Threats To Cultural Survival
The Lacandon interaction with the outside world accelerated, though, during the past 30 years. In the 1970s, the Mexican government began paying them for rights to log timber in their forests, bringing them into closer contact with the national economy. At the same time, the government built roads into the area, establishing new villages of Tseltal and Ch'ol Indians who were far more exposed to the outside world than the Lacandon. The roads helped expand farming and logging, and severe deforestation occurred. Then, in the early 1990s, the Lacandon witnessed acts of violence during the Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas. The Zapatistas issued a series of statements of their principles, each called a "Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle."
Casa Na Bolom in San Cristóbal de las Casas is devoted to helping the Lacandon cope with the changes imposed on them in recent decades. A scientific and cultural institute, it was founded in 1951 by archaeologist Frans Blom and his wife, photographer Gertrude "Trudi" Duby Blom. Casa Na Bolom ("House of the Jaguar") does advocacy work for the Lacandón, sponsors research on their history and culture, returns to them copies of photographs and other cultural documentation done by scholars over the years, and addresses environmental threats to the Lacandon Jungle, such as deforestation. Among its many projects, Casa Na Bolom has collaborated with a group of Swedish ethnomusicology students who recorded traditional Lacandón songs. A publication of those recordings in CD form is now planned.
Several linguists and anthropologists have done extensive studies of Lacandon language and culture, including Phillip Baer, a missionary linguist with Summer Institute of Linguistics who lived among the Lacandon for more than 50 years, Roberto Bruce an American linguist who devoted his life to studying Lacandon language and culture, and Christian Rätsch who spent three years living with the Lacandon while studying their spells and incantations.
Read more about this topic: Lacandon People
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