Communicating Objects and Cultural Preservation Among Contemporary Tz’utujil Ritual Practitioners

Summary

A unique building (Structure 12) excavated during the early 1990’s was interpreted as a divination house serving individuals living in the agricultural community of Cerén, based on its unusual architectural features and enigmatic artifact assemblage. The latter was composed of bits-and-pieces of mostly broken, worn, or repurposed items, some of which showed physical evidence suggesting they were collected from a discard context or dated to an earlier time period. The similarity between this unusual archaeological assemblage, and the practice of collecting sacred materials by contemporary Maya ritual specialists in the Guatemalan Highlands, formed the basis for my on-going research into the meanings and uses of archaeological materials by descendant communities. Contemporary Tz’utujil Maya ritual practitioners collect and curate artifacts, as well as other objects, as animate sacred materials. These charismatic items are attributed aspects of personhood by their human curators, and function as communicating objects. Individuals and sacred objects enter into reciprocal relationships with one another based on mutual caretaking. In this paper, I focus on how close relationships developed in such interactions serve an important role in the preservation of traditional Tz’utujil ontologies and cultural knowledge functioning, in the process, to moderate some of the intrusive forces of globalization.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• After the Volcano Erupted: Papers in Honor of Dr. Payson Sheets (Part 1)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage