P’ijil k’opetik ta sk’elel, skoltael, yich’el ta muk’ ch’ul osil-balamil: Principles of the Tsotsil Maya worldview for honoring and defending Mother Earth

Abstract

We address key elements of the Maya Tsotsil cosmovision. The objective is to articulate them upon the Tsotsil language in order to understand Tsotsil philosophy and ethics as rooted in Tsotsil cosmovision and its original understanding of the cosmos, territory and community of life. We proceed from a critical anticolonial and decolonizing approach, underlining the need to understand the thought of Indigenous peoples from within their language, cosmovision, organization of territory, community, spirituality and P’ijil k’ oPetik ta sk’ elel, skoltael, yich’ el ta muk’ ch’ ul osil -balamil: PrinciPios de cosmovisión maya tsotsil Para honrar y defender a la madre tierra435 practice. These conceptual bases of Tsotsil Mayan cosmovision are explained and analyzed as bases for a critique of coloniality. This discussion of key concepts contributes to the explanatory framework regarding the meaning and foundations of lekil kuxlejal or good living as Maya Tsotsil philosophical legacy. In this lifeway, cosmos, community and territory are articulated in complex and dynamic collective fabrics of spiritual, epistemic, practical, material, ecological, agroecological and ritual richness that together constitute sustainable communal autonomies. The result shows that revitalizing Indigenous knowledge, languages, practices and ways of territorial organization, specifically proceeding from Indigenous languages and cosmovisions, is indispensable in struggles for Indigenous reaffirmation, liberation and decolonization, and more broadly in restoring balance, and enabling sustainable autonomous paths, especially vis-a-vis environmental, climate, agrofood and social crises caused by the violence and exploitation of colonialism, the State, modernization, racism and capitalism.