Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T18:49:16.393Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Art of Becoming: The Graffiti of Tikal, Guatemala

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Scott R. Hutson
Scott R. Hutson*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Kentucky, 211 Lafferty Hall, Lexington, KY 40306-0024 ([email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In their 1995 Latin American Antiquity article, Haviland and Haviland argued that the people who produced much of the graffiti of Tikal were depicting visions from altered states of consciousness. In this paper, I argue that there is room for alternative interpretations. Comparison with children"s drawings from across the world suggests that children or people without training in Maya representational conventions authored a portion of the graffiti. Though this portion may be small, the possibility that children were involved provides a rare opportunity to discuss the experience of childhood. I argue that the content of the graffiti and the inter-subjective context of its production reveal several processes of becoming. Among other things, the graffiti permit an account of how children learn: legitimate participation in a community of people with varied levels of experience. This relational understanding of graffiti production also provides grounds for considering innovation and transformation in the medium of expression. Finally, I argue that the act of representation gives young people a form of mastery over the themes they portray. This helps them to accommodate confusing or difficult relations in their lives and to harmonize with their world in such a way that makes them culturally intelligible subjects.

Resumen

Resumen

En 1995, Haviland y Haviland publicaron un artículo en Latin American Antiquity en donde argumentaron que la gente que produjo la mayoría de los grafiti de Tikal intentó representar visiones de estados alterados de conciencia. En este ensayo, sugiero que existen interpretaciones alternativas. Comparaciones con dibujos de niños de varias culturas indican que niños o personas sin entrenamiento en las convenciones de representación de la cultura maya escribieron una porción de los grafiti. Argumento que el contenido de los grafiti y el contexto inter-subjetivo de su producción revelan varios procesos de realización. Los grafiti permiten observaciones sobre un proceso de aprendizaje basado en la participación en una comunidad de personas con varios niveles de experiencia. Este entendimiento relacional de la producción de grafittis también proporciona una explicación para la innovación y la transformación en el medio de expresión. Finalmente, sostengo que la acción de representación da a los jóvenes un dominio sobre los temas que representan gráficamente. Eso les ayuda a acomodar relaciones difíciles en sus vidas y a armonizarse con el mundo de tal manera que les permite ser sujetos culturalmente inteligibles.

Type
Articles
Information
Latin American Antiquity , Volume 22 , Issue 4 , December 2011 , pp. 403 - 426
Copyright
Copyright ©2011 by the Society for American Archaeology.

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

References Cited

Alland, Alexander 1983 Playing with Form: Children Draw in Six Cultures. Columbia University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Ardren, Traci, and Hutson, Scott R. (editors) 2006 The Social Experience of Childhood in Ancient Mesoamerica. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.Google Scholar
Arnheim, Rudolf 1966 Toward a Psychology of Art. University of California Press, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Arnheim, Rudolf 1974 Art and Visual Perception. University of California Press, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Bagwell, Elizabeth 2002 Ceramic Form and Skill: Attempting to Identify Child Producers at Pecos Pueblo, New Mexico. In Children in the Prehistoric Puebloan Southwest, edited by Kathryn A. Kamp, pp. 90–107. The University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Bahn, Paul 1988 Comment on J. D. Lewis-Williams and T. A. Dowson, “The Signs of All Times.” Current Anthropology 29:217–218.Google Scholar
Bailey, Douglass W. 2005 Prehistoric Figurines. Routledge, London.Google Scholar
Baxter, Jane E. 2005a The Archaeology of Childhood: Children, Gender and Material Culture. Aitamira, Walnut Creek, California.Google Scholar
Baxter, Jane E. 2005b Children in Action: Perspectives on the Archaeology of Childhood. American Anthropological Association, Arlington, Virginia.Google Scholar
Belo, Jane 1955 Balinese Children’s Drawings. In Childhood in Contemporary Cultures, edited by Margaret Mead and Martha Wolfenstein, pp. 52–69. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Blindheim, Martin 1985 Graffiti in Norwegian Stave Churches, c. 1I50-C.1530. Columbia University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Boas, Franz 1955 Primitive Art. Dover, New York.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre 1977 Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Bradshaw, John L. 2003 An Unentrancing Idea: Psychedelics and the Upper Paleolithic. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 13(2):216–218.Google Scholar
Bruner, Jerome 1972 Nature and Uses of Immaturity. American Psychologist 27(8):687–708.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chamberlain, Andrew T. 1997 Commentary: Missing Stages of Life—Towards the Perception of Children in Archaeology. In Invisible People and Processes: Writing Gender and Childhood into European Archaeology, edited by Jenny Moore and Eleanor Scott, pp. 248–250. Leicester University Press, London.Google Scholar
Coe, William R. 1983 Editor’s Introductory Comments. In The Graffiti of Tikal, edited by Helen Trik, and Michael Kampen, pp. 1–5. Tikal Report No. 31, William R. Coe, general editor. University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Coe, William R. 1990 Excavations in the Great Plaza, North Terrace, and North Acropolis of Tikal. Tikal Reports. The University Museum, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Crown, Patricia L. 2001 Learning to Make Pottery in the Prehispanic American Southwest Journal of Anthropological Research 57(4):451–469.Google Scholar
Darling, M. 1998 L.A. or Lilliput? In L.A. or Lilliput? Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, California.Google Scholar
Davis, Whitney 1988 Comment on J. D. Lewis-Williams and T. A. Dowson, “The Signs of All Times”. Current Anthropology 29(222–224).Google Scholar
De Long, A. J. 1983 Spatial Scale, Temporal Existence and Information Processing: An Empirical Examination of Experiential Reality. Man-Environment Systems 13:77–86.Google Scholar
DeBoer, Warren R. 1990 Interaction, Imitation and Communication As Expressed Through Style: The Ucayali experience. In The Uses of Style in Archaeology, edited by Christine Hastorf and Margaret Conkey, pp. 82–104. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Deregowski, Jan B. 1980 Illusions, Patterns and Pictures: A Cross Cultural Perspective. Academic Press, London.Google Scholar
Elliott, Anthony 1994 Psychoanalytic Theory. Blackwell, Oxford.Google Scholar
Erikson, Erik 1968 Identity, Youth and Crisis. W. W. Norton, New York.Google Scholar
Faustich, Paul 1988 Comment on J. D. Lewis-Williams and T. A. Dowson “The Signs of All Times.” Current Anthropology 29:224–225.Google Scholar
Fleming, Juliet 2001 Graffiti and the Writing Arts of Early Modern Europe. Reaktion Books, London.Google Scholar
Fortes, Meyer 1940 Children’s Drawings among the Tallensi. Africa 13:239–245.Google Scholar
Freeman, N. H. 1975 “Do Children draw Men with Arms Coming out of the Head?” Nature 254:416–417.Google Scholar
Freud, Sigmund 1950 Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Translated by J. Strachey. Liveright, New York.Google Scholar
Gann, Thomas 1928 Maya Cities: A Record of Exploration and Adventure in Middle America. Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York.Google Scholar
Gardner, Howard 1980 Artful Scribbles: The Significance of Children’s Drawings. Basic Books, New York.Google Scholar
Giddens, Anthony 1979 Central Problems in Social Theory. University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Golomb, Claire 2002 Child Art in Context: A Cultural and Comparative Perspective. American Psychological Association, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Gottleib, Alma 2004 The Afterlife is Where We Come from. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Harrison, Peter D. 1999 The Lords of Tikal: The Rulers of an Ancient Maya City. Thames and Hudson, London.Google Scholar
Haviland, William A. 1967 Stature at Tikal, Guatemala: Impl ications for Ancient Maya Demography and Social Organization. American Antiquity 32:316–325.Google Scholar
Haviland, William, and de Laguna Haviland, Anita 1995 Glimpses of the Supernatural: Altered States of Consciousness and the Graffiti of Tikal, Guatemala. latin American Antiquity 6:295–309.Google Scholar
Helvenston, Patricia, and Bahn, Paul 2003 Testing the Three Stages of Trance Model. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 13(2):213–224.Google Scholar
Houston, Stephen D., and Stuart, David 1989 The Way Glyph: Evidence of “Co-essences” among the Classic Maya. Research Reports on Ancient Maya Writing 30. Center for Maya Research, Washington D.C.Google Scholar
Houston, Stephen D., and Stuart, David 1998 The Ancient Maya Self: Personhood and Portraiture in the Classic Period. Res 33:73–101.Google Scholar
Huizinga, Ludens 1950 A Study of the Play Element in Culture. Beacon, Boston.Google Scholar
Hutson, Scott R. 2006 Children not at Chunchucmil: A Relational Approach to Young Subjects. In The Social Experience of Childhood in Ancient Mesoamerica, edited by Traci Ardren and Scott R. Hutson, pp. 103–132. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.Google Scholar
Hutson, Scott R. 2010 Dwelling, Identity and the Maya: Relational Archaeology at Chunchucmil. Altamira, Lanham, Maryland.Google Scholar
Ingold, Tim 2000 The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill. Routledge, London.Google Scholar
Jackson, Michael 1998 Minima Ethnographica: Inter subjectivity and the Anthropological Project. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
James, Alison, Jenks, Chris, and Prout, Alan 1998 Theorizing Childhood. Teachers College Press, New York.Google Scholar
Jones-Baker, Doris 1981 The Graffiti of Folk Motifs in Cotswold Churches. Folklore 92(ii):160–167.Google Scholar
Joyce, Rosemary A. 2000 Girling the Girl and Boying the Boy. World Archaeology 31:473–483.Google Scholar
Kamp, Kathryn A. 2001a Where Have all the children Gone?: The Archaeology of Childhood. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 8(1):1–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kamp, Kathryn A. 2001b Prehistoric Children Working and Playing: A South western Case Study in Learning Ceramics Journal of Anthropological Research 57(4):427–450.Google Scholar
Kamp, Kathryn A. (editor) 2002 Children in the Prehistoric Puebloan Southwest. The University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Kampen, Michael 1978 The Graffiti of Tikal. Estudios de Cultura Maya 11:155–179.Google Scholar
Kellogg, Rhoda 1969 Analyzing Children’s Art. National Press Books, Palo Alto.Google Scholar
Kellogg, Rhoda, Knoll, M., and Kugler, J. 1965 Form-Similarity between Phosphenes of Adults and pre-School Children’s Scribblings. Nature 208:1129–30.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Laporte, Juan Pedro 2001 Trabajos no divulgados del Proyecto Nacional Tikal, parte 2: hallazgos en las exploraciones de la zona norte. In XIV Simposio de investigaciones arqueologicas en Guatemala, edited by Juan Pedro Laporte, Ana C. Suasnávar, and Barbara Arroyo, pp. 259–297. Ministro de Cultura y Deportes, Instituto de Antropologia e Historia, Guatemala City.Google Scholar
Lave, Jean, and Wenger, Etienne 1991 Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Levi-Strauss, Claude 1966 The Savage Mind. Aldine, Chicago.Google Scholar
Lewis-Williams, J. David, and Dowson, Thomas A. 1988 The Signs of All Times: Entoptic Phenomena in Upper Palaeolithic Art. Current Anthropology 29:201–240.Google Scholar
Loten, H. Stanley 2002 Miscellaneous Investigations in Central Tikal. Tikal Reports. University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Martindale, Colin 1988 Comment on J. D. Lewis-Williams and T. A. Dowson, “The Signs of All Times.” Current Anthropology 29(227–228).Google Scholar
Mayall, Berry 1994 Children in Action at Home and at School. In Children’s Childhoods: Observed and Experienced, edited by Berry Mayall, pp. 114–127. Falmer, London.Google Scholar
Mayer, Karl H. 2009 Ancient Maya Architectural Graffiti. In Los Grafitos Mayas, edited by Cristina Vidal Lorenzo and Gaspar Muñoz Cosme, pp. 13–27. Universitat Valencia.Google Scholar
Miller, Mary E., and Taube, Karl 1993 The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya. Thames and Hudson, London.Google Scholar
Minar, C. Jill, and Crown, Patricia L. 2001 Learning and Craft Production: An Introduction Journal of Anthropological Research 57:369–380.Google Scholar
Mizoguchi, Koji 2000 The Child as Node of Past, Present and Future. In Children and Material Culture, edited by Joanna Sofaer Derevenski, pp. 141–150. Routledge, London.Google Scholar
Morris, Earl H., Chariot, Jean, and Morris, Ann A. 1931 The Temple of the Warriors at Chichen Itza, Yucatan. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Publication 406. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, D. C.Google Scholar
Mortensen, Karen V. 1991 Form and Content in Children’s Human Figure Drawings. New York University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Opie, Iona 1993 The People in the Playground. Oxford University Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
Paget, G. W. 1932 Some Drawings of Men and Women Made by Children of Certain Non-European Races. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 62:127–144.Google Scholar
Piaget, Jean 1976 Mastery Play. In Play—its Role in Development and Education, edited by Edward Bruner, pp. 166–171. Penguin, Hammondworth.Google Scholar
Piaget, Jean, and Inhelder, Barbara 1969 The Psychology of the Child. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.Google Scholar
Russo, Alessandra 2006 A Tale of Two Bodies: on Aesthetic Condensation in the Mexican Colonial Graffiti of Actopan, 1629. RES 49/50.Google Scholar
Scheie, Linda, and Freidel, David A. 1990 A Forest of Kings: The Untold Story of the Ancient Maya. Quill, New York.Google Scholar
Scheie, Linda, and Mathews, Peter 1998 The Code of Kings. Quill, New York.Google Scholar
Scott, Eleanor 1997 Introduction: On the Incompleteness of Archaeological Narratives. In Invisible People and Processes: Writing Gender and Childhood into European Archaeology, edited by Jenny Moore, and Eleanor Scott, pp. 1–14. Leicester University Press, London.Google Scholar
Shatil, Jonathan 1995 The Psychography of the Child. University Press of America, Lanham, Maryland.Google Scholar
Shook, Ed 1956 Investigaciones Arqueológicas en las Ruinas de Tikal, Departamento de El Petén, Guatemala. Antropologia e Historia de Guatemala 3(1):9–32.Google Scholar
Silver, Tony, and Chalfant, David 1983 Style Wars. Public Art Films, New York.Google Scholar
Smith, A. Ledyard 1937 Structure A-XVII1, Uaxactun. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Publication 483 (publication 483 is volume IV of the Contributions to American Archaeology series, and it contains numbers 20 to 23. Ledyard’s contribution is no. 20. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington D.C.Google Scholar
Smith, A. Ledyard 1950 Uaxactun, Guatemala: Excavations of 1931–1937. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Publication 580. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, D. C.Google Scholar
Smith, Patricia E. 2005 Children and Ceramic Innovation: A Study in the Archaeology of Children. In Children in Action: Perspectives on the Archaeology of Childhood, edited by Jane E. Baxter, pp. 65–76. Anthropological Papers of the American Anthropological Association, Number 15. American Anthropological Association, Arlington, Virginia.Google Scholar
Sofaer Derevenski, J. (editor) 2000 Children and Material Culture. Routledge, London.Google Scholar
Sontag, Susan 1987 The Pleasure of the Image. Art in America 75:122–131.Google Scholar
Stone, Andrea 1995 Images from the Underworld: Naj Tunich and the Tradition of Maya Cave Painting. University of Texas Press, Austin.Google Scholar
Storey, Rebecca, and McAnany, Patricia A. 2006 Children Of K’axob: Premature Death In A Formative Maya Village. In The Social Experience of Childhood in Ancient Mesoamerica, edited by Traci Ardren and Scott R. Hutson, pp. 53–72. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.Google Scholar
Taylor, Charles 1999 To Follow a Rule… In Bourdieu: A Critical Reader, edited by Richard Shusterman, pp. 29–44. Blackwell, Oxford.Google Scholar
Thomas, Glyn V., and Silk, Angele M. J. 1990 An Introduction to the Psychology of Children’s Drawings. New York University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Thompson, Edward H., and Dorsey, George A. 1898 Ruins of Xkickmook, Yucatan. Field Columbian Museum Publication 28, Anthropological Series Vol. II, No. 3. Field Columbian Museum, Chicago.Google Scholar
Thompson, J. Eric S. 1954 The Rise and Fall of Maya Civilization. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Tozzer, Alfred M. 1913 A Preliminary Study of the Prehistoric Ruins of Nakum, Guatemala. Memoirs of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, vol. 5, number 3. Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Tozzer, Alfred M. 1941 Landa’s Relación de las Cosas de Yucatán: A Translation. Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, vol. XVII. Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Cambridge, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Trachman, Rissa M., and Valdez, Fred J. Jr. 2006 Identifying Childhood Among the Ancient Maya: Evidence Toward Social Reproduction at the Dancer Household Groups in Northwestern Belize. In The Social Experience of Childhood in Ancient Mesoamerica, edited by Traci Ardren and Scott R. Hutson, pp. 73–100. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.Google Scholar
Trik, Helen, and Kampen, Michael 1983 The Graffiti of Tikal. Tikal Report No. 31. The University Museum, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Wallaert-Pêtre, Hélène 2001 Learning How to Make the Right Pots: Apprenticeship Strategies and Material Culture, a Case Study in Handmade Pottery from Cameroon Journal of Anthropological Research 57(4):471–493.Google Scholar
Webster, Helen T. 1963 Tikal Graffiti. Expedition 6(1):36–47.Google Scholar
Whittington, Stephen L. 1989 Characteristics of Demography and Disease in Low Status Maya from Classic Period Copan, Honduras. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University.Google Scholar
Wilkie, Laurie 2000 Not Merely Child’s Play: Creating a Historical Archaeology of Children and Childhood. In Children and Material Culture, edited by Joanna Sofaer Derevenski, pp. 100–114. Routledge, London.Google Scholar
Wilson, Brent, and Wilson, Marjorie 1977 An Iconoclastic View of the Imagery Sources in the Drawings of Young People. Art Education 30:5–11.Google Scholar