Faces of Resistance : Maya Heroes Power and Identity Fosters a holistic understanding of the roles of Maya heroic figures as cornerstones of cultural identity and political resistance and power. In the sixteenth century Qeqchi Maya leader Aj Poop Batz changed the course of Qeqchi history by welcoming Spanish invaders to his community in peace to protect his people from almost certain violence. Today he is revered as a powerful symbol of Qeqchi identity. Aj Poop Batz is only one of many indigenous heroes who has been recognized by Maya in Mexico and Guatemala throughout centuries of subjugation oppression and state sponsored violence. Faces of Resistance: Maya Heroes Power and Identity explores the importance of heroes through the analyses of heroic figures some controversial and alternative from the Maya area. Contributors examine stories of hero figures as a primary way through which Maya preserve public memory fortify their identities and legitimize their place in their countrys historical and political landscape. Leading anthropologists linguists historians and others incorporate ethnographic ethnohistoric and archival material into their chapters resulting in a uniquely interdisciplinary book for scholars as well as students. The essays offer the first critical survey of the broad significance of these figures and their stories and the ways that they have been appropriated by national governments to impose repressive political agendas. Related themes include the role of heroic figures in the Maya resurgence movement in Guatemala contemporary Maya concepts of hero and why some assert that all contemporary Maya are heroes The Maya have faced innumerable and constant challenges to their cultural identities in the last 500 years from the subjugation of the contact and colonial periods to the brutality of state sponsored violence in Guatemala and the introduction of new global technologies. Oral tradition plays a fundamental role among the contemporary Maya as a means to record history and resist oppression. Although scholars have examined the processes of resistance and identity in different spheres The Faces of Resistance: Maya Heroes Power and Identity is the first to unpack the importance of heroes as a cornerstone of Maya cultural and political resistance. This collection of essays by leading scholars explores how Maya communities draw on stories of indigenous heroes as an empowering cultural memory and a way to connect with the legacy of their extraordinary past. In particular this volume considers how the Maya following centuries of persecution and marginalization use historical knowledge to generate and fortify their indigenous identities. The analysis of Maya heroes presented in this volume reveals that narratives of hero figures help the Maya to re connect with an understanding of their history that has survived centuries of oppression and legitimize the practices beliefs and morality that will define their future