Maya — Music X Culture

Mayan Ethnic Music

More details Bonampak temple room 1, file of musicians- rattle and ocarina; trumpets; and theatrical scene

HISTORY

Music played a significant role in many rituals and ceremonies of the ancient Maya culture. Evidence found in paintings, artifacts and Spanish chronicles indicates that music was present in Maya culture as a necessity. Music was essential to various facets of everyday life including religious events, agricultural and hunting ceremonies and elite communication. The sound of ancient Maya music is an attribute of this culture that carried a message. Analogous to language, carvings and artistic creations, the music of the ancient Maya served to communicate the meaning of the ritual or ceremony of which it was a part.

Being a musician was demanding and required rigorous training, although music was unlikely a specialty. Musicians were artists who could perform various elite services including writing, painting and carving. Musicians were needed for performances celebrating life, death, peace and war. Music was employed in every region of the ancient Maya culture as indicated by artifacts and artistic renditions. Instruments are found at nearly every Maya site, which presents music as an element in the social fabric of the culture. Individuals possessed knowledge of instrument building, musical techniques and repertoire that made this art form a commodity. The Maya made use of numerous materials and developed knowledge to produce their music

A ruler carried in a litter is accompanied by trumpeters and a dog, Kerr K6317

Roberto Velázquez Cabrera demonstrates how to play a Maya gourd trumpet

Playing a tortoise-shell drum with deer’s antlers

Bird flute; Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

CHANGE

Indigenous communities throughout Latin America have been forced into the minority category for ages—in a nation where at least half of the country’s population is of Mayan origin.. Maya music is stigmatized by observations that date back to the sixteenth century Spanish contact period and has continued to today by a state inherited from colonialism and dominated by military dictatorships and authoritarian regimes. From 1960 to 1996, a brutal civil war was fought between the central government and leftists, who often hid in rural areas populated by ethnic Mayans. This led to further stigmatization of Mayan peoples, mass murders amounting to genocide, and stronger measures to repress their rights and identity, which continues to today.

A Guatemalan marimba band.

CONTINUITY

Most young Maya adults are thinking about their place in a new diverse nation. Young Maya adults talk about Guatemala’s cultural diversity and the importance of eliminating discrimination by valuing the diversity in the country. They consider this music important because it encourages listeners to reflect and evaluate their place and condition, and its relevance to the local, national and global context. The Maya today are currently using strategic essentialism to authenticate and legitimize identity as well as cultural and socio-political rights. This allows the Maya to differentiate themselves from other ethnic groups and call for particular attention to the needs of the Maya in Guatemala.

Some K’iche’-Maya youth are appropriating the rock aesthetic to promote a sense of K’iche’-Maya youth identity in a modern local, national and global context. This serves as a form of cultural communication and a source for identity construction among young Maya adults. The production and consumption of this music also creates spaces for colonial relationships to be redefined and equalized in Guatemala.

Kab’awil
Band members learned to play and sing music from other friends, from copying other groups, and from much practice. Few of them read music or received formal music instruction when they formed the group. The accessibility of the rock aesthetic has been key to the formation and development of this group.
All band members attended Catholic mass growing up, and as youth they learned religious music in Spanish and in K’iche’. The Catholic priest and Genaro’s father, Don Florentino Ajpacaja Tum, would write the songs for mass in K’iche’. Francisco remembers that as youth they had formed a group to play and sing music in mass but that he always had in mind “to form a group and sing at cultural events” (personal communication, July 16, 2006). They began to consider the idea of writing and singing their own music. Genaro relates, “Why not sing to our people so that they can listen to us and understand us?”

Kab’awil

Sobrevivencia

A band that sings in the Mayan languages of Mam and Kaqchikel,as well as Spanish, was particularly influential on the Kab’awil band members and the creation of this Rock-Maya band. Sobrevivencia recorded its first album (Twi’ Witz) in 1999. Kab’awil member Francisco Tepaz was a classmate of some of the Sobrevivencia band members and had seen them perform. When he took their album to Ixtahuacán to share with friends, Genaro was impressed. Genaro and his fellow musicians had always played music in Spanish copying songs from Arjona, Perales, and other artists. When they heard Sobrevivencia sing in Mam, Genaro considered forming a band that would sing in K’iche’, his native language. It also impressed him that they combined indigenous instruments and rhythms with rock-‘n’-roll and other genres.

Rock maya Bitzma Sobrevivencia | Visitaxela's Weblog

Sobrevivencia

Others, like producer Fernando Scheel, are synthesizing traditional music with pop beats to modernize Mayan music.Through these cultural media, Maya culture is defolklorized and normalized in Guatemala’s contemporary multiethnic society.

Fernando Scheel “La música contribuyó a superar mi timidez” | Culturales de Maco

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