Maya Pilgrimage to Ritual Landscapes: Insights from Archaeology, History, and Ethnography

In this well-documented and illustrated work, Joel Palka further exposes the important role that pilgrimages to ritual landscapes play in Maya culture. To do so, Palka draws upon an impressive interdisciplinary array of data from archaeological, historical, and ethnographic studies to illustrate the continued importance of such pilgrimages and landscapes in Maya culture — and those Mesoamerican in general — from Preclassic to modern times. Whereas previous studies have examined either pilgrimage or landscapes, few study both together or focus on their relationships. Moreover, Palka's work seeks to expand traditional examinations of pilgrimage in Maya culture to explore its influence on society, politics, and religion. In the end, his work succeeds in removing pilgrimages and ritual landscapes from the periphery of Maya society by awarding them a more central role in Maya religion, culture, and ritual.Palka begins his work with clear delineations of goals, sources, and definitions of terms. He defines ritual landscapes as “unique, culturally significant geographical features that Maya people — largely elites, male religious specialists, and household heads — selected as places for pilgrimage” (p. 10) and then gives examples of such throughout Mesoamerica. The cross-cultural comparisons are refreshing and give added strength to the work's overall arguments. Although Palka, admittedly, gives particular focus to the lowland Maya, comparative views of the Nahuas and highland Maya allow for a broader lens with which to view pan-Mesoamerican similarities. Moreover, the occasional reference to pilgrimages and ritual sites in the Old World and even Greek culture provides a welcome backdrop to view broad similarities and differences.Throughout, the work draws from myriad examples ranging from archaeological evidence to modern ethnographic accounts to support its argument for the continued importance of pilgrimages and ritual landscapes to the Maya. Unlike other cultures that often view pilgrimages as rare, once-in-a-lifetime events, the Maya and Mesoamerican cultures in general viewed them as important, daily obligations to maintain covenants and spiritual balance with the divine. In other words, pilgrimages were not singular experiences. Certainly unforeseen hardships such as drought, illness, or social imbalance could inspire pilgrimages. Yet they occurred routinely as an integral part of the local community's spiritual and temporal well-being, legitimacy, and even authority. Perhaps one of the more important contributions of the work is its illustration of the role that pilgrimages play in the local and regional economy. Elites could create and use pilgrim centers and their necessary markets to maintain their own economic and political prosperity. Indeed, such centers became important in not only creating but also maintaining sociopolitical identity.While examining the importance of mountains, caves, cliffs, bodies of water, rock outcrops, and ruins as common candidates for ritual landscapes, Palka also gives some needed attention to islands serving the same role. Using the limited research available, the work illustrates the importance of islands as intersections and conduits between the underworld beneath the water, the middle world on the surface, and the upper world in the sky. Islands frequently appear in large rivers such as the Usumacinta or in Lake Peten Itza, Lake Petha, or Lake Miramar. Their disconnection from the mainland and their association with water, and thus creation and regeneration, made them popular sites for pilgrimages.For all ritual landscapes discussed, the work presents data connecting the site to pilgrimages performed in Preclassic, colonial, and, when available, modern times. Regarding the last, the Maya's inclusion of Catholicism in their pilgrimages is evident in various examples to illustrate such continuity. Yet, at times, the reader is left wanting more details on how the Maya adopted such practices to those preexisting, or how pilgrimages and ritual landscapes fit into a Maya/Catholic worldview and to what degree or frequency. Notwithstanding, Palka provides readers — both graduate students and scholars alike — with an impressive and important work that surely will contribute to pilgrimage studies for years to come.