Learning through the Soul: Concepts Relating to Learning and Knowledge in the Mayan Cultures of Mexico.

The Highlands of Chiapas are located in the southern part of Mexico and border on Guatemala. Aside from the dominant Spanish-speaking group of mestizos or Ladinos located principally in the urban areas, the region is populated by Maya Indians, subsistence farmers for the most part, who speak the Tzeltal and Tzotzil languages, and who are grouped into endogamous, ethnically distinct municipalities. It is from these Tzeltal and Tzotzil communities that many young people have gone to join the Zapatista liberation army in the jungles of the Lacondon forest area, where the EZLN has its base. There is no doubt that the Zapatista movement has had a profound effect both on regional Maya culture and national politics in Mexico, although this is a phenomenon still in process and whose outcomes are still being defined.1 This specific text therefore refers only to some concepts of knowledge and learning in traditional Tzeltal and Tzotzil cultures in the Highland region. It remains to be seen how these will change in the light of the Zapatista movement, which draws inspiration from the indigenous cultures of Mexico in general but which may not necessarily share the traditional values and forms of belief of the local communities.