Culture of Guatemala
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The culture of Guatemala reflects strong Mayan and Spanish influences and continues to be defined as a contrast between poor Mayan villagers in the rural highlands, and the urbanized and relatively wealthy mestizos population (known in Guatemala as ladinos) who occupy the cities and surrounding agricultural plains.
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[edit] Mayan influences
Guatemala was (and continues to be) the center of the Maya civilization which extended into neighboring Belize, western Honduras, El Salvador, and southern Mexico. Archaeologists date the origin of a distinct Mayan culture to approximately 1000 BC.
The Maya civilization was one of the most advanced in the New World, which in addition to establishing extensive trade and agriculture networks, had seen the establishment of a complex writing system (see Maya hieroglyphics) and the astonishingly accurate Mayan Long Count calendar. Archaeologists have found extensive pre-columbian ruins which testify to the economic wealth and cultural sophistication of the Maya, including astronomical temples, large ball-courts, and grain storage facilities.
Pre-columbian Mayan society was controlled at the top by a set of royal houses, or families. The ancient religion featured a number of gods, the most prominent being the Corn God, who controlled the fertility of both plants and animals.
[edit] Spanish influence
With the arrival of the Spanish conquistadores, power was transferred to the foreigners, and their mixed-race descendants, the ladino, became the new powerful families of Guatemala. Unlike in much of the rest of the New World, however, the Europeans did not completely marginalize or supplant the indigenous people, but rather formed an uneasy alliance. While Spanish became the official language mandated in schools, the various Mayan languages never died out, and are still widely-spoken throughout the highlands today.
[edit] Textiles
The Maya peoples are known for their brightly colored yarn-based textiles, which are woven into capes, shirts, blouses, and dresses. Each village has its own distinctive pattern, making it possible to identify a person's home town on sight.
[edit] Religion
Roman Catholicism combined with the indigenous Maya religion to form the unique syncretic religion which prevailed throughout the country and still does in the rural regions. Beginning from negligible roots prior to 1960, however, Protestant Pentecostalism has grown to become the predominant religion of Guatemala City and other urban centers and down to mid-sized towns.
The unique religion is reflected in the local saint, Maximón, who is associated with the subterranean force of masculine fertility. Always depicted in black, he wears a black hat and sits on a chair, often with a cigar placed in his mouth and a gun in his hand, with offerings of tobacco, alcohol, and Coca-cola at his feet. The locals know him as San Simon of Guatemala.
[edit] Polarization leading to civil war
1960 was also the approximate start of the long and brutal Civil War which pitted the wealthier urban ladinos against the poorer rural Mayans. Both sides engaged in death squad tactics, although by all counts the losses were far greater on the villagers side as the ladinos controlled the government and the military. The government hit squads were aided by the traditional practice of Mayan villagers wearing distinctive fabrics identifying their home village, allowing the government soldiers to kill suspected anti-government villagers on sight.
The civil war forced moderates and the middle class to either take sides or flee the country, further polarizing the country.
After 36 years of war and approximately 100,000 deaths, a peace agreement was brokered in 1996 and the country has been gradually healing since that time. Understandably, great animosity still exists between rich and poor, Maya and ladino, although they all identify themselves as Guatemalan.
