A Beauty That Hurts: Life and Death in Guatemala, Second Revised Edition

Sources and Commentary

sourCes And CoMMentAry P eople began to write about Guatemala a long time ago. Our oldest records, those left by the Maya themselves, are in the form of hieroglyphic inscriptions that appear on various artifacts dating from as early as a.d. 250. Classic Maya culture, according to Gordon Brotherston (1992), expressed itself textually on the surface of alabaster, bone, jade, obsidian, onyx, paper, pottery, shell, stone, and wood. Scripts from the Classic period (a.d. 300–900) are rich and plentiful compared with the meager survivals of the Postclassic (a.d. 900–1524). Since the foundational studies of Sylvanus G. Morley ([1915] 1975) and J. Eric S.Thompson (1950), the interpretation of Maya writing has been revolutionized by the research of Ian Graham (1975), Stephen D. Houston (1989), David H. Kelley (1976), Linda Schele and David Freidel (1990), and Linda Schele and Mary E. Miller (1986). Tatiana Proskouriakoff (1960) was the first to shift the research focus of Maya epigraphy away from issues of astronomy, religion, and the contemplation of time (see León-Portilla [1973] 1988) to the more mundane operations of war and politics, especially the rise and fall of dynastic rulers and city-states. Michael D. Coe ([1992] 1999) offers a riveting account of the deciphering of Maya script, crediting the Russian scholar Yuri V. Knorosov with the breakthrough that resolved the impasse created by the stubborness of Thompson. The language of Maya inscription is considered by Stephen Houston, John Robertson, and David Stuart (2000) to be classic Ch’olti’an, an ancestral form of present-day Ch’orti’. Linda Schele and Peter Mathews (1998) offer a splendid synthesis of a field of studies in constant flux. While Maya elites and their ways of life command most attention, as in the volume edited by Jessica Joyce Christie (2003), the scholars brought together by Jon C. Lohse and Fred Valdez, Jr. (2004) construct a narrative from Preclassic to Postclassic times from the bottom up. The experience of being Maya in Classic times is pieced together most assiduously by Stephen Houston, David Stuart, and Karl Taube (2006). a Beauty that hurts 12 Conquest by imperial Spain saw Maya peoples in Guatemala adapt their modes of writing to European conventions, which meant learning how to use the Latin alphabet. The practice, begun in the mid-sixteenth century, resulted in the preservation of all sorts of knowledge, enabling us to view a radically altered world through Maya eyes. Numerous texts exist, the most famous being the Popol Vuh, translated directly from K’iche’ into English by Munro S. Edmonson (1971) and Dennis Tedlock (1985). Delia Goetz and Sylvanus G. Morley also provide access to the Popol Vuh in English, via the Spanish translation of Adrián Recinos (1950). Victor Montejo (1999a) tells the creation story for a younger audience, ably assisted by the marvelous illustrations of Luis Garay. Inspired work by Karen Bassie-Sweet (2008) links the sacred geography of the Popol Vuh with specific places, locales, and topographical features. Another key text is the Annals of the Cakchiquels, which Daniel G. Brinton (1885) and Adrián Recinos and Delia Goetz (1953) translated directly from Kaqchikel into English. In the preparation of their “definitive edition,” Judith M. Maxwell and Robert M. Hill II (2006) collaborated with native speakers of the language. Robert M. Carmack (1973) provides the best available guide to these and other indigenous documents, which the three volumes edited by David Carrasco (2001) help contextualize in the Mesoamerican world at large. In English-language historiography, we first read of Mayas and Spaniards courtesy of Thomas Gage, whose experiences in Guatemala in the seventeenth century make fascinating reading. Gage’s portrayal of the Maya lot, like the cleric himself, is not without its blemishes and idiosyncrasies, but his trenchant observations of conquest in action are striking, if not entirely trustworthy . A. P. Newton (1928) tampers with Gage’s righteous, self-serving text far less than does J. Eric S. Thompson (1958). Two centuries passed before another Englishman, Henry Dunn, published an account of his stay in Guatemala . Dunn ([1829] 1981) has worthwhile insights, but it was the American traveller John Lloyd Stephens ([1841] 1969) who opened up the Maya world as never before. Stephens, whose insights are enhanced by the superb illustrations of his artist companion, Frederick Catherwood, forged a travel-writing genre that influenced the likes of Caroline Salvin ([1873–1874] 2000), Anne and Alfred Maudslay ([1899] 1979), Thomas Gann (1926), and Aldous Huxley (1934). The genre...