Mayan Dwarf Liminality
February 23, 2020
Short-statured people, dwarfs and people with achondroplasia play a significant role in Maya mythology. It was believed that dwarfs lived together with the gods long before humans even existed. This presumed divine proximity heightened the status of the small-statured: Dwarfs presumably knew something that taller people didn’t. Accordingly, dwarfs gained elevated social roles steeped in cosmology and religious mythology. Similar status was given to dwarfs in ancient Egypt, where being short by no means hindered short people from rising to the very top of the royal bureaucratic apparatus.
Rather than discriminate, patronise or ridicule the short-statured the cultural compass of Maya and ancient Egyptians created a mental and practical space for small-sized individuals. Maya mythology may be able to teach us how to disrupt current global obsession with tallness and growth. The Maya channeled the ‘otherness’ of dwarves into visual metaphors for liminality and transformation, and thus expanded our understanding of what it means to be human. This could potentially inspire an open and curious attitude towards the small and foster appreciation for smallness as a quality rather than a disadvantage. Smallness is a superpower.