“Postclassic Yearbearer Rituals and Cyclical Renewal: Evidence from Maya Archaeology, Ethnohistory and Codices”,
with Dr. Susan Milbrath, Emeritus Curator, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida
Maya codices feature rituals of world renewal that reaffirm the ordering principles of time-keeping. Effigy censers served as “idols” in a number of these ceremonies, probably accounting for their widespread distribution among the Yucatec-speaking Maya. Studying the iconography of effigy censers and their archaeological context helps provide a more detailed understanding of these ceremonies. At Mayapan, the last Maya capital in Mexico, the effigy censer cult seems to flourish at a time when stone stelae marking the Katun cycle were no longer carved, suggesting that censers could substitute as Katun markers in these calendar ceremonies. Ethnohistorical sources help us understand why some censers were made in pairs to be used in ceremonies performed midway through and at the end of the Katun, a period comprised of 20 Tuns (about 19.7 years). Other censers were most likely important in the Uayeb, year-end rituals that were specifically designed to reestablish the ordering principle of the calendar on an annual basis. The most important information on the significance of these calendar ceremonies is drawn from the colonial period account of Friar Diego de Landa, who provides a detailed description of the Uayeb festivals in July, when effigy censers represented the cardinal directions in yearbearer ceremonies performed at yearend.
Dr. Susan Milbrath retired as emeritus curator of Latin American Art and Archaeology at the Florida Museum of Natural History in July 2017. Her most recent book is now in press with the University Press of Colorado, an edited volume entitled Birds and Beasts of Ancient Mesoamerica: Animal Symbolism in the Postclassic Period, edited by Susan Milbrath and Elizabeth Baquedano. Louisville: University Press of Colorado, in press, 2022.