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Question 1: From your kingdom, could you see the temple of another kingdom? Describe a typically journey to another kingdom.
- The Maya empire consisted of politically divided small kingdoms. They were usually a 2 or 3 day journey from other kingdoms, and it was sometimes possible to see the top of a another kingdom’s temple.
Question 2: Did you ever experience an attack on your kingdom?
- There was frequent fighting among kingdoms, especially as lack of rain and fertile soil forced people into smaller areas. Food could not be carried in large quantities, which limited the distance that armies could travel.
Question 3: If you lived in the valley floor, do you remember the population beginning to increase as more people moved to the lowlands?
- Drought caused people to move from the hills to the lowlands. This meant that more people were competing for food and space to grow food.
Question 4: If you lived in the hills, do you remember the population decreasing?
- Similar to the above question, drought forced people down from the hills. They had to find food and space on the valley floor, where people were already living.
Question 5: Did you ever experience first-hand a king breaking a royal promise (extended drought occurred) or a revolt because of it? If not, did you hear stories of this situation nearby?
In exchange for the support of the peasants, the kings, who claimed to have supernatural powers, were responsible for delivering rain and prosperity. If there was a drought, that was seen as breaking a royal promise and the peasant sometimes revolted.
Character 1: Mayan King
Character Description
My character for this panel is one of the Mayan kings, I rule during a time of particularly bad drought, and warring feuds with neighboring cities has left my people hungry, thirsty, and looking for someone to pin this on. It is my duty as king to look over and guide the people of my city, and to ensure our prosperity, though looking at recent times this might be difficult…
Essay
My lands have fallen on hard times, we face severe droughts and I fear the gods no longer favor me the way they used to. Oh, how I used to feel as if the rains would bless our lands at my very will! Maybe that feeling is what got me into the situation I find myself in now. So much for being chosen by the gods, they merely laugh at me now! Our water reserves have dried up, and in the rare event that the rains even choose to fall from the heavens the earth mocks me by swallowing it all and keeping it in some dark place beyond my reach. The very earth fails me in the hills, no food can grow there now. I now depend on the maize from the valley fields for our only reliable source of food for the entire city. The people starve and glare at me as if this pleases me. I realize what they must think of me, but it is not as if I have done nothing! I have spent many a sleepless night trying to figure out how to feed a growing people with dwindling food. The hills failing have meant my once proud warriors no longer have the food to carry them into battle and bring our glory to the cities at my borders. Our own lands are now weak and susceptible of those vile kings who I have squabbled with over the years. I look at the great monuments to myself, my ancestors, and to the gods. During the good times these giant tributes would swell my heart with pride, but now they seem to only leer at me with dark reminders of how I’ve failed. The peasants believe I hold back the rains, either through my own malice or through the disfavor of the gods whom I must’ve failed somehow. I wish I could fix things, what I would do to bring the rain back!
All my time now is spent locked in my palace and the administrative areas of the city for fear of what the peasants would do to me if they got their hands on me. I have heard too many tales of what happened to those who have lost control of the rains, I shudder at the thought. My warriors bring me rare catches of venison in the vain hopes that it will somehow fix the problems at hand. I hope so too… I take a long look out over my kingdom, I see the now empty hills that were once filled with plenty, I see the crowd of angry peasants in front of my palace that seems to grow larger every day, and as I sweep my view over my crumbling city, I can just make out a temple from a neighboring king. I can only wonder as to if he has been cursed by the gods the way I have….
Character 2: Mayan Soldier
Character description:
My character is a Mayan soldier. My role in society is to fulfill war orders from our King since there was new competition. Locally, I also had to fight for more land since we were forced to less land because of the droughts.
Brief essay:
I became a soldier after receiving higher status from the commoners in my village. My army is small and we cannot campaign for long distances since we run out of corn pretty quickly. From an outside perspective, it would seem that Mayans all get along and we all live peacefully amongst each other. I am sad to report that this is not the case. We are driven to constant, intense war because of our lessening food supply and how far apart our villages are from each other. With the ongoing drought due to the lack of water cycling because of the deforestation. I have also been a soldier to fight other commoners for land since overpopulation has been occurring and resources are running low.
Recently, I have been able to work for the military of our king. Warfare also occurs in our society He has sent us orders to capture other Mayan kings and to turn them into the king himself. I hear stories about what happens to the captives after we hand them over, but I do not like to think our king is capable of doing such things. Some cities are also trying to break from the capital, so our military has to go out and bring them back to the kingdom. It does get scary. I frighten for my life sometimes since there is such angriness with the king by the commoners with the droughts we have been having. I do not get it though, he takes care of us…
Character 3: Farmer
Character Description
My character for this assignment is a farmer in the Mayan civilization. I am a peasent in comparison to some other member in our society like kings and warriors. On my family farm I grown corn primarily, but every few years switch to beans to give my land some time to become fertile again.
Brief Essay
During the hard times and collapse of our civilization I witnessed two primarily major threats to our society. First off, As a farmer I spend a lot of time out in my fields harvesting and on my property protecting it from hostile neighbors. I see a lot of struggles in the community through drought and other environmental challenges. The intense droughts and the changing of our climate has made it very hard to provide food for my family and my people. The time period for planting and harvesting is constantly shortening because of the rainy and dry seasons. Even if we do get a good harvest, we have no idea what next year will bring, and what makes this matter worse is that our corn only has a shelf life of around a year.
Farming is a hard life. We have no cows or horses, so all of the manual labor is done by me and my sons. We are constantly having to gather water and go back and forth to the markets to sell our produce, which is taking a toll on me. We have no good sources of protein other than the small fish and turtles I have on the farm. The king is of no help to us either, all he wants to do is eat most of our food, build temples for himself, and cut down trees for more plaster.We used to be a prosperous community, but now I do not know how much longer we will last as a society if things keep going the way they are.
Character 4: Farmer in Copán
Character description:
My character is a peasant farmer in Copan. My role in the Mayan society is to grow corn to help feed our king, the nobles, and our army. Although my work is hard, it pays off because a well-fed king means that we will get a very good rainy season.
Brief essay:
I have seen the effects of greed on our so-called royalty. While we hunt venison solely for the royals and give up a majority of our harvest, they play games on who can build that largest monument. The king lives a lavish lifestyle by taking all of the commoner’s hard work. However, he has not brought us good rain in months. I envy the city-states up north. I’ve heard rumors that they can easily access the water table due to their lower land elevation. We have to build cisterns and reservoirs by hand. One reservoir can hold water for 10 thousand people for 18 months. Unfortunately, growing crops depends on rain, not cisterns and reservoirs.
My family and I barely have enough to sustain ourselves with the pitiful amount of maize we can grow on what used to be fertile lands. Since our population boomed, many people moved up to the hills. Their selfish use of trees is causing erosion on the hills. The infertile soil is washing down into the valley, and tarnishing our fertile soil! The increase in population is also causing the need to increase in corn, as it is 70% of our diet. But we cannot keep up with these demands because our soil quality is becoming worse, and we also have no rain thanks to our useless king.
Why should we be forced to focus on war and building monuments for our nobles when we should be focusing more on growing corn, and finding new ways to get water? It is especially tough on us building these silly monuments because we only have wood and stone tools. These are not as efficient as tools that the rest of Mesoamerica has. I heard they have metal tools that last much longer. What really seals the deal is that we don’t even have large animals to pull carts. Everything is done by man-power. We are exhausted and are starting to become angry at the royalty. I’ve heard that some people are getting together to burn the royal palace down. If only we joined our city states instead of fighting all of the time…
Character 5: Rural Commoner
Character Description:
My character is a Maya commoner—someone who is a pawn to their ruler and a slave to the land they must work to survive and support their city. I live in Copan, where the water table is inaccessible, and the hills are eroding onto our only viable land. I work the fields, growing maize in the valley bottomland, which never seems like enough for my family. The neighbors have tried to spar with me in order to acquire some of my maize, but I would die to protect my family.
Essay:
Ah, the beauty of our Maya cities could be seen from the top of many monuments, built in respect to our kings and their noble servants. Throughout the life of our center of innovation, the royalty thrived, feasting on maize, venison, and refreshments, but the same couldn’t be said for the millions of commoners throughout the split kingdoms. Maize made up the vast majority of our diet in many different forms, but the lack of consistent protein sources limited our strength and power. We could’ve conquered every surrounding city had we experienced a more consistent bountiful harvest. Our king instructed us to build a monument to represent his connection with the gods, and I served for years constructing the mountainous monument that stands today—but not without a long and worthwhile struggle. With nothing more than wooden, stone, and obsidian tools, we were at a disadvantage. No pulleys to heave the stone blocks weighing tons, no wheels to push our supplies up to construction, and no domesticated meat sources to nourish our abused and aching bodies.
This year was tough. With one of the most devastating droughts to ravage our city to date, our food supply is running dry. And our king…what a liar. He claims his relation to the gods would provide us with beautiful rain and prosperity, and his attendance on ritual dates would assure this to be true, but it has been months. Maybe the gods are just unwilling to listen, or maybe they are punishing us! I have watched the hills crumble—a barren wasteland of inarable land slowly sprinkling onto our farms in the valley bottomland. There are few trees to burn to keep us warm. And lack of food to sustain us as war calls grow closer. The gods will protect us…I’m sure of it…they will take the king in return for a plentiful harvest…I hope.