Colonial Period2 with ongoing anthropological research by the author in Momostenango, a K’iche’ town in the Western Highlands of Guatemala. The goal of this research is to define the local indigenous heritage through continuity in the relationship with the land. How does the current K’iche’ relationship with the earth reflect continuation of a shared Mesoamerican perception of the environment? This kind of heritage is often referred to as “intangible heritage”. However, as will be explored in this paper, in the case of Guatemala this heritage is passed on as a lived practice and as knowledge.
Special attention in this paper is paid to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) which, after a long process of negotiations, was adopted in 2007 (UN General Assembly, 2007). The second part of this paper looks at the increasing transnational interest in Guatemala and the non-implementation of UNDRIP. How does this non-implementation of the articles of the UNDRIP that deal with with the indigenous relationship with the earth threaten Maya heritage in Guatemala, and what might be the consequences thereof?
Earth in the Western Highlands
The environment can have its intentions and agency: people are drawn to places that are important
2. These historical sources are also known as “codices”. Many of these docu- ments were destroyed during the extirpatory campaigns following the Spanish colonization and the few that survived are kept in mostly European Collections (Tavárez, 2011).
for them and react to the environment they live in (Ingold, 2011). In the Western Highlands of Guatemala the earth is alive. Mountains, rivers, and hills are alive and have an influence on people who live around them just as the people have an influence on the mountains, rivers and hills; there is mutual engagement. Everything surrounding human beings is alive, and the most sacred or powerful beings, such as the mountain tops and the clouds, are invited through prayers to join in rituals where they are nourished with aromatic smoke.
The earth gives life to everything around us. As far as memory goes back in the indigenous communities of the Western Highlands, the earth takes care of human beings like a mother. She nurtures them with her crops that grow on the milpas ‘agricultural fields’ and watches over them for protection3:
“Some of the pregnant mothers of Concepción Chiquirichapa go to the fields to leave lunch for their husbands. When they see that the maize has grown, they take the leaves of the maize plant, place it on their stomach and talk to the maize. “Mother”, they say, “I am happy to see you and to know that the sacred rain and sun are making you grow. We ask you to provide enough food this year for this baby, please, we want more mazorcas, we want more maize, we want you to be in good health. Because now you have another commitment which you will have to nourish” they say to the maize. So the little children are already listening in the belly of their mothers and they are connecting it with the maize” –Narrative recorded in Concepción Chiquirichapa, Guatemala, May 9, 20144.
An oral narrative from the town Colotenango – a Mam-speaking community in the department of Huehuetenango – tells us that a long time ago human beings did not have maize and were close to dying of starvation (Valladares, 1989: 28). The people knew that near the town of Nebaj there was a mountain where the dueña ‘(divine) owner’, the Lady of the
3. A similar perception of the earth extends well into the region of Central Mexico (see García & Christensen, 1976, p. 57; Macuil Martínez, 2015). 4. Due to the sensitive nature of the topic, knowledgeable specialists from the indigenous communities who helped me with my research are kept anonymous.
Earth had great amounts of maize plants growing in her fields. The dueña continues to live here: her name is Paxil and she is the embodiment of the mountain top named Paxil which has several deep cracks where the maize was once stored (Valladares, 1989: 30). Her husband is a rocky mountain near Chimiche known by the name of Sakwo’j or Peña blanca ‘white peak’. The people, led to despair by hunger, first sent out the crow to steal maize seeds from Paxil and bring them back to them. But the bird was discovered by the dueña. Then the zompopo
‘flying ant’ was sent. He succeeded, and the people could grow their own corn from that moment on. But the dueña found out and she grabbed the zompopo
furiously, pinched him in the center of his body, and told him that she knew that he had helped the people. Once she saw the hungry people, however, her motherly instinct grew and she decided to let the people have their milpas and vowed that she would take care of them like a mother; she became K’txú ‘Our Mother’ (Valladares, 1989: 29). The zompopo, who still has the pinched middle body from the
dueña grabbing him, became the announcer of the planting period ever since. The evenings before the first heavy rain showers the zompopos fly around in the houses, advising the people to prepare for the planting season. Today, Paxil is an important place to perform rituals before the planting season and for the petition of rain (Valladares, 1989: 45-46).
Lady Earth and the Serpent Dance
In several communities in the Highlands of Guatemala, the Lady of the Earth participates in a ritual dance that is performed to ask for fertility, rain, good crops and protection against damage to the crops by animals, wind, and mudslides. The dance is known by various names differing per community, but the Spanish term baile de la culebra ‘the serpent dance’ is usually used to discuss the dance in a comparative manner (Cook, 2000: 171; Ordoñez, 1970; Schultze Jena, 1933: 204-213).
The dance takes place in several communities in the Western Highlands (Fig. 7.1). On a regional scale, we see that the baile de la culebra, in all its different variants, is performed at significant moments related to the earth, fertility and water,
Figure 7.1: Map of the Highlands of Guatemala: overview of the communities where the baile de la culebra is performed. Image by Google Earth ©.
and coincides with Christian festivities (Table 1). It starts from the period in which the earth is prepared in the town of Momostenango and continues until the maize is finally harvested in the town of Chichicastenango. The baile de la culebra is not performed in the Western Highlands in the period immediately after the completion of the agricultural cycleup until the preparation of the ground begins again. The baile de la culebra asks for guidance over the agricultural fields by Our Mother and is related to the petition of fertility and water and for protection against harm.
In the K’iche’ speaking town of Momostenango, Department of Totonicapán, the dance is performed at the end of Holy Week and on the fourth Friday of Lent. In the dance, a respected male chuchqajau – a ritual specialist with high responsibilities for the community – impersonates the Lady of the Earth by dressing in the local female dress and wearing a mask and wig. In her hand the Lady holds a snake with which she continually dances. Years ago this snake was a real snake, but nowadays a stuffed animal is
used in Momostenango. All other dancers are dressed in rags and old clothes. One of them is the Lady’s husband who protects her from the rest of the dancers who are known under the name Tzulaab’ (singular:
Tzul). The woman and her husband have a white skin, which currently refers to ladinos (Guatemalans of Spanish descent) or foreigners. However, the multiple meanings of the word “white” in K’iche’ suggest that in the dance the skin color refers to a wise, pure, and honest couple related to mountains and sacred places5 (Vogt, 1970, p. 6; Wagley, 1949, pp. 55-56; Wilson, 1999, p. 57). For example, in Rabinal, an Achí- speaking town where the dance also takes place, the prayer that accompanies the dance addresses the first Mother and first Father of the world as white beings (Table 6.2).
5. Ruud van Akkeren (2016, personal communication) suggested that guardians of mountains and sacred places are perceived as foreigners because they sym- bolize abundance and wealth. This perception is inherited from the Colonial Period during which, as still today, non-indigenous Guatemalans and foreign- ers occupied important positions and were able to gain more wealth than the Indigenous Peoples.
“Hay canabé chuch, hay canabé cajáu, Oh Our First Mother, Oh Our First Father
e aág uxebal íg, e aág uxebal sáx, You are from the seat of the sun, you are from the seat of clarity (literally: ‘whiteness’), e tataíb, e chuchu íb, You are Lords and Ladies,
e ág sác uhuí, e ág sác u jolóm, You are of White Hair, You are of White Face, e á gana cotzíg, e ág saca cotzíg You are of Yellow Flower, You Are of White Flower,
e ág póm, e ág canelas,
xe diosin xe rakán ri María santísima”
You are of incense, you are of candles
Underneath god, underneath the feet of Holy Mary.
Date Location Marks
4th Friday of
Lent Momostenango Preparation of the agricultural field Holy Week/
Easter MomostenangoLa Esperanza (Totonicapán) Fertilization of the agricultural field; Marks the arrival of the first rain and the start of the planting period Corpus Christi Rabinal
San Miguel Chicaj Santa Cruz del Quiché Pologua San Andrés Sajcabajá
First stage of the sprouting and growth of the corn plant; The first phase of light rain, which becomes more intense in late June.
Assumption of
María Joyabaj San Andrés Sajcabajá Marks the end of the rainy season; Heavier rainfall; Harvest of beans.canicula, the dry period during the Celebration of
the Rosary Chichicastenango Feast to celebrate the harvest of the first corn cobs’. elotes ‘young All Saints Chichicastenango Beginning of harvest; Finishing of the rainy period;
Beginning of a period with cold winds; Commemoration of the ancestors.
Table 7.1. The timing of the performance of the ritual dance differs per community. However, it always takes place during rainy season and the period immediately preceding the preparation of the milpa for planting.6
Figure 7.2. The Tzulaab’ dance with the Lady of the Earth. In her left hand she is holding the snake. Holy Week 2014, Momostenango. Photo by author.
The Tzulaab’ move around the Lady of the Earth and touch her, they dance with her, and hug her (Fig. 7.2). Many times the dancers steal her from her husband, they hide her somewhere else, and hold the wooden handle of the whips that they carry as a penis in front of their genitals while they slip it in between the Lady’s legs. The husband of the woman rushes towards the assaulters, drags them one by one to an open spot and hits them twice with his whip in front of a large audience that has gathered around the dance (Fig. 7.3). After being hit, the Tzulaab’ run back to the woman and the husband drags out another dancer. The dance is a highly ritual performance. Every morning the organizers perform fire rituals as payment for the protection of the dancers by the ancestors and divine beings that dwell in the environment. The contemporary baile de la culebra has many meanings and historical6dimensions, as well as
Spanish influences,7 which due to the lack of space cannot all be discussed here. What is important for the argument here is that according to the chuchqajau
and organizers of the dance in Momostenango, the dance originated out of necessity of protection against threats to the milpa. The dance is a form of self-sacrifice performed for the earth: the whipping that occurs in the dance is a ritual gesture of submission towards the environment, embodied by the Lady. Such ritual submission enhances the consciousness of dependency on the environment while it is simultaneously a moral teaching to the public: lack of respect for the Lady of the Earth will end in suffering.
The snake is the symbol that gives the name to the dance. In the past the snake used to play a more prominent role in the dance, as today most attention has shifted to the assault on the Lady and the whipping. Today, the dance is performed with a stuffed animal snake, but until 20 years ago real snakes were caught and used in the dance after the correct rituals were carried out. As documented by Franz Termer (1957: 204-210) in the 1920s and confirmed to me by the current organizers of the dance, the Lady and her
6. See Bunzel (1952: 426), Cook (2000: 144-182), Hutcheson (2009: 880), Looper (2009: 204-206), Mace (1967: 95-139), Ordoñez (1970), Saquic Calel (1970), Schultze Jena (1933: 204-213), and Termer (1957: 212-219). 7. For a discussion of possible Spanish influences see Looper (2009: 201-220).
Husband would perform specific rituals in order to receive a snake from the forest. The snake would jump into a ceramic jar, after which they would bring it to the house of the Lady, who would watch over it and treat it respectfully with music and food. On the days of the dance, she would carry the closed jar to the place where the dance was being performed. Halfway through the dance the Lady would pick up the jar and dance with it. After this she would pour the snake out of the jar in the center of the dance area. One by one the dancers would dance with the snake and let it slip underneath their clothes. This was the most sacred part of the dance. After the dance, the snake was brought back to the forest.
In Momostenango, as in many Mesoamerican communities, snakes are related to water (Munguía Ochoa, 2014; Mutz, 2010: 34-36; Peña Sánchez, 2013; Wisdom, 1961: 439). The snake in the baile de la culebra is the embodied counterpart of the water which will be arriving soon after the dance. Pouring the snake out of a jícara symbolizes an important annual event in Momostenango, the uwaja’, a feast or event that is related to the first rains. When the first rain pours down in Momostenango, the rivers swell up and the wave that is formed becomes a devouring snake, the uwaja’. Turning to look at the snake-river is a sign of disrespect, and the snake will grab you and you will die. Thus, although the first rains are very important for the agricultural fields, the rain and the rivers it fills up can be destructive and can cause death. The act of pouring the snake out of a jícara
creating a devastating uwaja’ but at the same time also ensuring new life. The dance, therefore, teaches about respect not only towards the Lady of the Earth but also towards the water.
Pre-Colonial Roots
The Lady of the Earth, and her commemoration as it is performed in the baile de la culebra, has its roots in prehispanic Mesoamerica. The transformative aspect of the Mesoamerican deities, who share iconographic attributes with each other on different occasions, seems to suggest that there was a complex of gods and goddesses related to the earth (Taube, 1992: 105). The Mesoamerican mother goddess complex includes several female deities, among which Ciuacoatl, Tlazolteotl, Xilonen, and Chicomecoatl in Pre-Colonial Central Mexico, Chak Chel and Ix Chel in Pre-Colonial Yucatan, and Xmukane in the Colonial Period Highlands of Guatemala (Christenson, 2007: 54; Jansen, Anders, & Reyes García, 1991: 208; Taube, 1992). These are different manifestations of the divine female force
that controls life, death and rebirth which Clarissa Pinkola Estés (2008, pp. 70-127) names “Skeleton- Lady”. She shows that this archetypical female force is not restricted to Mesoamerica but that it is shared among many peoples around the world.
In Central Mexico, for example, a female deity related to the earth was Chicomecoatl, the patroness of tender maize plants. She played a central role in the feast of Ochpaniztli, dedicated to Tlazolteotl ‘Our Grandmother’ who was the patroness of weavers, of sexuality, of the earth and of ritual cleansing (Jansen et al., 1991: 209-214). This feast took place at the end of the agricultural cycle to thank the mother of the earth and the people for the harvest. During her feast, depicted in detail on page 30 of the Early Colonial Central Mexican Codex Borbonicus, a high-placed male priest becomes the female earth by wearing the skin of a woman (Fig. 7.4). Shecan be seen standing atop a temple in the center of the page: from the elaborate headdress new maize plants and maize cobs sprout while in her hands she also carries maize cobs. She is the new skin of the earth,
Figure 7.4. Page 30 of Codex Borbonicus: feast of Ochpaniztli (facsimile by Duc de Loubat, 1899: 30)1899, p. 30.
the new life that sprouts from the earth evidenced by the full grown agricultural fields at the time of her feast (Jansen et al., 1991, p. 211).
The Yucatec Maya goddess Chak Chel (Fig. 7.5) was related the earth, weaving, death, fertility, and childbirth (Miller & Taube, 1997: 60-61; Taube, 1994). In her hair she carries a snake which, together with her claw-like hands and feet, invokes the notion of the living earth. On page 74 of the pre-Colombian Maya manuscript called the Dresden codex, Chak Chel is connected to both the sky and the earth. She is in charge of rain and water; as she hangs from the clouds she pours water out of a vessel down to earth where the Lord of Death, also known as Lord L, crawls with his weapon in position (Grube, 2012: 174). This image follows directly on a series of pages that prognosticate rainfall. The act of pouring water from a vessel resembles the moment of the baile de la culebra when the Lady of the Earth pours the snake out of the jar. In both cases, the message is similar: disrespect will be punished, either by the Lady’s husband or by the Lord of Death.
In short, the earth is and was alive. She is the mother of the people, the animals and the plants as she takes care of them and nourishes them. She brings them
Figure 7.5. Page 74 of the Dresden codex: the earth-, fertility-, and death- goddess Chak Chel releases water from a vessel on the head of Lord L