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regularly travel by bicycle or motor vehicle to adjacent towns and villages. However, many of these 

 same individuals also observe special rituals as they butcher game, construct rudimentary dwellings, 

 and plant and harvest their gardens. They also believe in spirits (e.g., San Juan and San Miguel), and 

 commemorate their dead, as they have done for hundreds of years. While some of these practices may 

 appear to follow the Catholic religion, they have their basis in traditional Maya beliefs. The result is 

 that the current cultural environment is a hybrid of traditional and modem beliefs (Careaga Viliesid, 

 1990). 



Information about Maya Indians and the Yucatan Peninsula has been compiled since the early 

 1500s. Among the first European visitors who published descriptions about the area were priests, 

 explorers, and government officials (cf.. Cook, 1769 [cited in Villa Rojas, 1987]; Davila, 1870 [cited 

 in Villa Rojas, 1987]; Landa, 1978; Stephens, 1963, 1969). While these authors were amazed by the 

 size and complexity of die large ceremonial centers encountered throughout the region, Uiey considered 

 the local Maya residents to be backward and ignorant. With respect to the area itself, these writers 

 described the Yucatan Peninsula as an extremely harsh environment. 



Accounts about Maya culture published since die early 1900s have described a sophisticated 

 society. Linguists and chroniclers, for example, have documented the important role Uiat Maya 

 cosmology has in Maya oral history and daily conversations, including those between Maya and 

 foreigners (Bums, 1973, 1977, 1980, 1983; Hanks, 1990; Sullivan, 1987, 1989). For example, a 

 series of stories may include references to animal spirits, Uie creation of the world, and an epoch of 

 miracles when half a kernel of com was sufficient to make tortilla dough for a meal for 6 or 8 people. 

 The conversation then could switch to comments about the Queen of England, accounts of slavery in 

 the United States, and analyses of recent world wars. From Uiese accounts it is clear that Maya oral 

 histories and conversations contain a rich mixture of references to past, present, and future events. 

 History and cosmology also mix references to actual peoples with Uiose to spirits and deities. 



Archeologists also have documented the complexity of Maya subsistence practices, settlement 

 patterns, and the chronology of large ceremonial centers (Andrews, 1942, 1960, 1965, 1973; Lizardi 



