The Ancient Spirituality of the Modern Maya by Thomas Hart (review)

The Latin Americanist, June 2009 withdrawing from the Philippines. Moreover, the information could lead to projects such as on “the effects of government administration policies upon the democratic sentiment” of Latin American scholars in the last decade, to paraphrase Oscar Lewis on his project about Tepoztlán in 1943. Alejandro Latinez Department of Foreign Languages Sam Houston State University THE ANCIENT SPIRITUALITY OF THE MODERN MAYA. By Thomas Hart. Albuquerque : University of New Mexico Press, 2008, p. 286, $39.95. In the early 1990s, Thomas Hart, having an opportunity to spend some time in a Guatemala bedeviled by a civil war, was struck by the vital traditions of Mayan religion and spirituality. Here, he realized, was an expression of cultural identity that had survived every assault leveled against it for the last half millennium; it had taken on all challengers and remained strong by using a syncretistic judo that accepted much, blending and weaving, rather than blocking and striking back. In 1993, Hart, formerly with the BBC, decided to move from London to rural Guatemala in order to spend six months or so doing research for a book about Mayan spirituality and its significance vis-à-vis indigenous rights. Instead, years passed as he found himself being pulled deeper and deeper into a way of life that sacralized the natural world and provided complex notions of health and well-being to its participants. In time, Hart would even be initiated as a Mayan priest himself, though that is not what this book is about. The Ancient Spirituality of the Modern Maya is about a religious tradition that incorporates ancient elements from a Mayan worldview with newer elements from Catholicism and elsewhere. The book, seemingly, is an ethnography without an ethnographer. For what Hart was interested in writing down, and what he hopes his readers will be interested in reading, are the voices of those contemporary highland Guatemalans (mainly K’iche’ and Mam) who continue to practice a spiritual tradition handed down over many generations. The author’s voice is muted; he did not want to create a top-heavy monograph about his own interpretations and experiences. The chapters focus on such central themes as the Mayan calendar, the importance of shrines and altars, divination, illness and curing , the fascinating and always popular Maximón, and the role of Mayan spirituality in the modern world. Each chapter begins with a brief discussion of its particular focus—often including key citations from Mayan sacred literature or classic ethnographies—and then quickly launches into excerpts and narratives that Hart has collected from his respondents over the last fifteen years. These accounts are studded with gems. Consider this gracefully translated statement from a Mayan priest: “God sleeps in stone; God grows in plants; God walks in animals; and God thinks in Man” (27). 96 Book Reviews All the excerpts are woven together with strands of description to highlight their meaning and provide juxtaposition with prior narratives. The careful selection and placement of each piece lends unity and coherence to the text. The invisible hand at work here suggests that Mayan spirituality eschews orthodoxy, prefers intuition over rationalism/rationality, and yet somehow a unity emerges from this great diversity. The reader is left with an enriched sense of the ways in which practitioners utilize their heritage to make sense of their lives and the world. Reading The Ancient Spirituality of the Modern Maya, one is convinced that this is primarily an anthropological text. Though not trained as an anthropologist, it is clear that Hart has read all the relevant ethnographies and contextualized his own data using some of their prior constructs. It is also clear that Hart has exerted great efforts to be accurate and fair to the opinions that have been shared with him. In a landscape of New Age fabulists and travelers’ tales, Hart’s work clearly sides with scholarship. But scholars may not always side with Hart, as he does not use the overarching theoretical frameworks and orientations that many require. Anyone who has studied Mayan spirituality understands how slippery it can be. The beliefs resist any systematic theology, the practices change from one town to the next, and the credibility of...