Gaspar Pedro González gives an overview of Mayan literature, beginning 15,000 years ago and moving through the nomad period, to the agricultural era and the beginning of cultural and artistic development when urban centers were formed around 1000 BC. When the Spaniards arrived in 1524 the Mayans were an intellectual and artistic society. They had a calendar and produced hieroglyphic writing. Their numerical writing included the concept of zero which was represented in the shape of a conch shell, possibly because of their cyclical view of life and the universe. They had scrutinized the depths of the universe through astronomy, mathematics, and the ordering of time. Early writing was based on onomatopoeic sounds coming from nature and the elements. These were a people centered on the earth where they lived. Over and over, while conducting research, I have read and felt the indignation of Mayan writers as they are analyzed and supposedly “discovered” by Western intellectuals who are constantly searching for new territory to expropriate for their personal gain in the form of publication. This explanation of one word from the Q’anjob’al language shows that word-to-word translation is impossible when the value or nuance of a word in Maya cannot be expressed by one word in english. I began to feel I too was treading on a territory that is not mine to share. Many Mayans are “educated” and have taken up the pen to write their feelings and express their truth, instead of letting “educated” outsiders take their stories and tell them with their own interpretation. It’s unfortunate that our personal perspective always casts a shadow over anything we observe and in turn interpret in our own words. And even more unfortunate is the difficulty of expressing one's world while trying to follow a second world based on an entirely different set of beliefs and practices. Transferring Mayan oral stories into Western literary forms must be a nearly impossible feat. Kotz’ib’ Nuestra literatura maya, Gaspar Pedro González, page 7. These author’s eyes and feelings are framed by the cosmovision that their culture gives them. Mayan literature, as a cultural product of a society, with a particular philosophical point of view about the world and life, shouldn’t always be subjected to analysis according to the canons of Western culture. Kotz’ib’ embraces the different ways of expressing thought through signs, symbols, colors, weavings and lines. This word is in harmony with the theme since it embodies an even broader conception that of the simple action of writing it down. The title, in one word, indicates first person plural, (‘our’ in Q’anjob’al language). Pues los ojos y los sentimientos de sus autores, se enmarcan dentro de esa cosmovisión que les permite la cultura. La literatura maya como producto cultural de una sociedad, que tiene un particular punto de vista filosófico sobre el mundo y la vida, no siempre debe ser sometida al análisis bajo los cánones de la cultura occidental. Kotz’ib’ abarca las distintas maneras de expresar el pensamiento mediante signos, símbolos, colores, tejidos y líneas.
∾l título en una sola palabra, indica la primera persona del plural, (‘nuestro’ en q’anjob’al), que se pone en consonancia con el tema, ya que encierra un concepto más amplio que la simple acción de graficar.
0 kommentar(er)
