La Antigua Guatemala Daily Photo

I know that Guatemalan Danzas and Bailes Tradicionales are an integral part of the folklore and culture of Guatemala, but I must admit I know very little about them. These traditional dances are so important that many people are documenting, writing and publishing books about them. I happen to know one of them and next time Joel E. Brown, Ph. D. visits Guatemala I will ask him all about them.

In the mean time, please, share with the rest of us whatever you know about these traditional Guatemalan dances.

Here are some words that are part of the vocabulary of Guatemalan Traditional Dances: Rituales y fiestas, trajes y máscaras, Coreología popular and coreografías, Morerías y mascareros, danza del venado, De toritos, La Conquista, El Rabinal Achí, Los 24 Diablos, Danza de los mexicanos, Danza de los negritos, Baile de los gigantes, La Paach, et-cetera. We begin by defining or telling what you know about any of those words.

Sure, you say, the traje indígena is a far out outfit, but are there really symbols encoded in these garments?

Once again, I will let Julia Montoya answer: “An ever present motif is the zig-zag horizontal stripe, which in Kaqchikel is called Kumatz (serpent or snake). There is also the star or flower which has many variations. Sometimes, it is rhombus with central point which repeats itself within a prominent central band, combined, in some occasions, with the vertical zig-zag stripe (which symbolizes the lighting) and with birds motifs. The isolated motifs do not say much, but when they are combined the form a context. Per example: the aquatic birds o migration birds, the stars and the zig-zag lines motifs can suggest contexts of rain and fertility… with red, green and yellow, colors which symbolize fertility and the abundance of maize… Elder women, especially those who are widows, do not use red, but a combination of black, white, lilac, green and blue (colors which are associated with sorrow)… by wearing the huipil (blouse), women placed themselves in the center, like an axis which communicates the heavens, earth and the underworld (Xibalbá in Maya).

Source: Interview to Julia Montoya {ñ}, author of With their hands and their eyes, by Gemma Gil

We will continue with others questions and answers from this fabulous interview in the following days. Stay tune!

Lo que no se conoce no se ama
One can not love what one does not know
— Julia Montoya

Source: Interview to Julia Montoya, author of With their hands and their eyes in Revista Domingo, September 7, 2007 {ñ}

What I admire the most from the indigenous people of Guatemala is their resilience. They have taken everything thrown at them and they have made it theirs with infinite layers of meaning, tradition and history. So you take the Spanish dance Moros y Cristianos (Moors and Christians) brought by the conquistadors and the Spanish Inquisition and the native Guatemalans turned into something that belongs to them with several coats of mysticism, like a chipped wall in Antigua showing its different paint jobs.

These dances look all the same to us ladinos (mixed), but those who study them and know better, the transformed indigenous dances are fountains of knowledge into the Mayan mysticism, symbolism, and cosmology.

For those of us fortune enough to be able to read Spanish, we can access the wealth of articles, interviews and background information about the traje indígena (indigenous dress) available in the past issues of Revista Domingo. With all these archives we can delve into trying to answer some of conflicting feelings, questions and concerns.

Let us begin pues:

Emromesco stated that traditional Mayan dress was practically forced onto the indigenous people of Guatemala in colonial times by landlords. Like always, truth is like a diamond with many faces, and I believe it was more like Stephanie pointed out; the landlord just exploited something that was already happening. Nevertheless, the traje indígena did not existed as we know it now in Pre-Colombiam times. As a matter of fact, as indios were forced to dress up as to not offend the Spanish morality and chastity, the Amerindians of Guatemala saw an opportunity to perpetuate their beliefs through the weaving.

Then MO asked, are the current living Mayas reversing this forced custom? The short and long answer is yes they are. As Julia Montoya explained in her interview, after the new millennium (after Y2L) the Pan-mayanismo emerged as a phenomena in which the indigenous dress stop being an expression of “local identity” and it became symbol of “social identity”. I know this to be true because I have asked the indigenous people that I know from the Antigua market and other places where their traje is from and they have told me that they mix and match from different regions, according to their liking.

I will continue deciphering, to the best of my knowledge, memory and google, what we don’t love because we don’t know… Stay tune!

You’re more than welcome to contribute your comments, questions, doubts, or refutals.

Last week, as we watch the delegations parade at the Beijing 2008 Olympics Inauguration, I was thinking how wonderful it was to see so many different and unique national dresses from the many countries around the world. Some of the delegations opted for a no-frills-western-style tie-shirt-suit formal dress code, while others chose to show off their identity and national pride through unique garments. I did not get to see the 12-member Guatemalan delegation.

This weekend in my way to the market, I had to stop to photograph something that is very common and unusual at the same time: an indigenous school band. I use the word common as I suppose this something that one can come across often while visiting indigenous communities. I use the word unusual because I, myself, have not seen an all-indigenous school band; just to show you how little I know my country.

I have shown Guatemalan school bands before; do you recall? Student marching bands and Student Band’s Practice at Ermita de la Santa Cruz; What about the Peace Accords of 1996; Night Parade on Independence Day; Guatemalan Independence Day 2007 Slideshow, just to bring forth some of the school band snapshots available at La Antigua Guatemala Daily Photo. But, the question is in how many of those photos did you see an indigenous school band?

Recalling a quoted text I snatched from Congo Days and Desde Kinshasa where my epistolary friend Ale talks often about identity:

While thinking about these issues I remembered a great film I saw almost two years ago that touched upon many of these subjects. Sandrine recommended it first and I loved the movie. It’s title in French is Va, vis et deviens (”Live and Become“) and it is a beautiful story that touches upon identity, race, religion, adoption, history and love from one child’s perspective.

Live and become may be one of the approaches by which the indigenous Maya people of Guatemala have kept alive several different ways of being human over the long and arduous 500 years.

This is the first part of a series regarding Guatemalan indigenous dress, traditions and identity. Below, I share with you a small video clip of their practice before marching on toward Calle del Arco.

INDIGENOUS WORD DEFINITION SIDE NOTE: I use the word indigenous in this site as way to describe native Guatemalan Amerindian people, mostly Maya descendants, whom have decided or still maintain their language, culture, traditions and dress (to name a few aspects of identity).

It looks like both teacher and student were having a great time while learning to weave the Guatemalan textile using the back-strapped loom.

Somethings are changing in the Guatemalan lifestyle. Others, luckily, remain the same, like hot-just-out-of-the-oven bread delivery in the rainy afternoons in La Antigua Guatemala.

Here we see an indigenous woman purchasing some pan frances and sweet bread to prepare the afternoon “refa” (short for refacción or snack break), the only refacción some people got in their childhood even though there is also a morning refacción.

The smell of the hot Guatemalan bread can make you stop for a bit from a busy schedule, like it did to me just the other day. I bought a cubilete and one champurrada to dunk in my cup of coffee.

What kind of bread would you buy from the panadero delivery?

It is not unusual to find people selling handicrafts, furniture, orchids, telephones, pens and pencils and anything really; so it comes as no surprise to see an indigenous woman selling paintings with La Antigua Guatemala motifs.

These costumbrismo paintings are done by local painters sitting on small stool right on the streets.

I am sure one day I will find one of my photos as a painting… I know for a fact that’s already happened since a couple of artists from abroad asked permission to use them as reference.

Now, here’s a little surprise I am going to let you in… beginning next Monday, I too will be selling my photos through this site. You will be able to order very affordable signed (or not) 4″x6″, 8″x10″ and 11″x14″ prints in color, black and white or sepia on glossy, matte, luster or metallic paper of any photo available at La Antigua Guatemala Daily Photo. Stay tune for more details or contact me if you just can’t wait.