The Maya World: Yucatec Culture and Society, 1550-1850

by Matthew Restall

This pathbreaking work is a social and cultural history of the Maya peoples of the province of Yucatan in colonial Mexico, spanning the period from shortly after the Spanish conquest of the region to its incorporation as part of an independent Mexico. Instead of depending on the Spanish sources and perspectives that have formed the basis of previous scholarship on colonial Yucatan, the author aims to give a voice to the Maya themselves, basing his analysis entirely on his translations of hundreds of Yucatec Maya notarial documents—from libraries and archives in Mexico, Spain, and the United States—most of which have never before received scholarly attention. These documents allow the author to reconstruct the social and cultural world of the Maya municipality, or cah , the self-governing community where most Mayas lived and which was the focus of Maya social and political identity. The first two parts of the book examine the ways in which Mayas were organized and differentiated from each other within the community, and the discussion covers such topics as individual and group identities, sociopolitical organization, political factionalism, career patterns, class structures, household and family patterns, inheritance, gender roles, sexuality, and religion. The third part explores the material environment of the cah , emphasizing the role played by the use and exchange of land, while the fourth part describes in detail the nature and significance of the source documentation, its genres and its language. Throughout the book, the author pays attention to the comparative contexts of changes over time and the similarities or differences between Maya patterns and those of other colonial-era Mesoamericans, notably the Nahuas of central Mexico.

Genres: History

458 pages, Paperback

First published April 30, 1997

About the author

Matthew Restall is a historian of Colonial Latin America. He is an ethnohistorian and a scholar of conquest, colonization, and the African diaspora in the Americas. He is currently Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Latin American History and Anthropology, and Director of Latin American Studies, at the Pennsylvania State University. He is President of the American Society for Ethnohistory, a former editor of Ethnohistory journal, a senior editor of the Hispanic American Historical Review, editor of the book series Latin American Originals, and co-editor of the Cambridge Latin American Studies book series.

Reviews

[Daniel Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Restall draws from a corpus of 1600 colonial-era Yucatec-language documents to reconstruct Maya society in the colonial Yucatán. In doing so, he combats the myth that either these indigenous texts do not exist, or that Yucatec society completely collapsed in the wake of the Conquest - on the contrary, he presents a complex society that is "sophisticated, largely self-governing, and in many ways culturally independent". The book is organized into 4 sections that analyze Identity (Cah and Chibal), Society and Culture, Land and Materials, and Literacy and Language. Restall is thorough and explicit in every single point that he makes, citing specific examples in Yucatec with an English translation, comparing documents and genres, and guiding the reader through a close reading of the text. What I especially appreciate is the use of repetition and recall - often Restall will casually recycle a concept, phrase, example, etc., from a previous section, which emphasizes the connections and multidimensionality of various documents and events. There are several appendices full of data, in addition to the numerous maps, tables, concept diagrams, etc. that appear throughout the work. In conclusion, this book is brilliant.

[kalei · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good background, but too academic for goodreads

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clearly his dissertation...solid research and he hits you over the head with it. Tread lightly!