Notes on Maya

We have noted that the names for people and places in the land of the Maya are not all Mayan. In fact the people of the land of the Maya are not now nor have the ever been all Maya.

Still the faces seen there now look Mayan. The cultural remnants found in, say, the Yucatan peninsula are strongly Maya, and they are many.

Ancient gods and rites persist. Hach Chac Yum, Akyantho, Usukum, Kakich and other gods are remembered. Pilgrimages are still made. Offerings are often. Copal is still burnt. Prayers are made and purification carried out.


The Mexican state of Tabasco can be a good place to start a visit to the land of the Maya. In the region of Chontalpa(Putun-Maya) is the town of Cardenas. If you want to see ruins, Comalcaco is not far from Cardenas.

Comalcaco is of interest to some as a place of debunking. as a student you may have heard that Arabs brought bricks to the Spaniards, and that the Spaniards brought them to the Maya. At Comaclco are found pre-Colombian son-backed bricks of clay. Stucco made of oyster and other shells was used for ornamation and for covering those bricks.

From Cardenas you might drive to Villahermosa and then on to Palenque in Chiapas. I don't mean to turn this history essay into a travelogue, but they do often seem to go together. As for history, La Venta Park, may be a good place to meet the Olmec, the Maya's predecessors. I stop here to allow you to remember what you will of incomparable Palenque.

Tayasal

Consider that Spanish made the first European contact with the Maya in 1511 AD when one of the Spanish explorer Valdivia's ships was wrecked off the east coast of of the Yucatan Peninsula during an expedition from Panama to Santo Domingo. Two survivors of that shipwreck began a penetration of a Mayan culture still free from contact with 'the West.' The names of those survivors were Jeronimo de Aguilar and Gonzalo Guerrero. Guerrero integrated into the Maya culture and later fought on their side against the conquerors. Aguilar, a lay brother forced into slavery by his captors, joined Hernan Cortez at Cozumel in 1519.
The Peninsula of Yucatan was discovered for the 'western world' by Francisco Hernzadez de Cordoba in 1517. Systematic collection of data on the culture of the Maya until the arrival of Fray Diego de Landa in 1549. Although Land had Mayas killed, destroyed cultural remains and burned codices, he also gathered a great deal of data on the Maya. In 1566 he returned ti Spain, and wrote Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan, perhaps the most important document we have in Maya culture.

The territory occupied my the Maya include what is now the Mexican states of Yucatan, Campeche, Tabasco, Quintana Roo, and the eastern half of Chiapas. As well as the greater part of Guatamala, excepting a strip along the Pacific Coast, the western section of Honduras, and a small portion of Belize.
Territory of the Maya may be divided into three geographical zones: the southern highlands characterized by the Cordillera of Central America with peaks over 13,000 feet and containing the beautiful lakes of Amitlan, Atitlan, and Isabel; the central lowland characterized by savanna and jungle with a river system mostly merging to fir the River Usmacinta. On an island in a lake in the central lowlands stood a stronghold of the Maya called Tayasal; the northern zone mostly covered by thorn bush and containing the famous cenotes.
Mayas constructed bottle-shaped cisterns called chultunes.
The Mayan languages are usually divided into ten main groups.
The Maya had close, early contact with the Zoque.