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

by Robert S. Carlsen, Davíd Carrasco (Introduction), Martin Prechtel (Contributor)

This compelling ethnography explores the issue of cultural continuity and change as it has unfolded in the representative Guatemala Mayan town Santiago Atitlán. Drawing on multiple sources, Robert S. Carlsen argues that local Mayan culture survived the Spanish Conquest remarkably intact and continued to play a defining role for much of the following five centuries. He also shows how the twentieth-century consolidation of the Guatemalan state steadily eroded the capacity of the local Mayas to adapt to change and ultimately caused some factions to reject—even demonize—their own history and culture. At the same time, he explains how, after a decade of military occupation known as la violencia , Santiago Atitlán stood up in unity to the Guatemalan Army in 1990 and forced it to leave town. This new edition looks at how Santiago Atitlán has fared since the expulsion of the army. Carlsen explains that, initially, there was hope that the renewed unity that had served the town so well would continue. He argues that such hopes have been undermined by multiple sources, often with bizarre outcomes. Among the factors he examines are the impact of transnational crime, particularly gangs with ties to Los Angeles; the rise of vigilantism and its relation to renewed religious factionalism; the related brutal murders of followers of the traditional Mayan religion; and the apocalyptic fervor underlying these events.

Genres: Nonfiction

249 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.