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| . | On Good
Friday in the Tz'utujil Maya town of Santiago Atitlán, two longstanding religious
traditions of the village ritualistically confront one another in public. On this day, the
annual penitents procession commemorates the crucifixion of Christ. Approximately 50 young
Atiteco men dressed in their finest traditional dress emerge from the town's 16th century
cathedral carrying an immensely heavy wooden bier on which rests the Holy Sepulcher
containing the symbolic body of Christ. For the next 15 hours, until dawn of the following
day, they inch slowly forward through village streets that have been decorated, using
vividly colored sawdust and flower petals, with scenes of the life of Christ and other
Catholic imagery. These "paintings" are a collective neighborhood project often
not completed until moments before the procession arrives. When the bier has descended the perilously steep cathedral steps and traversed part way across the church courtyard, the renowned local Mayan idol, Maximon, emerges from his nearby chapel on the shoulders of his tenenel to join the procession. Maximon has been described as a mixture of Saint Peter, Judas Iscariat, and the hated conquistador, Pedro de Alvarado. He is also called "Lord of diviners and daykeepers. . . lord of sexual matters (who) watched over wives when husbands were away, but sometimes slept with them himself. . . the ancient Maya deity, Mam . . the year-bearer. . .the meeting of opposites, the soul of ambiguity."(1) In general, he is a principal symbol of traditional Mayan religious beliefs. In the center of the church courtyard, the two traditions meet and "spectators size them up to decide which of the two is more magnetic—the flamboyant and unregenerate Maximon, with his long history of debauchery, or the martyred Christ, with his dolorous face and colorful funeral cortege."(2) —David Hamilton (1) Time Among the Maya, Ronald Wright, p. 179. (2) Unfinished Conquest, Victor Perera, p. 175. |
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To contact us write: Arte Maya Tz'utuhil, P.O. Box 40391, San
Francisco, CA 94140. Telephone: (415) 282-7654.
Email me at
All paintings and photographs Copyright © 1988–2015 Arte Maya Tz'utuhil |
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