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Group photo with Gregorio Hau Caamal and the children of X-Alau.
10 Ajaw 18 Ch’en (September 24th, 2025)
Múul Meyaj, Múul Áantaj, Múul Kaambal:
Teamwork Achieves Better Results—the Uuchben
Ts’iib Workshop in X-Alau, Yucatán
It has been a busy summer, and I have had to take a break from our regular blogs every 40 days, during which time we have been reorganizing and brainstorming at MAM. Many of our Maya colleagues have been busy carrying out various workshops around the region using funding from MAM mini-grants. Due to the increasing challenges of international travel, we are likewise considering more regionally targeted Congresos, rather than attempting to have one larger international Congreso every other year, as was our previous format.
We had a very productive meeting of the Executive Committee in August, where we were fortunate to have the participation of several additional colleagues, including Beth Spencer, who had previously worked with MAM for many years as our Secretary, as well as my good friends Alonso Mendez and Barb MacLeod. Alonso is a fellow archaeoastronomer, as well as being Tzeltal Maya from Tenejapa, Chiapas, and we are excited to have more of his input and participation in MAM. Barb is a world-renowned epigrapher and linguists, and she has likewise participated in the last two Congresos. Barb generously helped to translate and format this month’s excellent report from Gregorio Hau Caamal, particularly as I have been facing increasing responsibilities as Chair of my department at Sacramento City College as the teaching year once again begins.
We hope to soon update all of you about the various proposals on the table as we figure out how to best serve the Maya communities with whom we work, and their diverse needs.
Enjoy this wonderful report and photographs from Gregorio Hau Caamal and the children of X-Alau in Chemax, Yucatán!
Yum bo’otik,
Michael Grofe, President
MAM
Report on the Uuchben Ts’iib Workshop
Ancient Maya Writing
Given by Gregorio Hau Caamal
With Resources from MAM
A workshop on úuchben ts’íib was held for children aged 8, 9, 10, and 12 years in the community of X-Alau in the municipality of Chemax, Yucatán, Mexico. Under the shade of the luuch (gourd) tree, the children awakened the memory of our grandparents and the ajts’íib. On that day, 12 Ets’nab 16 Soots’, they wrote with the úuchben ts’íib, the ancient Maya script also known as Maya hieroglyphs.
Image 1.- The teacher explaining the úuchben ts’íib to the group.
The community garden is a space where one plants and harvests, where one teaches and learns, where life, food, language, and identity are cared for and preserved. In this context, it was agreed to hold the workshop in the garden or the back yard of the house, because it is an optimal space for learning and the children responded to the call on the day they were convened.
The workshop was a success, because on that day they were very attentive, observing and listening. They asked questions, shared reflections, wrote, and collaborated with each other to carry out the requested activities.
In this workshop, each child achieved:
➢ Identifying syllables with the syllabary.
➢ Writing the corresponding syllable in their working materials.
➢ Knowing the rules, the order of reading and writing of a block of glyphs.
➢ Writing the name of a known animal.
Image 2.- The teacher addressing students’ questions.
Image 4.- Pages of the Maya syllabary and blocks of Maya glyphs.
Image 3.- Large sheets with the Maya syllabary.
Image 5.- Writing the corresponding syllable.
In this way we contributed to the strengthening of knowledge that our grandparents have passed down to us in oral tradition. In ancient Maya writing, one finds confirmation of everything that our parents and ancestors used to tell. All of this is recorded in the úuchben ju’un or codices, and on the stelae and lintels of the wíitso’ob or múulo’ob.
Image 6.- Writing and identifying syllables in blocks of glyphs.
Another goal was to reinforce and promote the Maya language, since this workshop was taught in the children’s mother tongue, which is Maayat’aan. Reconnecting with the writing of our grandparents is to recognize the úuchben ts’íib as evidence that the tsikbalo’ob told to children and young people are a truth not limited to simple stories, myths, or legends, and are as deep as the roots of the jícara tree where the workshop was held. This tree has survived different chak ik’alo’ob (hurricanes), so much so that several generations have harvested and continue to harvest its fruits.
Image 7.- Group photo of the children who took the úuchben ts’íib workshop.
Between children and adolescents, there were a total of 15 participants, including one adult who joined the workshop to accompany their children. The start date was June 14 at 9:00 am in a known location in the village. All participants were welcomed, but not before passing by the table to receive their respective work materials: pencil, colors, white sheets, markers, the syllabary, and the workbook.
Image 8.- Table where the material was set out for its respective delivery.
The material used to conduct this workshop was taken from sources such as Harri Kettunen and Christophe Helmke’s ‘Introduction to Maya Hieroglyphs’ and Alfonso Lacadena’s ‘Appendix I: List of Maya Logograms,’ generating a small booklet for easy-to-understand teaching material for children.
Image 9.- Children writing their name in their work booklet.
To recall and remember some of the ceremonial sites or any place where there might have been vestiges of Úuchben ts’íib or ancient Mayan writing that survived the time of colonial contact, the children named some known and even visited sites such as Palenque, Ek Balam, Uxmal, and Chichen Itzá, among others.
It was also explained to them that there were people dedicated to painting and writing who were and are called AJ TSÍIB, and that one day they could become one if they set their minds to it. They learned the importance of reading, studying, and writing, and most importantly, listening to and understanding what our grandparents tell us when they speak about the yuntsilo’ob, the fathers or mothers who live in the mountains or jungle (some call them gods). While they reviewed the syllabary, they were taught that the basis of the ancient Maya writing consists of many signs and symbols known as hieroglyphs, or simply glyphs.
Image 10.- The teacher explaining to the children who is an aj ts’íib and who can become one.
During their exercises with the syllabary, the children discovered that despite there being many signs, many of them are variations of the same sign, or there can also be a different sign but with the same meaning, for which several examples were given.
Image 11.- Identification of the variations of the same sign.
In the material provided along with their syllabary, either individually or in teams, the children were identifying syllables which, once they were recognized, they indicated out loud to which syllable it was. After identifying the syllables, they proceeded to study the reading order within a text and within a block. For this, the children relied on their work materials.
Image 12.- A student identifying the reading and writing order of a block of glyphs.
With the exercises from the teaching material, each student dedicated themselves to developing the exercises with the support of their classmates, guided by the instructor. Occasionally, the students themselves took on the task of teaching their peers. This is a demonstration of múul áantaj, mutual support to strengthen learning and knowledge.
Image 13.- Students solving exercises, painting, and writing glyphs.
Once the children completed the exercises, they proceeded to verify if they were indeed correct. Once the syllabary was understood and the reading and writing order of the blocks of glyphs was established, they set out to create the final product, which consisted of writing in glyphs the name of an animal or an endemic tree from the region.
Images 14, 15, and 16.- From left to right, some final products. Development of a block of glyphs that consisted of writing the name of an animal or a plant from the region.
To conclude the workshop, two 60 ml bottles of water were given as a gift through an exercise that consisted of identifying a block of glyphs by performing transliteration, transcription, and translation.
Image 18.- One of the students from the workshop receiving their gift (a 60 ml bottle with Maya glyphs).
Image 17.- Some students from the workshop doing the transliteration, transcription, and translation of Maya glyphs.
Image 19.- One of the students from the workshop
receiving their gift (a 60 ml bottle with Maya glyphs).
An important outcome of this workshop is the children’s interest in continuing to acquire this knowledge and to participate in activities related to ancient Maya writing.
Image 20.- Codex on the work table, from which
they could see how the Ajts’íib wrote.
I want to close this report by thanking MAM for the support provided to this workshop, because more children from the X-Alau community in the municipality of Chemax, Yucatán, Mexico have learned about úuchben ts’íib.
Múul meyaj, múul áantaj, múul kaambal
With mutual support and collaborative work, it is easier to learn úuchben ts’íib.
Image 21.- Múul meyaj, múul áantaj, múul kaambal: teamwork achieves better results.
Image 22.- Discovering meanings. She tells her companion,
‘this block says ts’i-b(i) and means writing.’
At the end, the children received a snack (spaghetti, a clown lollipop, and a glass of hibiscus juice) that was prepared by the family that offered us their space for the realization of the workshop, all thanks to MAM’s resources.
Annexes
Image 23.- The word báalam written with úuchben ts’íib by children from X-Alau.
Image 24.- Syllable ch’o-o, which means mouse.
Image 25.-ch’oom ch’o-m(o): vulture.
Image 26.- In this image, the syllables ku-u-k(u) can be read to signify the word ku’uk,
which in English means squirrel.
Image 27.- In this image, the syllables o-ch’o can be read,
although the little Ajts’íib tried to write with glyphs the word ooch, opossum.
Image 28.- Syllables ch’o-o: ch’o’ mouse.
Image 29.- Teacher Gregorio Hau Caamal explaining the activity for the children of X-Alau.
Images 30, 31, and 32.- Snacks received by the students who attended the workshop.
La Ceiba en las nubes por Michael Grofe.
