Letters Shaman Nonsense Your article “The 2012 Phenomenon” (Winter 2011-12) discrediting the apocalyptic nonsense about the end of Maya Long Count calendar, begins with a woman identified as “the last Maya shaman,” granddaughter of “the last Maya healer.” Both these identifications are grossly wrong, and very disrespectful to the thousands of contemporary Maya who work for their communities as traditional healers. In the Guatemalan Mayan community of Santiago Atitlán, there are half a dozen named specialties in healing, each with practitioners. “Shaman” has been a Western label for non-Western religious practitioners since Catherine the Great learned about, and mocked, the real shamans in Russian-conquered Siberia. The term is historically incorrect for Mayans; j’meeno’ob is a Mayan word for local priests mediating with nonhuman persons, including ancestors. Yes, one can find self-labeled “Maya shamans” happy to take pay in Sedona, Arizona. Hard-working Maya farmers like your hosts in the Belize village of San Jose don’t pander to rich tourists in swank resorts. If, like anthropologist Miguel Astor-Aguilera, you could have lived in the village for seven years, you might have slowly learned the ancient Maya traditions still practiced by their j’meeno’ob. Alice Beck Kehoe Professor of Anthropology, emeritus, Marquette University Author of Shamans and Religion: An Anthropological Exploration in Critical Thinking
american archaeology
Mastodon Bones Ahead I just read the article “Pre-Clovis Mastodon Hunting Confirmed” (Winter 2011-12) and am so happy to know what’s finally happened with the bones that were unearthed at this site. My husband and I came upon it by accident back in about 1978 because of a simple roadside sign stating something like “mastodon bones ahead.” We enjoyed a lengthy visit with the Manises at their home. At the time, we were told that the small point embedded in a bone just might be the earliest evidence of human habitation on the Olympic Peninsula, and I’ve repeated the story many times. I’m glad The Archaeological Conservancy owns the site now, because it will be handled responsibly. Thanks so much for the most interesting article. Marilyn Blanck Alhambra, California
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Editor’s Corner How easily history is forgotten. Take Moku’ula Island, for example. (See “Restoring the Glory,”page 26.) Hundreds of years ago this lush one-acre island, surrounded by a pond and wetlands, was the splendid home of Hawaiian royalty. Furthermore, it was protected by the lizard goddess Kihawahine, a powerful diety who was worshipped by no less than King Kamehameha I, who united and ruled the Hawaiian Islands in the early 1800s. Fast forward to the early 1900s, and Hawaiian royalty is long gone, the island is abandoned, and the pond is a stagnant, mosquito-infested marsh. As a result, Moku’ula Island, and this chapter of Hawaiian history, were buried under two feet of fill and covered by a park. For decades Moku’ula was gone from sight and memory. Then roughly 20 years ago Akoni Akana, a master hula instructor and expert on Hawaiian traditions and history, came to its rescue. Akana raised money, hired archaeologists to find the island, and formed an organization—Friends of Moku’ula—to restore it. So began a long, expensive, and ambitious effort to reclaim Moku’ula from oblivion. The work, which includes an archaeological investigation of the island and its surroundings, also features a large wetlands restoration by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The restoration of Moku’ula is still years from completion, but one has to admire the determination of the late Akoni Akana, and the many others who have joined his cause, to refuse to forget.
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