Molina Rendón explores in a book the remote and current resistance of the Maya

The history of Mayan peoples is woven with resistance threads, a feature that is not only reflected in historical memory, but is still alive in contemporary culture.

This phenomenon is examined in the trial Resistance and rebellion in Mayan society, written by the director of the Inah Quintana Roo Center, Margarito Molina Rendón, and which is part of the book The Maya nation: Management, devent and resistance/Ford Maya: The birth, date and strength (2024).

Edited by the Federal Ministry of Culture through the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), the volume will be presented today at the 13th International Yucatan Reading Fair (Filey), in Mérida.

The Molina Rendón essay deepens the concept of resistance as a collective behavior assumed consciously or unconsciously by the Maya, which dates back even before the arrival of the Spaniards in 1519.

From that moment, the Maya showed their rejection of external actions and thoughts that tried to transform their customs and beliefs. This resistance attitude was transformed over the centuries, but never disappeared, and remains a fundamental pillar in its worldview.

Language and Milpa, keys to a civilization

In his text, the anthropologist highlights the way in which the Mayan language has survived the attacks of colonization and how the cornfield, that key agricultural space for Mayan life, remains the nucleus from which the sacred corn, central symbol of its worldview is obtained, inhabited by deities and loaded with ancestral meanings.

The Maya have participated in various moments against external behaviors that, forcing them to change their ways of seeing the world, tried to socially dismantle them. It has been a long breath fightexplains Molina Rendón.

The author also draws a tour of the main resistances of Aguerrido face During the colony, and uses a terminology proposed by the anthropologist Mario Humberto Ruz.

According to Ruz, these resistances are classified into three types: resistance in the daily-family, that of the sacred world, which is manifested in the reinvention of ancestral beliefs and worldviews, and open insurrectional resistance. These forms are not alien to each other, since armed insurrection is only an extension of the first two.

Molina Rendón analyzes emblematic episodes of this resistance, from the battle of Champotón, in 1517, where Mayan leader Moch Cohuo defeated the invasive expedition of Francisco Hernández de Córdoba, to the war of caste (1847-1901).

It also addresses the rebellions of the colony, such as that of Campeche, headed by Francisco Chí between 1580 and 1583, and that of Bacalar, which took place between 1636 and 1639. Another key example is the Tseltal insurrection in Chiapas, in 1712, which adds to other uprisings that show the Mayan resistance over time.

The author also examines the figure of Jacinto Canek, a leader who won in a cister in 1761 with the promise of freeing his people from Spanish domain.

Canek, fighting symbol

Canek’s legend is still alive in the Mayan collective memory, partly thanks to its tragic final. After being captured, tortured, executed and dismembered, his body was dispersed to the wind, making it a mythical figure that remains a symbol of the struggle and sacrifice.

Margarito Molina Rendón concludes that Mayan cultural presence remains powerful today. “The resistance has not disappeared, but has been transformed. The Mayan social structure remains solid, which allows the community to remain united while adapting to the new challenges imposed by the global context, such as tourism or industrial agriculture.

The resistance is present at the times when regional development is unequal and is disadvantageous for the Mayan people.

The presentation of The Maya nation: Management, devent and resistance/Ford Maya: The birth, date and strength It will take place today at 12:45 a.m. in the Uxmal 3 Hall, of the Yucatan XXI Century Convention and Exhibition Center.

The director of INAH, Diego Prieto Hernández will participate; The researcher Fanny Quintal Avilés, and the linguist Fidencio Briceño Chel, both of the INAH Yucatán Center, as well as the head of the Archaeological Zone of Uxmal, José Huchim Herrera.

The book can be acquired with 50 percent discount on stand 31 of the Filey, at a price of 1,10 pesos.