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.

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• Positive Guatemla
• An approach to its Cultures and Ethnic Groups
• Positive Guatemala Maya Rituals and end of essay
• The Garífuna people
• To Say Thank YOU

En algún momento queremos restringir el acceso a cierta sección de nuestra web y para esto necesitamos un sistema de registro de usuarios. Existen el internet muchos de estos script, pero nos dan ciertos parámetros y en la mayoría de los casos dejan en el aire detalles importantes que muchos no sabemos y que no nos permiten seguir con el proyecto.

Desde hace mucho tiempo tenía la intención de hacer esto en un sitio que administro, pero por lo anteriormente comentado no lo había podido poner en práctica.

Después de algún tiempo de olvidado el proyecto, me lancé de nuevo a intentarlo, busqué este tipo de script, encontré algunos que edité, agregué algunos archivos de otros scripts descargados, aunque confieso que php es difícil para mí, lo hice a prueba y error. Logré, de varios uno o dos que me funcionaron, pero adolecían de ciertos detalles, por ejemplo, que el usuario al registrarse, recibiera un email con una contraseña y un enlace de verificación para evitar que alguien registre a otra persona sin su consentimiento, opción de darse de baja personalmente.

Al final me decidí por un cgi, que recomiendo (Cerbero), es gratuito, me está funcionando muy bien, tienes dentro de los documentos una ayuda para su correcta instalación.

Es posible que haya otros, gratuitos y de pago, pero con este estoy satisfecho.

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• smartphones y el Phishing
• Diviértete jugando Video Poker en Linea
• Marcadores sociales
• eBay retira su publicidad de Google
• Malware denominado Bck/VB.ABN ataca

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.

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• An approach to its Cultures and Ethnic Groups
• Positive Guatemla
• Social Analysis
• To Say Thank YOU
• An approach to its Cultures and Ethnic Groups-Part Two

GUATEMALA 4-24
An approach to its Cultures and Ethnic Groups
A Social Science essay in 6 sections
By Darío Morán
http://galeriadecultura.hi5.com

Continuation Section 1 Introduction
The Maya
…including the Tzolkín calendar

Heaven, Humankind and the Underworld for the Maya mean Time, and time is life and death. Beginning and end of everything.
Operating some complicated calculations Maya make both calendars connect each other and mark equinoxes and solstices perfectly and following the long count of their ways they know what they have to know to rule their daily lives spiritually,socially , economically and in many other aspects.

Each kin(day) of each month of the Tzolkín brings its own protector god, deity or protector animal spirit, animal spirits are always represented by the sacred animals like jaguars,deers,monkeys,snakes,bats and other.
These tell the person why and how to believe and pray, which profession to study and which offerings to present in altars on top of the sacred mountains:all mountains, inside colonial Catholic churches like in Chichicastenango and in their ancient cities ,now archaeological sites which for them still are sacred places, where people,spirits,gods,deities and animals are invoked thru the invisible- but not for them , tiny and with optical fiber thick lines between different dimensions.
Protector animal spirits are called NAWALES.

Many people say the Maya dissapeared but I argue this because there still are many Maya now, I think the ones who dissapeared were the great astronomers,mathematicians,architects and outstanding artists.

I do not say actual Maya are not intelligent enough to achieve great goals, but times are different and unfortunately Mayas now are not in the same position than the one of their ancestors.

Maya of the old times populated an area named Mesoamerica by the anthropologyst John Kirshoff, an extension of land of 324,000 square kilometers region where the ancient cultures and civilizations lived, live and flourished; actually territory of five countries : Guatemala, Belize,México,Honduras and El Salvador.The largest population of Maya is now concentrated in Guatemala and México.

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• An approach to its Cultures and Ethnic Groups-Part Two
• Positive Guatemala Maya Rituals
• Positive Guatemla
• Positive Guatemala Maya Rituals and end of essay
• An approach to its Cultures and Ethnic Groups

GUATEMALA 4-24
An Approach to its Cultures and Ethnic Groups
Social Sciences Essay in 6 Sections
By Darío Morán
http://galeriadecultura.hi5.com
Continuation Section 1 Introduction

…known as ethnic groups…
Most of them live in the west highlands of Guatemala though some live in other regions, all Maya descendance ethnic groups work in agriculture, most of the fertile land is cultivated by Maya farmers.
But it is important to mention that the K´iché Maya and the Cackchiquel Maya groups besides working as farmers are also present in all market places in the whole country working on the second activity of their ancestors : trade.

Religious Maya leaders are also rescuing the basis of their ancient religion and studying and publishing two Mayan calendars one of the tasks in which they are involved in their rescue. Time for the Maya was part of their religion,being watchers of natural phenomenae they had to control the time and know how to manage it in order to live a syncronized life with Nature changes.

Actually only two calendars are known but their ancestors developed more than ten.
They measure and distributed time as whole in many periods, for they daily lives they count the time of human and animal existence using their Haab or Ab Sun calendar year which consists of 18 months of 20 days each =360 days to which they added 5 more days for meditation and profound rituals performed to call the protection and energies from their gods,deities and protector spirits of animals, all this, to control strong and not benign charges these days bring, people of some groups specially the K´ekchí Maya call these 5 days period the Guayeb or Guayep.

They combine the Haab with their moon calendar year the Tzolkín or Cholquij which is formed by 13 months of 20 days each to make a complete moon year of 260 days.

When they reach the day 260th new Ajkijab (Shamans) are ordained and together start a new agricultural cycle which also represents the beginning and the end of a new year, the day 260th becomes an important festivity for all Maya called the WAJXAQIB BATZ or the EIGHT MONKEY festivity which is then connected with the symbol of the cotton thread, the same cotton thread, sometimes agave, which holds the flying kites which reach heavens after crossing the skies.

Heaven, Humankind and the Underworld are the three stages of the Maya Religion. In Santiago and Sumpango Satepequez municipalities, both of them Cackchiquel Maya ;giant kites made of China paper are flown during All Saints day to send messages to the souls of their departed relatives, to their gods and deities and to complete the connection of the three stages. Some actual kites are decorated with sacred motif including the Tzolkin calendar…will continue

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• The Maya, the Tzolkín calendar
• Positive Guatemla
• An approach to its Cultures and Ethnic Groups
• Positive Guatemala Maya Rituals and end of essay
• To Say Thank YOU