The Burden of Misery: Times of Crisis According to Mayan Historical, Prophetic and Literary Texts

Abstract

Based upon the interpretation of data that were essentially provided by archaeological and epigraphic records, different circumstances as well as processes of crises and resilience have been proposed during the prehispanic maya period. These circumstances and processes have been analyzed in an attempt to infer their causes and consequences as well as the responses and strategies followed by individuals who were affected and how they were able to overcome them. The circumstances and processes were usually interpreted from the researcher’s ethic perspective who pinpoints and assesses different markers or signs as evidence of the existence of crisis episodes and/or calamity situations. In this contribution we attempt to distinguish the categories or indicators that the maya themselves used to identify, describe, and value crisis situations at a moral level. We then compare the results we obtained from the archaeological and epigraphic records with the emic evidence. To achieve our goal, we will analyze written maya Colonial manuscripts such as literary texts as well as historical and prophetic documents where epochs or times were labeled as bad, misery, suffering, or doomed.