The Lacandon escaped Spanish control throughout the colonial era by living in small, remote farming communities in the jungles of what is now Chiapas and the Guatemalan department of El Petén, avoiding contact with whites and Ladinos.

The Maya site of Bonampak, famous for its preserved temple murals, became known to the outside world when Lacandóns led American photographer Giles Healy there in 1946.

At the same time, the government built roads into the area, establishing new villages of Tzeltal and Ch'ol Indians who were far more exposed to the outside world than the Lacandon.

[4] When scholars first investigated in the early 20th century, they thought that the Lacandon were the direct descendants of ancient Classic Maya people who fled into the rainforest at the time of the Spanish Conquest and remained linguistically and culturally pristine ever since.

Scholars were also impressed by the fact that “the Lacandon resided near the remote ruins of ancient Mayan cities, had the knowledge to survive in the tropical jungle, and were neither Christian nor modernized”.

[1] It appears that the Lacandon possess multiple origins and that their culture arose as different lowland Mayan groups escaped Spanish rule and fled into the forest.

The Lacandon seem to have arisen as a distinct ethnic group as late as the 18th century, meaning that they “cannot be the direct descendants of the ancient Maya since their culture did not exist before it was generated through inter-indigenous interaction”.

The Lacandon survived outright conquest, though, by adopting a flexible strategy that led them to accept, resist, or retreat from the imposing foreign culture depending on the circumstances.

As logging began on a massive scale, the Lacandon came into contact often with forest workers, which resulted in wage work for some and an overall transformation of their culture, a process that continues to the present time.

As a culturally conservative group of Native Mesoamericans, the Lacandon have maintained characteristics unique to themselves, including certain religious customs, despite the encroachment and influence of the outside world since the early 16th century.

A further geographic divide is evident between the Lacandon in lowland Chiapas near the Maya ruins of Bonampak and Yaxchilán and the highland Lacandón who reside closer to Lakes Naja and Metzabok within the jungle (see map at[5]).

Lacandon who reside in the southern part of the Chiapas jungle have been more exposed to outsiders, are more aggressive than their highland counterparts, have slightly different dress, and adopted the Christian faith more quickly.

[1] Ceremonies usually have only male participants and are for a myriad of reasons including; feeding a particular god, a fertility rite, to help with agriculture, and frequently in response to illness.

[1] It is known that the rubber figures would be splattered with red annatto dye before being burnt and that at sometime before the 19th century it was common for the Lacandón to participate in bloodletting where they would cut their earlobe or septum and smear the figurine with blood before burning it.

[6] Often these places were guarded but the increasing interruption of ceremonies along with the damaging of the sites and the god pots there forced the Lacandón back into the jungles to perform their rituals privately.

Polygyny was seen by the male Lacandón as a way to ensure labor and economic power, retain ritual knowledge in food preparation, and maintain fertility among wives at different times.

[6] The Christian religion provided somewhat of a break for Lacandón women because there was no need for the exhaustive process and knowledge base of preparing ritual foods for ceremonies.

[6] Other changes include the simplification of god pot designs, the non-existence of once very important pilgrimages to particular sites (because they have been desecrated), disappearance of bloodletting, and rarity of polygyny.

By the end of the 19th century and beginning of the twentieth, tourists would come to the Lacandón villages and purchase material items like gourd bowls, bows, and arrowheads.

[6] In the early 1970s, oil developments in Tabasco put money into Chiapas, and allowed for the Mexican government to set up a Rain forest reserve, preventing areas of the Lacandón Jungle from being used by logging companies.

[1] The southern Maya lowlands which are home to the Lacandón are characterized by rugged karstic topography and sub-tropical rainforest, known as the Selva Lacandona, or the Lacandon Forest.

The availability of various types of flora and fauna which inhabit these aquatic and terrestrial areas have allowed the Lacandón to thrive in a geographical setting which at first glance appears to be hostile to humans.

In order to take full advantage of their resources, the Lacandón have used specific agricultural, hunting and gathering techniques which have been designed to be conservative of the land and ecozone as a whole, which allows for sustainable use and therefore continued yield in the future.

The Lacandón people engage in swidden agriculture on a primary or secondary growth forest in January, February or March, and allow the remains to dry until April.

[8] This cycle will be repeated for 2 to 5 years, at which time the milpa will be replanted with trees and allowed to be repopulated with wild forest plant species (this zone is then referred to as an acahual).

Beneath the jungle floor laid hundreds of artifacts including pottery, stone tools, metal pots and broken glass to name a few.

[1] At Matamangos, the site approximately one kilometer from El Caobal is identified by its abundance of mango trees (again showing that non-indigenous vegetation points to settlement).

A current family has made residence at El Mangal and has unearthed a whole machete, they also found pieces of thick, hard, brown pottery (traditional Lacandón ceramic).

Unlike the smooth ceramics used for everyday life, these vessels were adorned with the modeled head of a deity on the rim, proving this object is used for religious rites.

The modeled heads “closely resemble those made by the ethnographic Lacandon.” Other decorations include incised lines and holes down the front of the bowl and protruding spikes.