Las historias de dos culturas indígenas: A Maintenance Comparison of Modern-Day Yucatecan Maya and Peruvian Quechua Cultures

This essay will seek to explore how Yucatecan Maya and Peruvian Quechua are preserving and adapting their indigenous agricultural systems to the modern world. This relation is examined through indigenous spirituality ceremonies, food systems and economic systems. In both cultures, there are ceremonies, which are done in order to appease the local gods and encourage bountiful harvests. The traditional food systems have also changed due to the effects of colonization, imperialism and globalization. Both cultures have also seen a shift in their economic systems, as they have had to adapt different forms of crop productions in order to survive. All of these changes have impacted the way everyday life is conducted for these people, yet their way of life has continued. Preserving local customs and traditions that have roots in the pre-Hispanic past is important for their ongoing negotiations of their indigenous cultural identities, though they recognize the necessity of being able to adapt and assimilate into dominant, often non-indigenous ways of living. Such careful balancing of tradition and modernity has ensured their place in the modern world.