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Chan Kom: A Maya Village
Chan A Maya Village [Hardcover] robert redfield (Author)
- GenresAnthropology
236 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1962
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February 3, 2018
"The whole Yucatan Maya catalogue"
CHAN KOM is considered a classic study and no doubt it is. It is a most comprehensive, painstaking study of a Mayan village in Yucatan. However, the research for it was done in 1930-31, which makes it now over 80 years old. Mexico has changed drastically in that time, just like every other country on earth. How much Chan Kom today resembles that long ago village (if indeed Chan Kom even exists today) I cannot say. Point #1---you can't read CHAN KOM to learn about modern Mexican society. Point #2---if you are planning to visit Yucatan, that heartland of ancient Mayan culture, you can use the book as a source of information only tangentially. Robert Redfield, the chief ethnographer, became one of the giants of American anthropology at the University of Chicago, which was at the center of the field in the 1930s. This pioneering work of his established a road which was travelled by numerous ethnographers after him. CHAN KOM, then, represents a style of anthropological research and writing that was once cutting-edge, but is now antique. Redfield's approach was to garner information on every aspect of daily life, from bee keeping to the beliefs about eclipses. Economy, tools and techniques, family, religion, ritual, world view-all this and more are discussed in astonishingly painstaking detail. There is even a long `life history' by the most literate man in the village. Yet, for a reader not investigating the 20th century evolution of Maya culture, the mass of information is far too great. Nobody could absorb this much unless they were familiar with today's Yucatan or unless they were researching the period. There are a number of good maps and many extremely poor photographs. Yes, CHAN KOM is a classic, but for today's audience, its appeal is limited to specialists or those interested in the history of anthropology itself. It must be considered a work of social history, to be mined by scholars as background material on the modern Yucatan.
Redfield wrote a "sequel" about Chan Kom village later on, called "The Village That Chose Progress". I have not read it. Readers are advised to check that out, bearing in mind that it too may be somewhat dated.
CHAN KOM is considered a classic study and no doubt it is. It is a most comprehensive, painstaking study of a Mayan village in Yucatan. However, the research for it was done in 1930-31, which makes it now over 80 years old. Mexico has changed drastically in that time, just like every other country on earth. How much Chan Kom today resembles that long ago village (if indeed Chan Kom even exists today) I cannot say. Point #1---you can't read CHAN KOM to learn about modern Mexican society. Point #2---if you are planning to visit Yucatan, that heartland of ancient Mayan culture, you can use the book as a source of information only tangentially. Robert Redfield, the chief ethnographer, became one of the giants of American anthropology at the University of Chicago, which was at the center of the field in the 1930s. This pioneering work of his established a road which was travelled by numerous ethnographers after him. CHAN KOM, then, represents a style of anthropological research and writing that was once cutting-edge, but is now antique. Redfield's approach was to garner information on every aspect of daily life, from bee keeping to the beliefs about eclipses. Economy, tools and techniques, family, religion, ritual, world view-all this and more are discussed in astonishingly painstaking detail. There is even a long `life history' by the most literate man in the village. Yet, for a reader not investigating the 20th century evolution of Maya culture, the mass of information is far too great. Nobody could absorb this much unless they were familiar with today's Yucatan or unless they were researching the period. There are a number of good maps and many extremely poor photographs. Yes, CHAN KOM is a classic, but for today's audience, its appeal is limited to specialists or those interested in the history of anthropology itself. It must be considered a work of social history, to be mined by scholars as background material on the modern Yucatan.
Redfield wrote a "sequel" about Chan Kom village later on, called "The Village That Chose Progress". I have not read it. Readers are advised to check that out, bearing in mind that it too may be somewhat dated.
Displaying 1 of 1 review