Maya Society Under Colonial Rule: The Collective Enterprise of Survival

The Maya before the Spanish conquest were one of the largest groups of Indians in what is known today as the Latin American Realm. The Maya are considered to have been one of the more intellectually inclined societies, with their origin reaching back to around 1800-1500 BC. Their elaborately structured hieroglyphic writing continues to beguile those who seek to decipher it. Just as significant as their hieroglyphs in evidencing their mental acuity was their advanced mathematics and astronomy. By 900 AD the Mayans for unknown reasons departed from their cultural centers throughout the Yucatan peninsula and its outlying areas, and moved into a more subdued lifestyle. This latter day Maya was the one that the Spanish encountered during their conquest of this region of the world beginning in the 16th Century. Nancy Farriss' Maya Under Colonial Rule picks up the story of the Maya during the early part of the 16th Century after they were "discovered" by one of the lieutenants of Hernan Cortez, Francisco de Montejo. As the author points out early, the Maya were not conquered as easily as the Aztecs had been. She cites the main factor that necessitated a twenty-year effort, rather than the two-year conquest in the case of the Aztecs, had been the Mayan's absence of a strong centralized form of empire. Eventually the Mayans were of course conquered. The Spanish conquest of the Maya in the Yucatan was not nearly as devastating as their effort against the Aztecs. The Maya, even though they were subjugated like the Aztecs, and their own social power structure demolished, they remained intact for a much longer stretch of time. Due to the much lengthier period of transformation, the characteristics of this blended society remained more Indian than European when compared to the other experiences in this domain. Maya Society is divided into four sections. In the first segment, the various stages of the conquest are examined, starting with the initial reactions by both parties and moving through the emerging colonial society. The following part of the book is devoted to how this changed social environment had transformed the Maya. Their new economy, redirected social order and demographic shifts produced a complexion of those Maya who became a part of the movement along with the Spanish, and those who were left out on the fringe of this association. Part three, titled "Adaptation and Survival," is the heart of Farriss' work. Within this section the social order of the Maya during the period of colonization begins to gel. The hierarchy and internal social economic structure of the post-conquest Maya emerge, and within this order are some remnants of their pre-conquest fellowship that they have successfully incorporated, such as the fusion of their religious and spiritual beliefs with Christianity. Chapters ten and eleven of this section in particular stand out as they illustrate how the Maya are not washed clean of their philosophical views