The War for the Heart and Soul of a Highland Maya Town: Revised Edition

by Robert S. Carlsen

"A vivid, complex, and concise portrait of cultural continuity, social cohesion, and conflict in a town of Tzutujil Maya-speaking people of Guatemala.... Carlsen launches into an exploration of the capacity of these people to persist through centuries of oppression and of the culture to survive and regenerate even under circumstances of extreme violent repression.... a novel and eminently readable approach to local-level social and cultural history." —Choice "Carlsen's descriptions of rituals and beliefs are extremely valuable and detailed... and will be particularly useful to students of the ancient and modern Maya." —Linda Schele After a decade of military occupation known as la violencia , the Tz'utujil-speaking Maya of Santiago Atitlán stood up to the Guatemalan Army in 1990 and forced it to leave their town. Yet that act of solidarity did not close the widening internal divisions that threaten to destabilize the community from within. Ironically, after 500 years of resistance to physical and spiritual conquest, many Atitecos now seem eager to abandon traditional Mayan culture. In this compelling ethnography, Robert S. Carlsen explores the issue of cultural continuity and change as it has unfolded in this representative Mayan community. Drawing on documentary evidence, he argues that local Mayan culture survived the Spanish Conquest remarkably intact and continues to play a defining role in the religious and social life of the community. At the same time, however, he shows how the twentieth-century consolidation of the Guatemalan state has steadily eroded the capacity of Mayan communities to adapt to change and has caused some local factions to reject—even demonize—their own culture. This book reflects fifteen years of field research in Atitlán, where Carlsen learned Tz'utujil, was accepted into a local cofradía (Mayan/Catholic religious society), and was a first-hand witness to la violencia . It thus presents a rare insider's perspective.

Genres: Nonfiction

227 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[Don · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author is my college mentor and a personal friend of Beatified Stanley Rother. The text is an anthropological study of the people of Santiago Atitlan, and their role in modern Maya transculturation. Definitely worth the read. I haven't read it in years, and will re-read and post a more thorough review.

[Fran Caparrelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book to be fascinating though I didn't think I would when I first started. It is pretty topic specific and I wondered if I would have to get a degree in anthropology to understand it. But, I went on to read a few other books about the area and the subject because of the Carlsen book.