"In Watching Lacandon Maya Lives, the author follows three generations of one Lacandon Maya family. Readers track the subjects' lives as they shift through events such as marriage, parenthood, and religious conversion, all set against a backdrop of increased tourism, road construction, and the murders of two people in the community. This book encompasses both ethnography and a critique of ethnographic writing. At one level, the book is about social, agricultural, technological, and religious changes thathave occurred in a Lacandon Maya community in Mexico. At a second level, the book is a critique of those who invented a Utopian picture of a "traditional" Lacandon past that never really existed. For cultural anthropologists, or anyone interested in learning more about this Mayan culture"--
Explores the dramatic cultural changes undergone by a Maya rainforest community over forty years
| Acknowledgments |
|
ix | |
| Introduction |
|
1 | (6) |
|
Chapter 1 The Myth of Lacandon Origins |
|
|
7 | (30) |
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Chapter 2 Reconstructing the Historical Lacandon |
|
|
37 | (22) |
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Chapter 3 Watching Life in a Lacandon Community |
|
|
59 | (18) |
|
Chapter 4 1970-2020: Five Decades of Change |
|
|
77 | (36) |
|
Chapter 5 Finding an Income in the Lacandon Jungle |
|
|
113 | (28) |
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Chapter 6 Decline of Non-Christian Religion |
|
|
141 | (36) |
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Chapter 7 Changing Healing Practices |
|
|
177 | (12) |
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Chapter 8 Forty Years Among the Lacandon: Some Lessons Learned |
|
|
189 | (10) |
| Glossary |
|
199 | (4) |
| References |
|
203 | (6) |
| Index |
|
209 | |
R. Jon McGee is currently Professor of Anthropology at Texas State University, where he has taught since 1985. His research has focused generally on anthropological theory, field research methods, and the anthropology of culture and religion. More specifically, he has conducted extensive studies on Maya religion, language, and culture. He leads an annual study abroad program in Canterbury, England. Among the many books hes written or edited are Watching Lacandon Maya Lives (2001) and Life, Ritual and Religion Among the Lacandon Maya (1989). With Richard Warms and James Garber, he authored Sacred Realms: Readings in the Anthropology of Religion, Second Edition (2008) and, with Warms, coauthored Anthropological Theory: An Introductory History, Fifth Edition (2011).
