For our first group discussion on Tuesday, we’ll reflect on your impressions of Mérida in relation to three historical “first encounters” with the region and its peoples.
Diego de Landa, Relación de las cosas de Yucatán (ca. 1566)
Diego de Landa (1542-1579) was the first bishop of the Yucatán. In the 1562 auto-da-fé at Mani, Landa authorized the burning of thousands of Maya codices and “idols” (religious objects). During his journey back to Spain in 1566, he produced his own exploration of Maya religion, society, and language—effectively replacing the archive he burned with an archive of his own making. The Relación was lost for centuries, resurfacing in a composite form in the 19th century.
As you read this excerpt from Landa’s Relación, ask yourself:
1) How did the Yucatán get its name, according to Landa?
2) What two factors separate the “more civilized” Maya from the “less civilized” Maya in Section V?
3) What does Landa want to suggest with the claim that the Maya are descended from ancient seafaring Jews?
John Lloyd Stephens, Incidents of Travel in Yucatán (1843)
U.S. author John Lloyd Stephens and his traveling partner, the English illustrator Frederick Catherwood, made several trips to Latin America in the mid-19th century. Their travelogues were popular and helped spark interest in Mayan monumental architecture — which they claimed to “discover” even though indigenous farmers and mestizo landowners had known about the ruins for a long time before Stephens and Catherwood arrived. In this except from Incidents of Travel in the Yucatán, Stephens describes his first night in Mérida.
As you read the passage from Stephens, ask yourself the following:
1) What adjectives does Stephens use to describe the citizens of Mérida? (Look especially at the weird similes on p. 17) What do those adjectives reveal about his attitude towards the people?
2) When you were describing Mérida to your friends and family back home, you probably used your own adjectives. What were they? How are they different from the words Stephens used?
3) In general, how does Stephens view Mérida and its residents? How does he class them into different groups, and what does his language imply about his attitudes towards those different groups? (Think about the gamblers on p. 22 and the destitute Mayan on p. 24.)
4) Why does Stephens call Mérida “a modern Babel”? How do we code other cultures through our own cultural lenses and vocabulary, and what does that do to our view of other cultures? (Think about this re: Landa’s bizarre claim about who the Maya descended from the ancient Hebrews, too…)
LA Times Magazine: Yucatán, Today and Yesterday (1956)
For our last “first impression,” flip through this Los Angeles Times Magazine write-up on the Yucatán. It’s a sales piece, intended to drive up tourism to the region, so read it as such and ask yourself:
1) How does the piece try to appeal to wealthy Americans who might visit the Yucatán? How is Mexico discussed among college students today? (What do people associate with Mexico — what do they think about doing when they come here to visit — why do they choose to come here?)
2) How are the present-day indigenous people discussed in the piece? Where do they appear, and what are they doing?
3) Head to YouTube or Google and search for any of the many articles about Mérida as an ex-pats heaven/tourist’s dream. How are the ways we talk about Mérida as a vacation destination similar? How are they different?
4) Research, briefly, the effects of gentrification (driven by tourism) on the Yucatán. What are rents like now as opposed to three years ago? Property prices? How doe pieces like the LA Times Magazine piece serve to ready the way for gentrification?
When describing Mérida to friends and family, I would use adjectives such as “vibrant,” “historic,” “culturally rich,” and “welcoming. I found that in this article, Stephens had a superiority complex and he groups people into social classes based on their social activities and economic status. He sees the resident of Merida with a sense of colonial superiority, and focuses more on the lack of thereof rather than the vibrant culture. Stephen uses the Tower of Babel as a metaphor to describe Merida as there is a lot of cultural and lingual diversity. Stephen’s metaphor reflects how he perceives the mix of indigenous and colonial influences as chaotic or difficult to understand through his own cultural lens.
After reading the article by John Stephens and watching Cannibal Tours, it was clear to see that tourists can demonstrate a superiority complex in numerous ways. With John Stephens, his superiority complex was illustrated through how he described Merida and its residents. Stephens consistently used words such as “witch” and “demented” to describe rituals and social gatherings he did not understand. His use of adjectives clearly showed that Stephens included his subjective thoughts and casted judgement on the Merida residents rather than staying objective and reporting what he saw. This ties into how the tourists from Cannibal Tours also had a superiority complex when meeting the residents of Papua New Guinea. The tourists continuously took pictures with the children as if they were on display and made comments such as, “that’s not the American way.” Both Stephens and the tourists come into new places and cast their judgements onto the native residents. As a tourist in Merida, I try not approach the culture and the people in the same manner as Stephens and the tourists in Cannibal Tours which has so far been relatively easy because my first instinct is not comparing everything I experience back to America.
I read the De Landa excerpt in class, in which he misleadingly describes the indigenous peoples and their practices. When reading more about who De Landa was and his influence in the Yucatan, one of the prominent facts was his disdain for human sacrifice, something sacred in Mayan culture, and the cruel methods he used to punish anyone found practicing. This has been insightful knowledge as both the guides in the museum tour as well as today at the hacienda brought up the significance of the green cross to Mayan people. It was interesting because in the museum tour, we learned it was a symbol of the resistance of the indigenous people against their oppressors, but the guide at the hacienda mentioned how the cross does not depict any crucifixion as it was too similar to the human sacrifice rituals that would be punished.