As Westerners, we grow up privileging living human beings above all others. We are the only ones who are truly aware of the world around us, exerting free will upon an otherwise largely barren stage. This worldview contrasts sharply with the ancient and modern Maya and other Mesoamerican groups, who grant full agency and personhood over a wide range of other beings—from mountains and caves to houses and the dead. The Maya who live in this world depended on their nonhuman neighbors to survive and thrive, just as those same neighbors depended on humans for their own survival, resulting in a covenant between the different communities that is central to understanding most aspects of ancient Maya life. In this talk, Dr. Brent Woodfill, Professor of Anthropology at Winthrop University, will discuss how the acknowledgment of this vastly different worldview transforms how we understand Maya economics, politics, and the ethics of conducting fieldwork itself.