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Balancing the World: Contemporary Maya ajq’ijab in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala

- What is an ajq’ij?Creating a project The ajq’ijab as presented by researchers Guatemalan research Misrepresentation Insiders from outside What is an ajq’ij?- Fieldwork in Guatemala Guatemala and the Maya Languages A violent history Christianity and Maya spirituality Collecting data Hiring an assistant Manuel’s group Conducting interviews The interviewees Presenting data Transcription, sorting and translation Fieldwork in Guatemala - Common terms Maya spirituality God and the sacred Other names for the ajq’ijab Ajq’ij meaning ‘natural talent’Visitors Common terms - The intermediary Important concepts Spiritual energies: nahuales Does that mean there are 20 nahuales?Their date of birth ?A part of the universe - holism and immanence Dualism, balance and a love of nature Thankfulness Ancestors Other concepts Payment Voluntary offerings Fixed prices Christianity and Maya spirituality Christianity as a bad influence One has to choose one or the other The intermediary - Helping visitors How some people work as ajq’ijab Friends and strangers Why people visit Sickness and other problems Giving thanks and getting blessings Rites of passage Finding a solution Divination Guidance and counselling Interpreting signs Solving problems spiritually Receiving crosses Talking to spirits Helping visitors - Gifts and burdens Non-visitor work - life and responsibilities Keeping days, keeping tradition Gifts for the world Spiritual spouses Problems of practise Bearing the burden Hostility and vandalism Misinterpretation and commercialisation Gifts and burdens - The right person for the job Requirements The right nahual and number Maya culture and ethnicity Speaking a Mayan language Being chosen Becoming an ajq’ij without being chosen Signs Illness Problems and bad luck Other signs Inheritance The right person for the job - Receiving Receiving - Comparative contexts The context of similar research My group of ajq’ijab compared to Hart’s group of Maya Priests The context of categories within the study of religion Levels of analysis Religious virtuosos and the promise of salvation The temporal context Jaloj-K’exoj as a continuous concept The context of one or several religious systems Bricolage, belt and braces Maya converts and their views on other religions The context of tourism in contemporary Guatemala Comparative contexts - Balancing the world Why does an ajq’ij do her or his work?How does an ajq’ij do her or his work?Why does one become an ajq’ij?How does one become an ajq’ij?Balancing the world

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- Balancing the world
Through the stories of the interviewees, we have seen that the ajq’ijab perform a wide variety of tasks that are thought to help visitors, society, their families and themselves. In a country which has suffered centuries of colonialism, oppression and civil war, the past is not easily forgotten....
(Balancing the World: Contemporary Maya ajq’ijab in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala)
Balancing the world
Teresa, Rosa, Carlos, Odilia, Juan, Isabela, Manuel, Byron and Martin have all shared very interesting stories and ideas with me, and for that I am grateful. In their daily lives, they meet people who struggle with illness, memories of war and other problems. Some of them deal with similar problems themselves....
(Balancing the World: Contemporary Maya ajq’ijab in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala)
The Pomegranate in the Contemporary World
The pomegranate is widely cultivated in Iran, India, Afghanistan, Israel, Spain, Morocco, Egypt, and Turkey and on lesser scale in Tajikistan, Pakistan, the United States, China, Georgia, Greece, Cyprus, France, Japan, Lebanon, Armenia, and Bangladesh. In addition to these regions, the pomegranate may...
(Encyclopedia of Cultivated Plants: From Acacia to Zinnia)
The Cosmogonic World Age Model of the Postclassic Yucatec Maya
Only a few data to Yucatec creation accounts before 1600 AD are extant.26 The unsurpassed information derives from The Books of the Chilam Balam, which originated in Yucatan, Mexico written c. 1600 AD - c. 1700 AD with the Latin alphabet in Yucatec probably by Yucatec Maya learned descendants...
(The Ritual Practice of Time: Philosophy and Sociopolitics of Mesoamerican Calendars)
The Cosmogonic World Age Model of the classic Maya
The relation of a single creation of the earth or world age in the Popol Wuj implies that it is not self evident that there is a cyclic concept of a destruction and recreation of world ages in every culture of Mesoamerica. With this in mind we shall see whether there was a cyclic pattern of demolished...
(The Ritual Practice of Time: Philosophy and Sociopolitics of Mesoamerican Calendars)
My group of ajq’ijab compared to Hart’s group of Maya Priests
One example of research that it is reasonable to compare my findings with is the work of Thomas Hart. As mentioned in Chapter 3 above, Hart uses both the terms Maya priest and ajq’ij in his book The Ancient Spirituality of the Modern Maya.4 I have already discussed how the use of the...
(Balancing the World: Contemporary Maya ajq’ijab in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala)
From the Hegemonic Unipolar to the Multipolar World: Structural Transformation of the International System and Global Strategic Balance, Plus Its Consequences for the Future
Rational of the World System Evolution While the general intellectual conceptualization of the world and its historical evolution have been available for a long time, the integrated world policy and integrated world system (as such terms are understood today) did not exist until the nineteenth...
(Non-Western Theories of International Relations : Conceptualizing World Regional Studies)
Political Map of the Contemporary World: Formation and Evolution
In the course of national communities transforming their social orders, a key role is played by naturally existing factors (the level of economic, political, social and legal development of any particular society), but also the factors formed or being formed by means of social engineering, such as: certain...
(Non-Western Theories of International Relations : Conceptualizing World Regional Studies)
Contemporary Changes in the Worlds of Gangamma
Under increasingly dominant middle-class gender ideologies and morality and the brahminization of Gangamma’s largest temple, some of the gender possibilities described above are being closed off. Many, perhaps even the majority, who are joining the growing numbers of jatara spectators and participants—attendance...
(When the World Becomes Female: Guises of a South Indian Goddess)
Old Age and Aggression in the Contemporary World
Jed’s fury when he learns of his father’s death12 - a fury that is so seldom seen in his behaviour that it seems almost implausible - is indicative of the author’s attitude: in Houellebecq’s works, pathos is not the only, or even the most prevalent, response to what has become old age. The reaction...
(Cultural Histories of Ageing: Myths, Plots and Metaphors of the Senescent Self)