The Maya World: Yucatec Culture and Society, 1550-1850.

By Matthew Restall (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1997. xiv plus 441pp. $55.00).

Restall offers a new ethnohistorical approach to the colonial experience of the Yucatec Maya, a group that has received considerable attention from a number of scholars in recent years. Restall's contribution comes from the use of a new set of documents, Maya language notarial protocols including wills and land sales, election reports, and similar sources. The author juxtaposes his findings against the research of such scholars as Farriss and Patch, who relied primarily on Spanish language documents generated by the colonial state.

The book is divided into three sections, and is followed by detailed appendices that summarize different forms of data from the documents. The first section addresses social organization and identity including the structure of the cahob, the community, and internal politics and factionalism. This is followed by a discussion of class and society, gender relations, sexuality, and religion. The third section explores concepts of different types of land and how these concepts reflect cosmology, material culture, demographic change, and the late colonial expansion in Spanish landowning that also coincided with the growth of the Maya population. The final section looks at the Maya language documents themselves, focusing on the wording and structure of the documents.

As the pioneering work of James Lockhart has shown for the Nahuas of central Mexico, the use of indigenous sources and, where available, indigenous language sources is important for ethnohistorical reconstructions. However, the ethnohistorian also must recognize the limitations in the use of such documents as shown in Restall's book. The records the author consulted lend themselves admirably to some analysis offered. For example, an anonymous petition that criticized the sexual behavior of a handful of priests provides remarkable insights to the Maya views on sexuality. On the other hand, I wonder if the wills used provide a representative discussion of material culture. The land records provide insights to Maya concepts of land use and ownership, but not the changes in land tenure so important at the end of the colonial period. Moreover, I found Restall's discussion of demographic patterns anemic, and little illuminated by the sources used. I wondered if there were Maya language parish registers similar to the Nahuas registers from central Mexico. The author covers a wide range of topics, but the effectiveness of the discussion is uneven. Restall clearly has mastered Yucatec Maya.

What disappointed me the most, however, was what was not in the book. In drawing comparisons between his own book and the works of scholars using primarily Spanish language documents, Restall should have included more of a synthesis of his findings and the conclusions of Farriss, Patch, and others. I personally would like to have seen the author compare what he had learned that was different from earlier studies. It is fair to criticize earlier ethnohistorians such as Charles Gibson who reconstructed indigenous society through the lens of the colonizers, and Restall's study joins a growing literature that relies heavily or exclusively on indigenous language documents. At the same time the new ethnohistorians can also be faulted for not providing a new synthesis that combines the older literature with the new insights from the indigenous voice previously lacking.

The new ethnohistorians, as is also the case with most specialists in colonial Spanish American history, have also largely ignored a source that could supplement the documentary record: historical archaeology. Archaeologists have scoured the Yucatan peninsula for decades, and I would be surprised if colonial-era sites have not been excavated. Archaeology provides useful information on material culture, a topic Restall attempted to address, but did so poorly.

With these comments aside, Restall has produced an important book that provides new insights to Maya culture and society and adds to a growing literature based on indigenous sources and perspectives. There still has yet to be written a synthesis that combines the earlier and more recent brand of ethnohistory.

Robert H. Jackson State University College at Oneonta