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Precious People: Indigenous Medical-Spiritual Relations in the Archaeology of Maya Childhood
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Precious People: Indigenous Medical-Spiritual Relations in the Archaeology of Maya Childhood

Christina T. Halperin, Katherine A. Miller Wolf and Maria Fernanda López López
Childhood in the past, Vol.online ahead of print
11/14/2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17585716.2025.2585706
Web of Science ID: WOS:001614484600001

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Abstract

Previous studies of bodily ornaments from burial contexts have often fixated on notions of wealth, social inequality, and prestige. Although such considerations are often pertinent, our work provides a complementary perspective incorporating Indigenous and ladino (mestizo) medical-spiritual understandings of bodily ornaments. We find that this perspective is best understood through a focus on children. In particular, this paper examines the marine shell, bone, ceramic, and stone bracelets and necklaces of children from Late and Terminal Classic burials at the Maya site of Ucanal, Petén, Guatemala, and compares them to burials from a range of time periods in the same region of the eastern Maya Lowlands. In addition, by incorporating ethnographic and ethnohistoric research on Indigenous Maya and ladino practices, we underscore the relational understandings of Maya ornaments worn by children and their role in the articulation of caring relations between parents and their precious children, in repelling spiritual forces and winds carrying illnesses, and in the making of social persons. While attention and respect for Indigenous medical-spiritual practices are slowly but increasingly recognized in contemporary medical practices in Guatemala, Mexico, and elsewhere, archaeological perspectives also benefit from such perspectives on children and their well-being.

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