Maya Postclassic State Formation: Segmentary Lineage Migration in Advancing Frontiers

by John W. Fox

• ISBN13: 9780521101950
• ISBN10: 0521101956
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-12-18
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• More Book Details

Summary

John Fox here offers a fresh and persuasive view of the crucial Classic-Postclassic transition that determined the shape of the later Maya state. Drawing this data from ethnographic analogy and native chronicles as well as archaeology, he identifies segmentary lineage organisation as the key to understanding both the political organisation and the long-distance migrations observed among the Quiche Maya of Guatemala and Mexico. The first part of the book traces the origins of the Quiche, Itza and Xiu to the homeland on the Mexican Gulf coast where they acquired their potent Toltec mythology and identifies early segmentary lineages that developed as a result of social forces in the frontier zone. Dr Fox then matches the known anthropological characteristics of segmentary lineages against the Mayan kinship relationships described in documents and deduced from the spatial patterning within Quiche towns and cities. His conclusion, that the inherently fissile nature of segmentary lineages caused the leapfrogging migrations of up to 500km observed amongst the Maya, offers a convincing solution to a problem that has long puzzled scholars.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chontal segmentary lineage formation within the gulf frontier and diasporas to Yucatan, Chiapas and Guatemala

Segmentary lineage organisation of the Quiche, Chontal and Itza

The cult of the feathered serpent: the Toltec connection

Warrior and aristocratic lineages: ecological conditions leapfrog migrations

The early postclassic Mexican-Mayan frontier of the midwestern Guatemalan highlands

The acropolis centres and tun/katan ritual alliances

The Quiche segmentary state of the Late Postclassic period

The Eastern Frontier of Mesoamerica

Demographic and sociocultural dynamics of segmentary lineage expansion: sociocultural transformations

The ballgame ritual and myth for massing through complementary opposition

Comparisons among the Mexican-Mayan frontiers

Conclusions

Bibliography

Index

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