The concept of wrapping and its ontological character among the Maya
Keywords:
ceremonial wrappings, Textile Beings, relational fields, ontologies, Maya
Abstract
A textile with its threads, its weft, and warp, for the western ontology, is a simple utilitarian object or a body adornment. This study will discuss the wrapping among the Maya, starting from concepts present in ancient and contemporary Maya thought to identify the ontological character of some ceremonial textiles present in these societies. Based on an approach proposed by the ontological archaeology, I will discuss the conceptual proximity between the terms pix (to wrap, to cover) and pixan (soul, or something that is received from the other world), to think of the wrap as an element of articulation between the two ontological spaces, allowing the presence of beings and entities of the cosmos in Maya cities of the Classic and contemporary periods.
By generating the materialization and performance of these beings, wraps create relational fields that activate these entities temporarily in ordinary space, establishing effective contact with the Maya cosmos. A brief analysis of these Textile Beings present during the Classic Period will be discussed as a case study, in order to consider such a conceptual proposal.
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References
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Berdan, Frances F. 1987 Cotton in Aztec Mexico: Production, Distribution and Uses. Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Summer, 1987):235-262.
Boot, Erik 2009 The Updated Preliminary Classic Maya-English, English-Classic Maya Vocabulary of Hieroglyphic Readings. Mesoweb Resources. http://www.mesoweb.com/resources/vocabulary/index.html, accessed: October 10, 2020.
Booremanse, Didier 1999 Seventeenth Century Clothing of the Chol Lacandón and Neighboring Groups of the Southern Lowlands. In Mayan Clothing and Weaving Through the Ages, organized by Barbara Knoke de Arathoon, Nancie L. González, John M. Willemsen Devlin, translated by Jennifer H. de Keller, pp. 73-80. Museo Ixchel del Traje Indígena de Guatemala, Guatemala City.
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Calvin, Inga 2004 Maya Hieroglyphics Study Guide. www.famsi.org/mayawriting/calvin/glyph_guide.pdf
Cano Contreras, Eréndira Juanita, Jaime Plage Pliego and Erin Estrada Lugo 2018 La Construcción de la noción de Cosmovisión Maya en Guatemala. Revista Pueblos y Fronteras Digital, V. 13, pp. 1-29.
Carmack, Robert M. 1981 The Quiché Maya of Utatlán. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.
Carrasco, Michael 2005 The Mask Flange Iconographic Complex: The Art, Ritual, and History of a Maya Sacred Image. PhD thesis in Philosophy. The University of Texas at Austin, Austin.
Carlsen, Robert S. 2011 The War for the Heart & Soul of a Highland Maya Town. University of Texas Press, Austin.
Christenson, Allen J. 2006 Sacred Bundle Cults in Highland Guatemala. In Sacred Bundles. Ritual Acts of Wrapping and Binding in Mesoamerica, organized by Julia Guernsey and Kent F. Reilly, pp. 226-246. Boundary end Archaeology Research Center, North Carolina.
De La Garza, Mercedes; Guillermo Bernal Romero; Martha Cuevas García 2012 Palenque-Lakamha’: Una presencia inmortal del pasado indígena. Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico.
Deleuze, Gilles; Felix Guattari 1999 Mil Platôs. Capitalismo e Esquizofrenia. Vol. 3. Translation, Aurélio Guerra Neto, Ana Lúcia de Oliveira, Lúcia Cláudia Leão e Suely Rolnik. Editora 34, São Paulo.
Edgeworth, Matt 2012 Follow the Cut, Follow the Rhythm, Follow the Material. Norwegian Archaeological Review, vol. 45, n.1:76-92.
Fowler, Chris 2013 Dynamic Assemblages, or the Past is What Endures: Change and the Duration of Relations. In Archaeology after interpretation: Returning to Archaeological Theory, organized by Benjamin Alberti; Andrew Merion Jones; Joshua Pollard, pp. 235-256. Routledge, London and New York.
Gell, Alfred 1998 Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory. Clarendon, Oxford.
Grecco Pacheco, Daniel 2019 Ontologías envueltas: conceptos y prácticas sobre los envoltorios de tejido entre los mayas. Antípoda, Revista de Antropología y Arqueología, n. 37, p. 119-135. https://doi.org/10.7440/antipoda37.2019.06
Haber, Alejandro 2006 Agricola est quem domus demonstrat. In Contra la tiranía tipológica en arqueología: una visión desde Suramérica, organized by Cristóbal Gnecco et al., pp. 57-73. Universidad de Los Andes, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, CESO, Bogotá.
Haraway, Donna 1995 Saberes Localizados: a questão da ciência para o feminismo e o privilégio da perspectiva parcial. Cadernos Pagu (5):07-41.
Harrison-Buck, Eleanor 2020 Maya relations with the material world. In The Maya World, edited by Scott R. Hutson and Traci Arden, pp. 424-442. Routledge, London and New York.
Henare, Amiria, Martin Holbraad and Sari Westell 2007 Thinking through things: theorising artefacts ethnographically. Routledge London.
Holbraad, Martin and Morten Axel Pedersen 2017 The Ontological Turn. An Anthropological Exposition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Houston, Stephen 2014 The Life Within. Classic Maya and the Matter of Permanence. Yale University Press, New Haven.
Ingold, Tim 2000 The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling, and Skill. Routledge: London.
Ingold, Tim 2015 Estar Vivo. Ensaios sobre Movimento, Conhecimento e Descrição. Editora Vozes, Petrópolis.
Klein, Cecilia, F. 2015 Cielo Tejido, Tierra Enredada. El Paradigma de una Tejedora del Cosmos Mesoamericano. In Cielos e Inframundos. Una Revisión de las Cosmologías Mesoamericanas, organized by Ana Díaz, pp. 219-256. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico.
Laguens, Andrés Gustavo 2013 Unstable Contexts: Relational Ontologies and Domestic Settings in Andean Northwest Argentina. In Archaeology after interpretation: Returning materials to archaeological theory, organized by Benjamin Alberti; Andrew Meirion Jones; Joshua Pollard, pp. 97-114. Routledge, London and New York.
Landa, Fray Diego de 1982 Relación de las cosas de Yucatán, 12ª ed. Miguel Ángel Porrúa, Mexico.
Looper, Matthew G. 2006 Fabric Structures in Classic Maya Art and Ritual. In Sacred Bundles. Ritual Acts of Wrapping and Binding in Mesoamerica, organized by Julia Guernsey and Kent F. Reilly III, pp. 80-104. Boundary end Archaeology Research Center, North Carolina.
Mendelson, Michael 1958 A Guatemalan Sacred Bundle. Man 58 (170):121-26.
Milbrath, Susan 1999 Star Gods of the Maya: Astronomy in Art, Folklore, and Calendars. University of Texas Press, Austin.
Morehart, Christopher, Jaime J. Awe, Michael J. Mirro, Vanessa A. Owen y Christopher Helmke 2004 Ancient Textile Remains From Barton Creek Cave, Cayo District, Belize. Mexicon, Vol. 26, No. 3 (June 2004):50-56.
Olivier, Guilhem 2007 Sacred Bundles, Arrows, and New Fire. Foundation and Power in the Mapa de Cuauhtinchan. In: Cave, City, and Eagle's Nest: An Interpretive Journey through the Mapa de Cuauhtinchan No. 2, organized by David Carrasco and Scott Sessions, pp. 281-313, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.
Olsen, Bjornar 2010 In Defense of Things. Archaeology and the Ontology of Objects. Altamira Press, Maryland.
Pitarch, Pedro 2020 La Línea del Pliegue. Ensayo de Topologia Mesoamericana. In Mesoamérica. Ensayos de Etnografía Teórica, organized by Pedro Pitarch, pp. 193-230. Nola Editores, Madrid.
Prechtel, Martin and Robert Carlsen 1988. Weaving and cosmos amongst the Tzutujil Maya of Guatemala. Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics, 1988, vol. 15, no 1, p. 122-132.
Rosenbaum, Brenda Picciotto 1999 Maya Women, Weaving and Ethnic Identity: A Historial Essay. In Mayan Clothing and Weaving Through the Ages, organized by Barbara Knoke de Arathoon, Nancie L. González, John M. Willemsen Devlin, translated by Jennifer H. de Keller, pp. 157-170. Museo Ixchel del Traje Indígena de Guatemala, Guatemala City.
Schele Linda and Nikolai Grube 1993 Pias “Bundle”. Texas Notes on Precolumbian Art, Writing and Culture, No. 56. Art Department, University of Texas, Austin.
Stone, Andrea 1995 Images from the Underworld Naj Tunich and the Tradition of Maya Cave Painting. University of Texas Press, Austin.
Strathern, Marilyn. 2006 O Género da Dádiva. Problemas com as Mulheres e Problemas com a Sociedade na Melanésia. Editora da Unicamp, Campinas.
Stuart, David and George Stuart 2008 Palenque. Eternal City of the Maya. Thames & Hudson, London.
Vallejo Reyna, Alberto 2005 Por los Caminos de los Antiguos Nawales. Rilaj Maam y el Nawalismo maya tz’utujil en Santiago Atitlán. Instituto Nacional de Antropología e História, Ciudad de Mexico.
Venkatesan, Soumhya, Michael Carrithers, Matei Candea, Karen Sykes and Martin Holbraad 2010 Ontology is just another Word for Culture: Motion Tabled at the 2008 Meeting of the Group for Debates in Anthropological Theory, University of Manchester. Critique of Anthropology (30) 2: 152-200.
Vogt, Evon Z. 1993 Ofrendas para los Dioses. Análisis Simbólico de Rituales Zinacantecos. Fondo de Cultura Económica, Ciudad de Mexico.
Zedeño, Maria Nieves 2008 Bundled Worlds: The Roles an Interactions of Complex Objects from the North American Plains. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 15: 362-378.
Alberti, Benjamin; Andrew Merion Jones; Joshua Pollard 2013 Archaeology after interpretation: Returning to Archaeological Theory. Routledge, London and New York.
Alberti, Benjamin 2016 Archaeologies of Ontology: Local Theories and Conceptually Open-ended Methodologies. The Annual Review of Anthropology, 45:163-79.
Anawalt, Patricia R. 2000 Textile Research from the Mesoamerican Perspective. In Beyond Cloth and Cordage. Archaeological Textile Research in the Americas, edited by Penelope Ballard Drooker y Laurie d. Wenster, pp. 205-228. The University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.
Arzápalo Marín, H. Ramón 1995 Calepino de Motul. Diccionario maya-español. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas, México.
Atalay, Sonia 2020 Indigenous Science for a World in Crisis. Public Archaeology [online]:1-16. DOI: 10.1080/14655187.2020.1781492.
Barrera Vásquez, Alfredo 1980 Diccionario Maya Cordemex. Maya-español. Español-maya. Edited by Juan Ramón Bastarrachea Manzano y William Brito Sensores; collaborators Refugio Vermont Salas, David Dzul Góngora, and Domingo Dzul Poot. Ediciones Cordemex, Mérida.
Berdan, Frances F. 1987 Cotton in Aztec Mexico: Production, Distribution and Uses. Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Summer, 1987):235-262.
Boot, Erik 2009 The Updated Preliminary Classic Maya-English, English-Classic Maya Vocabulary of Hieroglyphic Readings. Mesoweb Resources. http://www.mesoweb.com/resources/vocabulary/index.html, accessed: October 10, 2020.
Booremanse, Didier 1999 Seventeenth Century Clothing of the Chol Lacandón and Neighboring Groups of the Southern Lowlands. In Mayan Clothing and Weaving Through the Ages, organized by Barbara Knoke de Arathoon, Nancie L. González, John M. Willemsen Devlin, translated by Jennifer H. de Keller, pp. 73-80. Museo Ixchel del Traje Indígena de Guatemala, Guatemala City.
Brown Vega, Margaret 2015 Ritual Practices and Wrapped Objects: Unpacking Prehispanic Andean Sacred Bundles. Journal of Material Culture 21 (2):223-251. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359183515610135
Calvin, Inga 2004 Maya Hieroglyphics Study Guide. www.famsi.org/mayawriting/calvin/glyph_guide.pdf
Cano Contreras, Eréndira Juanita, Jaime Plage Pliego and Erin Estrada Lugo 2018 La Construcción de la noción de Cosmovisión Maya en Guatemala. Revista Pueblos y Fronteras Digital, V. 13, pp. 1-29.
Carmack, Robert M. 1981 The Quiché Maya of Utatlán. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.
Carrasco, Michael 2005 The Mask Flange Iconographic Complex: The Art, Ritual, and History of a Maya Sacred Image. PhD thesis in Philosophy. The University of Texas at Austin, Austin.
Carlsen, Robert S. 2011 The War for the Heart & Soul of a Highland Maya Town. University of Texas Press, Austin.
Christenson, Allen J. 2006 Sacred Bundle Cults in Highland Guatemala. In Sacred Bundles. Ritual Acts of Wrapping and Binding in Mesoamerica, organized by Julia Guernsey and Kent F. Reilly, pp. 226-246. Boundary end Archaeology Research Center, North Carolina.
De La Garza, Mercedes; Guillermo Bernal Romero; Martha Cuevas García 2012 Palenque-Lakamha’: Una presencia inmortal del pasado indígena. Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico.
Deleuze, Gilles; Felix Guattari 1999 Mil Platôs. Capitalismo e Esquizofrenia. Vol. 3. Translation, Aurélio Guerra Neto, Ana Lúcia de Oliveira, Lúcia Cláudia Leão e Suely Rolnik. Editora 34, São Paulo.
Edgeworth, Matt 2012 Follow the Cut, Follow the Rhythm, Follow the Material. Norwegian Archaeological Review, vol. 45, n.1:76-92.
Fowler, Chris 2013 Dynamic Assemblages, or the Past is What Endures: Change and the Duration of Relations. In Archaeology after interpretation: Returning to Archaeological Theory, organized by Benjamin Alberti; Andrew Merion Jones; Joshua Pollard, pp. 235-256. Routledge, London and New York.
Gell, Alfred 1998 Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory. Clarendon, Oxford.
Grecco Pacheco, Daniel 2019 Ontologías envueltas: conceptos y prácticas sobre los envoltorios de tejido entre los mayas. Antípoda, Revista de Antropología y Arqueología, n. 37, p. 119-135. https://doi.org/10.7440/antipoda37.2019.06
Haber, Alejandro 2006 Agricola est quem domus demonstrat. In Contra la tiranía tipológica en arqueología: una visión desde Suramérica, organized by Cristóbal Gnecco et al., pp. 57-73. Universidad de Los Andes, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, CESO, Bogotá.
Haraway, Donna 1995 Saberes Localizados: a questão da ciência para o feminismo e o privilégio da perspectiva parcial. Cadernos Pagu (5):07-41.
Harrison-Buck, Eleanor 2020 Maya relations with the material world. In The Maya World, edited by Scott R. Hutson and Traci Arden, pp. 424-442. Routledge, London and New York.
Henare, Amiria, Martin Holbraad and Sari Westell 2007 Thinking through things: theorising artefacts ethnographically. Routledge London.
Holbraad, Martin and Morten Axel Pedersen 2017 The Ontological Turn. An Anthropological Exposition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Houston, Stephen 2014 The Life Within. Classic Maya and the Matter of Permanence. Yale University Press, New Haven.
Ingold, Tim 2000 The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling, and Skill. Routledge: London.
Ingold, Tim 2015 Estar Vivo. Ensaios sobre Movimento, Conhecimento e Descrição. Editora Vozes, Petrópolis.
Klein, Cecilia, F. 2015 Cielo Tejido, Tierra Enredada. El Paradigma de una Tejedora del Cosmos Mesoamericano. In Cielos e Inframundos. Una Revisión de las Cosmologías Mesoamericanas, organized by Ana Díaz, pp. 219-256. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico.
Laguens, Andrés Gustavo 2013 Unstable Contexts: Relational Ontologies and Domestic Settings in Andean Northwest Argentina. In Archaeology after interpretation: Returning materials to archaeological theory, organized by Benjamin Alberti; Andrew Meirion Jones; Joshua Pollard, pp. 97-114. Routledge, London and New York.
Landa, Fray Diego de 1982 Relación de las cosas de Yucatán, 12ª ed. Miguel Ángel Porrúa, Mexico.
Looper, Matthew G. 2006 Fabric Structures in Classic Maya Art and Ritual. In Sacred Bundles. Ritual Acts of Wrapping and Binding in Mesoamerica, organized by Julia Guernsey and Kent F. Reilly III, pp. 80-104. Boundary end Archaeology Research Center, North Carolina.
Mendelson, Michael 1958 A Guatemalan Sacred Bundle. Man 58 (170):121-26.
Milbrath, Susan 1999 Star Gods of the Maya: Astronomy in Art, Folklore, and Calendars. University of Texas Press, Austin.
Morehart, Christopher, Jaime J. Awe, Michael J. Mirro, Vanessa A. Owen y Christopher Helmke 2004 Ancient Textile Remains From Barton Creek Cave, Cayo District, Belize. Mexicon, Vol. 26, No. 3 (June 2004):50-56.
Olivier, Guilhem 2007 Sacred Bundles, Arrows, and New Fire. Foundation and Power in the Mapa de Cuauhtinchan. In: Cave, City, and Eagle's Nest: An Interpretive Journey through the Mapa de Cuauhtinchan No. 2, organized by David Carrasco and Scott Sessions, pp. 281-313, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.
Olsen, Bjornar 2010 In Defense of Things. Archaeology and the Ontology of Objects. Altamira Press, Maryland.
Pitarch, Pedro 2020 La Línea del Pliegue. Ensayo de Topologia Mesoamericana. In Mesoamérica. Ensayos de Etnografía Teórica, organized by Pedro Pitarch, pp. 193-230. Nola Editores, Madrid.
Prechtel, Martin and Robert Carlsen 1988. Weaving and cosmos amongst the Tzutujil Maya of Guatemala. Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics, 1988, vol. 15, no 1, p. 122-132.
Rosenbaum, Brenda Picciotto 1999 Maya Women, Weaving and Ethnic Identity: A Historial Essay. In Mayan Clothing and Weaving Through the Ages, organized by Barbara Knoke de Arathoon, Nancie L. González, John M. Willemsen Devlin, translated by Jennifer H. de Keller, pp. 157-170. Museo Ixchel del Traje Indígena de Guatemala, Guatemala City.
Schele Linda and Nikolai Grube 1993 Pias “Bundle”. Texas Notes on Precolumbian Art, Writing and Culture, No. 56. Art Department, University of Texas, Austin.
Stone, Andrea 1995 Images from the Underworld Naj Tunich and the Tradition of Maya Cave Painting. University of Texas Press, Austin.
Strathern, Marilyn. 2006 O Género da Dádiva. Problemas com as Mulheres e Problemas com a Sociedade na Melanésia. Editora da Unicamp, Campinas.
Stuart, David and George Stuart 2008 Palenque. Eternal City of the Maya. Thames & Hudson, London.
Vallejo Reyna, Alberto 2005 Por los Caminos de los Antiguos Nawales. Rilaj Maam y el Nawalismo maya tz’utujil en Santiago Atitlán. Instituto Nacional de Antropología e História, Ciudad de Mexico.
Venkatesan, Soumhya, Michael Carrithers, Matei Candea, Karen Sykes and Martin Holbraad 2010 Ontology is just another Word for Culture: Motion Tabled at the 2008 Meeting of the Group for Debates in Anthropological Theory, University of Manchester. Critique of Anthropology (30) 2: 152-200.
Vogt, Evon Z. 1993 Ofrendas para los Dioses. Análisis Simbólico de Rituales Zinacantecos. Fondo de Cultura Económica, Ciudad de Mexico.
Zedeño, Maria Nieves 2008 Bundled Worlds: The Roles an Interactions of Complex Objects from the North American Plains. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 15: 362-378.
Published
2022-02-08
How to Cite
Grecco Pacheco, D. (2022). The concept of wrapping and its ontological character among the Maya. Estudios Latinoamericanos, 41, 47-65. https://doi.org/10.36447/Estudios2021.v41.art3
Section
Special Issue: The Essence of Life and Ontology in the Maya World
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