New K-12 Resources in Latin American and Caribbean Studies

Fall 2001, No. 85
Compiled by Nan Volinsky

Commentary on 9/11/01 from Spanish- and Portuguese-Language Newspapers

A new web page on Latin America, Spain, and Portugal has been posted to the web site of the library system of Duke University. This page has links to full-text news analysis, op-ed pieces, and editorials and essays of interest concerning the terrorist attack on the U.S. that have appeared in various online newspapers and news magazines from Spain, Portugal, and Latin America. The URL is http://www.lib.duke.edu/ias/latamer/crisis.htm. The majority of the articles are in Spanish or Portuguese. The site gathers together links to essays by prominent writers and political figures, analysis of the likely economic fallout on Brazil, Peru, and Latin America in general, a panel discussion on the implications of the U.S. war on terrorism for Colombia, and more.

The Spurlock Museum of World Cultures will open in Fall, 2002, on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. One half of one of its Gallery of the Americas is devoted to Cultures of Latin America. The Spurlock online collections database allows visitors to access all of the museum's approximately 10,000 artifacts from Latin America. A digital color image of each artifact is provided, along with written description, scholarly notes, and the artifact's provenience. The Spurlock outreach program, joint with the Center’s Outreach Program, works from the permanent exhibition, collection, and database. The Museum's Problems in Today's World program is involved in developing a set of portable web-site and CD-ROM modules to provide a variety of multimedia resources to K-12 school programs, junior colleges, and adult education programs. Through this program, which initially focuses entirely on Latin America, participants will learn about the creativity and belief systems of many different peoples, including Amerindian cultures and Afro-Latin American cultures. There will be a year-long exhibition (2003 or 2004) designed by Dorothea and Norman Whitten entitled "¡Causaúnchimi! We are living!" that features the Canelos Quichua indigenous people of Amazonian Ecuador. These programs will be offered to school classes and all other visitors to the museum. One of the first modules to be developed will be on the themes of the year-long exhibition.

The Brooklyn Expedition Web site ( http://www.brooklynexpedition.org/) is a collaborative project of the Brooklyn Children's Museum, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and the Brooklyn Public Library. This pilot project brings together the resources of these three Brooklyn institutions to increase educational services to the community by offering teachers, children, and families a new way to access three worlds of information in one place. The Brooklyn Expedition is organized around content themes that users can explore by looking at museum objects and library materials as presented on the web site. The first theme to be introduced was STRUCTURES, a broad-ranging inquiry introducing the connections between animal skeletons and homes, architecture, art, and information cataloguing systems.

Building on lessons learned from the creation of STRUCTURES, the team next developed the theme of LATIN AMERICA which explores the art and cultures of Mexico, Central and South America—from past to present. You can explore a variety of topics about Latin America by clicking on the following interactive links: Discovering the Past, Ancient Belief and Ritual, Time to Celebrate, Converging Culture, Tales in Cloth, Living off the Land, and Awesome Animals.

Resources for Latin American Geography

Maps of Latin America and the Caribbean can be accessed through http://oddens.geog.uu.nl/index.html. This page compiles web-based maps of each region and country of the world. My search for South American maps yielded a list of 69 links to early and contemporary maps. Most of these are topography and political maps, but some are maps that focus on the themes of population, infant mortality, refugee movement, and forest cover.

DDB Stock Photography was founded in 1970 and has over 500,000 color transparencies of Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. At http://www.ddb.simplenet.com/main1.html you can see thumbnail images of this collection, which includes the Amazon Rainforest and Indigenous people of the Amazon, the Andes Mountains, volcanoes, Argentine lakes, deserts, orange production in Brazil, and gold mining. Contact DDB at info@ddbstock.com for information on how you can use these transparencies and digital images for your classroom.

Professor Gregory Knapp teaches the geography of Latin America at the University of Texas at Austin. His detailed lecture notes and an extensive collection of excellent slides are posted on the web at http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~gwk/courses/grg319/grg319.html. These notes and graphics may be used and reproduced for educational purposes, if accompanied with citations as to authorship. All other rights are reserved. After background notes and an introduction to the geography of Latin America, his course proceeds to cover the following topics: lands and waters, the ecology of life, cultures and places, producing for a global economy, population and settlement, strategies for sustainable development, and geopolitics and perceptions of territory and nature. Slides from the Knapp collection are also found at http://www.uiuc.edu/unit/lat/170sp01geography.html.

At http://www.uiuc.edu/unit/lat/170sp01geography.html you will find another resources of images on the geography of Latin America. These are photos taken by Marilyn Bridges and published in Planet Peru: An Aerial Journey through a Timeless Land. You can access several of her photos at this web page, which include striking images of limestone sinkholes, the famous terracing in the steep Andean mountains, the sand dunes of the Peruvian coast, and volcanoes.

Recommended books on Latin America that were written by Geographers are: Barton J. (1997) A Political Geography of Latin America. London: Routledge; Preston J. (ed.) (1989) Latin American Development: Geographical Perspectives. London: Longman; Cubitt T. (1992) Latin American Society. London: Longman; Gilbert A. (1990) Latin America. London: Routledge; Collinson H. (ed.) 1996 Green Guerrillas Environmental Conflicts and Initiatives in Latin America and the Caribbean. LAB: London.

Resources on the Maya

At http://www.virtualpalenque.com/ you will find a virtual tour of the Maya ruins of Palenque, located in Chiapas, Mexico. Palenque is one of the grandest of all Maya ruins. Much has been found from this site, from the hieroglyphs and the tomb of Pacal in the Temple of Inscriptions, to the unique architecture and carved sculptures in the Palace. You can have Dr. Thomas Guderjan show you the greatness of the Palenque architecture and history. Once you are on his tour, you can get a continual 360-degree view by placing your cursor over the scene and dragging it in any direction.

Rabbit in the Moon (http://www.halfmoon.org/index.html) is another rich web site dedicated to the Maya people, with links to Mayan Hieroglyphic Writing, the Mayan Calendar, Mayan Architecture Models, Languages, Culture, Games and Stories, and information on meetings, classes, and books for further study and research.

Hieroglyphs

The link “Can I Write My Name In Mayan Glyphs?” at http://www.halfmoon.org/names.html leads you on a guided tour in steps to show you how you can put together your own name glyph. The tour finishes with an example. Have your students use it with the Datemaker or the Do-It-Yourself Stela Maker.

At http://www.halfmoon.org/translation.html, you can practice translation on a simple inscription. If your students spend time looking at the glyphs at halfmoon.org, they may want to see if they can translate a hieroglyphic text. For this purpose, the web author composed a simple text to give people an opportunity. The text itself is true to the sort of actions and statements found in real Mayan inscriptions. To avoid rearranging history, the author invented a city-state (Minal, "zero-place"), whose emblem glyph includes the symbol for zero. The individuals named are likewise imaginary. The text is available in two forms: plain and colored-coded to indicate different parts of speech. Nine rows and ten columns of hieroglyphs are indicated in the standard way. When you need help in translating a particular hieroglyph, you can submit a request that provides you with the translation.

A good book for beginners is Understanding Maya Inscriptions: A Hieroglyph Handbook, 2nd edition, by John Harris and Stephen Stearns. This book can be ordered from University Museum Publications, 33rd and Spruce Streets, Philadelphia, PA 19104, or online from Amazon. Another good source book for learning the basic structure of Mayan writing is the current edition of the Notebook for the Maya Hieroglyphic Forum at Texas, by Linda Schele and Nikolai Grube. You may obtain this edition by writing to Peter Keeler, Maya Meetings, PO Box 3500, Austin TX 78764-3500. A source book with a greater emphasis on the Mayan calendar is the Maya Hieroglyphic Workbook by Tom and Carolyn Jones. For more information, write to U Mut Maya, P.O. Box 4686, Arcata, CA 95518, USA.

Architecture

At http://www.halfmoon.org you can see virtual reality scale models of the Pyramid of Kukulcán (El Castillo), the House of the Governor (Governor's Palace), and Bonampak Murals. These virtual reality models were created using Virtus Walkthrough Pro 2.5. and 2.5.2. The House of the Governor, also known as the Palace of the Governor, is located at the Mayan complex of Uxmal in Yucatan, Mexico. The "governor" connotation originated with the Spanish; the structure's actual purpose is not known. It has been hypothesized to have been used as either a dwelling place, a site for public functions, or both. From its orientation, the building has also been thought to have served for certain astronomical observations. The virtual reality scale model is based on the measurements made by Jeff Karl Kowalski, taken from his exquisitely detailed book The House of the Governor (University of Oklahoma Press, 1987).

The House of the Governor is thought to have been constructed circa AD. 900, and is a fine example of Puuc architecture. The Puuc were a mercantile trading community of Maya, who began to develop their own artistic style in building. The style of Puuc architecture attained its ultimate refinement in the hilly Puuc region of northwestern Yucatan. Puuc buildings have rubble-filled concrete walls faced by a thin veneer of dressed stone. The exterior walls have plain lower facades supporting upper facades decorated with long-nosed Chac masks and geometric designs. Constructed of individually carved pieces fitted together to form a design, Puuc sculpture resembles a mosaic. In Chichén Itzá the older, purely Maya buildings are in the Puuc style. Common features of Puuc style are buildings with a plain lower section and ornate upper section, decorated cornices, rows of half and full columns, Chac masks and roof combs. Sites of Puuc architecture include Uxmal, Kabah, Labná and Sayil. During the late classic the influence of Puuc architecture spread far over the Yucatan, as can be evidenced by the many sites that can trace their architecture to the Puuc style.

New to www.halfmoon.org is a page of images of the architecture of the average Maya person (http://www.halfmoon.org/average.html). The average person made homes with the most efficient use of the materials at hand, and because of this the style and form of their buildings, the xanil nah, persists to the present day. On this web page you can see representations of ancient Mayan dwellings juxtaposed with a modern example. With the exception of a few modern conveniences (electricity, telephones, etc.), little has changed over the centuries. One form of the basic structure was made of poles. Young trees with the bark stripped off were set in a stone foundation. Two doorways were placed directly opposite each other to allow for the free flow of air. This framework had rounded ends and was either filled in with additional poles or with stucco. A thick palm thatch roof protected the interior from the elements. Stone versions of these houses were similar, but tended to be rectangular in form. Today, in regions where large trees are plentiful, like Campeche, wooden planks are used in place of poles; these also lack rounded ends. Within a single compound, surrounded by a low stone wall, various styles of buildings might be combined: stucco or stone as the main dwelling, loose pole structures for other functions (such as cooking), and open-frame shelters to offer shade from the sun.

The Cultural Significance and Geography of Limestone Sinkholes in the Yucatan

Cenote (say-NO-tay) is the Spanish equivalent of the Yucatec Maya word for a water-filled limestone sinkhole. In Mexico's northern Yucatan Peninsula, where there are few lakes or streams, cenotes provided a stable supply of water for the ancient Maya people who settled there. The great city of Chichen Itza was built around a cluster of these natural wells, including the one known as the Cenote of Sacrifice (http://www.smm.org/sln/ma/tchichen.html).

On March 5, 1904, the American archeologist Edward H. Thompson, began dredging the Cenote of Sacrifice at the ancient Maya city of Chichen I in Yucan, Mexico. Thompson hoped to substantiate legends describing this natural, water-filled, limestone well as a repository for the precious objects and human victims offered to the gods by the ancient Maya.

There are several stages in the formation of a cenote. A SOLUTION CAVERN refers to naturally acidic groundwater seeping through cracks in the limestone bedrock that dissolves areas of softer rock lying beneath the hard surface crust. Over time, this process creates large underground caverns roofed with only a thin layer of surface limestone. As erosion continues, this thin roof eventually collapses, leaving an open, water-filled hole, known as a YOUNG CENOTE. Over thousands of years, erosion gradually fills the cenote with organic and mineral debris, reducing its depth and producing MATURE CENOTE. The Cenote of Sacrifice is currently in this stage. As erosion continues, the cenote may completely fill, becoming a dry, shallow basin supporting trees and other vegetation. This is known as a DRY CENOTE.

EXPERIMENT (http://www.smm.org/sln/ma/grtcity.html): Solving Dissolving: It takes a long time for a cenote to form. Rain water absorbs a gas (carbon dioxide) from the air and forms a weak acid. As this trickles down through tiny cracks in the limestone, the weak acid dissolves a mineral in the limestone called calcite. Over time the limestone is dissolved and a cenote is formed.

Collect 1 piece of chalk, 1 plastic tray, 1 dropper, 1/4 cup water, 1/4 cup vinegar, 1 egg carton, 1 piece of limestone rock, and 5 rocks that look different.

Try It:

  1. Put three drops of water on the chalk. What happens?
  2. Put three drops of vinegar on the chalk. What happens?
  3. Chalk is made from limestone. Vinegar is a weak acid.
  4. Try other liquids.- Did you find weak acids?
  5. Number your rocks and print the logbook sheet.
  6. Compare these rocks to the limestone. Record your results.
  7. Type the name of a weak acid that dissolved your limestone!

Compare the cenotes of the Yucatan Maya with the terraced limestone sinkholes of the Andean Incas (http://www.uiuc.edu/unit/lat/170moraysinkholes.html). This comparison highlights the way that different cultures respond to similar geographic conditions in different ways.