Richard Lynn Paul, Department of Anthropology
A number of transformations have occurred through the centuries for all Mayan peoples. Some transformations affect only a single area of life while others are major transformations that affect several areas of Mayan lifestyle. These great displacements are turning points during which many cultural beliefs and practices are lost.
The theoretical and historical perspective I am working from is that the first great displacement of Mam Mayan culture occurred with the conquest. Mayan ideas and practices were oppressed and Hispanic practices were forced upon the indigenous peoples. During the next 450+ years there was a mixing, a syncretism, of Hispanic and Mayan beliefs and practices as the Mayans resisted some changes and continued to practice many beliefs in hiding. The second great displacement of cultural ideas and practices is occurring for each community at distinct moments. In Comitancillo, Department of San Marcos, Guatemala, it is now occurring.
The youths of Comitancillo are adopting a new culture, similar to the waves of new practices that occurred here in the United States with the Beatles and Rock and Roll. One may ask: “Are they adopting the emerging world culture, largely inspired by the United States?” Some Guatemalan communities have. When laborers have immigrated to the United States to work and returned to Guatemala they have taken North American ideas and products off the department-store shelves with them. However the Mam Mayan youth of Comitancillo have not been copying this world culture; they have been copying the northern Mexican culture of both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border.
They are listening to Tex-Mex music and dressing in the jeans and leather jackets, with accompanying dangling key chains. They are slicking back their hair in copied hair styles. The electronics products from Japan that are popular in Mexico are in high demand. Any northern Mexican fad, such as buying products with English brand names, is popular. Displacement is also occurring in Mam-Mayan schools. They are being swamped with Hispanic literature and the ideas contained in the Guatemalan national curriculum. Despite the fact that some schools teach Mam, most youths take more pride in the Spanish culture which allows them greater access to the Guatemalan and Mexican communities at large.
Due to the above changes in dress, dance, and music a previously nonexistent generation gap is opening up. Parents are puzzled by the transformations in their children. The youth’s beliefs and actions are much different than their own. This generation gap has hastened changes that were already occurring in social interactions between the elderly and the youth. The remnants of “traditional” greetings, salutations, and forms of touching, remembered to be widespread only by the grandparents’ generation, are now being overthrown by the Western handshake and a simple “Good day.” Even the “Good day” has long been spoken in Spanish, rather than in Mam.
The displacement of Mayan beliefs within Catholic religious practice has nearly been completed within a quarter century, slower than the other transformations. but astounding when one considers the four and a half centuries during which these ideas were followed. Within 26 years the priest, Padre Jose Carrera Mejia, has removed several Mam-Mayan Inspired rites from the mass as celebrated In Comitancillo. For example, he used to pray to the four directions from the middle of the chapel. but now prays only from the altar area. (Incidentally. the chapel was built on an ancient site which was holy to the Mam Mayan ancestors. Modern Mam Mayan priests now use another nearby mountain for their “traditional” liturgies and offerings.) The Virgin Mary until recently was dressed in traditional Mayan clothing. but that has been changed to modern garb, a blue dress with lace. The bishop seems to be the motivating force behind many of the recent changes.
Agriculture is one area that has benefitted from technology without transforming the older belief system. The hose has allowed new sections of the hillsides to be reached and greater sections of the mountains are now terraced. Chemical. store-bought fertilizers have supplemented or replaced cow manure for many farmers. These changes have brought much needed food to a quickly growing population.
Thus. for the Mam Mayans of Comitancillo this major transformation dwarfs all others except that which occurred with the conquest. As radio stations, television. cable television, paved roads and other technologies continue to penetrate daily life in Comitancillo, this transformation is bound to speed up.