What have the Mayans ever done for us… apart from predict the end of the world?
The first signs of Mayan influence have been traced back as far as 2,600BC, but archaeologists now agree the first exclusively Mayan communities were established on Mexico’s Pacific coast around 1,800BC. They farmed intensively and traded with their neighbours in goods such as cacao and salt. Their sophisticated agricultural system came to sustain crops including corn and cotton. The demise of Mayan civilisation has been blamed on a number of factors, none conclusively: overpopulation, disease, and a 200-year drought are among the theories. Having converted much of their forests into farmland, they may even have been history’s first victims of climate change.
The Maya people are the proud, pre-Colombian peoples who inhabited Mesoamerica, a swath of land that reached all the way from Central Mexico to as far as the western coast of Costa Rica. Grand cities, an intricate gastronomia, and the fascinating rituals and games of these indigenous people still fascinate antropoligists today. There are still many things we don’t know about the ancient Maya, but there are a few hints in their clothing, both today and in the past, that give us a clue to how they lived and the way they spend their time.
The bright and varied colors of the Mayan clothes are another insight into their culture. They were obviously very close to the nature around them and utlized what the natural world offered in order to dye their clothing. They use tiny insects called cochineal that live on local cactus to dye their clothing red, they procured purple dye from Plicopurpura pansa (marine molluscs) by crushing, boiling, or milking the shells to extract the dye. They worked with indigo plants to perform the long process necessary to use the plants to dye cloth blue.
Today, the ancestors of the great Maya of Mesoamerica come in many forms and styles. Many mestizo (or mixed) Mexican have a certain amount of Maya blood in their heritage. Communities in which the majority of the population is 100% Maya often still don traditional dress as a way of both perserving and honoring their culture.
“Planting Amaranth today feels like an act of resistance”. Reestablishing relationships with other Indigenous communities across international borders is part of a “larger movement of self-determination of Indigenous peoples” […] to return to the “alternative economies that existed before capitalism, that existed before the United States. Supporting Indigenous people coming together to share knowledge” is vital to the land back movement, a campaign to reestablish Indigenous stewardship of Native land, and liberation of Native peoples. This exchange between North and Central American farmers isn’t just about amaranth as a crop; it’s also about reconnecting to ancient trade routes that have been disrupted by increasingly militarized borders.”
The Popol Wuj (also written as Popol Vuh and Pop Wuj), the “Book of the Community,” was written between 1554 and 1558 and is one of the most important K’iche’ Maya books in the history of the Mayab’ region—present day Southern Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and northern El Salvador. Some scholars believe that the authors of the text were three K’iche’ Maya young men whose ages ranged between 14 and 18 years.
The authors of the Popol Wuj proceeded to present a Maya worldview where humanity and the universe are the result not of the actions of a single god, but of a divine council that gathers to create the world and the humanity who will inhabit it. The council members learn from their mistakes. First, they create the seas, the earth, and the forests and then the animals. They then proceed to create humans out of mud, but these creatures are later destroyed when the gods send rain to earth.
The Maya Empire, centered in the tropical lowlands of what is now Guatemala, reached the peak of its power and influence around the sixth century A.D. The Maya excelled at agriculture, pottery, hieroglyph writing, calendar-making and mathematics, and left behind an astonishing amount of impressive architecture and symbolic artwork. Most of the great stone cities of the Maya were abandoned by A.D. 900, however, and since the 19th century scholars have debated what might have caused this dramatic decline.
Indigenous Peoples Literature 