Cover page photograph and all Mayan textile photographs are courtesy of Mark and Kevin Dusio.
The Project in Dream Form
Upon learning that Metropolitan Community College instructors would be traveling to Guatemala, Honduras and Belize to view Mayan ruins and participate in Mayan rituals and ceremonies, a desire was sparked in me to research the literature written by Mayan women. I firmly believe that the underlying nuances of life and living can be found in the word tapestries that authors weave together from their personal collection of observations, impressions, dreams and past experiences. I was anxious to experience these writings firsthand.
Before traveling I started phoning the major bookstores in Guatemala City and Antigua, only to find that there weren’t many published Mayan women writers at that time. The few that I might find would be included in feminist newspapers and magazines that highlighted young writers, but these were not readily available nor printed on a regular basis. There is an international association of women’s bookstores, and in La agenda de las mujeres, the Women’s Agenda, published in Madrid, Spain, I found an international listing of women’s bookstores. One of the stores on the list was the 'Librería del Pensativo' in Antigua, Guatemala, a beautiful colonial town at the base of three volcanoes, Fuego (Fire), Agua (Water) and Acatenango. There are many reasons why only a few Mayan women writers had been published at that time. These reasons will become apparent in the following historical and literary overview of Guatemala. The good news is, there are writers to be enjoyed, and their message speaks of love and healing, something we could all benefit from.
Guatemalan History
To better understand the types of literature coming out of this country it is necessary to look at the backdrop of political and social activity.
According to Gail R. Ament, in her doctoral dissertation The Postcolonial Mayan Scribe: Contemporary Indigenous Writers of Guatemala, published in 1998:
“From 1954 to 1996, the Guatemalan military, with considerable financial and technical assistance from the United States, controlled the government, either by holding elections in which all candidates were generals in the armed forces, or, in times of relative calm or of increased pressure from the international human rights community, by allowing a civilian president to function as a front for military control. By the early 1960s, shortly after the Cuban Revolution, the first signs of organized guerrilla activity appeared, under the leadership of two disaffected army officers, leading in the ensuing decades to increasingly brutal counterinsurgency efforts by the armed forces. In 1970 the presidency of Colonel Carlos Arana Osorio secured the institutionalization of terror: in a three-year period, fifteen thousand Guatemalans suspected of sympathizing with the insurgents were murdered or disappeared. The very darkest years of counterinsurgency brutality, however, were from 1977 to 1982, when President Efraín Ríos Montt´s infamous “scorched earth” campaign annihilated villages whose inhabitants were suspected of providing material support for the guerrillas. By the army’s own calculations, some 440 villages were wiped from the map during this period.
In 1982 the various guerrilla forces regrouped. The Ejército Guerrillero de los Pobres (EGP), the Organización Revolucionaria del Pueblo Armado (ORPA), and the Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes de Trabajadores (FAR) joined the military unit of the Partido Guatemalteco de Trabajadores (PGT) to form the umbrella organization known as the Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional de Guatemala (URNG). Revolutionary dogma allowed little space for specifically ethnic considerations, nor did the hierarchical structure allow any notable degree of upward mobility for indigenous guerrillas.
Gail R. Ament, The Postcolonial Mayan Scribe: Contemporary Indigenous Writers of Guatemala, pages 58-59.”
Gail Ament goes on to explain the loss of identity experienced by indigenous individuals who joined these forces and in so doing had to abandon their regional dress, and with it their regional identity. The above groups translate as EGP: The Guerrilla Army of the Poor, ORPA: The Revolutionary Organization of Armed Peoples (pueblo usually denotes the group of people or the community from a town or village), FAR: The Armed Rebel Force of Workers, PGT: The Guatemalan Worker’s Party, URNG: The National Revolutionary Unit of Guatemala. Ament provides more information on the terror experienced in the villages and rural areas where the indigenous live.
“After a coup in 1982 against President General Romeo Lucas García, Efraín Ríos Montt - critical of his predecessors’ crude and ineffective methods- institutionalized the Patrullas de Auto Defensa Civil (PAC) in hundreds of indigenous villages, arming civilian males and commanding them to flush out insurgent elements in their own communities. As a reaction to the extreme and sustained violence being carried out against Mayan communities, numerous grassroots organizations formed within Guatemala, to press their demands for social change. For example, the Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo (GAM)*, the Coordinadora Nacional de Viudas de Guatemala (CONAVIGUA), the Consejo de Desplazados de Guatemala (CONDEG), and the human rights organization Comunidades Étnicas Runujel Junam (CERJ) date from this period. The grassroots movements have seen two of their demands recognized: the disbanding of the paramilitary PAC patrols, and an end to forced recruitment of indigenous youths for thirty months of military service. These groups enjoy a relatively high profile in the opposition press in Guatemala, and have helped to galvanize Guatemalan resistance and the solidarity of international organizations.
*GAM translates as Group for Mutual Support, CONAVIGUA as The National Coordinator for Widows of Guatemala, CONDEG as the Counsel for Homeless Refugees, and CERJ as The Ethnic Communities of Runujel Junam.
Gail R. Ament, The Postcolonial Mayan Scribe: Contemporary Indigenous Writers of Gail Ament summarizes the tumultuous situation of the past 30 years:
The brutality of the military oppression in Guatemala brought harsh condemnation from international civil rights organizations, and the presence of Guatemalan refugees in communities throughout the Western world assisted in the internationalization of the efforts to defend indigenous rights. Scores of foreign organizations, such as Amnesty International, Witness for Peace, Peace Brigades International, and the U.S. Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA), along with educational, governmental, and both progressive and conservative religious organizations, attempted to help buffer indigenous peoples from the genocidal practices of the military, and to assist with material and moral support. In 1992 Rigoberta Menchú, the Mayan organizer and testimonialist, received the Nobel Peace Prize for the indigenous rights campaign that she conducted on an international level while in exile.
*CPR translates as Communities of Resistance Populations
Gail R. Ament, The Postcolonial Mayan Scribe: Contemporary Indigenous Writers of Guatemala, pages 60-61.”
This background influenced the type of literature coming out of Guatemala and the lack of literature that results when a community is under attack and in extreme fear. Armed conflict is used to silence those in disagreement; in this case the silencing went on for over 30 years, and although the Peace Accords were signed in 1996 the terror experienced prolonged the silencing. However, in recent years members of the Guatemalan military have been tried and sentenced for war crimes committed during the genocidal armed conflict. Historical memory re-examines old wounds in an effort to begin the the healing process.