By: Ligia María
Translated from Spanish; original version below.
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Guatemala April 12, 2010. In Guatemala Catholics and evangelic churches, have their own space to venerate their God, but we the Mayans don’t have sacred places, regrets Oxlaj, who is a spiritual guide for the actual president Alvaro Colom.
Guatemala April 12, 2010. Guatemalan indigenous leaders demand to the Congress the approbation of a law that recognizes the sacred places of the Mayas and its ancestors, to be responsible of the conservation, administration and access to the cities that in its majority are touristic destinations.
Cirilo Perez Oxlaj, migrant ambassador of the indigenous Pueblos, questions, how is it possible to see that Catholics as well as Evangelic have the right to adore their God, and he questions why the Mayas can’t have sacred places to venerate their Gods.
The Guatemalan congress after receiving a favorable commission where the pueblos have their own space to give thanks to the creator of life, of water, of the sun, of the air, an of the mother earth, explains Oxlaj, whom considers an insult to the Mayan beliefs because the government has promote tourism, in the old Mayan cities.
Anthropological text is found
By: Ligia María
Translated from Spanish; original version below.
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Comalcalco, Tabasco, Mexico. December 29, 2009. The History and National Anthropology studies, text found in the excavations in the archeological site of Comalcalco, Tabasco.
The text has 260 hieroglyphs, referring to 14 years of the life of an important priest of the VIII a. C. has indicated Ricardo Armijo Torres, director of the Archeological Project of Comalcalco.
The inscriptions are based upon the life of a priest, not about a gubernator or its consort, as it was usual in the old Mayan culture, which makes us believe that this priest have been consider a high sacerdotal status.
The texts obtained in 1998, have been written in tortoise shells that were deposited in the funeral urn, located in the front of the south Temple II and IIA of the Northern prehispanic site, where the individual in question was shrouded and covered with abundant red pigmentation.
The content of the funerary urn it is analyzed in the lab of the Center INAH Tabasco. Armijo Torres has informed that the rest of the offerings are distribute in jewelry, tortoise shells, jade, shark teeth, with perforations, black obsidiaria, knifes of black and gray obsidiaria.
Yucatán preserves Mayan language
By: Ligia María
Translated from Spanish; original version below.
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Mérida Yucatán, February 10th, 2010. The institute for developing of the Mayas will open this year more schools in order to teach the Mayan language to preserve the language in the indigenous communities of Yucatán, informed the representative, Abigail Uc Canché.
In an interview, Abigail commented that 68% of the almost 2 million of Yucatecos speak the Mayan language; however, the number of Maya-speakers that use this language to communicate to each other is less.
That is why more schools will be open in order to teach the Mayan language in Tekax, Valladolid and Mérida, for people who are interested in learning it, like teachers looking for jobs in rural schools.
“Of two thousand rural teachers working in 600 schools, only 5% do not speak the Mayan language, the 95% speak perfectly that language, which is an advantage for Mayan children making easily their learning,” said Abigail.
Abigail also explained that it is an obligation that the teachers speak Mayan language, because most of the children in Valladolid, Tizimín, Chichimilá, Peto, Tekax, Ticul, Chemax and others municipalities do not speak Spanish.
Also it is likely to loose the customs and traditions of the Mayan ancestors, for the phenomenon of globalization, considered Abigail.
Archeologists are studying a fabric of Mayan weapons
By: Ligia María
Translated from Spanish; original version below.
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Tabasco, Mexico, March 14th, 2010. Specialists are searching in Tabasco a place where the Mayas made weapons and tools, informed yesterday the Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH).
It is about San Claudio “a place occupied since the year 200 before Christ and until the year 900 after Christ, for Maya worker, poor Maya, that were serving another community of higher hierarchy,” explained the archeologist José Luis Romero Rivera, director of the project of excavation in this place.
San Claudio is near of the road Tenosique-El Ceibo, region between the sierra of Chiapas and Guatemala. The archeologist zone can tell about the daily life of the ancestral population Maya: they made tools, utensils and weapons to commercialize with others towns, said the investigator.
The experts have found a big amount of mush of flint, a mineral used by the Mayas to make sharp instruments like knifes, axes, penknives and arrowheads.
At that time, the flint was a strategic raw material, because they did not know the metal or obsidian which was under control of the most important ancestral cities.
The Mayas Do Not Prophesize the End of the World
By: Ligia María
Translated from Spanish; original version below.
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Mexico City. February 6th 2010.The director of Center and Middle America studies of the Estate University of Russia of Human Sciences indicated that the Mayas do not speak about death on 2012, only about droughts.
The director of the Center of Middle America studies, “Yuri Knórosov” of the Estate University of Russia of Human Sciences, the lady Galina Ershova, affirmed that the end of the world was not prognosticated in the prophesies of the Mayan culture.
During the masterly conference “The Mayas´ live through the hieroglyphic texts” in front of students of the Autonomous University of Nuevo Leon, México (UANL). Doctor Ershova, specified that the Mayan theory only prognosticated droughts and diseases in the next 20 years from its writing moment.
She emphasized that the astronomic texts do not say anything about any prophecy, “Astronomic texts refer to real and very specific things, nothing of Cosmo vision or deaths on 2012, they simply talk about droughts”.
The Russian academic Historian specialized on the study of ancient civilizations, cultures and languages of the New World and particularly in Mayan culture and writing, said that the astronomic texts only focus in the space of humanity’s life.
History of the Marimba “Suntan keys”
By: Ligia María
Translated from Spanish; original version below.
Guatemala is celebrating today the Day of the Marimba
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Guatemala, February 20, 2010. Some people believe the origin of the Marimba was in Asia or Africa; the truth is that in Guatemala the marimbas was known for the Mayas, at least before the year 1000 our age.
The first documentation of the Guatemalan Marimba goes back to the classic period of the Mayan civilization.
On the translation of Adrián Inés Chávez of the book Popol Vuh on verse 336, appears an allusion to the “play the Marimba”. In the codex of Madrid “Codex Tro-Cortesianus” appear mystic figures evidencing that Mayas used the Marimba.
Developing
When the Marimba was evolving, the indigenous knew it with different names, like Marimba one of Tecomates, of arch, of stake or of table. The one named Tecomates: one of the more primitive ones did not have legs, two people were necessary to hold the instrument in both sides, and another playing the keyboard. It was based on rustic mud vessels, producing sweet and melancholic tones.
On parties, and indigenous ceremonials dances, hearing those sweet sounds was common. Those Marimbas were placed in Chichicastenango and Sololá.
2012: The end of the world?
By: Ligia María
Translated from Spanish; original version below.
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México, February 8th, 2010. A group of Mexican anthropologists will investigate in México and Guatemala what Indigenous Mayas think about the apocalyptic interpretation that occidentals have of their calendar that has been shown in the North American film “2012”.
“The way Mayas think, it is all about one cyclic moment that has an end. Mayas never conceptualized this as a catastrophic date,” explains José Huchim, an archeologist and member of the Mayan community.
“It is a worry that the vision that we have as Mayas is taken another meaning”. Said Huchim, investigator of the National Institute of Anthropology and History of México (INAH), in an interview with AFP.
“Genuinely the Mayas predicted that on this date, a deity associated with the war was going to descend, but does not exist a final count of the time,” explained Guillermo Bernal, investigator of the Center of Mayan Studies of the National Autonomous University of México (UNAM).
The experts reject interpretations like the book “The Mayan Testament” of Steve Alten, which has sold 10 millions copies, and originated the North American film, revealing that Mayas announced the end of the world on December 21 of 2012.
By: Ligia María
Translated from Spanish; original version below.
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Guatemala January 28th, 2010. The National Advise of Women of Guatemala (Conamgua) is integrated for Guatemalan professionals and businesswomen whom help to promote the economic and social developing of indigenous women, generating programs of training and formation in business studies, as a source of economics entries in the handmade, agricultural, and other areas.
In 2006 Conamgua and the General Direction of Extra School Education (DIGEEX) created a “Methodological manual”, but, will be later this year when the manual gets delivered. This manual provides the necessary tools to women in order to create their own Micro Company.
Currently Conagua is working in many regions of the country of Guatemala, like: Santo Tomás Milpas Altas, San Lorenzo ElCubo, San José La Rinconada, all those regions belong to Sacatepéquez, they are working too in the region of Cobán, Tactic in Alta Verapaz, Jutiapa, Quiché, Totonicapán, Chimaltenango , Quetzaltenango and others.
They give courses like baking, cut and dressmaking, paintwork and handmade. In that way indigenous women become economically independent, because they can sell their products and get economic entries.
Kaqchikel guide is elected as Indigenous Mayor
By: Ligia María
Translated from Spanish; original version below. If the link below does not work, is because the news service is making some changes. It will be working shortly.
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Solola, January 3th ,2010. Antonio Mendoza Tun, is the indigenous Mayor of municipality of Sololá for the period 2010-2012, after been elected on November 30th, for 77 Sololatecas Communities. His prime function will be guiding the municipality and find solutions to the problems.
Following is an extract of an interview with the new indigenous Mayor.
What is the principal reason of your success?
I am from community of Vasconcelos, Xajaxac, where I have worked in several developing projects. Maybe that is why people propose me in order to represent them; and because of the confidence that people have in me, I got elected.
How representative is the charge you are assuming?
The election of indigenous authorities is opened, and is made through communal assemblies. It is a practical democratic process, with the direct participation of the community.
The assembly, in each community, is the highest authority. It represents the communion of the municipality and is management according with the mandates they are agree in a jointly way.
Peasant ask for Productive Projects
By: Ligia María
Translated from Spanish; original version below.
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Guatemala February 2nd ,2010.More than 90 indigenous leaders and peasant representing 10 communities quiches, Mames, Kaqchiqueles, Tzutuhiles, Ixiles, Pocomamaes and Poconchíes, and others, that make up The Alliance of Indigenous communities and Peasant of Guatemala (ACICG). This alliance have exposed the situation of poverty and extreme poverty that exist in the rural area, and demanded support with productive projects, credits, fertilizers and seeds of basic grains.
The leaders representing that organization have at least 32,000 families, and they organized a two day workshop “Finding our parent’s trace” in order to get the attention from government authorities in topics like nutritional and dietary security.
In order to get help from the authorities, it is necessary that the Congress of the Republic approve urgently the law of the National System of Rural Developing, the reforms to the law of Land and the Fiscal reform.
Benedicto Coc, coordinator of the Peasant Alliance said that they are going to defend their proposals in the dialogue convoked for the Executive System. The requests of the indigenous and peasant organizations are legitimates, necessary and urgently, in order to get out of the poverty, misery and marginalization that historically they have been subjugate too.
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