Home Is Where the Rajawala’ Are: Making Habitable Space among the Kaqchikel and Other Maya

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Place-Making in Indigenous Mesoamerican Communities Past and Present" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Mayan communities are located within sacred space. Each town has four principal guardians roughly aligned with cardinal directions and, in precontact times, a central altar. Each of the guardians is associated with a landmark (an escarpment, a cave/overhang, a spring or stream, a mountain) and embodies the energy of one of the 260-days of the ritual calendar, *cholq’ij. Ceremonies performed at these guardian altars ensure the well-being of the community and offer protection during times of conflict. When refugees from the 35-year genocidal war were repatriated to the Ixcan region of Guatemala, the first task of the *ajq’ija’ “ritual specialists” accompanying these displaced returnees was to identify the locations of the potential guardian energies and establish altars, thus defining the new townsites as Mayan living spaces. On a smaller scale, each new dwelling is imbued with energy during its construction. This energy must be identified and named in a series of ceremonies. It then becomes the household *lar, or guardian spirit. Energy is immanent within the natural and built world, but it takes Mayan ritual action to define the space as a living place, a place that is alive and one that is suitable for living within.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• Place-Making in Indigenous Mesoamerican Communities Past and Present

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Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32069