Long silence from my end... I have been in the jungle for three weeks, and have avoided some great opportunities to catch you up on my various adventures in Honduras and Guate en route to this isolated tent burg, and now my computer has caught jungle rot and no longer functions! I'm trying to remedy the situation but the likelihood is that I won't be writing much until I'm back in the States, or if I do, my posts will be photo-less. In the mean time you can check out some of the photos I've taken since my last post here. If a picture is worth a thousand words these should be worth at least one overly verbose blog entry...
Talk to you later??
-Josh
Showing posts with label Spring 2008. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Spring 2008. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Mayan, Maya, vaya
Spanish classes are wrapped up and I'm leaving tomorrow for the densely forested unknown. Here's what I've been doing for the last two weeks, the last month, the last few days, from my last day in Antigua.
Last weekend we went to Lago de Atitlan, a 1,000'-deep freshwater lake in the mountainous/volcanic Guatemalan highlands. The lake abides in a caldera formed by an ancient eruption, and has since human time observable been a site of great significance to the Maya who populated the region in the pre-Columbian era. There are actually archaeological sites beneath the water, but to observe these you must be high-altitude deep-water dive certified, a task for which I am doubly unqualified.
The purpose of the trip was to relax for the weekend, but I was keen to imbibe the distinct local Maya culture. There are over 20 Mayan groups living in Central America today, with distinct languages and cultural traditions. The villages around Atitlan are comprised of predominately Kaqchikel and Tzutujil Mayans. In a neat bit of colonial treachery, the Kaqchikels were enlisted by conquistadores at the dawn of Spanish conquest to defeat their then neighboring faction, the K'iche Mayans, before themselves falling victim to subjugation. Now the Kaqchikeles and Tzutujiles enjoy relative cultural autonomy, maintaining a more or less traditional way of life in the villages around the Lake, such as the one I visited, Santiago de Atitlan.
During my one full day in Santiago I took the opportunity to visit a Cofradía, a meeting hall where an interesting amalgamation of Catholicism and the shamanic Tzutujil religion is practiced. A few other students and I witnessed the blessing of an American philanthropist (and funder of excavations at San Bartolo). Two Tzutujil nahuals, or shamans, presided over the ceremony, one swinging incense around those to be blessed and the other (pictured above) playing guitar. In this picture the elder nahual has just inundated his guitar with incense from the Copal tree, floating a generous amount of the fragrant smoke into the cavity of his instrument. He played with his guitar nearly vertical and as he did a stream of smoke slowly trailed out around his hands and engulfed him in a pale, sun-inflected cloud. Cool image.
After the Cofradía we visited this guy, Maximon, a rather enigmatic Tzutujil god. Maximon is a local legend, and spends each year at a different house, making his annual trip during Semana Santa (the week at the end of Lent). On his way to his new home Maximon spends a few days at a Tzutujil temple adjacent to the Catholic church in the center of Santiago. The Tzutujil equate Maximon with Judas Iscariot, and when he is placed in his temple he is simultaneously viewed as hanging on his suicidal tree and jeering at the imposed religion of European others. Local legend has it that Maximon fights Jesus on Easter. When I saw him he was accompanied by a lit sculpture of Jesus in his sepulcher and two attendant nahuals. Maximon gets by on donations (such as those I paid just to visit him for a few minutes), and he puts the money to good use, "consuming" 40-60 eighths of liquor and a few packs of cigarettes a day (he smoked two cigarettes while I was there). I was told by our translator that while he's drunk he is taken advantage of by witches, who take away his curing power. However, when he wakes up to the holy nahuals he sobers up to his mistakes and regains his supernatural efficacy. Interesting guy.
To conclude our day we visited a Franciscan church where the Catholicism was a bit more clear cut. The main claim to fame of the church, however, was a fantastically intricate carved wooden altar, a towering masterpiece that took its craftsman eight years to complete. The iconography of the altar complicated a completely Catholic reading of its symbolism, as it featured such undeniably Maya adornments as the maize god and nahuals dressed as Maximon surrounding and ascending such expected imagery as Christ crucified and the mournful Mother.
My weekend concluded back in the unambiguously Catholic Antigua. There is an elaborate church procession every Sunday during Lent through the streets of town, featuring two marching bands, giant lit floats, and innumerable purple-robed Padres and altar boys. I managed to catch a lull in the motion long enough to capture this image of Jesus. He is attended on this float by lilacs, a tree, Greek columns and very Western angels, perhaps a no less conspicuous admixture of divergent cultural elements than what I saw in Santiago.
Now that I'm leaving Antigua, a quick word as to what exactly I've been doing in between all these disturbingly vacation-like side trips. Besides Spanish class, I've also been working in the laboratory that houses all of the artifacts unearthed from San Bartolo for two hours a day. As I've mentioned, San Bartolo possesses now-famous spectacularly preserved Maya murals dating to around 100 BC. Over half of the murals, however, exist in the state visible here, that is, in the form of over 9,000 (and counting) fragments of destroyed stucco wall. One of the main objectives of the archaeologists working here is to piece together, literally, the amazing imagery of the murals, using as a rough guide the art of both Preclassic maya predecessors and San Bartolo's iconographic descendants, notably illustrated manuscripts of the 16th century K'iche Mayan creation myth the Popol Vuh and the numerous lived Mayan religious and artistic traditions practiced today, one small part of which you have glimpsed here. In fact, the nahual guitarist pictured above has been to San Bartolo, making the 8-hour trip with full religious paraphernalia and a small orchestra of traditional instruments after hearing about the murals in 2004. My professor, William Saturno, described the ritual to me, which involved the burning of Copal and playing of guitar and drum. It moved him deeply, he says: "this is the first time these walls have heard this music in 2,000 years."
I know this is terribly long, but it's two weeks and many introspective days-worth of images and observations. The next week might slow my roll a bit, as I'll be on the road. Three nights in Copan Ruínas, Honduras, where I'll visit the country for the first time and see the artistically sophisticated Maya site of Copán. Then three days in Flores, Guatemala, where I'll revisit the most monumental Maya site, Tikal. After that, it's off to San Bartolo for two and a half months of mural-gazing, hard-digging, hammock-sleeping, no-running-water-but-somehow-constantly-internet-connected tent living. There will be much more to write.
-Josue
Last weekend we went to Lago de Atitlan, a 1,000'-deep freshwater lake in the mountainous/volcanic Guatemalan highlands. The lake abides in a caldera formed by an ancient eruption, and has since human time observable been a site of great significance to the Maya who populated the region in the pre-Columbian era. There are actually archaeological sites beneath the water, but to observe these you must be high-altitude deep-water dive certified, a task for which I am doubly unqualified.
The purpose of the trip was to relax for the weekend, but I was keen to imbibe the distinct local Maya culture. There are over 20 Mayan groups living in Central America today, with distinct languages and cultural traditions. The villages around Atitlan are comprised of predominately Kaqchikel and Tzutujil Mayans. In a neat bit of colonial treachery, the Kaqchikels were enlisted by conquistadores at the dawn of Spanish conquest to defeat their then neighboring faction, the K'iche Mayans, before themselves falling victim to subjugation. Now the Kaqchikeles and Tzutujiles enjoy relative cultural autonomy, maintaining a more or less traditional way of life in the villages around the Lake, such as the one I visited, Santiago de Atitlan.
During my one full day in Santiago I took the opportunity to visit a Cofradía, a meeting hall where an interesting amalgamation of Catholicism and the shamanic Tzutujil religion is practiced. A few other students and I witnessed the blessing of an American philanthropist (and funder of excavations at San Bartolo). Two Tzutujil nahuals, or shamans, presided over the ceremony, one swinging incense around those to be blessed and the other (pictured above) playing guitar. In this picture the elder nahual has just inundated his guitar with incense from the Copal tree, floating a generous amount of the fragrant smoke into the cavity of his instrument. He played with his guitar nearly vertical and as he did a stream of smoke slowly trailed out around his hands and engulfed him in a pale, sun-inflected cloud. Cool image.
After the Cofradía we visited this guy, Maximon, a rather enigmatic Tzutujil god. Maximon is a local legend, and spends each year at a different house, making his annual trip during Semana Santa (the week at the end of Lent). On his way to his new home Maximon spends a few days at a Tzutujil temple adjacent to the Catholic church in the center of Santiago. The Tzutujil equate Maximon with Judas Iscariot, and when he is placed in his temple he is simultaneously viewed as hanging on his suicidal tree and jeering at the imposed religion of European others. Local legend has it that Maximon fights Jesus on Easter. When I saw him he was accompanied by a lit sculpture of Jesus in his sepulcher and two attendant nahuals. Maximon gets by on donations (such as those I paid just to visit him for a few minutes), and he puts the money to good use, "consuming" 40-60 eighths of liquor and a few packs of cigarettes a day (he smoked two cigarettes while I was there). I was told by our translator that while he's drunk he is taken advantage of by witches, who take away his curing power. However, when he wakes up to the holy nahuals he sobers up to his mistakes and regains his supernatural efficacy. Interesting guy.
To conclude our day we visited a Franciscan church where the Catholicism was a bit more clear cut. The main claim to fame of the church, however, was a fantastically intricate carved wooden altar, a towering masterpiece that took its craftsman eight years to complete. The iconography of the altar complicated a completely Catholic reading of its symbolism, as it featured such undeniably Maya adornments as the maize god and nahuals dressed as Maximon surrounding and ascending such expected imagery as Christ crucified and the mournful Mother.
My weekend concluded back in the unambiguously Catholic Antigua. There is an elaborate church procession every Sunday during Lent through the streets of town, featuring two marching bands, giant lit floats, and innumerable purple-robed Padres and altar boys. I managed to catch a lull in the motion long enough to capture this image of Jesus. He is attended on this float by lilacs, a tree, Greek columns and very Western angels, perhaps a no less conspicuous admixture of divergent cultural elements than what I saw in Santiago.
Now that I'm leaving Antigua, a quick word as to what exactly I've been doing in between all these disturbingly vacation-like side trips. Besides Spanish class, I've also been working in the laboratory that houses all of the artifacts unearthed from San Bartolo for two hours a day. As I've mentioned, San Bartolo possesses now-famous spectacularly preserved Maya murals dating to around 100 BC. Over half of the murals, however, exist in the state visible here, that is, in the form of over 9,000 (and counting) fragments of destroyed stucco wall. One of the main objectives of the archaeologists working here is to piece together, literally, the amazing imagery of the murals, using as a rough guide the art of both Preclassic maya predecessors and San Bartolo's iconographic descendants, notably illustrated manuscripts of the 16th century K'iche Mayan creation myth the Popol Vuh and the numerous lived Mayan religious and artistic traditions practiced today, one small part of which you have glimpsed here. In fact, the nahual guitarist pictured above has been to San Bartolo, making the 8-hour trip with full religious paraphernalia and a small orchestra of traditional instruments after hearing about the murals in 2004. My professor, William Saturno, described the ritual to me, which involved the burning of Copal and playing of guitar and drum. It moved him deeply, he says: "this is the first time these walls have heard this music in 2,000 years."
I know this is terribly long, but it's two weeks and many introspective days-worth of images and observations. The next week might slow my roll a bit, as I'll be on the road. Three nights in Copan Ruínas, Honduras, where I'll visit the country for the first time and see the artistically sophisticated Maya site of Copán. Then three days in Flores, Guatemala, where I'll revisit the most monumental Maya site, Tikal. After that, it's off to San Bartolo for two and a half months of mural-gazing, hard-digging, hammock-sleeping, no-running-water-but-somehow-constantly-internet-connected tent living. There will be much more to write.
-Josue
Sunday, February 03, 2008
Active
Another week deep in Antigua. Here´s some background on the ground around me.
This is Antigua as seen from Cerro del Cruz ("Hill of the Cross"), a small park on a hill to the north overlooking the city and the monster Volcàn de Agua to the south, which has come out from hiding behind its clouds. Agua is inactive except as a navigational beacon and subject of innumerable street artists´painted views of the town.
This area´s main claims to fame are volcanoes and churches, old colonial missions such as this one, La Merced. This one is particularly lovely and yellow, part of the same complex as the previously mentioned arco amarillo. La Merced is located a block away from my Spanish school so I have the privilege of viewing it in the early morning and afternoon every day on my way to and from class.
And here is Pacaya, another volcano near Antigua/Guatemala City, but one that is quite active (view here its steaming top). I hiked up here yesterday with a small group of new friends, wasn´t too arduous and definitely worth it when we got to the bank of the lava river. I poked the beast with my walking stick, which became instantly aflame, I was expecting something viscous but it actually feels quite solid, being liquid rock. It didn´t get too mad and wasn´t moving nearly fast enough to overtake my escape on the sharp pumice rockscape but even getting near enough to shake a stick at the flow nearly singed the hair off my face. Pacaya´s revenge.
This week in my Spanish class I talked about human evolution, extraterrestrials, Maya archaeology and seismic activity with my teacher. In the future I will discuss some of these things with you (specifically the Maya and what I´ll be doing in relation to them in the coming months), but for now my life is sun and lava so that´s what´s hot at the moment. I plan to dedicate myself to Spanish for the proceeding week, taking a personal "language pledge" that will preclude me from speaking any English in an effort to dial in my reacquired skills. So until then,
Hasta domingo pròximo
-Josh
This is Antigua as seen from Cerro del Cruz ("Hill of the Cross"), a small park on a hill to the north overlooking the city and the monster Volcàn de Agua to the south, which has come out from hiding behind its clouds. Agua is inactive except as a navigational beacon and subject of innumerable street artists´painted views of the town.
This area´s main claims to fame are volcanoes and churches, old colonial missions such as this one, La Merced. This one is particularly lovely and yellow, part of the same complex as the previously mentioned arco amarillo. La Merced is located a block away from my Spanish school so I have the privilege of viewing it in the early morning and afternoon every day on my way to and from class.
And here is Pacaya, another volcano near Antigua/Guatemala City, but one that is quite active (view here its steaming top). I hiked up here yesterday with a small group of new friends, wasn´t too arduous and definitely worth it when we got to the bank of the lava river. I poked the beast with my walking stick, which became instantly aflame, I was expecting something viscous but it actually feels quite solid, being liquid rock. It didn´t get too mad and wasn´t moving nearly fast enough to overtake my escape on the sharp pumice rockscape but even getting near enough to shake a stick at the flow nearly singed the hair off my face. Pacaya´s revenge.
This week in my Spanish class I talked about human evolution, extraterrestrials, Maya archaeology and seismic activity with my teacher. In the future I will discuss some of these things with you (specifically the Maya and what I´ll be doing in relation to them in the coming months), but for now my life is sun and lava so that´s what´s hot at the moment. I plan to dedicate myself to Spanish for the proceeding week, taking a personal "language pledge" that will preclude me from speaking any English in an effort to dial in my reacquired skills. So until then,
Hasta domingo pròximo
-Josh
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Yeah the place you've been the last two weeks
Been in Guatemala, Central America for the last week, after a lazily productive and ideally snow-filled week-and-a-half-long Cantabrigian vacation. Still have a foot in both worlds mentally but I'm adjusting to the cloudless 70-degree days and it's not so hard. So here's some background on my situation. WITH PICTURES.
I arrived in Guatemala City last Saturday and took a bus with the other students in my program to Antigua, a UNESCO World Heritage spot and site of over 20 Spanish schools.
We checked into our hotel, which happened to be right inside Antigua's famous "arco amarillo" (yellow arc). Not pictured due to clouds is the monstrous Volcan de Agua which looms large to the south and has already proven a navigational beacon during early lost walks through town. I'll post up a flick of him later. Not pictured due to not being visible are the church bells that are ringing at this very moment near the hotel, one of the many reminders of Guatemala's pervasive Catholic culture and the small size of the town.
I myself started Spanish classes last Monday, which will last for a month. I'm living with a host family, but with two other Americans and three Dutch so it's more like a host hostel. I have a lot of free time during which I've been roaming around the city. On the weekends wealthy domestic Guatemalan tourists come to Antigua because of its high elevation and subsequent coolness, and general charm. Last Sunday there was a small band of Mayan musicians playing a traditional marimba and turtle shell drum, recordings forthcoming.
On Thursday we had our first "field trip," which wasn't as much educational as sea-soaked. We headed to the Pacific coast of southern Guatemala to a resort area called Monterrico. Since the region is volcanic the sand is black, I'd never seen anything like it. The beach had pretty fierce waves, which crested in thin sheets of curling clear water that resembled obsidian blades as they pulled the arena negra from the sand floor.
So I got beat up by the 5-foot waves, napped in hammocks, read with my feet buried in the burning sand, burned in the sun but not too badly, just enough to coax some complexion to the fore of my pollution- and winter-paled skin. Now I'm ready to go back to class?
More about Spanish and Maya murals later, signing off, just saying
I arrived in Guatemala City last Saturday and took a bus with the other students in my program to Antigua, a UNESCO World Heritage spot and site of over 20 Spanish schools.
We checked into our hotel, which happened to be right inside Antigua's famous "arco amarillo" (yellow arc). Not pictured due to clouds is the monstrous Volcan de Agua which looms large to the south and has already proven a navigational beacon during early lost walks through town. I'll post up a flick of him later. Not pictured due to not being visible are the church bells that are ringing at this very moment near the hotel, one of the many reminders of Guatemala's pervasive Catholic culture and the small size of the town.
I myself started Spanish classes last Monday, which will last for a month. I'm living with a host family, but with two other Americans and three Dutch so it's more like a host hostel. I have a lot of free time during which I've been roaming around the city. On the weekends wealthy domestic Guatemalan tourists come to Antigua because of its high elevation and subsequent coolness, and general charm. Last Sunday there was a small band of Mayan musicians playing a traditional marimba and turtle shell drum, recordings forthcoming.
On Thursday we had our first "field trip," which wasn't as much educational as sea-soaked. We headed to the Pacific coast of southern Guatemala to a resort area called Monterrico. Since the region is volcanic the sand is black, I'd never seen anything like it. The beach had pretty fierce waves, which crested in thin sheets of curling clear water that resembled obsidian blades as they pulled the arena negra from the sand floor.
So I got beat up by the 5-foot waves, napped in hammocks, read with my feet buried in the burning sand, burned in the sun but not too badly, just enough to coax some complexion to the fore of my pollution- and winter-paled skin. Now I'm ready to go back to class?
More about Spanish and Maya murals later, signing off, just saying
Monday, January 07, 2008
Stateside, on the late side
Been back in the US for a few weeks and it took me a few minutes but I finally figured out how to get this webpage back into English and how to stop my blog titles automatically transliterating into Hindi. Writing in transition, in the middle of the night, in the middle of a move. I'm leaving for Boston in half an hour. Wanted to hit you with some quick boring updates:
I've managed to throw most of my China photos up on Flickr. While I'll probably prove uninclined to update my previous posts with photographic evidence you can peruse at your leisure here.
I'm bumming around the bean for about a week and a half but soon enough I'll uproot and leave the country once again. If you've stayed posted during 2007 you'll remember my trip to Belize last semester. Well I'm returning to the jungles of Central America with Boston University for another archaeological field school, here.
So I'm soaking up the American soil through my travel weary feet for another two weeks. Getting over this reverse culture shock in time to reverse and repeat last spring's Mayan mission. Too tired to waste more words on this post! See you in Guatemala.
TWO THOUSAND EIGHT
I've managed to throw most of my China photos up on Flickr. While I'll probably prove uninclined to update my previous posts with photographic evidence you can peruse at your leisure here.
I'm bumming around the bean for about a week and a half but soon enough I'll uproot and leave the country once again. If you've stayed posted during 2007 you'll remember my trip to Belize last semester. Well I'm returning to the jungles of Central America with Boston University for another archaeological field school, here.
So I'm soaking up the American soil through my travel weary feet for another two weeks. Getting over this reverse culture shock in time to reverse and repeat last spring's Mayan mission. Too tired to waste more words on this post! See you in Guatemala.
TWO THOUSAND EIGHT
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