Gender is a "set of categories to which we can give the same label cross-linguistically, or cross-culturally, because they have some connection to sex differences", where the connections are "conventional and arbitrary insofar as they are not reducible to, or directly derivative of, natural, biological facts" (Shapiro 1981:449; cf. Hubbard 1990:130-140). No particular relationship between gender constructs and biological characteristics can be presumed a priori (e.g. Reiter 1975, MacCormack 1980, Strathern 1980). It follows that for every culture, the presence and nature of gender differences must be independently demonstrated. I argue that gender in Classic Maya society was constructed through image-making. The representation in different domains and through diverse media of gender categories, particularly a dichotomized pair of male and female images, created gender as a social fact. The symbolic dimensions chosen for gender discrimination in Classic Maya images promise to elucidate the features which in Maya society were conventionally and arbitrarily associated with distinct gender identity.
Classic Maya stone sculpture, carved in the area of modern Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize between 250 and 800 AD, communicates social identity through elaborate costume. Overt sexual identity is not normally marked in this public medium. The basic body and facial type of Classic Maya sculpture is essentially sexless, and it is only through the use of distinctive costumes, and of distinct signs modifying the names of females in texts, that male and female actors have been identified (Proskouriakoff 1961, Miller 1974, Marcus 1976, 1987; Schele 1979, Bruhns 1988). In pursuing an analysis of gender in public, carved stone images I identified the representation of a Classic Maya gender dichotomy in terms of spatial and symbolic features (Joyce 1990). These features were represented as complementary, not simply in opposition. I have argued that the emphasis on complementary gender categories is a crucial part of the construction of elite claims to totalizing power. Part of the symbolic representation of complementarity in Classic Maya public images is implicit reference to complementary labor basic to social survival. In this paper, I pursue the relationship between gender imagery and complementary roles in labor through an examination of less public images embodied in ceramic vessels and figurines, and compare the patterns observed to the only extended sixteenth century report of gender complementarity in early Maya society, that of Diego de Landa, bishop of Yucatan.
Male and Female Imagery in Classic Maya Monuments
Three kinds of dress have been taken to indicate female gender in Classic Maya sculpture (Proskouriakoff 1961, Bruhns 1988). Simple wrapped
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garments covering the breasts but leaving bare the arms, most typical of painted ceramics, are occasionally seen in stone sculpture. Elaborately woven huipiles, which cover the entire body, are known from sculptured lintels at Yaxchilan, painted murals at Bonampak, and stone stelae at Piedras Negras and Bonampak, as well as abundant ceramic figurines. The third costume indicative of female gender, usually found on public stone sculpture, is composed of a latticework skirt and cape, usually interpreted as composed of interlocking jade beads. The cape is occasionally absent or replaced by a bead collar. Usually accompanying the skirt is a belt with an open, frontal, shark or fish monster mouth and a pendant bivalve shell.
In a study of public monumental images of figures wearing the beaded net costume (Joyce 1990), I found a regular pattern of pairing with contemporary and adjacent images of male figures. I suggested that the female costume represents the horizontal plane of the spatial world, the green sprouting surface of the earth encircled by the ocean, considered part of the
![[IMAGE] Figure 1. Women's Royal Costume](./gfx/fig6_1.gif)
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supernatural world by Maya. The complementary male costume, representing the central world tree supporting a solar bird, established a basic spatial contrast between male and female in these images. The distributions of paired male and female figures divide space within Classic Maya centers into two halves, along a variety of axes: front and back, outer and inner, right and left, north and south, and up and down. Space in these centers is given specific gender characteristics. Movement and action in the centers took place through this gender laden space. The pairing of female images with male images is pervasive. It suggests that the underlying gender dichotomy be conceived of not as an opposition, but as a complementation.
The basis for the complementary pairing of male and female figures in Classic Maya sculpture may be the actions which they carry out. Human images on Maya sculpture are static, and imply action primarily through costumes worn and implements held. Figures wearing the net skirt hold many items also held by figures wearing typical male costume: the
![[IMAGE] Figure 2. Men's Royal Costume](./gfx/fig6_2.gif)
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double-headed serpent bar of royal power, shields, spears, ritual staffs, and scepters. Objects held by figures dressed in the beaded lattice costume may directly mirror the attributes of male figures with which they are grouped, as in two stelae attributed to the site of El Peru (Figure 1). In other examples, such as images from Naranjo, variation suggests interdependence, not simply repetition of action (Figure 2). Images from the interior of temples and palaces at Palenque, while not strictly public like the stelae of other Maya sites, most clearly depict the complementarity of ritual action by male-female pairs. In a series of panels, male and female actors holding unique paraphernalia flank a central figure (Schele 1979).
Only one gesture is exclusively associated with net-skirted female figures in these paired images: the offering of a ceramic vessel, perhaps containing ritual tools. A review of less public sculptural images showing women dressed in the elaborately woven robe called the huipil reinforces this association, and extends it to cloth bundles. At Yaxchilan, huipil-clad figures are depicted on lintels inside temples. They are paired with male figures and share defined status as "ahaw", a title of highest royalty. Male figures on the Yaxchilan lintels hold ritual staffs, weapons, or scepters. The women in these scenes are repeatedly shown holding a bowl containing ritual implements, or a tied cloth bundle. I suggest that these gestures reference exclusively female labor in a system of ideologically exclusive and complementary, gender-specific productive roles.
Gender and Labor in Classic Maya Images
The ceramic bowls, cloth bundles, and perhaps the ritual tools they contain imply sequences of production which transformed natural raw materials into culturally defined forms. In the contemporary Maya community of Zinacantan, Mexico, "male labour produces the raw materials, and female labour transforms them into objects of use and consumption" (Devereaux 1987:93). This complementary relationship seems equally applicable to the ancient Maya, and implies that it is women's labor which is referenced by the presence of culturally shaped objects held and offered only by women in Classic period monumental sculpture. Support for this suggestion can be found in an examination of gender imagery in other domains of Classic Maya culture, specifically painted ceramic vessels and molded figurines.
Pottery vessels and figurines are less public than stone sculpture. Their production is likely to have involved a greater number of people, and the were made in higher numbers than stone monuments. They are likely to represent elite culture, and may in many cases represent supernatural beings. Nonetheless, like the images on public stone sculpture, these smaller scale objects also represent a gender dichotomy which is systematically related to labor.
A survey of painted ceramic vessels from the Maya area (Foncerrada de Molina and Lombardo de Ruiz 1979) illustrates numerous scenes with anthropomorphic figures engaged in identifiable actions. Most of these figures are masculine. The activities they undertake include a ritualized deer hunt, ritual dancing, warfare and capture, and the reception of visitors in a throne room. A sherd from the site of Lubaantun, Belize (Hammond 1975: 320, figure 116c), representing a woman grinding corn on a metate, suggests that women's activities may also have been represented in this material. Considerably more abundant imagery of women and their labor is presented in the form of ceramic figurines. Both male and female figurines are known. Particularly prominent are images of women weaving. Less common, but also found, are images of women grinding corn or preparing food in pots. Accompanying these images are other figurines depicting men as warriors and participants in ritual.
Men's labor, as reflected in public monuments, involved ritual dancing, sacrifice, and warfare, three of the themes also depicted on ceramics. In addition, ceramics record men's activities in hunting, although these are clearly ritualized hunts. Both large and small scale images of males present a consistent identity. The pattern is more disjunctive for images of female labor. Ceramic figurines, and more rarely painted pottery, show women actively engaged in the production of textiles and foodstuffs. The same activities may be referenced by monumental stone images, but they are represented more subtly, by the products offered by female figures in ritual sequences. An examination of a sixteenth century account of the complementarity of male and female in Maya society suggests explanations for this difference in emphasis.
Male and Female in Sixteenth Century Yucatan
The understanding of gender roles and relationships in native Mesoamerican societies such as the Aztec (Brumfiel 1991) has been materially advanced by the existence of first-hand documentation by Spanish observers of these societies.
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The most extensive source of this kind for Maya society is Diego de Landa's Relación de las cosas de Yucatan. Particularly influential has been the annotated English translation by A. M. Tozzer, whose footnotes provide a wealth of comparative data. Unfortunately, the same footnotes provide intrusive and perhaps inappropriate commentary, particularly on the status of women, which has impeded the use of this resource. In my view, Landa describes Yucatec Maya society in a way highly consistent with the image of complementarity described for modern Zinacantan by Devereaux (1987), and discerned in Classic Maya imagery of gender and labor.
Landa describes the gender division of labor within Yucatec Maya society. Men's roles in warfare and ritual are particularly prominent. Agricultural land, held by a marital couple, is worked communally, and women's labor is specifically mentioned in gardening. Women raise animals within the household, notably Precolumbian birds whose feathers are used in weaving. Women prepare food within the household. They spin and weave in cooperative groups, and market their products and the animals they raise. Women are also shamans, who are prominent in preparation for childbirth. The activities described for everyday life closely match those depicted in small scale ceramic vessels and figurines used within the household context in Classic Maya society.
Landa also describes the roles of men and women in ritual. Two different contexts for ritual are described. The first is within the temple. The second is within the house. In both cases, specific reference to the presence and participation of women is made, and these references strongly suggest comparison with Classic Maya monumental images. Every ritual includes feasting, described as a communal activity and implicitly based on the conjunction of men's agricultural labor and women's labor in cooking. "They ate with dances and rejoicings, seated in couples or by fours", and during these feasts textiles and pottery vessels were distributed (Tozzer 1941:92).
While men shed their own blood in sacrifice, "women did not practice this shedding of blood, though they were great devotees, but from all things which they could obtain, whether they were birds of the sky, or beasts of the land, or fish of the sea, they always smeared the faces of the idols with their blood" (Tozzer 1941:114). The specific role of women in ritual was to offer "presents of cotton stuffs, of food and drink and it was their duty to make the offerings of food and drink" (Tozzer 1941:128), products of women's transformative labor.
Women and men participated together in rituals which took place within the home, and which regularly ended in feasts of foods which they had prepared. "The physicians and the sorcerers assembled in one of their houses with their wives", and after purifying their divination tools, "taking the bundles on their backs, all danced a dance called Chan Tuniah. The dance ended, the men sat down by themselves and the women by themselves," and took part in a feast (Tozzer 1941:154). Similar ceremonies were recorded for other specialist groups: "the hunters came together in one of the houses of one of their number and brought their wives with them like the rest," engaging in the same sequence of purification, dancing and feasting (Tozzer 1941:155).
A more active, complementary female role in ritual is explicitly recorded for one month, when a ritual was conducted "to anoint with the blue bitumen, which they made, all the appliances of their pursuits, from the priest to the spindles of the women" (Tozzer 1941:159). Each child was struck on the hands to ensure craftsmanship, "and to the little girls, the blows were given by an old woman, clothed in a dress of feathers, who brought them there, and on this account they called her Ix Mol, that is to say, the conductress" (Tozzer 1941:159).
Women's role in ritual within the house was clearly important, and their participation an expected complement to that of men. Ritual within the confines of the temple was more restricted: "Nor did they allow them to go to the temples for sacrifices, except on a certain festival, at which they admitted certain old women for its celebration" (Tozzer 1941:128-129). "All the men assembled in the temple, by themselves; since in no sacrifice or festival, which they celebrated in the temple, could women be present, except the old women who had to dance their dances. To the other festivals, which took place elsewhere, women could go and be present there." The participation of old women in the dances was crucial to new year ceremonies held in the temple. They "danced clothed in certain garments," and held offerings in their hands as they danced (Tozzer 1941:143, 145, 147). The ceremonies in the temples involved specific products of women's labor: "They offered other gifts of food" and "a cloth without embroidery, which the old women should weave, whose duty it was to dance in the temple" (Tozzer 1941:143, 145).
The roles of sixteenth century women are divided, depending on the context of ritual action. Within the household, they were involved in a variety of productive activities, with weaving and food production especially notable. They were part of ritual practiced at the household level. Their participation in communal ritual practiced in temples was more limited. Only a select group of older women took part in these ceremonies, as dancers. Nonetheless, the
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offering of textiles and food, prominent in these ceremonies as well, represents female participation in the division of labor basic to Maya social organization and encoded in Maya gender identity. A similar interpretation of the distinction between large scale and small scale imagery of gender in Classic Maya society is possible.
Diversity in Classic Maya Gender Systems
The large and small scale images of gender complementarity in Maya society construct two distinct gender classifications, each with dichotomous male and female poles. Small scale images directly represent women's productive labor in the stereotyped roles of weaver and cook, activities practiced at all levels of society (cf. Hendon 1991 for weaving in elite households). Large scale images indirectly reference woman's labor in the offerings made by female figures. The cloth bundles held by women in the Yaxchilan lintels (and the elaborate huipils worn by many women) recall the role of weaver. Ceramic vessels held in a similar fashion may relate women to pottery production. Landa does not discuss the production of pottery in general, but in contemporary Highland Maya communities, women produce domestic pottery (Reina and Hill 1978).
Two different levels of the social construction of gender are indicated in this imagery. In domestic contexts, direct representation of production is dominant. In Classic period public ritual contexts like those in which Yucatec women's participation was restricted, direct imagery of female labor is deemphasized. Also deemphasized in these contexts is overt marking of sexuality. The identification of female images in pottery, on the other hand, is advanced by the frequent (but not universal) depiction of breasts. The female genders thus defined are not precisely the same. One, that constructed in small scale images, is the accepted image of woman as wife, counterpart to man within the household, a unit of social production and reproduction. The other, that constructed in public, large scale monuments, is woman the complement to man in ritual and political action.
Public images of women, almost universally labeled in texts as mother, not wife, are also explicitly identified with supernatural beings whose actions were part of the creation of contemporary order. This gender role is one which involves explicit personal bloodletting, dramatically depicted on lintels from Yaxchilan. In this respect, these women are more similar to men than to the women described by Landa or depicted in small scale ceramic images of the Classic period. This similarity is emphasized by the physical appearance and scale of female and male figures in large scale images, and presence of overlapping, and sometimes identical, ritual tools with paired male and female images. Most significant for the distinction between male and female in large scale images is the consistent spatial associations of each and the symbolic significance of their unique costume elements (Joyce 1990).
Gender Imagery and Classic Maya Political Process
The emphasis on symbolic and spatial dimensions of gender distinction in large scale images may be related to the role these images have in establishing Classic Maya centers as sacred spaces. Through the construction of such sacred spaces, Maya elite asserted a claim to encompass the entire range of the cultural, natural, and supernatural worlds. This claim was based in many cases on the use of gender as a primary code for complementation making up a single, interdependent whole. Images in which female gender identity, expressed in costume, appears to be associated with male sexual identity, may represent an attempt by male Maya elites to subsume in themselves the totality of social differentiation.
In images of this kind, a single figure is depicted wearing a hybrid costume combining elements of the net skirt female costume and male garb. A short kilt of bead lattice may take the place of the skirt, but the shark mouth-and-shell belt ornament is used. Here a masculine identity is usually indicated, not least when the chest is bare and no breasts are depicted. The substitution of a male loincloth, for the shark mouth-and-shell belt ornament more commonly modifies an otherwise normal beaded latticework costume.
Classic Maya texts, like Classic Maya sculptural images, suggest that complementary contributions of male and female were emphasized as part of the construction of political power. Even when no female image is depicted, parentage statements are a common element in texts. Following the personal name and titles of the ruler, the paired names of mother and father are presented, linked by signs which have been glossed as "child of woman" and "child of man". Paired men and women in texts are primarily represented as the parents of single successors. Culturally constructed male and female roles and images are the background for the power of individual rulers.
At the same time, large scale gender images implicitly refer to the productive labor of women. This theme becomes more prominent in the small scale ceramic images which are common in elite domestic contexts. The difference between these two kinds of images hints at potential contention between central
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ruling families, uniquely privileged to be depicted in large scale images, and other elite lineages whose labor and allegiance was necessary for centralization. Within elite households, fine textiles (Hendon 1991) and other specialized goods were produced by the specialized labor of men and women. Control of these products must have been a crucial part of the struggle for political power (cf. Silverblatt 1988). Within the household group, gender is more forthrightly represented as a dimension of production (and, although not discussed here, of reproduction). Large scale images in the public center stress instead the control in a very specialized context of the products of women's labor, and their use in ritual.
Conclusion
Classic Maya images not only represent gender categories, they actively construct them. By examining two distinct sources of gender imagery, some common characteristics of gender in this society have been exposed. Gender was represented as a product of complementary labor by men and women. The complementary gender pair is the basic unit of Classic Maya society, a relationship seen also in the sixteenth century ethnohistoric literature and in contemporary Maya ethnography. In each of these cases, women's labor transforms the raw materials produced by men into useful products crucial to social, ritual, and political process.
The emphasis on the primary productive roles of male and female in small scale ceramic images found within elite households may reflect the interests of the lineage in gendered production. While large scale images carved in stone and found in public buildings present a similar message of complementarity, production itself is downplayed in favor of the offering of specific products in ritual. Ritual action by a complementary pair becomes the message of these more public images. By presenting this image of complementarity, Maya rulers created a code with which to express the appropriation by single rulers of dual roles.
Acknowledgements
This paper grew out of my participation in a symposium at the American Anthropological Association meetings in New Orleans in 1990, organized by Geoffrey McCafferty and Veronica Kann. I would like to thank them for the impetus for the original paper, which is to be published with the proceedings from the symposium. Some of the ideas expressed reflect work in progress with Susan D. Gillespie and with Julia A. Hendon. Of course, none of these individuals is responsible for any faults remaining in this paper.
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