Time and the Highland Maya

Described as a landmark in the ethnographic study of the Maya, this study of ritual and cosmology among the contemporary Quiché Indians of highland Guatemala has now been updated to address changes that have occurred in the last decade.

The Classic Mayan obsession with time has never been better known. Here, Barbara Tedlock redirects our attention to the present-day keepers of the ancient calendar. Combining anthropology with formal apprenticeship to a diviner, she refutes long-held ethnographic assumptions and opens a door to the order of the Mayan cosmos and its daily ritual.

Unable to visit the region for over ten years, Tedlock returned in 1989 to find that observance of the traditional calendar and religion is stronger than ever, despite a brutal civil war.

". . . a well-written, highly readable, and deeply convincing contribution. . . ." —Michael Coe

Described as a landmark in the ethnographic study of the Maya, this study of ritual and cosmology among the contemporary Quiché Indians of highland Guatemala has now been updated to address changes that have occurred in the last decade.

The Classic Mayan obsession with time has never been better known. Here, Barbara Tedlock redirects our attention to the present-day keepers of the ancient calendar. Combining anthropology with formal apprenticeship to a diviner, she refutes long-held ethnographic assumptions and opens a door to the order of the Mayan cosmos and its daily ritual.

Unable to visit the region for over ten years, Tedlock returned in 1989 to find that observance of the traditional calendar and religion is stronger than ever, despite a brutal civil war.

". . . a well-written, highly readable, and deeply convincing contribution. . . ."—Michael Coe

Barbara Tedlock is a Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the State University of New York at Buffalo and a Research Associate at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe. She and her husband, noted anthropologist Dennis Tedlock, were awarded Dorothy Doyle Lifetime Achievement Awards in 2006 by PEN New Mexico.