Yucatan caste

[N. Ganesan]

The Indian caste system and untouchability appear to have
an independent comparable system in Japan. In the end, similar peoples
came to be cast as untouchables, those who worked on leather
and carcasses of dead animals in both the countries. Ancient Japanese
notions of Sacred power called "imi" and purity/pollution concepts
have something similar in Indian society also.

What about caste among the Mayas in Yucatan? Do they have
Purity-Pollution polarities as in Indian caste? Since Mayas are well
known practicioners of human sacrifice, where are the animal and human
scarificers situated in the Yucatan Mayan society? At the top
or bottom of the hierarchy?

Thanks,
N. Ganesan

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Reed, Nelson. The caste war of Yucatan, Stanford University Press,
1964.

Rugeley, Terry, Yucatan's Maya peasantry and the origins of the Caste
War, University of Texas Press, 1996.
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