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238 the ceremonial centers and the hamlet-dwelling farmers. The dominant group was apparently of religious origin, although material or commercial segments of it might have been developed later. The village communities seem to have preserved their folk culture little affected by the culture of the upper class. The pseudo-urban character of the ceremonial centers, if it is true that they had not a large resident population and that some of the functions of real cities were lacking, and strong class barriers might have been the factors preventing the cultural influence of the ceremonial centers from filtering down to the rural masses, transforming their folk culture into peasant culture. If this view is correct, the world outlook and moral order of the Maya sophisticated aristocracy and the rural people must have been sharply different. In this light the collapse of the classic Maya civilization was in fact the disintegration of the pan-Maya upper stratum of society, leaving practically intact the underlying local folk cultures. That this actually happened has been made very apparent by Longyear's report on Copan, and the hypo- thesis is not in contradiction with the scanty data we have on this collapse from other places.' 2.
Journal of Asian and African Studies (in 2002 continued as African and Asian Studies) – Brill
Published: Jan 1, 1971
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