Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- 1 The Materiality of Practice in Ancestral Maya Economies
- 2 Situating Maya Societies in Space and Time
- 3 Feeding a Hungry Landscape
- 4 Gendered Labor and Socially Constructed Space
- 5 Ritual Works: Monumental Architecture and Generative Schemes of Power
- 6 Naturalized Authority of the Royal Court
- 7 Social Identity and the Daily Practice of Artisan Production
- 8 Places, Practices, and People of Commerce
- 9 Flowery Speech of Maya Tributary Arrangements
- 10 Skeining the Threads
- References Cited
- Index
9 - Flowery Speech of Maya Tributary Arrangements
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2014
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- 1 The Materiality of Practice in Ancestral Maya Economies
- 2 Situating Maya Societies in Space and Time
- 3 Feeding a Hungry Landscape
- 4 Gendered Labor and Socially Constructed Space
- 5 Ritual Works: Monumental Architecture and Generative Schemes of Power
- 6 Naturalized Authority of the Royal Court
- 7 Social Identity and the Daily Practice of Artisan Production
- 8 Places, Practices, and People of Commerce
- 9 Flowery Speech of Maya Tributary Arrangements
- 10 Skeining the Threads
- References Cited
- Index
Summary
Is this what you eat from, sir
what you drink from, sir?
Could this be
the skull of my grandfather?
Could this be
the skull of my father?
Is this what I am looking at
what I see before me?
Then won't this also become
a work of some kind
an artifact
this bone of my crown
bone of my head
carved in back
and carved in front?
Then it'll be sent down there
to my mountain
my valley
ending up as an even trade for
five score seeds of pataxte
five score seeds of cacao
paid by my children
my sons
at my mountain
my valley.
Recited by José Coloch
of Rabinal [Tedlock 2003:176–177]
Why begin a chapter on Maya tributary arrangements with an excerpt from the K'iche' Mayan dramatic play called Rab'inal Achi or “The Man of Rabinal”? In the passage cited here, Cawek – who has been captured in battle by a warrior from Rabinal – is offered a last drink of chocolate that is served to him in a carved calabash cup. Knowing that he is to be sacrificed, he contemplates the fact that his skull may be carved and used as a drinking cup before being returned to his home community in return for a sizable tribute ransom of cacao and pataxte (a semiwild form of cacao) seeds. In this passage, the entwined nature of warfare, captive taking, and tribute is intimated by flowery prose.
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- Information
- Ancestral Maya Economies in Archaeological Perspective , pp. 269 - 304Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010