Feast of the Jaguars: Mayan artist’s ‘End of Days’ show contemplates 2012
An illustration of the great flood by Mayan artist Carlotta “Tita” Giangualano.
In the village where she grew up, Carlotta “Tita” Giangualano was known as the granddaughter of the witch.
Other children in Coba – a town of 1,200 located amidst the Mayan ruins in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo – were told not to play with her. The old Mayan ways had all but passed from common knowledge, and though many people considered Tita’s grandma, Mila, as the village’s healer and spiritual leader, others feared her. Tita ended up spending most of her time with Mila, who was raising the little girl.
The old woman thus passed on her knowledge to her granddaughter.
“I faced the difficulties of the ignorance of the people in the area we lived in because I was the granddaughter of the witch, or the bruja – you know, they didn’t let kids play with me,” Giangualano said in an interview this week. “But this was in my favor, because I had more attachment with my grandmother. Through her, I learned astronomy, astrology, herbs – all kinds of things that actually some of the people were not allowed to have.”
Carlotta "Tita" Gianggualano.
Her grandmother knew things that had been passed on generation to generation only by world-of-mouth, including knowledge of medicinal herbs, the ancients’ understanding of the stars above, and the Mayan creation myths. The myths had survived in writing, but not completely. The Spanish conquistadors, after all, purposefully destroyed most of the Mayan texts – recorded in the only fully developed written language in the pre-Columbian Americas – in the course of wiping out the Maya civilization. What persisted in writing was only what the Spaniards allowed to exist, including a version of the mytho-historical narrative book called the Popol Vuh (translated “The Book of the People”).
Giangualano noted that most of the original Popol Vuh, which consisted of several codexes, did not survive in the written form. But her grandmother was a keeper of that knowledge, and she gave it to her granddaughter. Giangulano is publishing a book, called Legends and Myths of the Popol Vuh, which includes much of what was previously destroyed. She has illustrated the book with her art.
“The only existent copy of the Popol Vuh had been appropriated by missionaries,” Giangualano said. “The missionaries are the ones that destroyed the codexes. What I have written is not by missionaries, but by the people – it is the experience of the people that lived there, that left us that information, through grandkids, and great grandkids, and great grandmothers…”
Giangulano last saw her grandmother almost sixty years ago, when she was ten years old. Her father returned from a long absence and took her from the village to live in the city of Torrean in Coahuila. But she later followed her grandmother’s advice.
“She always told me, ‘Go to the north, and don’t look back,’” Giangulano said.
She moved to the U.S., married her husband, an Italian immigrant, and – hearkening back to her grandmother’s healing skills – worked as a nurse. She raised seven children, and when the youngest girl turned 22 ten years ago and married, she finally turned to the treasure trove of ancient lore left to her by her grandmother. She began by doing illustrations, and eventually returned to her village to talk to other relatives who her grandmother had imparted with the old knowledge, helping fill in what was left blank in her memories.
“These are the things I wanted to do for a long time, to put all my experiences at work, put it in words,” she said. “The fire has been with me for a long time. I needed something to breathe.”
Giangulano has become such a resource for these lost chapters of Maya civilization that she has lectured both in Mexico and here, at the Cal State Fullerton. She had her first art show in 2006 at Cannery Row Studios in Redondo Beach, where she will return this Friday with the opening of End of Days: Feast of the Jaguars, which will feature her illustrations as well as a lecture and Mayan dinner on Saturday.
Her art is executed in the primitive style of the original Mayan, often using amate paper made from tree bark and beetle carcasses. The paintings include narratives of Mayan history, myth, and belief as well as reflections on Giangulano’s experiences with her grandmother,
This show, opening on 11/11/11, focuses in part on Mayan predictions and prophesies. Cannery Row co-founder and curator Richard Stephens said he is always drawn to alternative explanations of history and god.
“I like to hear different versions of what the past was,” Stephens said. “I don’t just go for one source…We pretty much destroyed this civilization when we got her, so I thought it was something we should explore. And I couldn’t miss 11/11/11 – that’s pretty close to 12/12/12.”
That date, of course, is what many interpret, with the abrupt ending of both the Mayan and Hopi calendars, as the end of the world. Giangulano said it’s not quite so simple, although she does acknowledge that the Mayan calendar – which like so much else about the civilization was astonishingly advanced – ends in 2012. Giangulano said that 2012 definitely marks the end of an age, but what that might mean is hard to fully fathom.
Giangulano said that the question of the end of days has been asked of her since she started her work, something that has occasionally frustrated her.
“I have avoided the question and many times redirected these questions back to my work,” she said. “It is obvious to me now how short-sighted we are to overlook the origin for our path. Out of fear, humanity is so focused on where we are going and not where we have been. It is in this thought that we find the true difference between knowledge and wisdom.”
Finally, though, the question regarding the end of days became like “a constant burning candle” as 2012 approached – to some, a source of dread, to others, a source of hope for a new age dawning. So Giangulano reframed the question.
“This question is not ‘What happens in 2012?’ or ‘How will the world end?’” she said. “The question is much more simple and far more meaningful: What is next?”
Whatever is to happen, she suggested that we all take the opportunity to more deeply live the days we have.
“Because I believe that we are living according to the days that we live,” she said. “In other words, days pass by, and they are so fast we don’t know how far we have been. And the end of days is the time for reflection – something is going to happen at the end of next year, I am sure, but I don’t want to scare anybody or tell them that is the end of the world. The end of the world is when we accept ourselves versus ourselves – that is the end. The world will continue; there is no end to the world.”
“We are the ones that are destroying ourselves, with all these wars,” she added. “…Time passes so quickly now, we need to think about what we are going to do in these end of days.”
End of Days opens from 6 to 10 p.m. on 11/11/11 with an opening reception, featuring a classic pre-Columbian musical performance, and runs through Nov. 18. Tickets to the Maya dinner and lecture from 4 to 8 p.m. on Nov. 12 are $45 in advance or $60 at the door. Call 888-366-1988 for tickets. ER