Dartmouth Events

Eleanor Harrison-Buck, Professor of Anthropology
University of New Hampshire

Wednesday, October 23, 2024
4:30 PM
001 Rockefeller
Free and open to all

Lecture title: "On the Back of the Turtle: Human and Earthly Regeneration in Maya New Year Ceremonies"

Abstract: "Maya ethnohistory suggests that pilgrimage, incense burning, monument erection, and penis bloodletting were all activities associated with ancient Maya New Year ceremonies. These annual rites were calendrically-linked and aimed at ensuring agricultural renewal as well as earthly and human regeneration. In Classic and Postclassic contexts (ca. AD 800-1500), the four rotating “year-bearers” of the new year are referred to as Mam (grandfather/grandson) and are frequently associated with the act of genital bloodletting. Mam often takes the form of a turtle and embodies a four-part earthly configuration that expresses the four world directions. Ancient cache deposits contain figurines of Mam year-bearers standing on the backs of turtles, letting blood from their genitals. Turtle figurines and carapaces themselves may have served as receptacles for blood offerings and have been found associated with ancient Maya Yucatec-style circular shrines and colonnaded council house buildings.

Archaeologist Dr. Eleanor Harrison-Buck has excavated multiple Yucatec-style buildings in Belize, Central America and will discuss how such buildings are associated with turtle effigies and carapaces and may have been sites of bloodletting, male initiation rites, and marriage ceremonies that were enacted as part of New Year rituals. Today, Maya New Year ceremonies involve initiation of young men prior to marriage and sexual relations, requiring self-sacrifice and long-distance pilgrimage with male elders. These circumambulatory rituals express a core ontological principle of dualistic transformation that the Tzutujil Maya call Jaloj-k’exoj, demarcating physical change (jal) from youth to adulthood and transference or replacement (k’ex) of power in official leadership roles. In her talk, Harrison-Buck cross-examines the ethnographic and ethnohistoric data alongside the archaeological evidence and suggests similar New Year traditions may have existed among the Maya in pre-Hispanic times."