Abstract
“Through analysis of food and eating systems one can gain information about how a culture understands some of the basic categories of its world” (Mary Douglas in Meigs 1997:100). It is through this lens of foodways analysis that I will explore the gendered nature of Maya foodways, the gendered division of labor1 in maize production and consumption, and my hypothesized continuation of gender complementarity in Maya food practices. As Counihan has noted, “Gender matters in food centered activities as it does in structuring human societies, their histories, ideologies, economic systems and political structures” (1998:1). The issue of complementarity of gender roles in food practices and in other activities attributable to cultural models is somewhat contentious in the academic world of anthropology, and requires further investigation. I have conducted fieldwork among the living Maya during the summers of 2007 and 2008 in an effort to shed further light on the issue, and in this paper I intend to complement field investigations of my own and of others with conclusions about earlier Maya cultural expression derived from archaeologists, epigraphers, ethnohistorians, and art historians. As Nash (1997) states, gender complementarity is something that continues to be expressed by the modern Maya, no matter how contentious its form. For the confines of this paper, I agree with Fischer, who observes that:
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Notes
- 1.
Gender is a cultural construction of kinds of entities that are often more or less isomorphic with the sexes male and female (or man and woman), yet not infrequently involving more than just these two kinds of entities (e.g. berdache, gay and lesbian, transsexual, etc., when culturally recognized). The sexes (male and female, or man and woman) are generally viewed as biologically given kinds of entities, viewed apart from any social expectations of traditional or other role behavior. Gender roles are the culturally appropriate social behaviors expected from the different socially constructed genders, and define these genders (as opposed to the biological sexual parts that form crucial parts of the definitions of the sexes).
- 2.
Some will see the gender symbolic polarities here as related to and contradicting the “man is to culture as woman is to nature” analogical relationship that has been viewed on occasion as a universal and perhaps a truism and interpreted as derivable from Lévi-Strauss’s cultural formulations (Ortner 1974). This paper does not intend to join the theoretical argument which is played out in more universal terms and which is too complex to deal with here. It is the subject of a forthcoming paper, however, in which context it is seen as a necessary component.
- 3.
This tie between gender, number and work is also evident in my later discussion of the Hetzmek’ which was discussed by both villages during my fieldwork as well as in ethnographic/ethnohistoric sources sited later in this paper (Chán et al. 2002; Gustafson and Trevelyan 2002; Landa 1978 [1566]; Joyce 2000; Redfield and Villa Rojas 1934; Redfield 1941).
- 4.
Author recognizes that complementarity is not necessarily equality. The standard for equality differs based on an individual’s personal filters, so that while a Westerner may view the Yucatec woman’s position as subordinate, it appears that the Maya women with which I work do not view their position as less than equal to that of men…nor do the men view the women as subordinates. This perception is supported by anthropologists and other students of the Maya as noted in the present paper.
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Acknowledgments
With special thanks to my mentor, Brian Stross (University of Texas at Austin), whose advice and input has been invaluable. Thank you also to E. N. Anderson and Ken Rubin who have freely given their time and critiques. Finally, I owe a debt of gratitude to the Maya of Quintana Roo, especially Marcos Cante’ Canul and Sacerdote Maya, Don Luis who have allowed me to learn from them and from whom I hope to continue learning in the future.
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O’Connor, A. (2010). Maya Foodways: A Reflection of Gender and Ideology. In: Staller, J., Carrasco, M. (eds) Pre-Columbian Foodways. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0471-3_20
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