Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0149/01498.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 23KB | 366 lines

$Unique_ID{COW01498}
$Pretitle{278}
$Title{Guatemala
Chapter 2C.   Religion}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{P.A. Kluck}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{catholic
church
indian
indians
clergy
ladinos
traditional
catholicism
protestant
religious}
$Date{1983}
$Log{}
Country:     Guatemala
Book:        Guatemala, A Country Study
Author:      P.A. Kluck
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1983

Chapter 2C.   Religion

Indigenous Belief Systems

     Most Indians adhere to a syncretic set of beliefs that combines elements
of Mayan and Roman Catholic ritual and mixes the aboriginal pantheon with
Catholic saints. The ancient Mayan calendar plays a prominent role; ancestor
veneration and the respect of living elders are central. An individual does
good and the community ensures its general welfare by performing the requisite
rites and fiestas and by maintaining good relations with relatives and
neighbors.

     Until Roman Catholic missionaries became active in the Highlands in the
1950s, most Indians had little sense even of the existence of an orthodox
Catholicism different from their own particular variant; they thought of
themselves as Catholic. Local ladinos, although they were ignorant of the
substance of Indian beliefs, castigated them as "pagan." Religion is much more
central to Indian men than to ladino men. Indian men are the key participants
in the community's ritual life, whereas ladino men typically leave the domain
of religion to women and children, contenting themselves to be baptized,
married, and buried in the church (see Regional and Ethnic Diversity, this
ch.).

     The Indian pantheon is complex and stratified; the deities and
supernatural beings are varied, and they frequently have both Mayan and
Hispanic names (though the spirits bearing them may have little resemblance to
the Catholic entities of the same name). The main deities include a remote and
inaccessible high god; subservient to him is a matrimonial couple, called
variously Jesus and Mary or the sun and the moon. Several lower ranking
deities (such as the cloud god and the storm god) outrank the next level of
supernaturals-saints and angels. At the lowest level are the ancestral spirits
of the village families.

     According to Mayan cosmology the high god formerly took a much more
active part in the affairs of the world. During this epoch the earth's
inhabitants angered him, and he resolved to destroy them by flood and fire.
Some, however, managed to survive, and he forgave them. They became lower
ranking deities charged with keeping account of the earth's next inhabitants,
to wit, humans. When humans are impious, these deities ask the high god to
punish those who err.

     A strong sense of the duality of the universe is a common theme
interwoven in much mythology and ritual. Christian personages and doctrines
are adapted to and reinterpreted in the light of Indian concerns and values.
In Holy Week rituals, for example, Jesus is a secondary figure. Judas is much
more prominent; he is normally a ladino portrayed variously as an exploitive
merchant, the guardian of fertility, or a despised enemy. Ethnic relations,
especially Indian views of ladinos, are a frequent motif. Ladinos are
portrayed as wild animals; they are wealthier and more powerful than Indians
but their moral inferiors. Because Indian beliefs are part of a strongly
localized oral tradition, the basic elements are reproduced in a multitude of
variants. Indigenous belief lacks an orthodoxy and a supracommunity focus.

     Most worship continues to be organized through and performed by the
community's civil-religious hierarchy. The hierarchy consists of a series of
ranked offices; each has a specific set of civil or religious duties
associated with it. The officeholders are males; the various grades are
organized into cofradias (ritual brotherhoods). The actual number of ranks in
the hierarchy varies; typically there are 10 to 12. Service in the cofradias,
which are slowly disappearing, was traditionally an indispensable part of
manhood. In the traditional system the cofradias were the only legitimate
route to attain status within the community. Men spent much of their adult
lives passing through the various grades. Service began at roughly 15 years of
age and continued until those with sufficient wealth reached the highest
grades, about 40 to 50 years. Thereafter, they were considered elders and
played a prominent and influential role in community affairs.

     Service, especially in the higher offices, requires a significant outlay
in time and money. Indians refer to their duties as a cargo (burden), as
indeed they are. Fiestas, which are the major form of public worship, are
elaborate, expensive events, accompanied by extensive feasting and
entertaining. The family that sponsors such an event faces a substantial drain
on its resources. Much of this can be accumulated by a household with adequate
land and labor, because the appointments to the most important offices are
made years in advance. There remain, however, major cash outlays for liquor,
candles, fireworks, and bands. Estimates of the sponsors' expenses from divers
Highland communities found the costs to be roughly equal to a year's wages.

     Beyond the expense and labor, cargos involve socially sensitive duties.
Civil duties include minor police matters, such as dealing with drunks.
Because nearly everyone is drunk at one time or another, the cargo holder must
be careful not to alienate relatives and neighbors. The village can formally
sanction officeholders if their actions are found wanting, and the cargo
bearer's actual powers are few. Further, the officeholder who sponsors a
fiesta represents the village before deities who can punish ritual misconduct.
Moreover, sponsorship demands a lengthy period of sexual abstinence. Sponsors
are blamed when the weather is poor or the crops fail; it is then commonly
held that they must have slept with their wives during their year's term of
office.

     Despite its patent drawbacks sponsorship was an avidly sought-after
honor-at least until the 1950s. Major offices were allocated years in advance;
well-to-do families fought for the right to sponsor a large-scale village
fiesta. Underwriting one was the only legitimate forum for the display of
wealth and virtually the only way to gain prestige. Indians were excluded from
effective participation in national political and economic life, and the
civil-religious hierarchy provided an alternative outlet for the ambitious.
There were those reluctant to participate, however, particularly after the
system began to change in the 1950s and 1960s but they could be coerced
through gossip or, with the connivance of local ladinos, threatened with
incarceration.

     The efforts of Catholic and Protestant missionaries in Highland
communities altered the situation. Catholics especially drew their converts
from the younger male population. Their defection from the ranks of the
cofradias and their frequent intolerance of traditional fiestas introduced a
new element of strain in community relations. To the devout their disrespect
of the elders tempted fate. Equally important, those who converted were
frequently from wealthier families-exactly those who, years hence, might have
been expected to sponsor the major fiestas.

     The converts were explicit in their criticisms of the cargo system. At
the lower grades they disliked the civil duties that were little more than
unpaid menial chores for local ladinos holding government posts. At the upper
levels they represented a drain on community resources. Fiestas were viewed as
pagan events associated with public drunkenness and sexual license.

     Overall, the competing world views introduced an element of doubt about
the efficacy of traditional modes of worship. In one community a cargo holder
lost two of his children during his period of office. One faction saw this
misfortune as proof of his bad faith in accepting the office; another, as
proof