Prudence M. Rice - Historical and Archaeological Perspectives on the Itzas of Petén, Guatemala

EDITED BY
PRUDENCE M. RICE
AND DON S. RICE

UNIVERSITY PRESS OF COLORADO

Boulder

We dedicate this book to Grant D. Jones, whose pioneering ethnohistorical research and generous collaborations inspired the past k'atun of our investigations into central Petn Postclassic and Contact-period archaeology.

The Inevitable Note on Orthography

Prudence M. Rice and Don S. Rice

Charles Andrew Hofling

Mark Brenner

Prudence M. Rice

Prudence M. Rice

Prudence M. Rice

Prudence M. Rice

Prudence M. Rice

Prudence M. Rice and Don S. Rice

Don S. Rice

Prudence M. Rice and Leslie G. Cecil

Timothy W. Pugh and Yuko Shiratori

Nathan J. Meissner

Prudence M. Rice

Prudence M. Rice

Prudence M. Rice

Prudence M. Rice

Prudence M. Rice and Don S. Rice

Prudence M. Rice

In the late seventeenth century, Maya groups collectively known as Itza dominated much of the vast lowland forests, swamps, and grasslands of the Yucatn Peninsula. In the north, Itzas were associated with the archaeological sites of Chich'en Itza and Mayapn; in the south, Itzas prevailed over much of what is now the Department of El Petn, northern Guatemala, from their island capital of Tayza in Lake Petn Itz. The Itzas of Petn, who may have had a millennium-long history in the region, were related to the better-known northern Itzas, and their leader claimed family at Chich'en. The Petn Itzas were the last Maya kingdom to be conquered by Europeans: in the early morning hours of March 13, 1697, Spanish forces brutally attacked Tayza (modern Flores Island), massacring the residents and destroying their idols and monuments ().

The preceding sketch seems relatively straightforward, but the reality is more complex. Who were the Itzas? This question was posed by Alfred M. motifs. Were the far-flung makers and users of those styles, by the very consumption of them, in some senses appropriating Olmec-ness or some aspect of an Olmec identity? How did they self-identify? What, in the multilayered expression of individual and group identities, did the display of an incised paw-wing motif or a greenstone figurine with cranial modification mean? Similarly, among the Itza Mayas, what did a serpent column, a slate ware bowl, or an arrow point of Ucareo obsidian mean? With respect to the Olmecs, the question is difficult to answer absent written evidence, but in the case of the Itzas the texts of the Postclassic (ad 950/10001525) and Contact (15251697) periods contribute maddeningly little clarity.

The term Itza, with myriad orthographic variants (: 2022n123). In Yucatn the Itzas have been linked, primarily through architectural similarities, to the Toltecs of central Mexico; in Petn the Itzas are tied, biologically and culturally, to Yucatn. Surviving indigenous literature and sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spanish writings portray a storied group of mobile foreigners considered to be both holy men and degenerates.

Since the early 1990s, a key aim of our field research into the post-Classic (post-950) occupation of the Petn lake basins has been to explore the archaeological correlates of Grant : 66; 2009: 6468), although that of the Kowojs is not well understood. The Kowojs, or some faction of them, participated in regional decision-making within an Itza polity centered at Tayza, as evidenced by the late seventeenth-century internal strife concerning capitulation to the Spaniards. But by this late date they had allied with the far western Chak'an faction of the Itzas in opposition to the ruling Kan Ek' faction of Tayza.

Our archaeological work around the Petn lakes began in the 1970s in the eastern lakesthe Topoxt Islands and Lakes Yaxh and Sacnabin what was, although we didnt know it then, Kowoj territory. Over the succeeding decades we moved westward to Lakes Macanch and Salpetn, including the sites of Zacpetn () where there is evidence for Kowoj intrusion into Itza territory. These investigations allowed us to characterize the material remainspottery, architecture, some mortuary patternsof the Kowojs and thus identify Kowoj-occupied sites with considerable confidence. But we were unable to satisfactorily establish if and how the Itzas differed materiallythat is, how their visual rhetoric represented their ethnopolitical identitycompared with their rivals, the Kowojs.

Recently, our investigations expanded into the Itza region of the western Lake Petn Itz basin through mapping and excavations under the direction of Timothy Pugh. With fieldwork and analysis of architecture and artifacts at Tayasal (Pugh, Miller, et al. 2016; ) and Petn.

So we turn here to address the conundrum of Who were the (Petn) Itzas? The goal is partly operationalto be able to archaeologically identify as Itza various material and behavioral expressions in Petnbut also to investigate how Itza identity (or identities) was constructed and reconstructed over time and space. The Petn Itzas left us no documents to scrutinize for insights into their own sense of self, or their political decisions and rationales. Thus we are forced to view them through multiple contextual perspectives offered by source materialsarchaeological, artifactual, indigenous textual, Spanish historicaland by theoretical issues (migration, factionalism, identity, ethnicity). Of necessity, we must confront the Itzas from a distance, both temporal and cultural but also disciplinary, as relevant information comes from multiple academic fields (anthropology, archaeology, linguistics, ecology, history) and languages (English, Spanish, Yukateko, Ch'olan, Itzaj). In addition, the long history of the Itzas in the Maya lowlands requires us to investigate them in the pluralearly and late, northern and southernthrough both textual and artifactual evidence. Here we review and synthesize these sources of data through multiple lenses with different focal lengths and magnifications. Because of the complexity of knowing the Petn Itzas, we emphasize varying perspectivesinstead of limning a single narrative arcin the volumes title and organization.