
Indigenous Women Are Publishing the First Maya Works in over 400 Years - bryanrasmussen
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/indigenous-maya-women-bookmakers-collective-workshop
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empath75
I spent a month living with a Mayan family in the Guatemalan highlands. Around
just one lake in Guatemala there are three different Mayan languages in use —
K'iche', Kaqchikel and Tz'utujil.

Everyone spoke Spanish for tourists, but for the most part it was not the
primary language people spoke.

I was quite surprised at how completely Mayan the culture was. I had expected
it to have been completely subsumed by Spanish Catholicism over the centuries,
but there is a substrate of the old religion and rituals everywhere, even in
supposedly catholic festivals.

The impression you have from casual knowledge of the history is that Mayans
used to be in Central America and then the Spanish came and they all died out,
but that is far from the case. It’s a culture that is very much still alive.

If this interests you, I highly recommend visiting Guatemala. Book a flight to
Guatemala City, take a bus to Antigua and from there you can find buses that
go all throughout the Mayan highlands — lake atitlan, xela, Tikal. It’s a
beautiful country with beautiful people and not at all what you would expect
from the way people talk about it.

~~~
tictoc
No human sacrifices? It's slightly in jest, but doesn't that happen as well?

~~~
empath75
I have a story about that, actually:

I was with a bunch of pre-med students from california that were doing a free
clinic down there, and a few of them had parents from the area, and spoke
spanish.

We were on a bus tour back from tikal, driven by a couple of Mayan tour guides
from Lake atitlan, and they started telling ghost stores in spanish while one
of the pre-med students was translating for everyone else.

They told this story of a backpacker who had brought a ouija board with them
to their town and how they had accidentally opened up some kind of portal and
let spirits loose that cursed the town or something like that, and then
eventually some old woman in the town discovered that it had been the ouija
board that was the source of it, so the town all went to the backpacker's
hostel and burned him.

Or at least that was how it was translated and then after everyone in the car
was like "WHAAAA" they clarified that "lo" meant "it" and not "him" and that
they had burned the ouija board-- gender in spanish can be a little confusing.

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crawfordcomeaux
I'd have nothing to say after reading this if I'd read it 5 years ago while
deep in addiction and still big into the capitalist game. I'm a Cajun from
Louisiana who never connected with my roots, since I was escaping from the
world when the opportunities were presented to me. So the value being lost
from people being unable to preserve their culture would've been of little
concern to me.

However, after hearing native storytellers around where I live share their
ancestral stories, I can say what I think is at stake here, and it's
incredibly important to our collective well-being.

I recognized lessons in their stories as universal lessons, ones I've had to
learn about how to meet our needs and to be in the world. These were lessons I
was learning in recovery for myself from various sources, and none of them
were coming from what I was seeing of mainstream society. Mainstream society
in the US, as far as I've been able to see, is typically teaching the
opposite.

I don't know what my ancestors' stories teach. If they're like the indigenous
teachings I've heard, then I may have had useful guidance through my past
struggles. The loss of such generational collective knowledge slows us all
down.

~~~
mc32
A question of import would be are they applicable in a modern world?

Religions go through transformation to fit and remain relevant. But never the
less fewer people call themselves religious, because for many it’s less
relevant and applicable in a modern world.

Education is the same. What was applicable and relevant in the 1900s isn’t the
same as what’s relevant today. Of course math remains a constant.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
Some people enjoy the stories of the past. I'm not religious, but I find joy
in reading the myths and legends from bygone eras - regardless if Prometheus
isn't particularly applicable to today's modern world.

I don't know what you mean by math being constant - I think you'll find the
Mayans had a different understanding of math than we do.

~~~
mc32
I agree they are fine as myths and mythology. They can be illustrative and
entertaining. But not sure they can tell us about navigating the modern aspect
of today’s world (there are constants like interpersonal relationships, duties
and such).

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
To be clear - we're getting off topic - these woman are actually recording
their modern poetry in the Tzotzil language.

Why does it have to be relevant to navigating all of the modern world? They of
course won't have details on how to maximize your side hustle, but the
constants, like interpersonal relationships, are still the majority of our
worldly interactions.

~~~
mc32
I think that’s a worthy cause for sure. Preservation for posterity is a good
thing. However I was responding to @crawfordcomeaux‘s take on some his own
experiences. He may be right of course. I was seeking discourse on his take.

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MandieD
The only thing this article lacks is a concrete way for those of us impressed
with what these women are doing to help them continue their important work.

~~~
ilaksh
Maybe just ask them if they have a PayPal or something on their Facebook page.
[https://www.facebook.com/taller.lenateros](https://www.facebook.com/taller.lenateros)

Also at least one of the books is on Amazon
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01IMJQNVK/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_...](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01IMJQNVK/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_WL9uDbEX989Z0)
so maybe check to make sure they get the money from that.

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malandrew
25 points and zero comments. Voting ring?

~~~
dang
It is not uncommon for a submission to get that many points and zero comments.
No voting ring is implied. The votes on this submission look perfectly legit
to me. Probably they were from users who found the article interesting but
don't have anything substantive to say about the topic.

Threads are sensitive to initial conditions, so could you please email
hn@ycombinator.com with concerns like this instead of making it the first
comment in a thread?

~~~
malandrew
Sure, will do. I compared this post to all the other ones on the first two
pages and pretty much everything had comments by they had ~10 points.

