Chichicastenango is mainly known for its sprawling central market. People from all parts of the Guatemala Highlands — mostly Maya — come here to buy and to sell. The locals are K’iche’ Maya; for many K’iche’ is their first language and Spanish their second, if they speak it at all.
The market is bustling with activity and bursting with brilliant color. I’m especially fond of the indoor vegetable market. A mezzanine provides a perfect vantage point for taking in the full scope of the scene.
Vegetable Market, Chichicastenango
But there is something here in Chichi, as the locals call it, that intrigues me even more than its colorful market: it’s the blurring of Christianity and traditional Mayan beliefs which is still in full play even today.
As the Spanish missionaries were converting the Maya to Christianity, the priests told them the biblical stories of the life of Christ and of the saints. Often the Maya would hear something that was similar to their own religious myths and say to themselves, “Ah, I know who he’s talking about,” and the two would become one in their minds. So they would worship their old god in what they thought was his new Christian form. Thus, John the Baptist is the Christian form of the rain god; Christ is the Corn God; and Mary is the life force that causes the corn to spring from the earth.
Our first view of this Maya-Christianity is on the steps of the Church of Santo Tomás, which is the oldest church in Guatemala, built in 1540. Its foundations and its steps are the stones and steps of the Mayan pyramid and Sun Temple that occupied the site before the Spanish arrived. On market days, flower sellers fill the steps, while above them, Mayan shamans swing censers of burning resin. Inside, on small stone platforms in the floor of the church, people make offerings of corn, sweets, liquor and candles, praying for good fortune in every life event.
Flower sellers on the steps of the church
A female Mayan shaman burns incense before the door to the church.
Just outside of town on the top of a hill, we find another offering site. Here there is a stone idol called Pascual Abaj surrounded by small crosses. In front of him, offerings are made on circular stone platforms. Along with the sweets, liquor, flowers and candles, he gets the occasional chicken, some blood of which can be seen on the back of his stone head.
Pascual Abaj idol
Our final stop in Chichi is the cemetery. There are many brightly colored family mausoleums above ground. Our guide tell us that the day after All Saints Day, November 2nd, is the Day of the Dead, and each year during the preceding week, the mausoleums are repainted. One is beautifully painted by a professional artist with figures of Our Virgin of Guadalupe.
Mausoleum in Chichicastenango cemetery.
Smoke rises in front of a small chapel just beyond these mausoleums, as offerings are made to the gods of the underworld and probably to the Holy Spirit. A bit like Supplemental Insurance, perhaps; if one doesn’t cover things, the other will.
Postcards from a Traveler 