Download Free The Forest Of The Lacandon Maya Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online The Forest Of The Lacandon Maya and write the review.

The Forest of the Lacandon Maya: An Ethnobotanical Guide, with active links to audio-video recordings, serves as a comprehensive guide to the botanical heritage of the northern Lacandones. Numbering fewer than 300 men, women, and children, this community is the most culturally conservative of the Mayan groups. Protected by their hostile environment, over many centuries they maintain autonomy from the outside forces of church and state, while they continue to draw on the forest for spiritual inspiration and sustenance. In The Forest of the Lacandon Maya: An Ethnobotanical Guide, linguist Suzanne Cook presents a bilingual Lacandon-English ethnobotanical guide to more than 450 plants in a tripartite organization: a botanical inventory in which main entries are headed by Lacandon names followed by common English and botanical names, and which includes plant descriptions and uses; an ethnographic inventory, which expands the descriptions given in the botanical inventory, providing the socio-historical, dietary, mythological, and spiritual significance of most plants; and chapters that discuss the relevant cultural applications of the plants in more detail provide a description of the area’s geography, and give an ethnographic overview of the Lacandones. Active links throughout the text to original audio-video recordings demonstrate the use and preparation of the most significant plants.
Before massive deforestation began in the 1960s, the Lacandón jungle, which lies on the border of Mexico and Guatemala, was part of the largest tropical rain forest north of the Amazon. The destruction of the Lacandón occurred with little attention from the international press—until January 1, 1994, when a group of armed Maya rebels led by a charismatic spokesperson who called himself Subcomandante Marcos emerged from jungle communities and briefly occupied several towns in the Mexican state of Chiapas. These rebels, known as the Zapatista National Liberation Army, became front-page news around the globe, and they used their notoriety to issue rhetorically powerful communiqués that denounced political corruption, the Mexican government’s treatment of indigenous peoples, and the negative impact of globalization. As Brian Gollnick reveals, the Zapatista communiqués had deeper roots in the Mayan rain forest than Westerners realized—and he points out that the very idea of the jungle is also deeply rooted, though in different ways, in the Western imagination. Gollnick draws on theoretical innovations offered by subaltern studies to discover “oral traces” left by indigenous inhabitants in dominant cultural productions. He explores both how the jungle region and its inhabitants have been represented in literary writings from the time of the Spanish conquest to the present and how the indigenous people have represented themselves in such works, including post-colonial and anti-colonial narratives, poetry, video, and photography. His goal is to show how popular and elite cultures have interacted in creating depictions of life in the rain forest and to offer new critical vocabularies for analyzing forms of cross-cultural expression.
The Lacand�n Maya are heirs to a wealth of traditional knowledge gleaned from hundreds of years of daily life in the rainforest of southern Mexico. Lacand�n Maya: The Language and Environment is a grammar and vocabulary of their native tongue, as well as a pathway into the tropical ecosystems that surround them.
Using studies on contemporary Maya farming techniques and important new archaeological research, the authors show that the ancient Maya were able to support, sustainably, a vast population by farming the forest—thus refuting the common notion that Maya civilization devolved due to overpopulation and famine.
The Last Lords of Lalenque is an extraordinary firsthand account of life among the Lacandon Indians of Nah in southern Mexico. A community of 250 whose genealogy has been obscured by the absence of a written tradition, the Lacandones may nevertheless be traced back linguistically and culturally to the great Maya civilization. They are the sole inheritors of an oral tradition that preserves-more than 400 years after the Spanish Conquest-a cosmology, a morality and a psychology as sophisticated as our own. Journalist and novelist Victor Perera and linguist Robert Bruce have lived among the Lacandones, chronicling their imperiled Mayan culture.
From the ancient traditions of the Lacandón Maya comes an Indigenous model for a sustainable future Having lived for centuries isolated within Mexico’s largest remaining tropical rainforest, the Indigenous Lacandón Maya now live at the nexus of two worlds—ancient and modern. While previous research has focused on documenting Lacandón oral traditions and religious practices in order to preserve them, this book tells the story of how Lacandón families have adapted to the contemporary world while applying their ancestral knowledge to create an ecologically sustainable future. Drawing on his 49 years of studying and learning from the Lacandón Maya, James Nations discusses how in the midst of external pressures such as technological changes, missionary influences, and logging ventures, Lacandón communities are building an economic system of agroforestry and ecotourism that produces income for their families while protecting biodiversity and cultural resources. Nations describes methods they use to plant and harvest without harming the forest, illustrating that despite drastic changes in lifestyle, respect for the environment continues to connect Lacandón families across generations. By helping with these tasks and inheriting the fables and myths that reinforce this worldview, Lacandón children continue to learn about the plants, animals, and spiritual deities that coexist in their land. Indigenous peoples such as the Lacandón Maya control one-third of the intact forest landscapes left on Earth, and Indigenous knowledge and practices are increasingly recognized as key elements in the survival of the planet’s biological diversity. The story of the Lacandón Maya serves as a model for Indigenous-controlled environmental conservation, and it will inform anyone interested in supporting sustainable Indigenous futures. A volume in the series Maya Studies, edited by Diane Z. Chase and Arlen F. Chase
Looks at the depiction of tropical rain forests in movies and art, discusses government policy, business exploitation, and the future of the rain forest, and describes the lives of forest people in South America, Africa, and Asia
The Maya Indian peoples of Chiapas had been mobilizing politically for years before the Zapatista rebellion that brought them to international attention. This authoritative volume explores the different ways that Indians across Chiapas have carved out autonomous cultural and political spaces in their diverse communities and regions. Offering a consistent and cohesive vision of the complex evolution of a region and its many cultures and histories, this work is a fundamental source for understanding key issues in nation building. In a unique collaboration, the book brings together recognized authorities who have worked in Chiapas for decades, many linking scholarship with social and political activism. Their combined perspectives, many previously unavailable in English, make this volume the most authoritative, richly detailed, and authentic work available on the people behind the Zapatista movement.
Xurt'an (the end of the world) showcases the rich storytelling traditions of the northern Lacandones of Naha' through a collection of traditional narratives, songs, and ritual speech. Formerly isolated in the dense, tropical rainforest of Chiapas, Mexico, the Lacandon Maya constitute one of the smallest language groups in the world. Although their language remains active and alive, their traditional culture was abandoned after the death of their religious and civic leader in 1996. Lacking the traditional contexts in which the culture was transmitted, the oral traditions are quickly being forgotten. This collection includes creation myths that describe the cycle of destruction and renewal of the world, the structure of the universe, the realms of the gods and their intercessions in the affairs of their mortals, and the journey of the souls after death. Other traditional stories are non-mythic and fictive accounts involving talking animals, supernatural beings, and malevolent beings that stalk and devour hapless victims. In addition to traditional narratives, Xurt'an presents many songs that are claimed to have been received from the Lord of Maize, magical charms that invoke the forces of the natural world, invocations to the gods to heal and protect, and work songs of Lacandon women, whose contribution to Lacandon culture has been hitherto overlooked by scholars. Women's songs offer a rare glimpse into the other half of Lacandon society and the arduous distaff work that sustained the religion. The compilation concludes with descriptions of rainbows, the Milky Way as "the white road of Our Lord," and an account of the solstices. Transcribed and translated by a foremost linguist of the northern Lacandon language, the literary traditions of the Lacandones are finally accessible to English readers. The result is a masterful and authoritative collection of oral literature that will both entertain and provoke, while vividly testifying to the power of Lacandon Maya aesthetic expression.