GUATEMALA 4-24
APPROACH TO ITS CULTURES AND ETHNIC GROUPS
A Social Sciences Essay in 6 Sections
By Darío Morán
http://galeriadecultura.hi5.com

POSITIVE GUATEMALA MAYA RITUALS AND END OF ESSAY

Though Maya were great ecologysts in the old times they had to emigrate to other lands , theirs become very poor of nutrients because they worked in agriculture cultivating the triplet of produces : corn, the sacred Ixim, still popular staple for Guatemalans, black beans and squash, but now they are concerned of the protection of natural sources and the environment.
All ceremonies contain a deep respect to Nature.
The other three peoples the Xincas, the Garífunas and the Ladinos also perform interesting ceremonies we need to say that Ladinos also practice a very active syncretism, some Mayan beliefs are present in Catholic festivities for example when in easter horchards are decorated with plants,flowers and fruit in churches.

“Manta Kajij, Manta ch’ it ri che ´ : lak ´o ruq ij”

Means in K ´iché Maya language :
“Do not beat nor harm the plants and the trees because they cry, they have a soul and they also have their own reason to be”

Words of the golden rule that is taught by grandmothers to their children and grandchildren every day.

CULTURE IS A COMPLEX CONCEPT
I do think that all Guatemalans, the 4 peoples forming the 24 ethnic groups will succeed in the way we recognize all our differences, stop acquiring negative elements of cultural currents from abroad and keep on working hard in the understanding, and improvment of the intra and intercultural relations betwen us.

Acting and doing so all of us will live with complete peace and harmony and Guatemala will be the country that all of us have dreamed to be.

Guatemalans and Guatemala are present here and now and represent a rich CULTURE within many CULTURES all efforts should be done for GUATEMALA.

Posibles noticias relacionadas:

• Guatemala se declara neutral en la guerra
• No hay dictadura suave ni democracia dura
• Jorge Ubico
• Condición humana de los indígenas
• Miguel Ángel Asturias

GUATEMALA 4-24
Approach to its Cultures and Ethnic Groups
A Social Sciences Essay in 6 Sections
By Darío Morán
http://galeriadecultura.hi5.com

POSITIVE GUATEMALA Maya rituals…
It is impressive to watch nowadays a Chuch Ajau or an Ajkij ( Maya Religious Guides in their hierarchy) pointing to the four sacred directions, the four cardinal points, calling the energy waves of gods, deities and animal protector spirits.

Sacred directions represented by colored candles : white for the north, yellow for the south, from a mytic city or existed? where the first corn cobs were brought to the highlands, red for the east as a memory to their Sun god Kinich Ahau the one who also provides life to everything in the universe, black for the west the color of darkness and death but under a different significance than ours and the center of the circular altar is green, repesenting Mother Nature, the essence of all energies which emerge from down to the upper levels of existence and connect with heaven.

Mayan spiritual guides also preform this ceremony to bless couples´marriages and also they bless ¨when protection for their plantations is asked by farmers.

Other elements used for their ceremonies are : pine needles,flowers, plants and frut, sacred incenses like copal made from the resin of the copalero tree growing in El Petén and in some regions of México, the estoraque made from resin of conifer trees, sacred stones and idols, sugar substituting bee honey and liquour to drink and to pour on the altar reminding old water rituals.

Festivities are unique, evertything is blessed : the Marimba, a wooden xylophone, our national musical instrument, the masks to be used in ancient dances like the one of the snake, the deer and the jaguar or the Rabinal Achí an ethnic drama dance which was declared four years ago by UNESCO intangible cultural patrimony of humankind, this old dance is performed in the department of Baja Verapaz, in the north.

Blessings are also poured as handfuls of energies to the Catholic saints´ statues in the churches, Mayan idols,people at different ages,the mountains, the flowers, the plants, the trees and domestic animals.
The ceremonies are performed on top of the mountains in isolated ancient shrines, inside Catholic churches as well as in altars in actual archaeological sites, formerly important cities like Tikal, Kaminal Juyú, Iximché and other, there will be modern built altars in every site very soon although Maya have the right to practice their religion in the original ceremonial plazas.
Human sacrifices have been replaced by chicken or sheep sacrifices. Watching a Maya ceremony is really absorve their cosmovision and feeling the charged energies flooding around.

Posibles noticias relacionadas:

• Guatemala se declara neutral en la guerra
• No hay dictadura suave ni democracia dura
• Jorge Ubico
• Condición humana de los indígenas
• Miguel Ángel Asturias

GUATEMALA 4-24
Approach to its Cultures and Ethnic Groups
A Social Sciences Essay in 6 Sections
By Darío Morán
http://galeriadecultura.hi5.com

Section 6
POSITIVE GUATEMALA

signed on December 29th, 1996, were a starting point to a new understanding of the social problems of the twenty four ethnic groups in Guatemala, specially for the Maya with the majority of population.

The observance of international institutions and the concern of the Maya people and in some way of the other three groups, in recognizing that only having more access to education, understanding their different problems , and knowing more of their rich culture would lead them to occupy more spaces in the country´s different fields of action as a democratic nation.

Although many children still desert from the public elementary schools because their parents ask them to work with them- salaries are still too low, many other are trying to let them go.

Besides this still not clear enough situation, GUATEMALA is a colorful country, you just move out from the capital city Guatemala de la Asunción (founded, January 1st. 1776) and your eyes will be immediately captivated by the oustanding views of volcanoes,mountains,lakes, rivers and big valleys, and in and around all of them Alive Cultures formed by hardworking guatemalans.

Varied Cultures which decorate al their daily life activities with their traditions,beliefs and ways of living.
A serious but interesting religious syncretism is observed in the rural area thanks to the monks who after the conquest tried to destroy the faith of the indigenous people, same faith that was mixed by them, with the Caholic dogma and thus we can assess now a very interesting mix which can be called Catholisism Maya but in most of the times transforms into a Mayan Catholisism, sometimes I ask myself these questins : Could the Maya cultural values have survived if the whole population practiced Catholic religion? Could Maya survive modern times practicing a 100% Mayan religion? Lets reflect…

Posibles noticias relacionadas:

• Guatemala se declara neutral en la guerra
• No hay dictadura suave ni democracia dura
• Jorge Ubico
• Condición humana de los indígenas
• Miguel Ángel Asturias

GUATEMALA 4-24
Approach to its Cultures and Ethnic Groups
A Social Sciences Essay in 6 Sections
By Darío Morán

Section 5 Social Analysis

The ethnographical map of my country is populated by these 4 peoples and which form the 24 ethnic groups, already studied in this essay, producing an eclectic melting pot of races and cultures and originating with their own traditions, beliefs and ways of living what I have called many times the GUATEMALIDAD , the essence of everything producing a unique GUATEMALAN IDENTITY meaning the real NATIONALITY of all persons living and loving this beautiful country in Central America.

I also wrote once, a historical anthology transformed into a multiethnic drama-dance with its name which was performed in the largest department of Guatemala El Petén during its Patron Saint Festivity in January 2006 my objective when writing that dance play was to show the most positive historical events of my country in different epoches.

It seems that everything is running smoothly and very well in Guatemala but when we think of four peoples forming the society of a Central America country it comes to our minds this question : “How can they live together? ‘”

A more complex mental exercise is needed to imagine the reality of twenty four ethnic groups interacting and living in the same territory, it becomes really too difficult to understand but hope is good with sincere efforts of all Guatemalans and friends of Guatemala.

Besides this still too complicated situation I do think that the Conquest, the Colony and some wrong political and economical actions taken thru time since; have made life difficult to the majority in each one in the 24 groups.
During the Colony some members of some groups received more benefits than other, from authorities, religious orders and church directors who had the power-new social and economical situation differences appear and created problems, the poor wants to be rich but the rich doesnt want to be poor-satuts affects, and adding to this situation the wrong distribution of the land which produced the riches for a few : good crops transformed in monetary profits, but produced as always by the same majority of the population : the poor and indigenous people; and this time bomb is still there , lets hope it wont explode and cause as always the worst social problems everywhere where marked differences happen to be.

This is why in the present many social economical and social political institutions and concerned guatemalans, are presenting different instances, working hard to create a better understanding of topics like intercultural relations,social and cultural diversities and other, and of course the accomplishment of the best results in benefit of all.

All this has become a road up the hill because there are still frictions and discrimination in many ways : Maya to Ladinos, Ladinos to Mayas and Mayas to Mayas, fortunately Xincas and Garífunas are in some way quite apart of this situation.

Posibles noticias relacionadas:

• Guatemala se declara neutral en la guerra
• No hay dictadura suave ni democracia dura
• Jorge Ubico
• Condición humana de los indígenas
• Miguel Ángel Asturias

GUATEMALA 4-24
An Approach to its Cultures and Ethnic Groups
A Social Sciences Essay in 6 Sections
By Darío Morán
http;//etnodanzas.hi5.vom

Section 2 The GARÍFUNA PEOPLE
The Garifunas or Gallinagú came to Guatemalan territory during the 19th century in 1802 from Saint Vincent island and Trinidad y Tobago in the Caribbean Sea, they settled in the small town now known as Livingston(without the e-ending) in the department of Izabal on the North Atlantic coastal lands, a minority populated some area of the Polochic river basin but did not remain there for a long time.

Livingston was formerly named as La Buga which means : the mouth of the sea in Garífuna language but an ex-President of Guatemala changed its name, wishing to honour the famous jurist fron Louisiana Edward Livingstone whose law codes were introduced in the Judicial Program in the country. Livingston is a small municipality and belongs to the seconda largest department of Guatemala after El Petén where the Mayan City of Tikal is located.

Garífunas are also trying to rescue their cultural inheritance, the Congress of Guatemala declared a few years ago, november the 26th as the Day of the Garífunas in the country, four days before, they celebrate events reminding their origins,their arrival to Guatemala and the elements of their mixed culture, they are the Afrocaribbean guatemalans.

Section 3 The XINCA PEOPLE
The Xinca people unfortunately is endangered culturally speaking,
Facts report that only about 20 elderly people can speak in their mother tongue, some efforts are done by groups of young Xincas but they still need more support and motivation for the success of their positive and valuable commitment.
Xincas have been forgotten as a people, as a social conglomerate and as an ethnic group there is still a lot to decipher to know more of this group.

It has been said by some scholars and authors that Xincas are less “Mexicanized” than the other groups of Mayas in Guatemala, anthropologists and archaeologists do not arrive to a specific accord related to the origins of them, and there is also a belief that they came from some regions of South América after comparisons of alike words of the Xinca language with some of a language spoken in the south of the continent.

Pedro de Alvarado y Contreras, the Spanish conqueror of Guatemala really had a bad time when conquering and invading the Xinca territory in the south east because they were tough warriors as he wrote in his letters to the king of Spain.

The Ladino People
Ladino is a term applied to people in Guatemala who have the two bloods in their veins : Maya and Spanish, the Ladino as a social and cultural group was originated in the very early years of the establishment of the Spanish Colony in Guatemala producing the Mestizaje ( Mix of Indigenous and Maya races) when the Spanish conquistadors took indigenous women by the force as concubines and formed the first not legally established Mestizo families and also when a minority of couples got married legally thru a civil act as the Matrimony.

Posibles noticias relacionadas:

• Guatemala se declara neutral en la guerra
• No hay dictadura suave ni democracia dura
• Jorge Ubico
• Condición humana de los indígenas
• Miguel Ángel Asturias