The journal article "Body and Soul among the Maya: Keeping the Spirits in Place" by Susan D. Gillespie discusses the idea that the Maya interred their deceased within family residences in order to ensure their control. The intangible aspects of the deceased such as the soul were thus used to perpetuate the kin group.
In keeping with the reflective readings assigned throughout the semester in Anthropology 392: Archaeology of Death and Burial, the following 3 questions and answers are designed to motivate contemplation.
1. What are the enduring components of personhood that Gillespie mentions?
The enduring components of personhood Gillespie refers to in her article are titles, prerogatives, names, and souls. These intangible components are usually considered to belong to the collective as opposed to the individual (Gillespie 2002:68).
2. Why was the Maya Civilization chosen for Gillespie's case study?
The Maya Civilization provides historic, epigraphic, ethnographic, and suggestive archaeological evidence for the transmission of names, the belief in souls, and the reincarnation of ancestral personalities into new generations. These intangible components are used to declare and maintain property rights for kin groups(Gillespie 2002:68).
3. What conclusions did Gillespie reach?
It was concluded that intangible property was of great importance to the Maya and that it was used to maintain the longevity of a kin group. Like material belingings, intangible property needed to be renewed over time to maintain its existence (72). In other words, the "curation, transformation, and renewal of the group's material and immaterial property" aids with claims of group continuity (Gillespie 2002:73).
Gillespie, S.D. 2002, ". Body and Soul among the Maya: Keeping the Spirits in Place", Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association, vol. 11, no. 1, pp. 67-78.
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