INTRODUCTION 35of capitalism on Mayan communities but also of the counterreactions by Mayas in the form of mar-
ket and labor systems that work against the outside domination. In some cases, such counterre-
actions have changed the nature of capitalism in the country as a whole. The result for the Mayas
is “a world neither always as they imagined nor as others fully intended.”
An additional directional change in Mayan studies consists of an attempt to interpret even
the most traditional Mayan cultural patterns (ancestor worship, calendars, earth lord myths, milpa
practices, etc.) as “... self-vindicating ideologies of ethnic continuity, autonomy, and resistance”
(p.8). This emphasis shifts the approach from material factors to the ideological nature of Mayan
cultures and identities, interpreting them as forms of political opposition to modernizing, ex-
ploitative institutions of conquest, colonialism, evangelization, capitalism, racism, violence, and war.
An important methodological modification associated with these more thematic and theo-
retical changes in Mayan studies is the application of a global dimension to the community ap-
proach taken in past studies. The community approach generally has focused on symbolism and
on the “persistence of local patterns of meaning.” In contrast, the global approach tends to focus
on political economy, “rendering Maya cultural understandings as increasingly ersatz[fabricated]
formulations.”
In a final history-oriented statement, Watanabe claims that “understanding contemporary
cultural formulations... necessarily entails knowing, not merely how they have changed over
time, but, more precisely, how successive pasts have continued to inform succeeding presents,
and how ongoing presents have repeatedly appropriated their pasts” (p. 27). This statement
seems to offer a more dynamic approach than the scientific and the prescientific approaches of
the past, or even the contemporary “constructivist” scholars who may deny the important weight
that the past can have on the present.Consistent with recent trends in theory, then, we attempt in this text to present
the Mesoamerican cultures in terms of both the symbols and the meanings by which
these cultures are constituted, and the material and behavioral contexts within which
such ideas are created and transformed. We are interested both in howthe Mesoamer-
ican cultures have been created and in whatthey are like. We accept the important
role of creative initiative on the part of the Mesoamericans, and where possible, we
specify which individuals and groups created the social and cultural features under
study and the reasons they did so. Our approach is therefore patently historical: We
study the Mesoamerican cultures from their beginnings to their most recent mani-
festations. Finally, in taking account of world-systems perspectives, we also consciously
relate local developments of Mesoamerican culture to regional, national, and global
forces. Such approaches are in the best tradition of broadly defined recent theory,
and therefore of Mesoamerican studies as now practiced.ORGANIZATION OF THE TEXT
As already mentioned, the focus of this text is on native Mesoamericans and on the
cultural traditions (civilizations) that they created and reconstituted through time.
The reader will also find in the chapters to follow information on the non-Indian in-
habitants of the Mexican and Central American region. Nevertheless, our empha-
sis is on the native Mesoamericans, their social institutions and cultural patterns,
and the changing relations with each other and with the peoples surrounding them.