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Indigenous Bodies, Maya Minds
Religion and Modernity in a Transnational K'iche' Community
By C. James MacKenzie University Press of Colorado
Copyright © 2016 University Press of Colorado
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-60732-556-7
CHAPTER 1
History, Economics, and Migration
San Andrés Xecul is the smallest municipality in the Department of Totonicapán, with a total area of 17 km, including arable and nonarable land. The center is 2,435 m above sea level, and the climate is cold by Guatemalan standards. Xecul borders San Cristóbal Totonicapán on the north and east, Olintepeque and Salcajá on the south, and San Francisco la Unión on the west (figure 1.1). Estimates of the town's population vary considerably, though it has grown rapidly in recent years: from 25,967 in 2004 to 35,203 in 2012 (INE 2008: 3; 2013: 73). According to a census conducted in 2001 by the Spanish NGO Cooperación Española, which I used as a basis for a general survey of the town, as noted in the previous chapter, the population of Xecul's urban center was a little under 4,000 (Vásquez Hernández 2002), though a study in 2008 estimated an urban population of over 7,000 (Mazariegos Vásquez 2009). Access between the center and the town's four rural aldeas can be somewhat difficult: three of these are situated on the plains above the urban center, which itself is settled in a cleft of eastern and southern extensions of the Sierra Madre (figure 1.2). The painter Carmen Pettersen (1976: 52) described Xecul as bordering "a beautiful, rich, flat valley of deep soil and crystal clear streams," but in truth the town center itself is poorly irrigated: there are no significant streams, crystal clear or otherwise, that service the urban population, and access to potable water (which is obtained by means of mechanical pumps accessing groundwater) is limited. During my principal period of fieldwork, homes typically enjoyed at most a few hours of running water each day, an issue that remains a key local concern (Mazariegos Vásquez 2009).
History of Xecul
Xecul has a long human history stretching back to the late Postclassic period at least, though the details of its past have yet to be thoroughly investigated. In 1944, the archaeologist Edwin Shook (1944) visited the town as part of an archaeological survey of the region he was conducting, noting in his field diary that the two mounds in the plains northeast of the town center, known as Pacajá Grande and Chico (used currently as Maya altars), are certainly prehispanic in origin. While he did not provide a date for these structures, given their undefended location it is possible that they date from the Classic period, as Postclassic sites are conventually understood to exhibit more defensive features (Borgstede and Mathieu 2007). Xecul's Postclassic history is somewhat more clear, insofar as the town is mentioned in early sources as one of the towns conquered by the K'iche' state centered at Utatlán (near present-day Santa Cruz del Quiché). In the Título de la Casa Ixquin-Nehaib, Señora del Territorio de Otzoya, collected by Adrian Recinos (1957), and referred to elsewhere by Robert Carmack (1973) as the Título Nijaib I, mention is made of Xecul as a Mam- controlled town that was conquered by the K'iche'— particularly the Nijaib lineage — likely during the reign of Kukumatz (approximately 1375–1425 CE), the first K'iche' ruler who made important territorial expansions (Carmack 1995). The town was probably under the jurisdiction of Utatlán lords from Quetzaltenango, and thus part of the periphery of the K'iche' state. Although Xeculenses gloss the name of their town as xe k'ul, which they translate as "below the blankets" — a term that also resonates in the mythology concerning the origins of the place, as I consider in chapter 2 — in Mam the same term means "below the mountain top," which might suggest a more straightforward geographical toponym, indirectly referencing a pre-K'iche' history. The only other early documentary source treating Xecul comes from Francisco Fuentes y Guzmán's Recordación Florida, written in the late seventeenth century and referencing a document called the Título Xecul Ajpop Quejam, which cites Don Juan Macario as Xecul's prehispanic ruler and offers a K'iche' account of the battle between Tecún Umán and Pedro de Alvarado, including preparations for war (Carmack 1973: 73–74).
Despite its role in pre- and post-Conquest history, Xecul does not appear to have been settled extensively until the first centuries of the Colonial period. There are some scattered references to the town in documents in the National Archives in Guatemala City, which treat land disputes and petitions to the Colonial authorities in the eighteenth century. In a compendium of land documents from 1860 (which is archived in Xecul) collated and transcribed by a notary of Guatemala's high court, some of the earlier history of the town is described. According to this source, by the end of the seventeenth century, migrants from neighboring San Cristóbal, who had earlier taken up lands in Xecul, sought to have their title recognized, as conflicts had erupted between these towns as well as Olintepeque. Xecul is thus considered an outgrowth from San Cristóbal, as noted in an entry from the eighth of February, 1698, which cites some 400 tributaries in Xecul, descended from residents of San Cristóbal, who in the absence of legal title simply began to act like a separate municipality, establishing such telling features of local autonomy as the now famous church. The population rose gradually through the Colonial period, with approximately 1,300 Xeculenses reported in 1818 (Pollack 2008, 233). Land struggles continued through the Colonial and into the Republican periods, for the most part against San Cristóbal, and later against Olintepeque. Xecul likewise played an active role in some of the important events surrounding Guatemalan independence, including participation in the 1820 rebellion led by Lucas Aguilar and Atanasio Tzul, which was centered in the departmental capital of San Miguel Totonicapán. Some Xeculenses actively supported the rebellion and served as guards for Tzul and Aguilar (Contreras R. 1968; McCreery 1989; Bricker 1981; Martínez Peláez 1985; Pollack 2008). Long a fitful annex to San Cristóbal, the town achieved status as a separate municipality in 1858.
It seems that the first extensive inroads of modernity into indigenous communities like Xecul (at least as related to the incursion of specific forms of state-sponsored capitalism) accompanied the Guatemalan state's political and economic transformation toward the end of the nineteenth century as developed through a series of liberal dictatorships. The election of coffee as the resource to transform the country into a thriving, modern, and progressive nation had a direct but varied and complex effect upon indigenous communities (Handy 1994: 8–13). As a series of forced labor laws were enacted, communities were obliged to come up with often impossibly large numbers of workers to travel to the coastal plantations for various stretches of time (McCreery 1994). In Xecul, as reflected in documents in the town's archives, community authorities found themselves obliged to round up and deliver large numbers of their townsfolk for very disagreeable work as mozos (forced laborers) in distant places — a responsibility the municipalidad clearly did not relish. It appears that as the targets of mandamientos (labor corvées) found their local authorities increasingly unable to protect their interests, many sought protection elsewhere — often in the person of a Ladino boss or patrón, who could provide a range of labor opportunities (not just agricultural) and who in some cases lived closer to their hometown, reducing the need for seasonal migration to coastal plantations.
By the turn of the twentieth century, while alcaldes in Xecul were under considerable pressure from their political overseers (and were periodically jailed for failing to deliver required numbers of mozos to coastal plantations), local administrations were nonetheless spending more money than ever before, inaugurating a series of impressive public works. More cash was entering the town, and the leadership found ways dispose of as much of this as they could locally — before the regional governments could claim it, through various taxes or "loans" that commonly were never repaid — through improvements to infrastructure, increased spending on education and secular patriotic celebrations, as well as increased expenses of bureaucracy. All of this occurred during a period when national, regional, and local governments were becoming increasingly integrated, and a "procedural culture" as Watanabe (2001) calls it, was being worked out. This implies that much of the augmented strength and authority of local communities was directly tied to at least a tacit acceptance of broader national political ideologies and institutions.
In many predominantly indigenous communities, this period of liberal dictatorships — through to the revolutionary interlude beginning in 1944 — also saw a more direct assault on local political autonomy, as Ladinos gained control of local administrations (Handy 1994: 11–12; McCreery 1994: 261–264). Xecul, however, managed to maintain an indigenous-dominated administration more or less through its entire history. Up until the years of Jorge Ubico's dictatorship, even the position of secretary tended to be held exclusively by literate indigenous men. Although Ladino secretaries were often employed from the mid-1930s through the revolutionary period, by the mid-1950s indigenous Xeculenses again resumed control of this position. It is worth noting that even the position of intendente — established by Ubico ostensibly to replace locally elected alcaldes with direct appointees from outside the community (Carmack 1995: 192–193; McCreery 1994: 311) — was held by local Xeculenses, including sitting and former alcaldes, for much of its history.
Guatemala's revolutionary period (1944–1954) is often described as the point at which the more or less exclusive power of local male gerontocracies of elders — called principales in Spanish — to manage the political system was challenged through the introduction of party politics, though this transformation played out variously from community to community (Falla 2001; Mendelson 1965; McDowell 1974; Carmack 1995; Grandin 2004). Visiting Xecul in the early 1950s, the political scientist Kalman Silvert (1954: 89) painted an interesting portrait of the effects of these changes, suggesting that the town "affords a fine example of an eminently Indian community just beginning to react to national political patterns, but not yet pushed so far that it could not revert to completely traditional forms with a minimum of disturbance." Citing census data from 1950, he reports a total population of 5,467 (only 20 of whom were Ladino), with most residents spending three months a year in coastal plantation labor. The town council, while ostensibly "popularly elected" under the banner of political parties, continued to be appointed through the consensus of a group of 35 principales from the town center and aldeas. Appointments were made through a formalized annual process at the end of each October, with the position of alcalde reserved for a principal.Silvert (1954: 90) suggests that while political parties tended to simply accept the slate of candidates for office that was prepared by the principales, fault lines seemed to be forming within the gerontocracy itself following the disappearance in 1952 of the party (Frente Popular Libertador, Popular Liberation Front) that had previously been the perennial local choice. A schism arose between those who supported the PAR (Partido de Acción Revolucionario, Revolutionary Action Party) and those favoring the PRG (Partido de la Revolución Guatemalteca, Party of the Guatemalan Revolution), based on their promotion of projects of either electrification or the introduction of potable water, respectively. While PRG won the 1952 elections easily (on the slate presented by the principales), Silvert (ibid.) notes that PAR organization was strong locally and that "principales normally resident in the town have become identified with the new party structures in a formal manner. Those principales so imbued with the new spirit that they feel they can express opposition to the candidates endorsed by the corps have taken to expressing their views in support of the opposition party slate or slates, and in terms of party preference." This did not, however, lead to continued opposition following elections, as principales resumed acting as a largely consensus-oriented body regardless of whether, as individuals, their preferred candidate or party won.
Thus, while in other communities, the local divisions associated with the introduction of party politics in this period and the decades following have been described in terms of generational, religious, ethnic, and educational differences, with the principales often cast as a united bloc resisting or attempting — effectively or not — to coopt impending transformations (Mendelson 1965; 1; Warren 1989; Carmack 1995), Silvert's observations for Xecul suggest nascent internal divisions in the local gerontocracy itself. Still, when Xeculenses themselves discuss transformations in the town during the post-Revolutionary period, these tend to center on religion rather than politics. As Silvert (1954,:90) notes, unlike some other communities, the cofradía system in Xecul was highly centralized, with cofrades of the town's patron, San Andrés, exercising direct jurisdiction over their counterparts (first and second alcalde,mayordomo, and first and second captain) in the other 11 cofradías, which were likewise ranked. As with service as alcalde in the civil administration, the position of alcalde for the cofradía San Andrés was always reserved for men who were already principales. The strong centralization of cofradías and their control over public religious life, combined with the lack of a resident parish priest until the mid-1970s, undoubtedly diluted the effects of more orthodox evangelization programs — most notably Catholic Action — which were active throughout Guatemala in this period (Falla 2001; Mendelson 1965; Early 2012).
From 1951 until his death in 1972, Padre Elías van Cleef was the priest responsible for the parish in Xecul, which for most of its history was attached to the parish of neighboring San Cristóbal. When Padre Elías moved from San Cristóbal to Salcajá in 1952, it appears Xecul — which, as noted, also borders the latter town — became attached to the Salcajá parish. During this long period, it does not seem that Padre Elías was as zealous in his introduction of evangelizing movements as were priests in other communities. The late Xuan Chuc Chan, a key consultant and an important leader in the costumbrista community, remembered this priest to me with considerable fondness, declaring that Padre Elías gave him permission, many years ago, to perform costumbre — by way of burning copal incense — in the church itself. It seems, regardless, that Catholic Action was active in some form in Xecul during Padre Elías's long tenure, which also saw the beginning of the decline of formal church-controlled cofradías and their replacement with independent societies and brotherhoods that operate at arms length from the church and determine their membership independently from the local parish council.
As in other highland towns, the strongest religious conflict in Xecul during this period centered around the most controversial of local religious institutions: devotion to the popular saint, San Simón/Maximón, or "Ximón" as he is known locally. This is an ambiguous deity with a strong connection to shamanic practice and ideology, whom many associate with witchcraft, or at the very least moral ambiguity. The saint formerly played an important role in public ceremonies during Holy Week, where his identity (one of many) as Judas Iscariot was highlighted. During this period, his image would be seated at a table in the church patio, where he would receive playful offerings of beeswax, the winnings from children playing a game that involves tossing small disks of this material. His body, made of bunchgrass, was hanged and burned on Good Friday, though the mask and clothing were conserved. Locals remember how people would scramble to retrieve some of the ashes, which were placed in their cornfields to ensure good crops. Apart from his role in Holy Week celebrations, Xecul's Ximón was once housed in the church itself throughout the year, in the right-hand corner just inside the main door, where he received the devotions of a range of petitioners who would burn copal incense and perform shamanic ceremonies otherwise held at altars (generally in the mountainsides) designated for these purposes. A former caretaker of Ximón described the atmosphere in the church at this time as a "kitchen" due to the smoke from all the burning.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Indigenous Bodies, Maya Minds by C. James MacKenzie. Copyright © 2016 University Press of Colorado. Excerpted by permission of University Press of Colorado.
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