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The Maya Art of Speaking Writing: Remediating Indigenous Orality in the Digital Age by Tiffany D. Creegan Miller (review)

2023; University of Minnesota Press; Volume: 10; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/nai.2023.a904205

2332-127X

Indigenous Cultures and Socio-Education

Reviewed by: The Maya Art of Speaking Writing: Remediating Indigenous Orality in the Digital Age by Tiffany D. Creegan Miller Rita M. Palacios (bio) The Maya Art of Speaking Writing: Remediating Indigenous Orality in the Digital Age by Tiffany D. Creegan Miller University of Arizona Press, 2022 tiffany d. creegan miller's The Maya Art of Speaking Writing: Remediating Indigenous Orality in the Digital Age is a welcome new addition to the growing body of contemporary Maya cultural studies. Creegan Miller's book is an ambitious study that looks at the intersection of digital textualities, oralities, and ts'íib (or the author's preferred K'iche' spelling, tz'ib'), a Maya concept that extends beyond the written word and encompasses that which is recorded (weavings, paintings, sculpture, the milpa/cultivated field, to name a few examples). This concept has been explored by Kaqchikel anthropologist Irma Otzoy (1996), Q'anjob'al writer and intellectual Gaspar Pedro González (1997), and, most recently, settlers Paul M. Worley and Rita M. Palacios (2019). The Maya Art of Speaking Writing looks at orality and media studies to further explore the possibilities of tz'ib', as the author explains, to "rethink previously accepted boundaries between forms, disciplines and eras" and to look closely at "Indigenous conceptions of orality and writing (tz'ib') to media studies" (9) to ground the study. The book is divided into four chapters, each dealing with Maya cultural expressions and uses of digital media in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Chapter 1 looks at the ways in which Mayas tell their own stories through tz'ib' in Q'anjob'al intellectual Víctor Montejo's Brevísima Relación Testimonial de la continua destrucción del Mayab' (Guatemala) (1992) and in Comalapa's murals. The chapter focuses on the stories told by images as they rewrite the history of the Guatemalan nation from a Maya perspective, which notably has complete agency and is unmediated by non-Indigenous voices. Chapter 2 examines K'iche' poet Humberto Akabal's self-translation and his treatment of orality in the onomatopoeic poem "Xalolilo lelele'." According to Creegan Miller, Ak'abal offers his public an opportunity to engage in linguistic revitalization: rather than provide a translation of the poem, the K'iche' poet invites others to challenge the supremacy of the Spanish language and participate in the dissemination and reproduction of his mother tongue. The chapter includes an interesting discussion about [End Page 148] linguistic and digital access and reproduction of Ak'abal's performance of the poem on digital platforms, particularly by non-K'iche' speakers. Chapter 3 focuses on the use of Kaqchikel children's songs for language teaching, noting their adaptability and specificity (some of the songs include regional variations, which note the teacher's place of origin and their own variant of the language). Creegan Miller also notes the production of materials (recordings, video) to support language learning and engage in important language activism that engages publics in Guatemala and abroad. Chapter 4 looks at Maya migration as seen through transnational family videos, an unanticipated product of the author's fieldwork on children's songs. During Creegan Miller's time in the Maya highlands recording these songs, an elderly father saw an opportunity to send a recorded message to his two sons who had migrated to the United States. The author reflects on her own participation (mediation) in the process and engages in an important discussion regarding Indigenous identity in the framework of Latinidad in the United States. Overall, Creegan Miller's contribution to the field of Indigenous Studies is particularly noteworthy, given her ties and commitment to Maya communities, her ongoing work, her grasp of the Kaqchikel language, and her formative experiences in Guatemala as a student, teacher, and academic. The Maya Art of Speaking Writing offers a "Maya driven methodological approach to the role of mediation in contemporary Maya-authored literary and cultural texts" (37–38), meaning the approach privileges Maya thought above all else, which is an admirable commitment, particularly as it challenges other academics and students of Maya literature and culture to do the same. The Maya concepts related to orality (t'zij, choloj, and ch'owen...