The Mayan elders were charged with the responsibility of safeguarding the traditions of the people and overseeing all the cultural practices. These practices varied from childbirth, to marriage. For instance, after the birth of a child, there was a ceremonial burial of the umbilical cord which was done near a water spring to symbolize the planting of the child into the Mayan way of life. It was the duty of the elders to conduct marriages and other rites of passage. The security of the Mayan people was another responsibility of the Mayan elders. They were charged with the responsibility of declaring war against Mayan enemies, and this was done by raising a red or yellow flag on top of a mountain (Montejo 151).
The culture of the Mayan people among other things may be so much blended to the type of clothes those people put on. The nature of the clothing used by the Mayan people is a cultural element that embodies many aspects, some of which included cultural creativity, political resistance and historical struggle. While studying the Mayan textile, tying and weaving technology some researchers have come up with great relationship between the Maya religion and the communal identity to the weaving style. The Maya art of weaving have also become very vital in explaining the Mayan advancement in technology and language (Hendrickson, 149).
The Mayan clothing takes up a very important role of differentiating the Maya people from other people of the Guatemala. The Mayan dress code included hand embroider or woven garments that are distinguished by the nature of their manufacturing, motif, design and style. These clothes may broadly vary from one region to another and also on the taste and creativity of the weaver. The Mayan people have all kinds of clothing for both men and women. The weaving work in the Mayan community was basically done by women and specialized artisans. For economic reasons it is more advantageous to use the Maya clothes woven by men on foot looms. The non-Mayan people in the recent dates are also very familiar with the Mayan dressing (Richard 72).
Like any other creativity work such as poetry and painting, weaving also uses language. The Mayan language has a woven multivocality that can form at least two levels; the iconographic, the language expressed in images and the iconological. (Edward 146). During the onset of the Spanish colonization to the Maya people, their religion and identity was greatly interfered with, their style of making weaves and making clothes was altered. During the same period many Spanish enterprises were instigated in the Mayan area. The Spanish campaign of evangelism was all over Mayan land causing alteration on the Mayan ways of making garments. However, the Mayan resistance has always existed, even with all the influence both by persuasion and use of force, the Mayan people found the capacity to express and safeguard their culture. The Poqomams and Kaqchikels have carefully conserved their religious beliefs through their cultural practices and weaving. The changes and the continuity of motifs in the Mayan technique of cloth making were used to indicate cultural creativity and continued political resistance of the Mayan people.
A gradual change in the construction of the ancient textiles and the content of the woven text indicate the diversion in Maya dressing in the form created by the Maya people in innovation and diversification of their dressing to the present state. For that reason the analysis of the pre-Colombian textile fragments have assisted in the understanding of the continuity of Maya art, thus, establishing the socio-cultural connection between the past and the modern Maya. The material constraint and geopolitical factors have also contributed to the physical dress code change in the Mayan people. For instant the use of the jaguar skin in dress making is no longer possible due to the scarcity of the animals. Even with the availability of such animals the geopolitical law imposes unavailability for such animals for use in cloth making (Edward 153).
Works Cited
Edward, Fischer. Maya cultural activism in Guatemala. Texas: University of Texas Press, 1996. Print.
Hendrickson,Elaine. Weaving identities: construction of dress and self in a highland Guatemala town. Texas: University of Texas Press, 1995. Print.
Montejo,Victor. “Maya Ways of Knowing” In Maya Intellectual Renaissance: Identity, Representation and Leadership. Texas: University of Texas Press, 2005. Print.
Richards, Julia. Case Study One: San Marcos La Laguna” In the Life of Our Language: KaqhikelMaya Maintenance, Shift, and Revitalization. 1998. 1(1) Pp. 62-100. Print.