By Matthew G. Looper
The Maya of Mexico and important the US have played ritual dances for greater than millennia. Dance continues to be a vital part of spiritual event this day, serving as a medium for verbal exchange with the supernatural. throughout the overdue vintage interval (AD 600-900), dance assumed extra value in Maya royal courts via an organization with feasting and present trade. those performances allowed rulers to forge political alliances and show their regulate of exchange in luxurious items. the classy values embodied in those performances have been heavily tied to Maya social constitution, expressing notions of gender, rank, and standing. Dance was once therefore no longer easily leisure, yet used to be primary to historic Maya notions of social, spiritual, and political identification. utilizing an leading edge interdisciplinary process, Matthew Looper examines different types of info suitable to old Maya dance, together with hieroglyphic texts, pictorial photos in various media, and structure. a sequence of case reports illustrates the appliance of assorted analytical methodologies and provides interpretations of the shape, which means, and social value of dance functionality. even supposing the nuances of circulation in Maya dances are very unlikely to recuperate, Looper demonstrates wealth of different facts survives which permits an in depth attention of many features of functionality. To Be Like Gods therefore presents the 1st entire interpretation of the position of dance in historic Maya society and in addition serves as a version for comparative study within the archaeology of functionality.
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Additional resources for To Be Like Gods: Dance in Ancient Maya Civilization (The Linda Schele Series in Maya and Pre-Columbian Studies)
Sample text
22) replicates the event and actors shown on the earlier Lintel 32, in which Itzamnah B’ahlam II dances with his consort, Lady Evening Star, on October 25, 709 (Fig. 17b). Created nearly eighty years after this event actually took place, Lintel 53 relies heavily on the earlier lintel for details of costume and composition. The king’s pose, attributes, and attire are almost identical; however, a few details differ in his partner’s dress, particularly in the elimination of the patterning in her huipil and the deletion of the sacrificial bowl from her headdress.
Yaxchilán Lintels 5, 6, and 7 from Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions, vol. 3, pt. 1, pp. 21, 23, 25, reproduced courtesy of the President and Fellows of Harvard College. partner in this dance is Lady Hix Witz Ajaw, one of his wives, who holds a bowl containing bloodletting equipment. The lintels of Temple 1 describe rituals conducted at the same time as those shown on Temple 42. The leftmost, Lintel 5, describes a dance by Bird Jaguar IV forty days after his accession (Fig. 15a). The dance is possibly named xukpi (motmot bird, a type of flycatcher) after the bird-staff he holds in the accompanying image (Looper 1991b).
The calendar round date that introduces the text has been interpreted as October 25, 709, the day after the famous bloodletting event by Lady Xok recorded on Lintel 24. The event is a dance involving a “legs” object. The actor is the former ruler, Itzamnah B’ahlam II, who wears a costume including an avian headdress similar to those worn by his son on the earlier Lintels 1, 2, 5, and 42. In his right hand, Itzamnah B’ahlam II grasps a God K scepter, which also evokes earlier images (Lintels 1, 3, 7, and 42).