"Zi uinal, zihci kin u kaba, zihci caan y luum" : Memory, Place and Ritual in Yucatec Maya (Con-)Texts

This article focuses around Yucatec Maya cosmology, sacred landscape, ecology and religious continuity. The Yucatec Maya situated themselves at the heart of the universe as many other people in historical cultures do. The ways in which they have tried to make place of space, by cultivating the landscape were, and are, nearly universal in strategy. Seen in a comparative perspective strong similarities with this pattern is found in many of the historical world religions throughout the world, i.e. Mesopotamia, Ancient Greece, and in Old Norse religion. We see the quadripartite pattern of cosmos mirrored in settlement, in caves, in pyramids, as well as in texts, as for instance in the Myth of creation, or in The Ritual of the four World quarters found in the Book of Chilam Balam from Chumayel. The aim of this article is to explore patterns of cosmology, ritual, and ecology in Yucatec Maya religion found in various (con-)texts, based on a close reading of the Books of Chilam Balam and other Early Colonial documents. Aided by a contextual approach and with theoretical perspectives from Post-Colonialism the strive is to let the Yucatec Maya voice speak through these texts