Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T00:50:11.307Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Mending the past: Ix Chel and the invention of a modern pop goddess

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Traci Ardren
Traci Ardren*
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Dept of Anthropology, University of Miami, P.O. Box 248106, Coral Gables, FL 33124, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

For modern communities, she is the moon goddess and protectress of Maya culture and women; for scholars she is one of a number of deities with different roles in the Postclassic period. Which is the real Ixchel? The author excavates the story of the Maya goddess and her re-invention by myth-makers – including archaeologists.

Keywords

MayaPostclassicreligionsymbolic archaeologypost-modern archaeologyfeminism
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 80 , Issue 307 , 1 March 2006 , pp. 25 - 37
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ardren, T. 2004.Where are the Maya in ancient Maya archeological tourism? Advertising and the appropriation of culture, in Rowan, Y. & Ardren, T. (ed.) Marketing heritage: Archaeology and the consumption of the past: 103–13. Walnut Creek,CA: AltaMira.Google Scholar
Arvigo, R. 1994. Sastun: my apprenticeship with a Maya healer. San Francisco,CA: HarperCollins.Google Scholar
Balick, M.J. & Cox, P.A. 1996. Plants, people, and culture: the science ofethnobotany. NewYork,NY: W.H. Freeman.Google Scholar
Brinton, D.G. 1896. Myths of the new world, a treatise on the symbolism and mythology of the red race of America. Philadelphia, PA: D.McKay.Google Scholar
Brisko, J.A. 1994.Maya goddesses: by what name do we call thm?, in Jones, C. & Jones, T. (ed.) U Mut Maya: 5: 197–206. Arcata: U Mut Maya.Google Scholar
CastaÑeda, Q. 1996. In the museum of Maya culture: touring Chichen Itza. St. Paul, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Childe, V.G. 1954. What happened in history. Baltimore,MD: Penguin.Google Scholar
Coe, M.D. 1977.Supernatural patrons of Maya scribes and artists, in Hammond, N. (ed.) Social process in Maya prehistory: 327–47. London: Academic.Google Scholar
Coe, M.D. 1992. Breaking the Maya code. New York,NY: Thames and Hudson.Google Scholar
Crawford, O.G.S. 1957. The eye goddess. London: Phoenix House.Google Scholar
Cypess, S.M. 1991. La Malinche in Mexican literature: from history to myth. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Daniel, G. 1958. The megalith builders of western Europe. London: Hutchinson.Google Scholar
Evans, A. 1921. The palace of Minos. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Freidel, D. & Sabloff, J. 1984. Cozumel: late Maya settlement patterns. Orlando,FL: Academic.Google Scholar
Hawkes, C. 1940. The prehistoric foundations of Europe. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Hawkes, C. 1945. Early Britain. London: Collins.Google Scholar
Hutton, R. 1997. The Neolithic great goddess: a study in modern tradition, Antiquity 71: 91–9.Google Scholar
Kelley, D.H. 1976. Deciphering the Maya Script. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Knorosov, Y. 1958. New data on the Maya written language. Proceedings of the 32nd International Congress of Americanists 32: 467–75.Copenhagen.Google Scholar
Landa, D.DE (translation by William Gates). 1978 [1566]. Yucatan before and after the conquest. New York, NY: Dover.Google Scholar
Lothrop, S.K. 1924 Tulum: an archaeological study of the east coast of Yucatan, Publication no. 335. Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington.Google Scholar
Meskell, L. 1995. Goddesses, Gimbutas and ‘New Age’ archaeology. Antiquity 69: 74–86.Copenhagen.Google Scholar
Milbrath, S. 1999. Star gods of the Maya. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Moser, S. 1998. Ancestral images: the iconography of human origins. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Moser, S. 2001. Archaeological representation: the visualconventions for constructing knowledge about the past, in Hodder, I. (ed.) Archaeological theory today. 262–83. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Paxton, M. 2001. The cosmos of the Yucatec Maya: cycles and steps from the Madrid codex. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press.Google Scholar
Peterson, C. 1976. The Maya of Guatemala: their life and dress. Guatemala City: Museo Ixchel.Google Scholar
Ramĭrez Ramĭrez, D. & Antonieta AzcárateSoto, MA. 2002. Investigaciones recientes en Cozumel. Arqueologia Mexicana 9 (54): 46–9.Google Scholar
Randall, J. 1993. Bibliography of Maya textiles. Guatemala City: Museo Ixchel.Google Scholar
Restall, M. & Chuchiak, J.F. 2002. A reevaluation of the authenticity of Fray Diego de Landa’s Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan. Ethnohistory 49 (3): 651–69.Google Scholar
Robles Castellanos, F. 1986. Elaboración de un plano de los caminos o sacbes regionales de San Gervasio,isla de Cozumel, in Robles, F. (ed.) Informe annual del Proyecto Arqueológico Cozumel Temporada 1981. Merida: Centro Regional de Yucatan.INAH.Google Scholar
Roys, R., Scholes, F. & Adams, E. 1940. Report and census ofthe indians of Cozumel,1570. Contributions to American Anthropology and History, no.30. Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington.Google Scholar
Roys, R.L. 1993. The book of chilam balam of Chumayel. Carnegie Institution ofWashington Publication no. 438. Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington.Google Scholar
Roys, R.L. 1957. The political geography of the Yucatan Maya. Carnegie Institution ofWashington Publication no. 613. Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington.Google Scholar
Sabloff, J.A. 1977. Old myths, new myths: the role of sea traders in the development of ancient Maya civilization, in Benson, E.P. (ed.) The sea in the pre-Columbian world:67–96. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks.Google Scholar
Sabloff, J.A. 2002. La isla de Cozumel. Arqueologĭa Mexicana: 4 (54):42–5.Google Scholar
Sanders, W.T. 1960. Prehistoric ceramics and settlement patterns in Quintana Roo, Mexico, Publication 606. Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington.Google Scholar
Seler, E. 1904. The Mexican chronology, with special reference to the Zapotec calendar, in Bowditch, C. (ed.) Mexican andcentralMexican antiquities, calendar Systems, and history: 11–55. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology,Bulletin 28.Google Scholar
Sierra Sosa, T.N. 1994. Contribución al estudio de los asentamientos de San Gervasio, Isla de Cozumel. México, DF: Instituto Nacional de Antropologĭa e Historia.Google Scholar
Sigal, P. 2000. From moon goddesses to virgins: thecolonization ofYucatecan Maya sexual desire. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Stephens, J.L. 1841. Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan. New York,NY: Dover.Google Scholar
Stone, A. 1990. The two faces of Eve: the grandmother and the unfaithful wife as a paradigm in Maya art. Paper presented at the 89th Annual Meeting ofthe American Anthropological Association.New Orleans.Google Scholar
Taube, K.A. 1992. The major gods of ancient Yucatan.Studies in Pre-Columbian Art and Archaeology. Washington, DC. Dumbarton Oaks.Google Scholar
Taube, K.A. 1994. The birth vase: natal imagery in ancient Mayamyth and ritual, in Kerr, J. (ed.) The Maya vase book 4: 652–85. New York, NY. Kerr Associates.Google Scholar
Thompson, J.E.S. 1939. The moon goddess in middle America. Contributions to American anthropology and history, no. 29. Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington.Google Scholar
Thompson, J.E.S. 1970. Maya history and religion, Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar
Thompson, J.E.S. 1997. Historia y religion de los mayas. Mexico DF: Siglo Vientiuno.Google Scholar
Townsend, J.B. 1990. The goddess: fact, fallacy, and revitalisation movement, in Hurtado, L. (ed.) Goddesses in religions and modern debate: 180–204. Atlanta: Scholar’s Press.Google Scholar
Vail, J.G. & Stone, A. 2002. Representations of women in Postclassic and Colonial Maya literature and art, in Ardren, T. (ed.) Ancient Maya women: 203–28. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira.Google Scholar