Análise do uso atual do sistema de numeração vigesimal em cinco comunidades Q'Eqchi de Guatemala

Abstract

This investigation was developed to analyze and to understand the form critically the use of the System of Vigesimal Numeration in five communities of Cobán of the department of Alta Verapaz, Guatemala; like part of the acquired commitment with Xch'ool Ixim Institution to elaborate an educational curricular proposal in agreement to the necessities of the Mayan-Q eqchi population demand and to respond to my personal restlessness and professional linked with the ethnomathematic. The method used in this investigation is ethnographic type, privileging for its execution and complementaring three techniques: the observation, the documental analysis and the interview. This method allows working in different social spaces, and a lot in the family environment as in the communal environment of each one of the communities; where the 23 fellows that it includes family parents, teachers and students they transformed in the main collaborators of this investigation. The theoretical referential used in this investigation takes contributions of Geertz, McLaren, Coe, Covo, Garces, Hatse and De Cueste, and D'Ambrosio. The investigation shows that a relationship exists among the social practices experienced of the q'eqchi' with the mathematical processes of counting, calculate and measure; and these are used in different levels and appropriation that are generally determined and marked by factors that foment and/or deteriorate the use of the System of Vigesimal Numeration. This system is used mainly in the family, in the school and in the Mayan ceremonies. With this one can say; the Vigesimal System is not only important to quantify the material goods, to solve situation-problems and to conserve the culture but specially to show spiritually