Books.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.
Overview
The first book to examine how the ancient Maya defined gender. Contributors explain what it meant to be male and female. They show how gender was experienced and what the bases were for gender designations. They demonstrate how gender relations affected other areas of Mayan life, such as the arts, cosmology, economics, politics, religion, and social structure. And they analyze the changes in Mayan gender relations and identities that were fostered by evolving historical systems.
There was no single Mayan polity nor was there a unitary cultural approach. Certain similarities in culture account for the observation of a general commonality among the ancient Maya, but there clearly were significant differences between Mayan sites, within the same site over time, and even between social sectors at the same site in any given time—this is no less true for ancient Maya gender identity and relations. Thus, the authors seek to explain why emphasis upon bilateral inheritance of power and prerogative was emphasized in artwork at some periods and some sites and not at others. Avoiding the vain attempt to provide a single explanation, they seek to offer a clearer sense of the richness of their topic.
Synopsis
The first book-length treatment of gender relations among the ancient Maya.
Booknews
The 11 essays in this collection consider how the Maya city-states were affected by gender relations and identities. Among the topics are gender models in visual sources, early roots of gender relations based in division of labor, architectural evidence for divisions between the sexes in elite households, gender within the practice of weaving, and the evidence of representations of costumes. The contributors teach art history, anthropology, or archaeology at universities in the US, Canada, and Mexico. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)