Robert E.M. Spencer and Dr. John Hawkins, English
With blackness surrounding us both, Oscar stumbled over the words. Here I was living in the highlands of northern Guatemala, in a dirt floor shack, sitting on my wooden board bed, listening to the struggles of a Mayan man trying to read by candlelight. He was the product of’ Mayan tradition, Catholicism, Protestantism, and Mormonism. With such a mixture I wondered what I would discover, what were the stories that shaped his and his family’s lives? Were they traditional stories? biblical? from a new source? or did his semi-literacy create a barrier to his learning of any stories?
I was living with the K’ekcil, a group of Mayan people with a history as rich as the soil they worship. The K’ekchi, a naturally religious people, were never conquered by the Spanish conquistadors due to the inaccessible mountain terrain of their homeland. Rather they were partially converted to Catholicism by Spanish priests. Over the centuries traditional Mayan K’ekchi religion mixed with Catholic doctrine. In the past 20 years political unrest as well as economic advantage caused many K’ekchi to change to Protestant religions.1 With the introduction of Protestantism other Christian religions, such as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or the Mormons, established themselves among these Guatemalan highlanders. Unlike other Christian religions, Mormons introduce a new set of scripture, The Book of Mormon, along with the Bible. Mormonism depends somewhat on the literacy of its members to acquire and understand these new stories, yet the K’ekchi are largely an illiterate society. After serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints among the K’ekchi people and noticing how important religion is to these people who have few diversions other then work and religion, as well as noticing how infrequently The Book of Mormon is used among K’ekchi Mormons, I was interested in finding out what stories are used by Mormon K’ekchi’s to form their identities as compared to Catholics and Protestants. From my previous experience I hypothesized that all three groups Mormon, Catholic, and Protestant retain and combine traditional religion and modern Christianity within their respective ideologies. My hypotheses included the idea that K’ekchi Catholics probably retain more traditional religion due to their long history of practicing mixed Mayan and Catholic doctrine. Catholicism also includes worshiping multiple Saints paralleling the traditional Mayan religious ideas of worshiping multiple deities. Mormons and Protestants, I hypothesized, would basically share the same Christian stories as well as traditional stories because of their common biblical background and rejection of worshiping multiple deities. A factor that would also make Mormon K’ekchi similar to Protestant K’ekchi would be the inability of Mormon K’ekchi to incorporate new stories, such as The Book of Mormon, as a result of illiteracy.
One of my challenges was that I was a North American foreigner invading an almost completely K’ekchi society. The only other North Americans in the area are Mormon missionaries. I would immediately be associated with Mormon missionaries, especially if I were dealing with Mormon families. Once I was associated with the Mormons it would be more difficult to associate with other religious groups because K’ekchi families from other religions might think I was trying to convert them. I overcame this challenge through music, playing the trumpet, and through my friendship with a Mormon K’ekchi man who had many non-Mormon relatives and contacts. I decided to live with a Mormon K’ekchi family for a month and a half and gradually interview, in a non-threatening way, non-Mormon contacts through my friend.
While staying with Oscar and Carmen Rax, a Mormon K’ekchi family in Seamai, and interviewing Catholic and Protestant families, I discovered all religious groups seem to be familiar with three types of stories. The first is what the K’ekchi call their “secretos” or secrets. They are either household remedies such as burning a rubber shoe to scare the vampires away, or warnings for their children, like not going near the plantation owners houses at night “else the Aj K’ek (or black man) will grab you.” Interestingly these “secretos” seem to be based on functional remedies or something that actually happened in the K’ekchi community. The burning rubber shoe releases ic gases preventing vampire bats from nesting in the chicken coop, and the “Aj K’ek” story probably comes from the fact that North American plantation owners during the 1800’s brought black slaves to the area of Senahu scaring the K’ekchi populations.2
The second type of stories deal with worshiping the natural elements. K’ekchi traditional religion supports the idea that mountains and hills are living beings. Any use of a certain hill, whether it be for agricultural purposes or hunting the animals in the area, must be authorized by the spirit that is housed in that hill.3 Catholics seem most active in offering sacrifices to the “Tzultak’a” or mountain spirits, especially in community celebrations such as the local town fair, or agricultural activities such as planting corn. Protestants do not appear as active in offering sacrifices to the “Tzultak’a” yet they still believe planting rituals are important and ask the earth’s permission for a successful crop before planting. Mormons also take part in planting rituals and asking the earth for permission, yet seem to do so praying to God the Father instead of the “Tzultak’a.”
Religious biblical stories are the third type of story all K’ekchi appear to be familiar with. All K’ekchi people seem to know who prominent biblical characters arc such as Abraham and Moses, but only the literate appear to be able to tell specific details about these characters. With a history of over 400 years of telling biblical stories I thought the K’ekchi illiterate in this area would have related more specific details about common Bible stories. Literacy is a key factor among all groups, Catholic, Protestant, and Mormon to remembering and knowing specific details about religious stories.
Aside from these three types of stories, knowledge of new stories in the Mormon community depends on levels of literacy, weekly church attendance, and church leaders who know the stories well enough, either through former missionary service or through their own reading ability, and who can share the stories with other members. In general most women do not read and literacy is measured by the male population. Active literate members (males who completely understand what they read and attend weekly meetings) usually read The Book of Mormon or other LDS literature more than Just in Sunday meetings. Active semi-literate members (males who partially understand what they read) do not usually use LDS literature during the week, but they are able to participate in reading scriptures during Sunday meetings. Active illiterate members (males and females who are not able to read) do not use LDS literature at all during the week and retain very little from hearing stories each Sunday. Inactive literate members usually go to other churches and have a knowledge of Bible stories yet may or may not be familiar with The Book of Mormon. Inactive illiterate members are generally only familiar with Bible stories and do not know any stories from LDS literature.
So are K’ekchi Mormons really Protestants? Literacy and church activity appear to be the determining factor. These elements play a huge role in the success of the use of new stories, such as The Book of Mormon, in the K’ekchi Mormon community. Mormon K’ekchi basically retain the same traditional beliefs and stories as Protestant K’ekchi but not Catholic K’ekchi. Literacy also plays a huge role in retaining any kind of modern Christian story whether Mormon, Protestant or Catholic even after more than 400 years of biblical tradition among the K’ekchi.
References
- Richard Wilson, Maya Resurgence In Guatemala, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, (1995) 232.
- Municipal Records of Senahu, Alta Verapaz, Guatemala.
- Luis Pacheco, La Religiosidad Contemporanea May Kekchi, Quito: Ediciones Abya-Yala (no date given) 64.