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to purchaseMaya Atlas : The Struggle to Preserve Maya Land in Southern Belize
by Maya Pepole of Southern Belize (Compiler), Toledo Maya Cultural CouncilNorth Atlantic Books: Berkeley, CA: 1997.
(pp. 154)
This is one of a growing number of atlas publications produced by Fourth World nations. This and other similar publications are a complement to the Center for World Indigenous Studies Fourth World Atlas Project begun in 1989. Like other efforts at documenting there own culture, territory and people the Ke’Kchi and Mopan Maya Atlas (which details demographic, environmental and territorial information about the Ke’Kchi and Mopan Maya of southern Belize) developed as a part of a long struggle against outside developers who seek to control and benefit from Mayan land and resources. This detailed, colorful and exquisitely published Atlas reflects the Ke’Kchi and Mopan reality in a way that outside mapping cannot accomplish. The Toledo Maya Cultural Council and Toledo Alcaldes Association have reestablished Mayan literature.
The leaders of the Toledo Maya Cultural Council were in the 1990s confronted by the government of Belize with its unilateral decision to grant massive long-term logging concessions to foreign companies to extract timber from Mayan territory. These concessions were given without consultation or consent given by the Toledo Maya who live in those forests. With the aid of the Indian controlled Indian Law Resources Center headed by Tim Coulter and with the assistances of the Center’s Armstrong Wiggens (a Miskito attorney) in the U.S.A. the Toledo Council sought to initiate a law suit against the Belizian government to stop its concessions and to establish a recognized homeland for this Maya community of about 14,000 comprised of two distinct peoples: Ke’Kchi and Mopan. Southern Belize is divided into two administrative districts by the Belizian government including Toledo and Stann Creek bordering Guatemala on two sides. In the Toledo district there are thirty-six Mayan villages including twenty-four Ke’Kchi villages, six Mopan villages and six mixed Ke’Kchi and Mopan villages. In the Stann Creek district there are six villages including six Mopan and one Ke’Kchi village. These Mayan peoples have continuously occupied and used the land in this area for more than four thousand years.
Center for World Indigenous Studies Founding Board Member Bernard Q. Nietschmann gave assistance for mapping the Mayan lands for future demarcation as a homeland through the University of California’s GeoMap Program, a program begun at the urging and support of the Center for World Indigenous Studies to assist Fourth World nations map their territories. The Ke’Kchi and Mopan Maya Atlas has had a profound impact on the Belizian government’s policies and even affected decision-makers in the United States Congress who appropriate the money the Belizians wanted to commercially developed the ancient forests of the Mayan Homeland. Mayan Atlas is a major achievement and a beautifully photographed and designed book.