone. The results will be a uniquely informative sample covering religious beliefs and practices of different kinds of households, allowing a systematic comparative focus on commoners' religious diversity and their participation in state religion. The project (done in collaboration with Guatemala's Direccion General del Patrimonio Cultural y Natural) adds a valuable research dimension to government efforts in tourist development and protection of endangered archaeological areas within a key natural and historical national park. Enhancing connections among research, conservation, and archaeological resource management practitioners, the project helps to strengthen the Guatemalan and World heritage in ways that highlight U.S. willingness (through NSF support) to co-operate with hemispheric neighbors on shared heritage concerns. The project also provides training for Guatemalan and U.S. students engaged in field and laboratory work. Finally, the project theme of variably tense relations between state and folk religions (from the perspective of folk practitioners) touches on some enduringly captivating issues, spanning past to present and future. For example, in Guatemala today, the Folk Catholicism of the living descendants of ancient Mayas is counterpoised to more official forms of Catholicism (and has been since the Spanish conquest). In many other places, people of modest status tailor the official programs of great World Religions to their own local and personal needs, and even use the resulting ideas as tools in national-scale political mobilizations. Evidently, folk vs. state religion issues are relevant for just about anyone who takes an interest in the past, present, and future of religion and its relation to socio-political conflict and co-operation.