Abstract

SUKIKARA, Fumiko. Vibration from lost past. Discourses on the Maya otherness in post-war Japan. Entrediversidades rev. cienc. soc. humanid. [online]. 2020, vol.7, n.1, pp.210-240.  Epub June 30, 2021. ISSN 2007-7610.  https://doi.org/10.31644/ed.v7.n1.2020.a08.

I present in this work some ideas on the Maya produced in Japan specifically after its defeat in the World War II. It is during the first decades of the post-war when the Japanese approached the other Maya and developed particular ideas and images about it. My interest is directed towards some voices that intend to associate Mayan past with Japan’s own past. I am mainly pointing out to two motives in these discourses: “the Mayan arts” and “the mystery of the disappeared civilization.” These two motives are, I consider, the most spread and transmitted out off various types of exhibits. By reviewing some works related to them, this article addresses the historical conditions in that time and how they influenced the rise and development of those discourses, as well as the discussion around the ideas of the Maya made in Japan.

Keywords : in Japan; nostalgia; the otherness Maya; anthropology and art; anthropology and media.

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