UC Berkeley

This dissertation is about Maya Ch'ol understandings of archaeological heritage and their own past, how their current social situation is pulled from and represented in that history. I explore how the Ch´ol experience life from their particular position within the economic, political, touristic, and archaeological landscape today. To understand this situation, I inquire with Maya Ch'ol consultants about their own conceptions of history and heritage, about their relationship with archaeology and archaeologists, and how scholars as mayanists can make our disciplines more open to participation and useful for the interests of Maya peoples of today. A wide variety of relationships between Maya individuals and history was observed, with a few common threads. These include a generalized perception of archaeological practices as opaque, a need for sharing with the Maya peoples and Mexican society the knowledge that archaeology produces. Participants described widespread discrimination against indigenous practices in the life of Ch’oles. A number of layers of cultural erasure and hegemonic policies have made embracing the ancient past of the Maya peoples something to avoid in order to blend into an ideal Mexican subject. Although there are a great number of Ch’ol academics, artists, and activists pushing for embracing the identity with pride, including the archaeological past, most of the Ch’oles do not. The challenges of decolonizing mayanist archaeology were made evident throughout the dialogues, as well as reiterating its necessity.