Watching Lacandon Maya Lives

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Watching Lacandon Maya Lives

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Description

Although romanticized as the last of the ancient Maya living isolated in the forest, several generations of the Lacandon Maya have had their lives shaped by the international oil economy, tourism, and political unrest.

Watching Lacandon Maya Lives is an examination of dramatic cultural changes in a Maya rainforest farming community over the last forty years, including changes to their families, industries, religion, health and healing practices, and gender roles. The book contains several discussions of anthropological theory in accessible, jargon-free language, including how the use of different theoretical perspectives impacts an ethnographer’s fieldwork experience. While relating his own mishaps, experiences of community strife, and conflicts, Jon McGee encourages students to shed the romantic veil through which ethnographies are usually viewed and think more deeply about how events in our own lives influence how we understand the behavior of people around us.

New to the Second Edition:
Revised Introduction incorporates the author’s recent work with the Lacandon and discussions of anthropological writing, culture theory, and how events in the author’s personal life have changed his approach to anthropological fieldwork.Revised chapter, “Finding an Income in the Lacandon Jungle” focuses on families who have shifted from a subsistence farming economy to earning revenue by renting facilities to tourists, owning small community stores, working as hired labor for archaeologists, or make use of a variety of government rural aid programs created in the last two decades (Chapter 5).New chapter, “Forty Years Among the Lacandon: Some Lessons Learned,” discusses what the author’s 40 years of experience as an ethnographer has taught him about the discipline of anthropology and the concept of culture (Chapter 8)

Table of Contents

Introduction
Chapter One: The Myth of Lacandon Origins.
Romantic ImagesArchaeological, Linguistic, and Historical Sources.
Sixteenth-Seventeenth Centuries: Chol-LacandonEighteenth Century: Yucatec LacandonLacandon 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

Product details

Published Feb 22 2023
Format Paperback
Edition 2nd
Extent 230
ISBN 9781538126172
Imprint Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Illustrations 34 b/w photos; 15 tables
Dimensions 224 x 154 mm
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

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