Teaching Maya Art History

Marvin Cohodas, University of British Columbia,

British Columbia, Canada

ABSTRACTS

Abstracto: 30 afios de experienaa instructiva han Ilevado al autor a reconocer

temas importantes que surgen al presentar la historia del arte Maya. Real-
izando las ramificaciones politicas de sus esfuerzos, el ha comenzado a tomar
responsabilidad por ellos involucrando al pueblo Maya en su instruccion y e n
sus reconstrucciones del pasado, que el argumenta han mejorado tanto la cap
i
idad de su instruccion como la etica de su pr&tica.

Resume: 30 ans d'exp~rience dans I'enseignement ont mene I'auteur a identi-

fier les questions importantes que soulevent la presentation de I'Histoire de
I'Art Maya. RealJsant les implications politiques de ses efforts, il a commence
0
assumer sa d~marche en associant des Mayas a son enseignement eta ses re- 0

constructions du passe, ce qui, selon lui, a amelior~ a la lois la qualite de son en-
5
seignement et I'ethique de sa pratique.
E
k.J

After two decades of teaching Maya art history and writing particularly on
iconographic interpretations, about ten years ago I was shocked to read a paper
by art historian Whitney Davis (1993) that clearly laid out a Derridean critique
of structuralism as it applied to the Mayaist discourse. The critique hit home
and led me to doubt everything I had thought and published. I began a process
of reeducation that also led through further readings in poststructuralism to the
more politicised critiques of Richard Wilk (1985), Christopher Tilley (1989), E
and Anne Pyburn (2003). At the same time, I became involved with the local
Maya community in southwestern British Columbia and came to see archaeol-
ogy more from their point of view. This brief contribution is a report on some
of the revisions I have made to courses on Maya art history that take into ac- o
count not only the bias and provisionality that characterise all reconstructions o
of the past, but also the rights and needs of living Maya people (estimated at
twelve million). While such narratives as this cannot escape a tone of self-
congratulation, I hope that readers will understand the following as provisional,

9
10 MA R VtN COHODA5

merely the current state of a process that has been fraught with struggles and
clumsy missteps as well as successes.

Part I: Understanding the Discourse

Accepted stories of the ancient Maya are real thrillers. At age eleven, I read an
historical novel directed at juveniles that took the viewpoint of a Maya artist's
son at Chich6n Itz~ coping with a brutal Toltec regime with its distasteful
practise of human sacrifice. I was hooked! This gripping story built on the in-
terpretations of Eric Thompson and Morley among others. This narrative has
since fallen out of favour--I recently bought another historical novel about
ancient Chich~n Itzfi, directed at the same age group that instead incorporates
the interpretations of Linda Schele and David Freidel.
Reading the cultural-historical literature on the ancient Maya one is struck
by the prevalence of gripping stories even in academic contexts. I am not re-
ferring to the vignettes that Schele, Freidel, and Parker adapted from Thomp-
son, which are presented as fiction in part to legitimate the rest of the text as
"fact." In my opinion, the text outside the vignettes is equally fictional, and an
equally gripping tale. Discourse on the ancient Maya has long been character-
ized by a hardly discernable boundary between popular literature (e.g., Na-
tional Geographic, Archaeology, Expedition) and academic literature (e.g., Latin
American Antiquity, Mesoamerica). In both bodies of literature, hypotheses
tend to be accepted as fact in order to connect the data into a believable nar-
rative. Much of this narrative is based on the same themes that inspire Holly-
wood movies and computer games: power, mystery, and treasure. These
archaeological stories about the ancient Maya have had a profound impact on
the general public, in part because the promotion of Mayaist archaeology has
outstripped that of any other pre-Hispanic societ}: As Castafieda (1996) and
Montejo (1999) have pointed out, the construction of Maya day-keepers and
healers as "shamans" has also led to enormous popularity among the "new
age" set, resulting in ludicrous caricatures of Maya knowledge, belief, and his-
tory. Thus students often come into my classes assuming that the term Maya
refers to all pre-Hispanic societies.
The story of the "Maya collapse" has a particularly strong grip on the
North American public because of the number of object lessons it appears to
provide for First World societies. It is perpetuated in archaeological literature
in part because the premise that we can solve our environmental problems by
learning from Maya mistakes has probably led to more funding than any
other research issue. Jared Diamond's adaptation of highly questionable in-
terpretations of the so-called Maya collapse to demonstrate a relation be-
tween "fallen" civilizations and environmental degradation probably did not
 Teaching Maya Art History 11

surprise anyone, whether scholar or general public. One result of the promo-
tion of this story is that at least half of my students are unaware that Maya
people still exist. It is easy to see why this would be so. Scholars (archaeolo-
gists, art historians, epigraphers) who know the contradictory evidence in
tremendous detail will nevertheless write in general terms about the "Maya
collapse" and "disappearance of Maya civilization" without bothering to
mention the continued existence of important cities in Yucat~m (e.g.,
Chich~n Itzfi), Belize (e.g., Lamanai), or highland Guatemala (e.g., Zaculew/
Zaq Txo-tx) that limits the "collapse" to only a third of the Maya region. But
collapse and disappearance make particularly good stories when linked to
contemporary concerns with warfare or environmental degradation (Wilk
1985), and so they continue to write these stories in both academic and pub-
lic venues and retell them in video documentaries. These stories, facilitated
by the actions of national governments and the archaeological community,
work to separate Maya people from their heritage and appropriate the right
and means to tell their history.
The "Maya collapse" is not the only myth that supports this appropriation.
The largely unquestioned yet hypothetical two-class model of an educated,
innovative, and culture-creating elite guiding an illiterate and passive peas-
antry does the same kind of work, when combined with the spurious as-
sumption that this elite was eliminated in the process of the conquest, leaving
only the peasantry in desperate need of paternal guidance. The collapse and
the passive peasant are not the result of "objective" inquiry but are instead
part of the reinvention of the Maya for present purposes (Tilley 1989). Recog-
nising the use of politicised and hypothetical models as a basis of interpreta-
tion helps students understand some of the relations between knowledge and
power in other aspects of their university studies as well as outside the aca-
demic context.
In teaching, I attempt to impart a healthy scepticism in students who are
primed to trust not only published articles but also infotainment documen-
taries presented as science on "educational" television channels. More than
half of the assigned readings are designed not to provide background infor-
mation on class lectures but rather to train students in critical analysis. While
brief classroom exposure is insufficient for students to control enough infor-
mation to analyse its manipulation in an interpretive text, it is still possible for
them to evaluate an argument by identifying the frameworks, models, and
methodologies of interpretation. After a series of assignments and discus-
sions, students are asked to apply this method of analysis to a recent article. I
have developed what I call the "checklist" to guide students in this analysis.
This checklist (available at http://www.indiana.edu/Narch/saa/matrix/) will
undoubtedly continue to evolve and I appreciate any suggestions for its im-
provement.
12 MARVIN COHODAS

Part II: Responsibility to the Living Maya

Recently in Vancouver some of my students and I joined a Maya community

protest of the Glamis Mining Company whose activities in western Guatemala
have been militarily supported by the Guatemalan government against resist-
ance by Maya people. At issue is the problem that mining companies follow
environmental guidelines of the countries in which they work, so that they are
permitted much greater harm to the environment and much greater impact
on Indigenous populations in the looser conditions of Guatemala than in
Canada. Similarly, archaeologists working in Canada and the United States
would be required to collaborate with Indigenous groups whose heritage they
excavate, and such collaboration might involve restrictions on excavation and
publication. The same archaeologists working in Central America do not fol-
low such guidelines, suggesting that, as with mining, compliance is a matter of
enforcement rather than professional ethics or morality. The dominant frame-
work for archaeology and many other practises is therefore colonial exploita-
tion: the ground is mined for archaeological treasures and data and
contemporary Maya are mined for information to help explain those objects
and data. Any financial or political rewards are concentrated among the ex-
ploiters and only a bit trickles down to the Maya people who in fact make
these practises possible.
Victoriano Choco (e-mail correspondence 2001), a Q'eqchi' Maya from
Belize studying archaeology in the United States, articulates a connection be-
tween the exclusion of Maya voices from decisions about the excavation and
interpretation of their ancestors' remains and the exclusion of Maya voices
from governmental decisions. If archaeological exclusion of Maya voices helps
normalise their exclusion from other practises that directly affect their lives,
then archaeologists have an opportunity to set a contrary example of respect
for Indigenous peoples rather than mere conformity to national law, and this
could in turn affect public respect for these people and their place in the na-
tional constitutions and exercise of legal and governmental rights.
In art history classes we have the opportunity to step back from this ex-
ploitative relationship while at the same time, admittedly, profiting from it,
because we study imagery that archaeologists have uncovered. Not solely ar-
chaeologists of course, as we also study objects that have been mined from the
ground by nonprofessionals. True, many archaeologists frown on this invasion
of their territory and refuse to consider "looted" objects in their studies, but
many such archaeologists are nevertheless pleased to accept grant money from
organisations that also build private collections of"looted" objects. For many
Maya, archaeologists are also looters, and we can easily understand why. How
many museums of ancient Maya objects are under Maya control?
The issue of museums reminds us that the impact of archaeological dis-
course on Maya people exceeds the local context in which archaeologists are
 Teaching Moyo Art History 13

becoming increasingly proactive as infrastructure planners. Most discourse on

ancient Maya society is produced in Europe and North America, where it is
also consumed and endlessly recycled. Among the consuming audience for
these interpretations are Maya people both in their homelands and in dias-
pora communities throughout Central and North America. I have seen their
anger and disgust at the way they and their ancestors have come to be pre-
sented to the public.
I have only recently begun to see the archaeological discourse on ancient
Maya society more from the viewpoint of contemporary Maya. Instead, I spent
decades of my career unaffected by the lives of present Maya. Like others, I saw
Maya as useful informants for interpretation of ancient imagery. I encountered
little information on the horrific violence perpetrated on Maya peoples caught
between Marxist guerrillas and the U.S.-supported Guatemalan government,
and what I did encounter seemed more statistics than reality. I even naively
took a class to Mexico and Guatemala in 1981, unaware of the violence sur-
rounding our excursions. Shortly after his arrival in Vancouver as a refugee
from torture and imprisonment in Guatemala, Mejandro Ruiz requested the
use of some of my slides for an exhibit he was mounting to publicise the vio-
lence in his homeland from which he had recently escaped, but still I saw no
connection to my own work. Like many others, I saw the past as important and
the present as an inconvenience. To my shame, it was not until I needed the
Maya community's help that I could see any way in which I could help them.
In fact, they demanded reciprocation, and I am grateful for that push toward a
more ethical direction.
My interaction with the local Maya community, which has so affected my
viewpoint and teaching approach, was initiated through work with them
(from 1998-2002) on an exhibit that they curated and I facilitated. The ex-
hibit, titled "Our Lives as Mayas," was on display in the Fine Arts Gallery of the
University of British Columbia in May 2002.
My first meeting with the local Maya community was facilitated by the
same Mejandro Ruiz, now one of the leaders of an organised Vancouver-area
Maya community. At that meeting, he explained to me that he had come to
Canada after having been kidnapped and tortured in Huehuetenango Depart-
ment, then escaped to Mexico, again imprisoned and eventually aided by
church members to take refuge in Canada. His narrative reinforced the im-
portant concept of which I was still only dimly aware, that present Maya are
more than subjects of a touristic gaze, wearing beautiful clothing in a beauti-
ful landscape. He awakened me to the issue that academic research on ancient
Maya art could not be separated from the lives of present Maya. Don Mejan-
dro's narrative made me realise that priority should be placed on the lives,
rights, and opportunities of living Maya, and that in fact nothing should be
published about the ancient Maya that would potentially harm their living de-
scendants. I had read and completely agreed with Christopher Tilley's (1989)
14 MARVIN COHODA5

"Archaeology as Socio-Political Action in the Present" but the importance of

this understanding became suddenly, and brutally, apparent.
On the same occasion Don Alejandro sat me down with his wife, Zoila
Ramirez, and explained that his community is offended by scholars who
write about Maya families as dominated by the males. As this was my first en-
counter, and I was myself researching representations of gender and had
come to the conclusion of pronounced gender hierarchy, I was a little
dubious--all the more so because Dofia Zoila sat silently while Don Alejan-
dro alone talked about their equality. It seemed to me that their actions be-
lied his words. But I was wrong. Dofla Zoila's silence had nothing to do with
subservience but was instead a choice that many Maya women make not to
interact with a stranger until they are sure of that person's intentions. As I
have come to know this couple, I realise that she is as much a leader of the
community as he. Indeed, both have served as presidents of the Maya Cul-
tural Society of British Columbia. In no Maya family I know is hierarchy the
dominant gender relation: instead, while they maintain a division of labour
in some areas, all couples I have met cooperate generally as equal partners.
This overall equality has been hard won, and several members of British Co-
lumbia's Maya community have talked about the social costs of rejecting the
values of gender hierarchy inculcated through church and school. Despite
prodding by Pyburn (2004), I had been reluctant to believe that examples of
gender asymmetry in contemporary Maya populations documented by an-
thropologists are largely a result of the European conquest and its aftermath,
but these Maya stories have led me to rethink the interpretation of ancient
Maya society and to beware of imposing European categories and hierarchies
on pre-Hispanic societies.
I would not argue that the gender relations I have witnessed can be de-
clared typical for all Maya of all time, and in fact I have argued in print that
ancient Maya relations were likely characterised by a range of hierarchies as
well as heterarchies intersecting with age, physical condition, and socioeco-
nomic status (Cohodas 2004). But neither would I agree that archaeologists
know better about such issues than descendant populations because they are
"scientists." Both interpretations are situated and biased. Both interpretations
are also potentially strategic and self-serving interventions into current so-
ciopolitical situations. If archaeological interpretations are biased in service of
the archaeological and general North American community, while Maya in-
terpretations are biased in service of Maya communities, then I choose to
align myself with the latter.
A recent meeting with another Maya couple had a similar impact on a stu-
dent in my course on Maya art. Francisca Sales was invited to present and
demonstrate Maya weaving. Dofia Francisca does not speak sufficient English
for the presentation. Her primary language is Mam, but it would have been
possible for her to present in Spanish and for me to translate. Instead, her hus-
 Teaching Mayo Art History 15

band, Maxima Morales, offered to

translate. Taking advantage of the pres-
ence of both, I asked them to begin by
explaining to the class how they came to
Vancouver. This is precisely because
speaking of the genocidal counter-
insurgency campaigns of the early
1980s is, for students who were not yet
born, merely a matter of statistics. But
the students were as moved and enlight-
ened by the personal narrative of Dofia
Francisca and Don Maxima of the mas-
sacre in their community, their flight
into refuge in Chiapas, deportation to
Campeche, and emigration to Canada
as I had been by Don Mejandro's narra-
tive several years prior.
One undergraduate student, Peter Figure 1. Maximo Morales and Fran-
cisca Sales,University of British Colum-
MacRae, was particularly affected. Peter bia, January 13, 2005
had recently returned from seeing the
"Courtly Art" exhibit in San Francisco (curated by Mary Miller and Simon
Martin 2004) and was studying the catalogue for a paper in a methodology
seminar. He was so struck by the difference between the presentation of gen-
der relations in the exhibit (where women are presented in conservative North
American terms as marginal but decorative and domestic) and the relation
that he had seen enacted, that he made this the focus of his paper and also pre-
sented a version in a public symposium (MacRae 2005). His point, in part, was
that collaboration with Maya--rather than simply treating them as inform-
ants on the past--could never result in such a skewed presentation as oc-
curred in this "blockbuster" exhibit, because the organisers would have had to
confront and respect a radically different point of view.
Peter MacRae's commentary made me recall a similar experience. In work-
ing on the 2002 exhibit "Our Lives as Mayas;' I transcribed conversations be-
tween families on a number of topics, including not only weaving but also
health and education, spirituality and ceremony, and family relations as a
source of strength in escaping danger, as well as agriculture focussing on Maize.
Their discussion of Maize was particularly illuminating to me and changed my
attitude toward lecturing on ancient Maya art. I want to note that they were not
lecturing to me about beliefs and practises but were instead focussed on shar-
ing knowledge and memories with each other. As a result, the content and tone
of their conversation was full of reverence for the sacred Maize, which is the
stuff and sustenance of their lives, even in exile. Their knowledge and reverence
taught me to respect sincere beliefs no matter how different from my own, and
16 MARVIN C.OHODAS

this respect has since deepened from the experiences of ceremonies to which I
have been invited.
I contrast this circumstance with a public lecture given in Vancouver, also
in 2002, and subsequently published (Smalley and Blake 2003). The lecture
and the article argue on the basis of admittedly circumstantial evidence that
Maize was first cultivated for production of alcohol rather than food. Lix
Lopez, an elder of the Maya community and a spiritual guide, immediately
commented when he saw the announcement of this presentation that it po-
tentially reinforces the stereotype of the "drunken Indian)' At the lecture, Tat
Lix spoke out concerning the sacredness of Maize and the reverence of Mam
people for the mountain cleft (called Tuj Paxal) from which Maize first
emerged. The Mam story of the emergence of Maize is well known, wide-
spread, and correlates in many aspects with classic and preclassic Mesoameri-
can representations. Such origin stories evolve with narrative devices added,
changed, or falling into disuse, but through these changes they may preserve
crucial spiritual content. For example, many members of Christian, Jewish,
and Islamic sects who no longer believe that "God" made the earth in six days
still believe this deity created the universe. The reverence for Maize as the es-
sential sustenance for human life has clearly underlain various forms of the
story for millennia. I would therefore agree with Tat Lix that it is unlikely that
Maize could have achieved such sacredness unless its original cultivation had
been for sustenance, not alcohol. My point is the same as Peter's: meaningful
collaboration would have made it unthinkable to publish an insufficiently
supported speculation that is potentially detrimental both to the persons and
the dignity of Indigenous Mesoamericans. Furthermore, now that I am in the
habit of asking members of the Maya community to read manuscripts before
I send them for publication, it strikes me as improper that when the Smalley
and Blake article was accorded the "Current Anthropology Treatment," none
of the respondents were Indigenous.
Recently, Maize has achieved great prominence in the Maya discourse in a
very different way. The thrust of interpretation of ancient Maya imagery has
changed in the past decade from "savagery" and "violence" to "myth" and the
sacred Maize. Out of this shift, often traced to Karl Taube's 1985 article, has
come one of the most productive avenues of interpretation perhaps to have
ever emerged in Maya studies, and it is one that is respectful to the feelings and
beliefs of living Maya people. Perhaps real collaboration with Maya people
would have both prevented the "Blood of Kings" approach and brought the
topic of Maize-centred cosmogony to the fore decades earlier. However, the
current "Maize discourse" is not entirely rosy. Comparisons of the K'iche'
Maya Popol Vuh with representations of the Maize epic in late preclassic- and
classic-period lowland Maya imagery have not resulted in arguments of a
shared set of beliefs and images but rather in a reassertion of the priority of
the lowlands over the highlands, and of the classic period over the present,
 Teaching Maya Art History 17

that reinscribes the constructed inferiority of the present Maya to their an-
cient ancestors. This approach needs to be rethought for its political motiva-
tions and potential harm to living Maya.
That collaboration can point out avenues of research that also benefit
Maya people may be illustrated with a specific example that also arose out of
research for the "Our Lives as Mayas" exhibit. This example concerns the an-
cient settlement of Zaq Txo-tx ("White Earth"), known popularly by the
K'iche version of its name: Zaculew. Contemporary Mam people see Zaq
Txo-tx as sacred and it has never ceased being an important place for cere-
monies. For example, John Lloyd Stephens noted from his visit in 1840 that
the non-Maya "owner" of the property was in the habit of chasing away Maya
priests!
In deference to the Mare community, which for various reasons was most
central to the exhibit, I studied the 1953 excavation report on "Zaculeu"
(Woodbury and Trik 1953), with the intent of including some material on the
pre-Hispanic history of the settlement for the exhibit. ! had first looked into
some general texts on Maya archaeology, in which the usual treatment was to
dismiss highland sites as postclassic and therefore by definition decadent. One
text dismissed them as merely "Mexican" rather than Maya. It was then sur-
prising to find not only that the largest of the Zaq Txo-tx monuments date
from the classic period, but also that this history from the classic through the
early postclassic (plumbate horizon) and the late postclassic is unbroken
rather than disjointed. There was no "collapse" and no "disappearance" of
Maya civilization here, and similar continuities are evident from most areas of
the highlands. It was fortunate that the information fulfilled a Maya agenda
for archaeology as expressed by Demetrio Cojti Cuxil, which is the tracing of
a continuous Maya history from ancient to present times (Warren 1998:74).
The exercise taught me both a general and a specific lesson. The specific
lesson was that the "collapse" is largely restricted to the southern Maya low-
lands and is incorrectly and egregiously applied as a general phenomenon ex-
tending a public impression that the Maya have disappeared. The general
lesson is that which Pyburn (2003) and other feminist archaeologists have
been teaching, that responsibility to a different audience opens the researcher
to asking different questions that in turn lead to unexpected forms of knowl-
edge. As they have shown, bias is inescapable, and claims of "objectivity" are
always false and lead only to poor "science." In contrast, the acknowledgment
and productive use of bias leads to a more honest, informative, and varied
"science." In class I acknowledge a bias toward the rights, needs, and sensitiv-
ities of contemporary Maya people.
As a result of these interactions with the Maya community and growing
concern with the lives and rights of contemporary Maya, I have made other
changes in my teaching. First, realising that ending my course with the con-
quest was adding to the perception that Maya had disappeared or had become
18 MARVIN COHODA5

insignificant, I now carry the material through to the present with sections on
Maya weaving and the Baile de la Conquista along with an inquiry into illus-
trations chosen for publications of the Popol Vuh. Second, I include works of
contemporary Maya among required readings (e.g., Victor Montejo, Avexnim
Cojti Ren). Third, on the course support website (WebCT format), I include
a dynamically updated archive of news stories concerning contemporary or
ancient Maya that I have selected from various RSS feeds. These latter have
sparked important discussions. I have also invited members of the Maya com-
munity to discuss their artistic production and their lives and beliefs with
classes. This latter process has had the greatest impact, especially among stu-
dents inclined to an interest in politics. Students have also been invited to at-
tend Maya ceremonies with me and to share in the harvest celebration in the
Maya Community Garden on the University of British Columbia's South
Farm. Through these activities, students are constantly confronted with the
need to relate their study of the ancient Maya to the lives of present Maya, but
they are never encouraged to exoticise the Maya they meet as survivors of
a mysterious past. Instead they are encouraged to think of Maya as fully
modern people with a different heritage, and also as a people whose rights
have been abused not only by governments but also by the discourse that we
study.
In conclusion, contemporary Maya have much more to teach than
"shamanism" or language, and members of the Maya community in Vancou-
ver have been my most important teachers as well as having a profound affect
on students in Maya art classes. While I cannot shake a primary interest in the
classic period that I have nurtured for 45 years, I can still recognise that
morally the living Maya must be considered "more important" than telling
stories about the ancient Maya. The compromise I have reached is to teach
primarily about the classic Maya but to do so in ways that are responsible to,
respectful of, and incorporate the voices of present Maya.
To review, my concerns with the lives of contemporary Maya as well as the
quality of the discourse on the ancient Maya have led to the following peda-
gogical revisions or additions that might be useful to others and should also
be adaptable to the study of other ancient societies:

Published materials are critically analysed to explain the dominant

frameworks and assumptions as well as their genealogies, including my
own writings and popular works (articles, documentaries), since these
affect opinion and thus can support political decisions.
The "collapse" and "disappearance" tropes are rejected and instead the
continued and unbroken history of Maya peoples is demonstrated. This
aspect is combined with recognition that Maya leadership did not end
with the conquest, leaving a gap that non-Maya scholars and scientists
could fill.
 Teaching Mayo Art History 19

9 Readings by contemporary Maya writers are assigned.

9 Involvement with the local Maya community is maintained, including
guest speakers and reciprocation through service to the community
whenever possible. (Note that Maya communities exist in or near most
large cities in North America.)
9 Viewpoint is shifted from considering present Maya society as inferior
to the classic Maya and present Maya people as tools for understanding
this past: the ancient past is a fascinating topic but it is not more "im-
portant."
9 A general and overarching sensitivity is maintained to the potential effect
of interpretations of ancient Maya society and history on their living de-
scendants, along with an acknowledgment that discourse on the ancient
Maya has already had an impact on their lives.

Acknowledgments
I would like to express sincere appreciation to Meiandro Ruiz, Zoila Ramirez,
Liz Lopez, Maxima Morales, and Francsica Sales for reading the final draft of
this narrative, to Mejandro Ruiz for providing spellings for Mare Maya place
names.

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