Are there any
Mayas left?
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As you
have already learned, the Mayas are still very much alive! More
than six million Maya people live in Central America, mostly in
Guatemala and México, but also in Belize, El Salvador and
Honduras. The Mayas never disappeared. A lot of ancient Maya cities
were abandoned, but that doesn't mean the Mayas ceased to exist.
They simply moved to other places.
The Spanish conquerors tried to erase Maya culture, but never succeeded.
Many Mayas fled away from the conquerors while others changed their
habits in a way they could live in relative harmony with them.
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The Mayas today
are divided in many different tribes. Each tribe has its own customs
and traditions and sometimes even its own language. In Guatemala
more than twenty Maya languages are spoken. Although Spanish is
the official language of Guatemala, some of the indigenous people
only speak their Maya language!
A lot of the Mayas still wear their traditional dress and maintain
their ancient religious traditions or use natural medicines the
way they have for hundreds of years. Other Mayas dress in modern
cloths and live in apartment buildings in the cities. But that doesn't
make them less Maya!
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Why the differences
between the Maya peoples?
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Each
different group of Maya people has its own customs, traditions,
clothes and language. But if there are so many differences, how
come they are all Mayas?
Thousands of years ago there was a small group of people called
Mayas. They all believed in the same gods, lived in the same way,
ate the same foods and grew their crops in exactly the same way.
Of course, they also spoke the same language. .

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When
this group of people became bigger, some of the people left to live
in other places where they started new communities. Initially they
maintained the same way of living, but little by little things started
to change, not in the least because they had to adapt to their new
surroundings. They found new plants and animals for which they had
no names yet. So they made up names and that's how gradually their
language began to change. They also started to build their houses
slightly different from before, better equipped for the new surroundings.
That's how each Maya village became a little different from the
other. These differences became bigger over time, but what never
changed is that the people still consider themselves Mayas. Often
two Mayas from different groups are not able to communicate because
they speak different languages, but they are still both Maya!
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The Mayas in Guatemala
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There
is no other country so full of colours as Guatemala. There are about
thirty different groups of Mayas, many of them still wearing their
typical dress every day. And not just the women, men too!
In no other country you'll find so many indigenous people and so
many different peoples. Many of them have conserved their traditions
carefully. They still speak their language and keep up with their
traditional ceremonies. The women shine in their beautifully woven
huipils, embroidered with flowers, birds or butterflies.
If you ever visit a marketplace in Guatemala, you'll see it's a
feast of colours!
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The
Mayas in the highlands and the ones who live around Lake Atitlán
are the most famous, but there many more Maya people, among them
the Chortí who live near the border with Hondurass. |
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The Mayas in
Mexico
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In Mexico
you'll find Mayas in the south of the country. The majority lives
in Chiapas and Yucatan. The language most widely spoken is Yucatek.
The women wear huipils and sandals. The houses in Yucatan
are made of mud with a thatched roof, like the ones in Copán,
but the big difference is that they are oval shaped. Inside the
house there's a bundle of vines all around that supports the roof.
An oval shape is very strong and those simple Maya houses can even
withstand hurricanes where many cinder block buildings can't!
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The Mayas in Belize
Belize
is a small country with only about three hundred thousand inhabitants.
Imagine, in Honduras live twenty times as many people! But despite
being so small, Belize is a very interesting country. It's the only
country in Central America where the official language is not Spanish
but English. The population is an interesting mix of different people:
there are white descendents of conquerors from Spain and England;
the Garifuna and Creoles who are descendents of the black slaves
brought from Africa and a lot of people who are a bit of everything.
There are immigrants from Asia and of course there are Mayas. They
form about 10% of the population and live mostly in the south and
east of Belize.
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Maya
women in Belize wear colourful dresses trimmed with lace. The live
in wooden houses with palm leaf roofs and dirt floors. And just
as Maya people from other places, they eat tortillas with
every meal!
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The Mayas in Honduras
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The Mayas
in Honduras are called the Chortí. About thirty five thousand
Chortí live in the departments of Copán and Ocotepeque.
The Mayas in Honduras do not live as traditionally as many others
in Mexico and Guatemala. They don't speak Chortí anymore and
do not have a traditional dress code. In other words, the Chortí
have lost a lot of their culture. That s a shame, but fortunately
there's a lot of interest in recovering some of it. Children in Chortí
communities these days learn the Chortí language at school
and many want to know more about the history of their ancestors. The
Chortí people in Guatemala are helping the ones in Honduras
to learn more about their own culture. |
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The
Maya Chortí are indigenous people of Honduras. That means
that they lived here before Honduras was discovered by the Spanish.
The Chortí are not the only indigenous people in Honduras:
there are Garifunas, Lenca, Pech and Misquito peoples. |
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How do the
Mayas live today?
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Imagine
you're walking around the main square of your home town and all
of a sudden you see a guy dressed in a loincloth decorated with
feathers. What will you think? That he's a clown or maybe an actor
in a play about ancient Maya culture? It must be, because these
days'’ people don't dress like that anymore! Maya culture
has changed a lot in the last thousand years, just like any other
culture has changed. It is often hard to say who is Maya and who
isn't, because a lot of Maya people live much the same way as people
do who are not Maya. But some Mayas maintain a very traditional
way of living. They still conduct religious ceremonies to honour
the Maya god of rain, Chaak, and when somebody in the community
gets sick, they'll get the local traditional healer. You already
know that many Mayas in Mexico and Guatemala still wear their traditional
dress and they don't do this for special occasion or for tourists!
This is their typical day-to-day dress!
Many of today's Mayas watch TV, travel on busses and have cell phones.
They have adapted to modern life without completely losing their
own culture. It is possible to live a modern live and conserve ancient
traditions at the same time!
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Did you know that...
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Christopher Columbus
discovered America by accident. He set out to find a shorter route
to India not realizing that there was a whole continent blocking his
way! When he first set foot he didn't realize his mistake yet, but
believed he had arrived in India. That's why he called the native
habitants "Indians".
These days the term “"Indian" is often considered
offensive and that's why it's better to talk about indigenous people
when you speak of the native people of a country. |
During
cultural festivals in Belize people play tradition Maya music on
flutes, conch shells, drums and marimba. The marimba is an instrument
that was probably introduced by black slaves and adapted by the
Mayas. |
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Traditionally,
when a Maya girl is only three years old, she starts learning how
to weave. In Guatemala and Mexico are still a lot of village where
the women weave fabulous fabrics. The legend goes that Ixchel, the
moon goddess taught the women the beautiful and sacred designs that
the women use in their weavings. The women still embroider designs
that come directly from their natural surroundings or Maya mythology.
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