Alcaldes on the fourth, or top level. These cargo positions must be requested in advance and are held for one year each, with rest periods in between the years of service. The officials occupying the positions are referred to as cargo holde…word for the 360-day year. As the calendrical deities of the ancient Maya are often depicted carrying the burden of the year on a tumpline on their backs, it seems evident that the t’ent’en embodies, above all, the symbol of the arrival of …By the 25th of January, the bull has been killed; the Mayordomos have relinquished their stick-horses; the stuffed animals have been burned; the Jaguars, Plumed Serpents, and Spanish Moss Wearers have put away their costumes; and the Spanis…
Frank Cancian
anthropologist · 3 mentions across 1 reading
In this course
Cancian appears to be an ethnographer documenting ritualized cargo systems and ceremonial practices in Mesoamerican communities, likely through fieldwork among Maya or related groups. His excerpts function as primary ethnographic description in the course readings, providing concrete examples of how symbolic systems—calendrical burdens, hierarchical office-holding, ritualized costumes—encode and distribute social responsibility across time and performers. This material likely supports arguments about distributed agency, embodied computation, or how pre-digital societies systematized complex information through ceremonial structure.
Mentioned in 1 reading
Appears alongside
People mentioned in the same passages — sorted by co-occurrence weight.