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Title: Kaqchikel Central Language / Version: Sociedad Biblica Guatemala / Nuevo Tstament / The Kaqchikel, or Kaqchiquel, language is an indigenous Mesoamerican language. It is spoken by the indigenous Kaqchikel people in central Guatemala.Binding: MP3 CDPublication date: 2008 ... Read more

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Title: Cakchiquel Occidental Language / Version: 1996 Sociedad Biblica Internacional / Nuevo Testamento / The Kaqchikel language (formerly also spelled Cakchiquel or Cakchiquiel) is spoken by the indigenous Kaqchikel people in central Guatemala.Binding: MP3 CDPublication date: 2008 ... Read more

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Traje, the brightly colored traditional dress of the highland Maya, is the principal visual expression of indigenous identity in Guatemala today. Whether worn in beauty pageants, made for religious celebrations, or sold in tourist markets, traje is more than "mere cloth"--it plays an active role in the construction and expression of ethnicity, gender, education, politics, wealth, and nationality for Maya and non-Maya alike. Carol Hendrickson presents an ethnography of clothing focused on the traje--particularly women's traje--of Tecpán, Guatemala, a bi-ethnic community in the central highlands. She covers the period from 1980, when the recent round of violence began, to the early 1990s, when Maya revitalization efforts emerged. Using a symbolic analysis informed by political concerns, Hendrickson seeks to increase the value accorded to a subject like weaving, which is sometimes disparaged as "craft" or "women's work." She examines traje in three dimensions--as part of the enduring images of the "Indian," as an indicator of change in the human life cycle and cloth production, and as a medium for innovation and creative expression. From this study emerges a picture of highland life in which traje and the people who wear it are bound to tradition and place, yet are also actively changing and reflecting the wider world. The book will be important reading for all those interested in the contemporary Maya, the cultural analysis of material culture, and the role of women in culture preservation and change. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Traje
This book is good for those looking to learn about traditional Maya dress in Guatemala and how it relates to the lives of those who make and wear it. It is an interesting read, giving good insights to cultural aspects also. Although the research was conducted many years ago, this was an interesting and yet very shaky time in Guatemala, making the read all the more interesting. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (4)

Exhaustive and well written
A reworking of Grandin's dissertation, "The Blood of Guatemala" refers to the both the national/ethnic/racial identities that defined Guatemala throughout its history and also the literal blood that flowed during the 30 year civil war in which the most repressive state in the hemisphere slaughtered two hundred thousand of its citizens.

The narrative centers on Mayan elites of the town of Quetzaltenango (a place name that will probably give trouble to any English-based spell checking program) in the western highlands of Guatemala. It tells the history of the indigenous people, the Spanish conquerors and the Ladino bourgeoisie through the centuries by highlighting several key events: a demonstration in 1784 against state monopoly of liquor production that gave three Spaniards control of much of the economic life and police power in the area, a demonstration that became a riot that almost turned into an insurrection; the 1837 cholera epidemic, part of the world-wide spread of that disease, and the way it was handled and mishandled by national government; and the rise of coffee capitalism and the creation of an export economy based on plantations in the lowlands.

Grandin does an excellent job with a complicated set of subjects that include caste, class and national identity and a changing array of ethnic classifications depending on who was in power (who was doing the classifying and who it benefited) at various times.

Recommended for those with some knowledge of the history of Guatemala. An understanding of how historians and ethnographers work and some familiarity with academic prose generally would be helpful but not essential to profit from this book

PhDs only need apply
I appreciated this book for the insights it was able to give me on a city that I will soon visit, but I found the writing style dry and overburdened with unnecessary details. Several times, I fell asleep trying to make it through the reading. Other times, I would lower the book in exasperation and say to myself, "Is this Grandin's dissertation?" The book is very informative, but it is not an accessible read for the layperson.

Interesting, microscopic, but skewed
Grandin's research on the Quiche Mayans of Quetzaltennago is exhaustive and well presented.In particular, his central thesis that the Quiches were a social body already divided by the time of the 1954 US-backed coup helps break schismatic thinking regarding the history of the 36 year civil war there that defines the Indians as merely the victims of a violent and complex historical legacy.That said, however, I often found myself asking if the ladinos in the city were similarly divided.Grandin does make some suggestive remarks in this area, but his focus on the Indians of Xela reveals, perhaps, a bias he holds in their favor.Moreover, the book attempts to use the city of Quetzaltenango as a microcosm of the national situation, which for the most part does not follow since the Indians of other highland townships are very different from those of Xela (and even from one another).Finally, I have to mention that Grandin subscribes to currently fashionable theoretical terms (which comes into relief when he talks about the Mayan "body" in his chapter on the cholera epidemic) that may or may not do justice to the social and cultural dynamic he encounters. Overall I would say this is a book worthy of reading despite lacunae in his otherwise critical approach.

brilliant and imaginative
"Anyone interested in Latin American history will enjoy this myth-and-stereotype-shattering study of Mayan cultural and national identity.Thick with novelistic detail and anecdote, brilliantly and imaginatively researched, totally engrossing in its melding of convincinganalysis and strong narrative sweep, Grandin takes us to a 'high place' andguides us back over the tangled, treacherous paths that led there" ... Read more

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"At midnight on Tuesday, some desconocidos [unknown men]arrived in a [yellow] pickup.They went to the house of Mario Puzul,jefe of the group [of commissioners].They broke into his house andtook him by force of arms to the car.His wife says that herecognized the jefe of the group and said, 'Buenas noches, mylieutenant,' but the lieutenant didn't answer.Mario said good-bye tohis wife and his brother, Francisco.The car left and the uproarbegan, ringing the bells and the people gathering.But there wasnothing they could do.

"On 16 November 1985, a military commissioner was killed.They saythat many people saw it.They took the military commissioner out ofhis house and then to the corredor [porch] of the municipality, wherethey hacked him into pieces with a machete and left him."

This is the story of Ignacio Bizarro Ujpan, a Maya Indian who resideson the shores of beautiful Lake Atitlan, Guatemala.The storynarrates Ignacio's life, town, and country during the 1980s, a periodwhen many campesinos found themselves caught between two fires--theinsurgency of the guerrillas and the counterinsurgency of the army.Meanwhile Ignacio and his fellow townspeople attempted to maintain asmuch normalcy in their lives as possible.They cultivated their beanand corn fields, educated their children, and practiced either folkCatholicism (a blend of Catholic and Mayan beliefs and practices) orevangelical Protestantism. ... Read more

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"This is a significant contribution to the field. . . . Quirigua, although well-studied archaeologically, has not received this kind of single dedicated study of monuments. . . . This is not because the site and its art are unimportant; as this study amply demonstrates, the artwork of the site is of great significance within the gamut of Classic Maya art."--Rosemary A. Joyce, Professor of Anthropology, University of California, BerkeleyThe ancient Maya city of Quirigua occupied a crossroads between Copan in the southeastern Maya highlands and the major centers of the Peten heartland. Though always a relatively small city, Quirigua stands out because of its public monuments, which were some of the greatest achievements of Classic Maya civilization. Impressive not only for their colossal size, high sculptural quality, and eloquent hieroglyphic texts, the sculptures of Quirigua are also one of the few complete, in situ series of Maya monuments anywhere, which makes them a crucial source of information about ancient Maya spirituality and political practice within a specific historical context. Using epigraphic, iconographic, and stylistic analyses, this study explores the integrated political-religious meanings of Quirigua's monumental sculptures during the eighth-century A.D. reign of the city's most famous ruler, K'ak' Tiliw. In particular, Matthew Looper focuses on the role of stelae and other sculpture in representing the persona of the ruler not only as a political authority but also as a manifestation of various supernatural entities with whom he was associated through ritual performance. By tracing this sculptural program from its Early Classic beginnings through the reigns of K'ak' Tiliw and his successors, and also by linking it to practices at Copan, Looper offers important new insights into the politico-religious history of Quirigua and its ties to other Classic Maya centers, the role of kingship in Maya society, and the development of Maya art. ... Read more

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Pre-eminent scholarship
This is a book for scholars, for the dedicated avocational Mayanist, and for those who have been so fortunate as to visit Quirigua (and/or Copan) and care to look behind the intriguing scenes through the impressively perceptive eyes of a specialist and expert. Not for the casual, book-a-day reader, "Lightning Warrior" is weighty, both literally and figuratively, and it has a hefty price. It is also a fascinating story, explicated in minute detail.The exhaustive thoroughness of Prof. Looper's scholarship will, I think, ensure the lasting value of this outstanding and beautifully produced, large-format volume. ... Read more

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Maya Resurgence
Wilson effectively blends a number of theorectical threads to create a moving and powerful image of Maya ethnicity in the late 20th century. ... Read more

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Maya Cultural Activism in Guatemala marks a new era in Guatemalan studies by offering an up-to-the-minute look at the pan-Maya movement and the future of the Maya people as they struggle to regain control over their cultural destiny. The successful emergence of what is in some senses a nationalism grounded in ethnicity and language has challenged scholars to reconsider their concepts of nationalism, community, and identity. Editors Edward F. Fischer and R. McKenna Brown have brought together essays by virtually all the leading U.S. experts on contemporary Maya communities and the top Maya scholars working in Guatemala today. Supplementing scholarly analysis of Mayan cultural activism is a position statement originating within the movement and more wide-ranging and personal reflections by anthropologists and linguists who have worked with the Maya over the years. Among the broader issues that come in for examination are the complex relations between U.S. Mayanists and the Mayan cultural movement, efforts to promote literacy in Mayan languages, the significance of woven textiles and native dress, the relations between language and national identity, and the cultural meanings that the present-day Maya have encountered in ancient Mayan texts and hieroglyphic writing. ... Read more

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Capturing the cultures of rural Guatemala in a uniquely vividmanner! Glittenberg's involving account traces her work experiences inhighland Guatemala and her own growth as a nurse, an anthropologist, and aperson becoming aware of the world community. During her first trip sheworked as an "unwelcome" visiting nurse at the famous Behrhorst Hospital.Later, she returns to Guatemala with her family to conduct a year of fieldworkin two highland towns--the Ladino town of Zaragoza and the town of IndianPower, Patzun. Her year is a richly colorful account of the puzzles andproblems of two distinct cultures seized by poverty and oppression. Glittenbergreturns once again in 1974, during a terrible time. The terror has increased,and the population has suffered a devastating earthquake. But this time shehas come back to help, to make a difference and to give help in a countrywhere once a personal crisis was how to order a scrambled egg. ... Read more

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An accessible introduction to the diversity of highland Guat
The author of "To the Mountain and Back" is an anthropologistwho did field work in highland Guatemala during the 1970's.She lived inand studied life in two villages, one Ladino (Zaragoza) and the otherCakchiquel Mayan (Patzún). The book is a narrative account of the author'slife during her fieldwork, both the challenges and the joys. The style isextremely straightforward and accessible. And the stories she tells havethe ring of truth.Moreover, the explanations of her research tasks serveas a basic introduction of how to do field work, including sampling andinterviewing.I will definitely recommend this book as an introduction tohighland Guatemalan culture to my students and to others who are coming tovisit us here. As a researcher myself, I was left with some unansweredquestions, however. What did Glittenberg's own children glean from theexperience? What did her surveys reveal about the reasons for havingchildren in the two towns? But, overall, this is a readable and informativebook. ... Read more

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The best-selling account of the life of Latin American peasant woman and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.Now a global bestseller, the remarkable life of Rigoberta Menchú, a Guatemalan peasant woman, reflects on the experiences common to many Indian communities in Latin America. Menchú suffered gross injustice and hardship in her early life: her brother, father and mother were murdered by the Guatemalan military. She learned Spanish and turned to catechistic work as an expression of political revolt as well as religious commitment. Menchú vividly conveys the traditional beliefs of her community and her personal response to feminist and socialist ideas. Above all, these pages are illuminated by the enduring courage and passionate sense of justice of an extraordinary woman. ... Read more

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Scholars and Guatemalans have characterized eastern Guatemala as "Ladino" or non-Indian. The Ch'orti' do not exhibit the obvious indigenous markers found among the Mayas of western Guatemala, Chiapas, and the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico. Few still speak Ch'orti', most no longer wear distinctive dress, and most community organizations have long been abandoned.

During the colonial period, the Ch'orti' region was adjacent to relatively vibrant economic regions of Central America that included major trade routes, mines, and dye plantations. In the twentieth century Ch'orti's directly experienced U.S.-backed dictatorships, a 36-year civil war from start to finish, and Christian evangelization campaigns, all while their population has increased exponentially. These have had tremendous impacts on Ch'orti' identities and cultures.

From 1991 to 1993, Brent Metz lived in three Ch'orti' Maya-speaking communities, learning the language, conducting household surveys, and interviewing informants. He found Ch'orti's to be ashamed of their indigeneity, and he was fortunate to be present and involved when many Ch'orti's joined the Maya Movement. He has continued to expand his ethnographic research of the Ch'orti' annually ever since and has witnessed how Ch'orti's are reformulating their history and identity. ... Read more

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In 1978, a Maya community queen stood on a stage to protest a massacre of indigenous campesinos at the hands of the Guatemalan state he spoke graphically to the dead and to the living alike: 'Brothers of Panzos, your blood is in our throats!' Given the context, her message might come as a surprise. A revolutionary insurgency in the late 1970s was being met by brutal state efforts to defeat it, efforts directed not only at the guerrilla armies but also at reform movements of all kinds. Yet the young woman was just one of many Mayas across the highlands voicing demands for change. Over the course of the 1970s, Mayas argued for economic, cultural, and political justice for the indigenous 'pueblo'. Many became radicalized by state violence against Maya communities that soon reached the level of genocide. Scholars have disagreed about Maya participation in Guatemala's civil war, and the development of oppositional activism by Mayas during the war is poorly understood. Betsy Konefal explores this history in detail, examining the roots and diversity of Maya organizing and its place in the unfolding conflict. She traces debates about ethnicity, class, and revolution, and examines how (some) Mayas became involved in opposition to a repressive state. She looks closely at the development of connections between cultural events like queen pageants and more radical demands for change, and follows the uneasy relationships that developed between Maya revolutionaries and their Ladino counterparts. Konefal makes it clear that activist Mayas were not bystanders in the transformations that preceded and accompanied Guatemala's civil war - activism by Mayas helped shape the war, and the war shaped Maya activism. ... Read more

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James Sexton met Ignacio Bizarro Ujpán in 1970, when Sexton traveled to Guatemala for the first time as a graduate student in anthropology. Ignacio became Sexton’s research assistant and, as the men’s friendship grew over the years of fieldwork that followed, Sexton asked Ignacio to keep a detailed journal. In his diaries, Bizarro chronicles more than a quarter century of the turbulent history of Guatemala, returning again and again to the themes of community solidarity, civil violence, alcohol abuse, resistance to repression, political turmoil, and the reinforcement of traditional and religious values that color daily life in the Maya communities of Guatemala’s highlands.

Joseño: Another Mayan Voice Speaks from Guatemala covers the period from 1987-98 and is the fourth and latest volume of Ignacio’s diary, the authentic life history of a common man, a campesino, a principal (elder) in his town, and a Tzutuhil Indian whose life has spanned the ongoing struggle for democracy and economic justice in Guatemala. His vivid and plain-spoken account of life among the Maya during the war between guerrillas and the army in the 1980s and 1990s offers detailed descriptions of the atrocities committed by both sides and brings the reader into a Mayan world richly textured with indigenous beliefs and practices. Ignacio’s diary also records the Mayan cultural revitalization sweeping Guatemala, as well as the fortunes of the Indian peoples who have so often been pawns in the vicious power struggles between Left and Right. ... Read more

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Customer Review - February 8, 2002
Reviewer, Dr. Janet M. Carey from Littleton, CO
Within this extremely interesting and timely book Sexton translates Tzutuhil Mayan Ignacio Bizarro Ujpan's diary entries of eleven years from 1987 to 1998.Sexton's Introduction expertly presents a backdrop of the historical, political and cultural contexts the Guatemalan Indian people find themselves in today as they attempt to survive the modern political climate in their ancient land.Sexton skillfully blends Bizarro's eyewitness accounts of the horror resulting from being Indian in Guatemala.Bizarro tells the story of his people as they cope with being caught between opposing forces of state military troops and the guerrilla bands that have wrapped Guatemala in decades of civil violence.
Via Bizarro's graphic personal narrative, Sexton excitingly and sometimes somewhat sadly, brings to the reader the ongoing, heartbreaking realities experienced by Bizarro, his family and friends.Throughout this book it is evident, despite unbelievable hardship, that the Guatemalan Mayan Indian people continue to love their country and sense of place.Bizarro's statement of, "that is why I say that in Guatemala there is no peace," is followed with his words, "Guatemala is such a beautiful country, so good that God has placed its green countryside in the center of America, where the little birds sing their songs in praise of God All-Powerful.But it's a pity that my beautiful country is going everyday from bad to worse.Every day they [current political regimes] are bathing it with the blood of their [Mayan] children who loved so much this beautiful land of the quetzal."
Sexton's ability to pursue the anthropological method of life-history fieldwork with Bizarro, which now spans more than three decades, is not commonplace.Bizarro and Sexton have collaborated for a period of over thirty years.This fascinating, firsthand account of the modern Tzutuhil Mayan lifeway as told by Bizarro and translated by Sexton, is only made possible through their long, continuous relationship.Bizarro's is a most touching story.Sexton, in his choice of photographs, illustrations and admirable organization of the book, brings together the beauty and the strength of the Tzutuhil Mayan culture around Lake Atitlan as Bizarro tells how his people live with modern-day political dramas as they unfold in the highlands of Guatemala. ... Read more