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Traditional High Cultures
Oral and Written Traditions and Rock Art as the Histories of Both Ancient and Living Peoples, Especially of the Americas before the Arrival of Europeans
 

     Our web site has just been inaugurated. It is wonderful to be able to highlight support for the Ch'orti' community getting involved with the recovery of Mayan history, because of all the living Mayan languages, Ch'orti' is closest to the language in classic Maya inscriptions. The project summarized below is striving to benefit the entire Ch'orti' community. In the future we will highlight additional opportunities to be of assistance to other peoples, when a substantial part of this is in strengthening and recovering their histories and cultures.

     Contributions of frequent flier miles will also be welcome to support some participants in the theme "Ways of Remembering History" at the Fifth World Archaeological Congress, 21-26 June 2003 in Washington, D.C. See after the "Ch'orti' Project".

 
The Ch'orti' Project
     The Ch'orti' Project is effort to increase educational opportunities and support cultural preservation of the Ch'orti' Maya of Guatemala and Honduras. The goals of the Ch'orti' Project include securing funding for a community center to be built in Jocotán, Guatemala, funds for the construction of school buildings and providing school supplies for local communities, and funds to assist with epigraphic instruction for the Ch'orti' Maya on a continual basis. The community center is intended to be a place where the Ch'orti' can display works of local craftsmanship that make up part of the Ch'orti' cultural heritage. Such a center would represent continual employment for a group of Ch'orti' as well a space to market certain items. It is hoped that this community center would be a place of pride for the Ch'orti' to share aspects of their culture with people around the world. Since Jocotán is right on the road to Copan from Guatemala City, there is a great opportunity to attract both national and international visitors to learn appreciate more about the Ch'orti'.
     In areas of education the Ch'orti' Project is dedicated to helping small Ch'orti' hamlets acquire necessary funding for the construction of adequate school buildings where currently no such buildings exist. In addition, this project seeks to provide local communities with basic start-up supplies in these schools and to work with local leaders in securing permanent funding for teacher salaries.
     The Ch'orti' language has been shown to resemble in significant ways the language contained in most Maya hieroglyphic inscriptions. To date, however, the Ch'orti' have not been actively involved in learning to read the hieroglyphs. An important goal of the Ch'orti' Project is to generate local interest in learning to read Maya hieroglyphs as a means of understanding and appreciating elements of their cultural heritage. In addition, the continuous involvement of the Ch'orti' in epigraphic studies will certainly be helpful to scholars today in the ongoing process of decipherment. To this end, through generous donations of many in 2002 the Ch'orti' Project was able to hold "El Primer Taller Epigráfico de Jocotán, Guatemala" in July of 2002 in Jocotán. This two-day event was attended by fifteen Ch'orti' speakers and was a great first step in involving the Ch'orti' in epigraphic studies. Four of the participants from this workshop, together with Kerry Hull, attended a five-day hieroglyphic workshop in Antigua, Guatemala presented by Dr. Nikolai Grube and Dr. Frederio Fahsen and sponsored by Oxlajuuj Keej Maya' Ajtz'iib' (OKMA). The Ch'orti' project hopes to continue sponsoring participants every year for this workshop in Antigua. In addition, local workshops in Jocotán presented by Kerry Hull will be held annually and an epigraphic society will be organized to meet on a continual basis throughout the year. Funding for the Ch'orti' Project will be used to support these efforts.
     The Ch'orti' Project seeks funding from interested parties to support these efforts. Donations can be made specifically for a particular project, or can be simply given to the project to use as needed. The only recipients of direct funding will be Ch'orti' school teachers and employees at the community center. All funds will be administered by Kerry Hull and an accounting of any donations will gladly be made to donors at any time.
     If you would like to make a donation to the Ch'orti' Project, please direct them to Kerry Hull, 3457 B Lake Austin Blvd, Austin, TX 78703.   Please feel free to contact Kerry Hull at 512-391-0232 or by email at kerryasa@aol.com.
 
Frequent Flier Miles for "Ways of Remembering History"

Do you have lots of frequent flier miles?
Would you be willing to donate some of them to a good cause?
(The writer of this message will gain nothing financially
from any such donations.)
The cause is to provide air travel for some very deserving participants
in sessions of the theme "Ways of Remembering History" at the
Fifth World Archaeological Congress,
21-26 June, 2003, Washington, D.C.


The individual sessions are very carefully designed to maximize
the benefit to several fields of pre-columbian studies.
The individual participants are also chosen for the value of their
contributions to this.


The overall goal is to integrate use of oral traditions,
rock art, and ancient written records, into the joint fields
of history and archaeology, so that these sources of information
can be used with much greater scientific rigor,
so that professional historians and archaeologists will become
much more comfortable using them.
So that "prehistory" no longer means history before the time of
records recorded in standard European modes,
because other modes of recording history become more generally
known and respected.


These are intended to be good role-models for a positive approach to
indigenous traditions everywhere, simply doing it right with respect,
leaping over unnecessary stages of political confrontation.


The drafts of sessions under this theme can be seen at
http://www.TraditionalHighCultures.com/WAC5.htm
and information about the congress in general
can be seen at
http://www.american.edu/wac5


***
We need support for as many of the following as
possible. The individuals for whom support is sought
are outstanding contributors to their fields,
but do not have any possibility of institutional support for this.


2 round trip flights from Eastern Europe
3 round trip flights from Western Europe
2 round trip flights from Mexico


Because seats available with frequent-flier miles
are already tending to fill up, SPEED is of the essence.
(I would have made this appeal earlier except that
I did not think of it.)


I very much hope that you can assist in this worthy project.
Lloyd Anderson
Ecological Linguistics
PO Box 15156
Washington, DC 20003
<ecoling@aol.com>
Phone (202) 547-7678