| Popis: |
Conquest by imperial Spain forced the Maya of Guatemala to contend with a dizzying array of European values and culturally-impregnated modes of geographic thought. Fundamentally different notions of where and how to live were thrust upon Maya communities by the policy of resettlement known as congregacion. Imperial legislation evokes a utopian existence nowhere attained in the realm of actual practice. Archival documents, many of these penned by disenchanted clergy and concerned Crown officials, portray a lived experience quite unlike that enshrined in decrees and ordinances, edicts and commands. For the colonial Maya, as for natives throughout the Americas, the geography of everyday life bore little resemblance to the idealized arrangements of people in place promoted by imperial rhetoric. |
