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We had just left the cofradia where a child had led us to see the local idol, Maximon, and were wending our way through the twisted dirt streets of Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala.
Our path took us downhill along narrow streets, through the marketplace with its rickety booths roofed in blue plastic sheeting, and across the packed-earth main square of town. There was a toddler-sized, motorless Ferris wheel that a man spun by hand as children queued up for a ride. To our right was a large white stucco church, its farcade without adornment save the string of Christmas lights above the arched door. A rounded stone staircase led to the entrance. We decided to explore.
Inside we found that the church was spacious with a high ceiling and ranks of plain wood pews facing the simple altar. Figures of saints stood guard on ledges along the side walls, each dressed in colorful cloths and silk scarves. Here and there, plaster peeled from the wall, revealing the remnants of a painted fresco beneath. In an arched apse, the plain altar was draped with typical Guatemalan striped fabric.
But behind the altar was an enormous, magnificent wooden retablo or altarpiece, exuberantly carved with figures and scenes and decorative trim. Two smaller companion-pieces flanked it to right and left. We spent a long time studying the retablo, trying to understand the scenes it depicted.
Christenson, of Brigham Young University, has worked and lived among the Atitecos for several years. He is a trained Daykeeper, one who can perform rituals and divinations using the ancient Maya calendar. He is well-versed in the pre-Columbian records left to us by the ancient Maya in their monuments, their architecture and their artifacts, and is thus highly qualified to discern the connections that the modern-day Tz'utujil Maya of Santiago Atitlaan are making with their forebears. It is apparent, though, from hearing him speak that to Christenson this is not merely an academic pursuit or some anthropological foray into the quaint customs of third-world peoples. Instead, he speaks with passion and conviction, with the voice of one who knows and loves the Tz'utujil as people.
What Christenson finds in Santiago is a thriving culture practicing rituals rooted in ancient Mayan civilization and grafted onto post-Conquest Christianity. Many of the practices and beliefs that appear on ancient stelae live yet today in the hillsides of Guatemala, where every year the life-sustaining ceremonies evoke the continued blessings of ancestors and ancient spirits. Some of these traditions are played out on the retablo, as Christenson explains.
The wood altarpiece, dating from the early Colonial period, had
deteriorated and eventually collapsed during an earthquake in 1960. The
pieces had been stored until 1975, when parish priest Father Francisco Rother
commissioned two local woodcarvers to restore it. Diego Chavez Petzey and
his brother, Nicolas Chavez Sojuel, imbued the retablo with figures and
symbols that confirm Santiago Atitlan as "the navel of the earth."Trees are carved along the side edges of the roughly triangular retablo to convey the sense of a sacred mountain where, Atitecos believe, shamans communicate with the gods and ancestors. Christenson notes that niches in the retablo, holding figures of saints, become the cave shrines of the very mountains that surround the village where shamans perform rituals born of ancient traditions. The Chavez brothers added figures of shamans climbing up a rocky path. Crowning the central piece, the artists carved a ceiba tree, the World Tree of the Classic Maya period that is raised to lift the sky and allow life to flourish on earth. The altarpiece thus becomes the sacred mountain.
Nicolas told Christenson that the twisted columns that coil along the sides of the altarpiece are the serpents that guard the sacred caves. The pre-Columbian Maya monuments are rife with serpents which hold deep meaning throughout Mesoamerica. Royal leaders communicated with the gods through "vision serpents," as on the magnificent lintels of Yaxchilan; and the sarcophagus of Hanab Pacal at Palenque shows the king descending through the jaws of a serpent to the Underworld. An altar at Copan depicts the White Bone Snake, the path of death and reemergence into the spirit world. Further, Christenson notes that the twisted serpents along the retablo reflect the belief that an umbilicus connects us to the gods and replenishes life. Atitecos consider their village to be "the navel of the earth," the place where this great spiritual umbilicus connects to the present world.
The central retablo, together with the two smaller side pieces, vividly symbolize the three volcanoes - the three hearthstones - that surround Santiago Atitlan. To the left of the altar is a life-sized crucifix with a figure of Christ dressed in a beaded net garment - the same net skirt of jade beads worn by the Maize God in the pre-Columbian monuments of the great Mayan cities. Behind the cross, in a crude painting of the village, faded and stained by decades of incense smoke, lightning bolts flash out of dark clouds that hang above the three volcanoes. According to Tz'utujil legend, lightning breaks open the germinating maize seed and allows it to grow and flourish. In ancient Mayan beliefs, lightning was the force that cracked open the portal to the underworld allowing the Maize God to re-emerge. The Atitecos have thus embossed their pre-Columbian iconography into their parish church.
Into this cavity during the week before Easter, shamans place a life-sized figure of the crucified Christ and make offerings of turkey's blood and "virgin water" drawn from the center of Lago Atitlan. Just as Easter represents the resurrection of Christ in the Christian world, the Tz'utujil have adapted the Catholic customs to fit their own traditional beliefs in the rebirth of the Maize God.
Throughout Mesoamerica, Mayans often take the statues of their saints from the church in ceremonial processions through the town. The retablo of Santiago Atitlan is too massive to be moved, but Christenson tells us how the Atitecos create a portable replica of rough-hewn wood planks supported by twisted columns-the same type of twisted columns on the altarpiece. These are lashed together with twisted ropes reflecting the serpent/umbilicus imagery, and the framework is festooned with cypress boughs, bromeliads and other plants. The monument becomes a foliated replica of the enormous retablo. Through weeklong ceremonies, the Tz'utujil reenact the renewal rites to restore power to the retablo and life to the world.
Outside of the church, a small domed shrine is built in the plaza. Here Christenson says that a powerful shaman-priest places a carved wood figure called Mam, or Maximon (meaning "grandfather" or "ancient one") into this framework and copious offerings of liquor, cigars, fruits and incense are made. Mam is a powerful underworld deity, so he is not taken into the church - Christenson tells me that would be "frightening" because the church is the sactuary of saints and sacred mountains. Mam is kept outside, beyond the church steps in the flat open space of the plaza which, now as in pre-Columbian times, was considered symbolic of the "black water, bitter water," the primordial sea. There always has been a twofold nature to Mayan deities, although their gods weren't necessarily all good or all evil. Hence, offering tribute to an underworld spirit like Maximon is not seen as contradictory to paying homage to the deities who dwell in the church.
Since the Spanish conquest, the Catholic Church has generally been liberal in allowing, or at least tolerating the Maya interweaving their traditional images and rituals with Christian symbols. Perhaps the Maya adapted so readily to Catholicism because so many of Christianity's beliefs and icons - the crucifix, the Trinity, the multitude of saints - echoed basic tenets of the Mayan religion: the World Tree, the Maize God/Itzamna/First Father deity, and the panoply of gods. Rather than prohibit the enactment of sacrificial rituals and the use of native iconography, the monks and friars tolerated the implementation of these ancient traditions. Maybe because of this, these practices and beliefs are alive yet today in the hillsides of Guatemala.
I think I can begin to understand the scene depicted on the recessed panel. In the center, beneath a thatched shelter, is a figure dressed in the old-fashioned short pants and banded hat that was once the fashion in Santiago Atitlan. He is hoisted on some sort of wooden stake, I guess to raise him and make it easy to carry him about town in a procession. This must be Mam, the Ancient One who is honored during Easter Week. Before him lie several jars and bundles, the offerings that will induce him to bless the village with renewed vitality.
Several villagers approach the figure bearing offerings, and to the left are three figures wearing deerskins, the antlered heads like masks atop their heads. I remember seeing a stack of deerskins in the cofradia, and now I see how they are used. I learn from Christenson that the deer-dance is performed to honor San Martin, the lord of life-giving deities and saints in Santiago Atitlan. Behind the figures are more thatched-roof shelters and a pair of stone arches, probably the arches of this very church. Framing the whole scene are ranks of twisted bands, the serpents that are so significant in both ancient and modern traditions.
Susan Hoffman is an impassioned traveler and an accomplished attorney. She wishes to thank Allen Christenson for generously sharing his insights and for his most helpful suggestions on this article. Susan also contributed the Temezcal article to Planeta in 1998. She can be reached via email.
Eco Travels in Guatemala Exploring the Mundo Maya
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