As mentioned earlier, the geographic differences among the Lacandón may have influenced the rate at which Christian conversion occurred. It is noted that the lowland Lacandón have all but abandoned the historical religion while those in the highlands still practice some traditional rituals. The need for privacy for the rites to be performed and outsider interruption likely has something to do with this as well. The use of music and dance has also decreased in ritual behavior inexplicably since ethnographers began studying the Lacandón. Today, it is possible to buy god pots made by the Lacandón specifically for tourists. These pots are not painted and have not been given “souls” and therefore are not alive and can be sold. Jon McGee (2002) notes that increased participation in a monetary economy because of tourists has decreased the need for subsistence agriculture and with it the religious rites associated with agriculture. 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. Besides the influence of outsiders, these changes can also be attributed to deaths of the elders and knowledgeable persons who practiced the rituals through old age and often disease. Information was not passed on to younger generations, which opened a place for Christian missionaries to convert more Lacandón. For this reason Protestantism is the dominant religion of the lowland Lacandón today. John McGee (2002) has noted that within four years of the introduction of television, traditional ritual practices among the highland Lacandón has been reduced to just two families and one individual. Many others no longer participate in any religion at this point.
