Diving Into a Mirror of Light: A Diachronic Exploration of Cenotes

Date of Award

2009

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Andrews, Anthony

Keywords

Cenote, Maya, Anthropology, Valladolid, Yucatán

Area of Concentration

Anthropology

Abstract

According to Miriam Kahn, space has been “relegated to a static physical backdrop, a kind of stage-setting removed from human action and interaction” (2000: 8). Rather than taking this avenue, I attempt to examine cenotes as specific settings of human action and interaction. This thesis attempts to deconstruct the powerful concepts of place imposed by outsiders and the perspectives of places held by their inhabitants. My thesis examines uses, perceptions, and conceptions of cenotes during the prehispanic period and contemporarily. In order to do this, I synthesize and interpret the material deposits from caves and cenotes dating to the prehispanic period and examine the iconographic and epigraphic representations of cenotes in the Madrid and Dresden codices. For the contemporary period, I rely on my ethnographic fieldwork in Valladolid, Yucatán from December 2008-January 2009. During that time I examined tourist literature and other representations of cenotes and interviewed residents of the area. Through this work, I hope that cenotes will emerge as complex lived spaces that are “generated within historical and spatial dimensions, both real and imagined, immediate and mediated” (2000: 8).

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