| Included Work | Wagley, Charles, 1913-1991 Economics of a Guatemalan village. |
| Included Work | Wagley, Charles, 1913-1991 Social and religious life of a Guatemalan village. |
| Included Work | Watanabe, John M. (John Mamoru), 1952- Culture summary, Mam Maya. |
| Included Work | Watanabe, John M. (John Mamoru), 1952- Maya saints and souls in a changing world. |
| Other author/creator | Human Relations Area Files, inc. |
| Series |
eHRAF world cultures
eHRAF world cultures. Middle America and the Caribbean. UNAUTHORIZED
|
| Contents |
Economics of a Guatemalan village ; The social and religious life of a Guatemalan village / Charles W. Wagley -- Culture summary, Mam Maya ; Maya saints and souls in a changing world / John M. Watanabe. |
| Scope and content |
This collection of 4 documents, all in English, provide firsthand accounts of culture and society as observed in late 1930s and 1980s. Two of these documents are the works of anthropologist Charles Wagley who lived in the Mam Mayan town of Santiago Chimaltenango in 1937 when the influence of the Guatemalan government on indigenous communities was still very minimal. In the first work, Wagley describes economic life with a particular emphasis on agricultural practices, land tenure, wage labor, and trends in consumption and economic stratification. The second work focuses on social organization and religious beliefs. Topics discussed include kinship, the expected life cycle of individuals and families, and religious organizations. This document also contains a field diary by Juan de Dios Rosales, a researcher with the Carnegie Institution who visited Santiago Chimaltenango in 1944 looking for nutritional information on the indigenous Mayan diet. Also included is a more recent book by anthropologist John Watanabe who, inspired by Wagley, conducted extensive fieldwork in Santiago Chimaltenango in 1978-1988. Watanabe is mainly concerned with the interplay of identity, history, and experience in this Mam-speaking Maya community. He builds on contemporary anthropological theories on ethnicity and social change to argue that the continuity of Mam Maya's ethnic distinctiveness has to do with to specific social, economic and political processes that shaped their choices and relationships, as opposed to some enduring cultural sentiments or powerful external forces. |
| General note | Title from Web page (viewed Nov. 4, 2011). |
| General note | This portion of eHRAF world cultures was last updated in 2010 and is a revision and update of the microfiche file, Mam. |
| Technical details | Mode of access: World Wide Web. |
