Friction in the field: Milpa, missionary, and scales of refusal in 1960s highland Guatemala

Since the early days of North American and Mesoamerican studies, the ethnographic present was used to illustrate the characteristics of the past. Later, the approach was refined as a method of upstreaming in order to better explain past societies by analyzing cultural concepts of their present-day counterparts (Fenton 1952). This technique permitted the formulation of some key concepts of cultural understanding; for example, the Maya in Mesoamerica considered temples to be living mountains (Vogt 1969). However, criticism of the implications of assumed cultural continuity and hypothetical past traditions meant that this method came under severe scrutiny (Chance 1996). Nonetheless, research of the past two decades has shown that ethnographic data are still fruitful aids to better understand past Maya cultural concepts, rituals, or religion. Thus, if the method of upstreaming remains appropriate, we need more input and reflection on that issue. How can we avoid the pitfalls of a reliance on cultural continuity or an invented history? The paper explores the methodological and theoretical limitations of the technique of upstreaming and its usefulness in situations where proper historical, ethnohistorical, archaeological explanations fails to provide better understanding of the past. Resumen Desde que se comenzaron a estudiar la región del Norte de América y Mesoamérica el presente etnográfico fue utilizado para ilustrar las características del pasado. Más tarde, ese enfoque fue refinado y recibió el nombre de " method of upstreaming " con el fin de explicar mejor las antiguas sociedades a través de conceptos culturas de sus contrapartes contemporáneos (Fenton 1952). Esa técnica permitió formular algunos conceptos claves para el entendimiento cultural, por ejemplo, los Mayas de Mesoamérica consideraban templos como montañas vivientes (Vogt 1969). Sin embargo, las implicaciones de una continuidad cultural y tradiciones hipotéticas del pasado fueron sujeto de críticas de modo que este método fue severamente sometido a revisión (Chance 1996). No obstante, la investigación en las últimas dos décadas ha demostrado de que los datos etnográficos aun son una ayuda importante para entender mejor conceptos culturales, rituales o la religión de los Mayas del pasado. Así, sí el método " upstreaming " paarece tener aun su valor, esto significa que eso requiere más atención e investigación. ¿Y cómo se puede evitar de caer en la trampa de seguir postular una continuidad cultural o una historia inventada? El presente trabajo analiza las limitaciones metódicas y teoréticas de la llamada técnica " upstreaming " y su provecho en situaciones en las cuales explicaciones históricas, etnológicas o arqueológicas propiamente fallan en entender mejor el pasado. his paper addresses the question of whether the past can be inferred from the ethnographic present, a methodological issue that has not received much attention in the past fifteen years because anthropology has pivoted to explain more the future from the present than the past, for example by focusing on globalization, environmental studies and cognitive anthropology (cf. Hannerz 2010). The past refers not simply to events in the course of time, but cultural aspects, traits, customs, traditions and so on that are somehow and up to a certain point still inexplicably tangible in the ethnographic present. This kind of past drove anthropologists to construct theories explaining how past survived in the present, like essentialism and primordialism. However, these theories have methodological and theoretical limitations that cannot be neglected and are no longer favored. Nonetheless, there is no substitute at hand. So how does one explain that in some regions and among some people the past— even the most remote one—seems to be more vividly present today than elsewhere? And, especially, what shall we do with the information from the present outside of just documenting trends towards the future? Can we still use it to T

American Anthropologist, 2012

Anthropology's four fields are in constant fission and fusion, with departmental "divorces" (à la Stanford, Harvard) and renewed efforts to remain integrative (Emory, Arizona State). Alan Barnard's latest book is a contribution to the latter. At a time in which publication and funding pressures can encourage hyperspecialization, this is a refreshing and readable synthesis of the methods, data, and theoretical perspectives of social and biological anthropology, linguistics, and archaeology as applied to human evolution. It is reminiscent, as Barnard acknowledges, of a simpler time in which early anthropologists were jointly interested in the essential questions of being human, regardless of methodology. Barnard's goal is ambitious-"to help establish a social anthropology of human origins" (p. xii)-and, perhaps inevitably, it is not quite realized.

Ethnohistory, 2014

This article focuses on two narratives that claim that a pre-Hispanic pyramid at Chichén Itzá is the biblical Tower of Babel. One "Mayan Babel" is represented in a series of stories told by rural Maya speakers in Yucatán, the other in an unpublished manuscript written by an Anglo-American trucker. Though both of these stories reflect traditions that were marginalized by academic archaeology, they reflect very different experiences with the ruins as either physical objects or textual creations. This in turn has important implications for the politics of contemporary attempts to turn archaeology into a terrain that is inclusive of diverse stakeholder perspectives. The observation that dialogue between diverse stakeholder groups is essential to democratizing history and archaeology has become a truism of recent scholarship. This essay examines a fundamental limitation to such dialogues by comparing the role of text and materiality in a pair of narratives that embody two very different experiences of exclusion. Beside the fact that both of these narratives were marginalized from the terrain of canonical archaeological interpretation, they are also linked by a surprisingly specific claim: that the tenth-century pyramidal structure known as the Castillo of Chichén Itzá is the Tower of Babel from the book of Genesis.1 The first of the "Mayan Babels" that I will discuss emerges from a Yucatecan oral tradition that I first encountered in 1997 and that is documented in texts spanning at least as far back as the early nineteenth century. My discussion of this tradition will place special emphasis on a particular story that was told to me in a mixture of Spanish and Yucatec Maya by don Marcelo Cen, an artisan and maize agriculturalist whose family has lived within a few kilometers of Chichén Itzá for at least five generations. I encountered Ethnohistory

2022

This study re-examines and contextualises Eduard Seler's investigations in the Chaculá-Region (Department of Huehuetenango, Guatemala). Starting with a discussion of ethnohistory as well as the historical circumstances of Seler's research, his methods are critically examined in the context of archaeology in late 19th century Guatemala and the practice of collecting by European museums, specifically the Ethnological Museum Berlin. This is followed by the results of a reconnaissance of the different archaeological sites documented by Seler in the region, in which their current state of preservation is examined and Seler's excavation trenches are re-discovered. The core of the work is a new study of the materials from the region in the collection of the Ethnological Museum Berlin, including previously undocumented ceramic materials. Through typological cross-dating, a first ceramic chronology for the region is established, showing that the major settlements were occupied from the Late Classic (600-900) to the Early Postclassic (900-1250). These data and observations form the foundation for a re-examination of the interpretations put forth by Eduard Seler and later scholars, concerning topics such as architecture, burials and caches, the function of the Quen Santo caves, ritual and settlement continuity from the Late Classic to modern times and the ethnolinguistic identity of the ancient inhabitants of the region. The book concludes with a look at the postcolonial challenges that the collection in Berlin faces and ways to connect the archaeological past with the indigenous present in the Chaculá-Region.

UN]VERSITY oF HAN{BURG Ab6tract ln the Highland Maya communily of San Mateo lxtatän (Huehuetenango, Cuatemala) a lradilion ofsalt makjng continucs 1o lunction thal can be traced back $'ell into prellispanic limcs. Drawing fron the concept ol "cultural mernory" and in considcraiion ofspccific dynamics in the colonial history ofthe Chxj Jrea, ue argue lhat wilhin the narraiives and rituals suffounding nhe sa1t, the renains ofa prc-Hisparic "ritual economy" have sufr'ived. whicn can explain developnents in local history and probably cvcn luther political and economic lrends in ancicnl Maya orlture.

"En Guatemala, la configuración de obras testimoniales derivó de su propia dinámica política, si bien, la revista Casa de las Américas –que se desarrolló como un elemento difusor del discurso revolucionario en América Latina– mantuvo relación con intelectuales guatemaltecos. El Testimonio fue configurado culturalmente como un espectro propio para expresar la realidad que desarrolló una espiral de violencia, así como un instrumento por el cual se permitiera denunciar los hechos atroces de la contrainsurgencia. La lucha política configuró estrategias de la lucha ideológica que son visibles en estas obras, por ello, la necesidad de mostrar un conjunto de textos concernientes al conflicto armado interno es pertinente ante la constante reinterpretación histórica guatemalteca, donde la voz de los actores principales del hacer histórico obtienen un marco de referencialidad que se vincula al desarrollo historiográfico. El devenir histórico enunciado en las obras testimoniales se complementa con el trazo de su desarrollo frente a la dinámica cultural, política y social, en la que se reconocen sus motivaciones como militantes de las organizaciones revolucionarias. Abstract: In Guatemala, the configuration of testimonial works derived from their own political dynamics, while the journal Casa de las Américas –developed as a spreading element of revolutionary discourse in Latin America– held a relationship with the Guatemalan intellectuals; the testimony was cultural and configured as a spectrum to express the reality that developed a spiral of violence, as well as an instrument which would condemn the atrocious events of the counterinsurgency. The political fight set up strategies for the ideological struggle that are visible in these works; therefore, the need to show a set of texts relating to the internal armed conflict is relevant to the constantGuatemalan historical reinterpretation, where the voice of major actors in the history obtained a framework of referentiality that relates to the historiographical development. The historical evolution set forth in the testimonial works is complemented by the outline of its development from the cultural, social, and political dynamics which recognize their motivations as a militant of the revolutionary organizations."

Maya archaeology has an intimate relationship with cultural anthropology. One could say that they are dependent on each other. Archaeologists use anthropological analogies from contemporary groups in the Maya area to explain their data and anthropologists sometime emphasize the originality of some social expressions as either modern, colonial or pre-Hispanic. Nowadays we have a third actor who criticizes both archaeology and anthropology. This is the Maya movement in Guatemala, led by indigenous scholars, who want to see a more ethical approach to the study of both the past and contemporary ethnic groups. In this text, I shall consider how ethnicity and culture are viewed in Maya archaeology and in this movement and see how they are both the result of a politicised, cultural thinking. The concept of material culture has a central position here, since it is believed to reflect past human culture and ethnicity. This movement is like the negation of a discourse established by the other dominating party. As such, it is dependent on the former. When a new discourse is being constructed, it resists the dominating discourse or other opposing powers. When such constructed histories in their turn become the official histories of ethnic movements, they tend to be defined by the very same colonialism that they oppose. They use the same units of analysis, idioms and structures. The group is formed around this discourse and the result is what Fischer writes: “In many ways the pan-Maya movement is a textbook example of an imaged [sic] community” (Fischer 2001:7). However, this is a result of a need to be heard. The movement has had to adopt a Western discourse. Archaeologists or other scholars from the “Third World” have had to work with concepts that were developed during the colonial era. It is thus difficult to redefine the past. What the Maya movement really needs is a complete break with “culture” thinking as this is a main theme in Mayanist archaeological thought. Therefore I shall explore the concepts of culture, ethnicity and continuity and see if they are relevant to our understanding of past identities.

2020

The ruins of ancient Maya settlements are dramatic and dominant features of the Mesoamerican landscape today, and abandoned architecture and monuments were also significant features of the Maya landscape in the ancient past. How did the Late Classic Maya interact with remnants of architecture and monuments built during the Late Preclassic period? What effects did ruins of the past have on later settlement activity? The ancient Maya site of San Bartolo, located in the Department of the Petén, Guatemala, was occupied during the Preclassic period between 500 B.C. and A.D. 200 before it was abandoned. The site was reoccupied in the Late Classic period around A.D. 600, and these later settlers reused various abandoned structures. My dissertation focuses on identifying and investigating the nature of structure reuse through archaeological investigations in a residential group. My research has revealed the close relationship between political and social conditions and material remains.