Hearing the Mayan Voice

By clouding our analysis and findings with personal judgment, archeologists and scholars create a narrative rooted in misunderstanding. For many years scholars ignored obvious evidence and continued promoting a warped narrative rather than a clear, authentic account from the Maya themselves. One of the clearest examples of archeologist's steadfast hold to their biases is the wide acceptance of pre-Hispanic Maya as a peaceful, languid population.

Archeologist David Webster, who had dedicated a large part of his life's work to debunk the notions of docile, subservient Maya, recounts how when an amateur Mayanist was faced with the reality of Maya planning and calculating for warfare through the creation of causeways and fortified architecture, lamented “Somewhere… there must have been a peaceful civilization.” Yet, the reality was widely different. With the discovery in years to come of graphically violent murals, evidence of weaponry, and fortified architecture, the idea of the pre-colonial Maya as a peaceful utopia would crumble.

However, time cannot be credited with people suddenly rising to their senses, as these archeological evidences that would later on clearly debunked the myth of the Peaceful Maya were always present. From Maudslay’s Usamacinta regions to the first surveyor of Bonampak, monuments and artifacts of warfare always existed at these sites. So why did it take so long for archeologists to truly finally see what was in front of them?

Webster points to the innate need to reflect an emotional refuge onto the past;

By establishing pre-modern time civilizations as halcyonic, idyllic spaces, we are able to escape from the turmoils of our present-day scenarios, such as wars. But we know that warfare is not a relatively new concept, war has existed for eons and seems to be truly inescapable. The evidence of fortresses and imagery of captives that were abundant after deeper exploration of a site was ignored, and the Maya were early on written off as a docile population, whose reigns were ‘conspicuously lacking of warlike scenes, battles, strife, and violence” (Morley 1946).

Another early Mayanist, Sylvanus Morley, contributed to the first analysis of Maya archeology by not crediting the same artifacts he had stumbled upon (like the Bonampak war murals) as being authentic narratives but to have their analysis of these artifacts stay in the mire of their aesthetic qualities.

Although we have established this enactment of a status quo with essentially no archeological evidence in defense, we still can’t seem to create a sufficient explanation as to why early archeologists wanted the Maya to be peaceful. Stubbornness must be rooted in some justification, but for the large part archeologists like Webster relate this fixation with gentleness as the norm, sans any real justification.

In an attempt to defend those who originally proposed the gentle Maya as a norm, we can think about the complexities of the genealogy-lineage relationships early Mayanist followed. These genealogies of scholars meant in order to make it into the field you needed connections, hoping for someone who was established in the field to extend an olive branch, an invitation to become a fledgling Mayanist. The implications of this high reliance on existing archeologists in the field to continue these lineages can likely mean that younger, newer archeologists would not be eager to contradict the norms. If someone has put in the effort to invite you into their world and they tell you the law of the land, so to speak, it's very rarely seen that the apprentice becomes the challenger. Thus, reigning ideas such as the misconception of a tranquil Maya civilization were likely not challenged so as not to put a nouveau Mayanist at risk of being cut out of the ‘family tree’. 

Despite these passes as justification as to how we got here, the idea of the Peaceful Maya has surmountable evidence against it. One of the clearest examples are the Bonampak murals in Chiapas, Mexico. When first discovered, these sites were admired not for their clear, evidential importance in the disruption of the paradigms but for their aesthetic merits (Webster). However quickly the murals were credited as the critical murals that overturned the previous notions of peaceful Mayas (Kinoshita). Through the discovery of the Bonampak murals in 1946, archeologists were able to juxtapose a “widely accepted model” with “coherent messages from the ancient peoples themselves” (Webster). Comparing these two narratives, created by anglo-Saxon archaeologists and those who were the direct subjects of the study, shows how paradigms shifted when subjects were no longer other-ized or underestimated but empowered and ‘heard’. When we accept that the “visual exceeds the verbal” we finally give validation to the voice of the Maya, and the words they were speaking painting finally fell upon hearing ears.

The ability to break away from the norms, such as acceptance of pre-hispanic Mayas as peaceful, allows us to see how our own personal idealistic biases greatly influence the facts and why it's necessary to hold findings to be critically analyzed. If we really wish to claim we know about the Maya and that we are making breakthroughs in the understanding of them, then we have to make sure our evidence is not clouded but the evidence that can help us pridefully progress knowing we have done the narratives of the Maya people themselves justice. With the Bonampak murals, we can see that the refusal to hear the voice of the 'subjects' lead to massive misunderstandings that likely warped other areas and other ideas of what we thought to be Maya.

If you ask any average person what happened to the Maya the widely accepted answer is that the Maya were erased, their civilization perished and only monuments are left to echo what was once their former glory. It's surprising to many scholars that the Maya actually live on, with descendants hailing all across lower Mexico and into Honduras. And depending on who you ask, Maya live on in the cities too, from Los Angeles to Chicago, from fluent K’iche’ speakers to detribalized youths.

However in archeology, an institution that was used to present the “facts” of this civilization, often erased these descendants from the narrative. From Stephens to Morley to even modern Mayanist’s, all can be guilty of fostering a narrative of knowledge that not only erased the modern Maya, but also excluded these descendants from knowledge creation. Many times, discovery was framed in only the context of the archeologist, and the local people who usually led these explorers to the feet of the site were forgotten and never mentioned in the research papers. Although it may seem like a purely sympathetic, emotional consideration, the exclusion and erasure of the modern descendants created an incorrect framework in which Maya academia and findings were not fully contextualized and thus, not fully understood. The fact that Maya lived on was a crucial piece if the puzzle that would help understand the field further, and the sub par framework could have been avoided if early archeologist and analysts had given more weight to the voice of the descendants they found in archeological artifacts.

When artifacts like the Altar Q of Copan were first discovered, the lineage it depicted on its sides was assumed to be a deceased dynasty. Although these noblemen reigned for long expanses of time in ‘ancient’ accounts, artifacts like these were often misinterpreted as being the last page of a book, in which the main characters were long gone and no one left to consult for its fate.

Stephens writes of stumbling into Copan for the first time “the city was desolate. No remnant of this race hangs round the ruins, with traditions handed down from father to son and from generation to generation… none to tell whence she came, to whom she belonged, or what caused her destruction...all was mystery, impenetrable mystery…”. Although it may seem like a rational explanation, that a civilization has ended because no one from their original civilization lives in modern times, we realize that this was actually an inexcusably wrong judgement.

The very fact many Maya sites were discovered was thanks to the local rural men and women who would lead these explorers to these “ruins”. Stephens himself was lead to Copan at the hand of the locals, and attempted to purchase the land, which had been part of the community for years. Explorers Dana and Ginger Lamb were lead and guided by local Lacandan Maya, and yet their gaudy documentary credits them only as docile ‘savages’ who were unfamiliar with the magnitude and implications of the sites that surrounded them.

This mentality that 1) Maya Civilization was long gone and 2) Modern locals were far removed form this history of ‘ancient’ Maya caused an incomplete narrative in academia that directly erased modern descendants and actors from their own story. In short, the biases of early archeologist in assuming locals held the sites in no importance and in no relation led them to ignore the very obvious connection between prehispanic Maya and their contemporary descendants. 

It’s hard to argue that we had no idea these people lived on, even directly after the Spanish conquest and massacre of many indigenous communities we see the survival of native voice through map making, rituals, and language. To assume and perpetrate a story that they don’t exist is harmful for scholarly purposes, as it shifts all findings and understandings to be contextualized in a time “of the past” and of which guards us from re-examining our conclusions to see if they are accurate with the consideration of Maya’s modern people and history. 

By eradicating a civilization that still lives on, we can harbor our biases and place blame on the distance from our current timeline for our misinterpretations, rather than confronting the reality that we have failed its modern descendants in creating an complete, accountable, respectable body of knowledge.