Ritual practice

›right‹ way. Ethics and cosmology are inextricable indissoluble« (1993: 178). Following this understanding, an important role of rituals is to symbolically restore and maintain the cosmic order or the ›order of life‹. At the same time, rituals can be seen as what Berkes et al. describe as »mechanisms for cultural internalization« (2000: 1256).

Knowledge and social institutions require such mechanisms, so that learning can be encoded and remembered by the group. Rituals, which are a visible cornerstone of Mayan spirituality and express the reciprocal relationship that the peasants try to maintain with nature, help the people remember the values and rules of their society.

Among the Q'eqchi', rituals mark significant points in the cultivation cycle. Foremost, agrarian rituals practised at the time of site selection, slashing, sowing, weeding and harvesting are integral to the interaction between humans and the natural world.

These expressions of the indigenous cosmovision are also interlinked with other sub-sistence activities. Through rituals, which are inseparable from everyday knowledge of fertility and health, the social, economic, spiritual and cosmological spheres of the Q'eqchi' are intimately related. In the following, the focus will centre on agrarian rituals.

In addition, there are numerous other rituals practised at particular occasions such as birth, marriage and death. There are healing rituals and rituals performed at festive oc-casions of religious significance such as the local patron saints' days. Further specific ceremonies are carried out, for instance, to inaugurate a new construction or when droughts or floods threaten the milpas. The »exchange of spiritual food« between hu-mans and spirits, as Dudley and Balée (2005: 621) have termed the principle of recip-rocity, becomes obvious in the agrarian rituals practised among the Q'eqchi', as will be shown in the following.⁵¹

5.2.3 Ritual practice

Each culture has its own core symbols. (Wilson 1990: 41)

Certain phases of the cultivation cycle pertaining to site selection, slashing and burn-ing, plantburn-ing, weedburn-ing, clearing and harvesting are accompanied by particular ceremo-nies. The central ritual in this context, the so-called *mayejak, is a ceremonial expres-sion of particular importance within the realm of customary practices. It is directed at the earth deity *tzuul taq'a, which has been defined by Wilson (1995: 53) as a »core im-age« of the Q'eqchi' culture.⁵² The mayejak forms a central part of a shared system of community worship. It is an obligation that needs to be fulfilled in order to ensure a

51 For writings dealing with ritual practice, see the studies by Wilson (1995), Parra Novo (1997) and Cabarrús (1998). For a general account dealing with ritual knowledge, see Jennings (2003). The study Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity by Rappaport (1999) is also to be emphasised here.

52 In the literature, the term mayejak is commonly translated as ›sacrifice‹ or ›offering‹. Literally, tzuul means mountain, taq'a means valley. The term tzuul taq'a exemplifies a phenomenon that Cajete (2001) described when referring to indigenous languages that are replete with environmentally de-rived references based on the kind of natural characteristics and experiences people have had living in close relationship with their landscape.

good harvest and the protection from the guardian spirit of the hills and the valleys, as one of the elders of San Benito explained. If not performed, the growth of the crops will be threatened and the harvest diminished. In the words of another informant, »the tzuul taq'a is like a God who provides water so that the crops may grow, like a couple, man and woman at once. Before planting, harvesting or cutting timber we ask for permission by praying to the tzuul taq'a« (field notes, 2003). All of nature, including the land, forest, plants, animals and springs, is considered the property of the tzuul taq'a. In other field conversations, farmers expressed their belief that the tzuul taq'a resides in mountain caves, providing water, crop and soil fertility. They explained that any action that threatens the beings owned by the tzuul taq'a is prohibited and even punished. Interventions such as plant-ing, harvestplant-ing, huntplant-ing, fishing or gathering forest products may be followed by nega-tive consequences if not conducted ›in the right way‹, which implies the need to ask permission of the deities. These have, according to Wilson (1990), two main functions in rituals: to give license and to participate in the renewal of fertility. As they provide human health and crop fertility, the Q'eqchi' create a reciprocal relationship with the tzuul taq'a through sacrificial offerings. As mentioned, sacrifice is a major element in the cosmovision. It is done in order to »renew the cosmos« (Carrasco 1990: 153). The ceremonial rejuvenation of time, human life, agriculture and the gods is done by sym-bolically retracing the cosmic image of the centre and the four quarters. In this way it is believed that sacrifice establishes and maintains the relationship of balance between humans and the local landscape. Or as Wilson (1995: 88) formulates it, it symbolically

»inscribes« the land tenure of the community and individual households onto the landscape. According to Wilson, the tzuul taq'a ties together various cultural domains encompassing human and agricultural fertility, gender, health care and ethnicity. In his view, it is a recurring symbol that disappears and emerges reinvented in each strategic context and should be seen as a fluid and continually redefined figure, rather than a legacy of an ancient past. By referring to its dualistic nature, he further explains:

The mountain spirit is both male and female, mother and father, good and evil, deity and demon, spirit and matter. S/He unifies the earth and the sky, controlling events on land, as well as the movements of the celestial deities. His/her character is authoritarian and open to manipulation.

S/He is both kind and vicious, but always unpredictable and capricious. The Tzuultaq'a figure en-velopes all ethnicities, being a Mayan and a Ladino. Yet these dualities always appeal to a greater whole, as twin aspects of a unitary vision of the sacred (1990: 3f.).

In the rural communities, the ›mountain cult‹ is highly localised. The tzuul taq'a who resides in mountains located near the villages are individually named and believed to be the true owners of the landscape. Although the Catholic concept of God may have determined aspects of institutional and ritual life, it is not essential to the everyday life of the people. This is governed, as Wilson writes, by the tzuul taq'a who are perceived as »god's sentinels here on earth, guarding the fruits of creation from human abuse«

(1995: 68). For Siebers (1996), the idea of the tzuul taq'a is related both to the central mountains in the Q'eqchi' heartland and to the more general idea of the natural

ronment. As they control the land and all who dwell upon it, both the central and the local tzuul taq'a symbolise power. Similarly, Hernando Gonzalo denotes that the tzuul taq'a »is not just the god to whom everything belongs, the source of all order […] not a category separate from the manifestations of nature, but nature itself« (1999: 260; em-phasis added).⁵³

In conversations about this realm, informants often used the Spanish term costum-bre. If they comply with their customary obligations, the tzuul taq'a would reward them with abundance and protection. As to the cultural importance of the mayejak, a farmer said: »Lo más importante es que da la tierra […] lo hacemos para que no termine la vida.« Of primary importance is that the earth provides. The customs need to be performed to assure the continuity of life. A good harvest, protection from plagues and the health of the crops all depend on good relations with the tzuul taq'a. The same informant ex-plained that the mayejak is performed both by single households as well as by the community as a whole. In the previous year, he recalled, the yields had been poor be-cause the community could not agree on performing the mayejak at village level.⁵⁴ The individually practised ceremony is realised at the beginning of the milpa cycle to ask the tzuul taq'a for permission to sow. In the night before the planting, the head of the family puts the seed on the house altar. Accompanied by prayers, candles and *copal pom⁵⁵ are burnt and chicken soup, cocoa or tamales are offered to nurture the seeds.

This »feeding the seed«, which is called *wa'tesink, has the function of reactivating the life of the spirit of the maize to let it grow well (Siebers 1994: 226). The next morning, the farmer goes to the plot to be cultivated and burns candles and copal pom. He then sows the first few seeds and puts some cocoa and meat or blood of a chicken or tur-key on the ground at the centre of the field, thereby asking the tzuul taq'a to protect the seeds and the plants. Then the sowing can begin with the help of a group of neighbours and friends. When the whole milpa has been sown, the group shares a meal prepared in the meantime by the wife of the milpa owner.

According to Flores Arenales (1999), the maize planting ceremony is one of the most important annual ritual activities and ensures not only the economic reproduc-tion of the household unit but also renews bonds of kinship and friendship through labour reciprocity and collective celebration. While talking about this procedure, an in-formant explained the meaning of the above mentioned symbolic elements, to which the Q'eqchi' attribute particular significance. First of all, copal pom, which is burned at almost any ceremony, is said to serve as a ›messenger‹ to carry the prayers to the tzuul taq'a, the saints and to God. Candles, symbols for light and life, if positioned in the centre of the field, represent the heart of the milpa. Departing from the centre, the

53 For an early ethnographic account describing the beliefs and prayers directed towards the tzuul taq'a, see Sapper (1998 [1904]). More recent insights into this cultural realm have been provided by Parra Novo (1997).

54 In regard to appropriate timing, Grünberg (2000) mentions that the elders dream of the tzuul taq'a and seek advice when the activities and rituals have to be carried out.

55 Copal pom is a dried and hardened resin obtained from the tree pomche' (Protium copal). As a ritual purifier it is widely used for sanctifying any space and expunging bad spirits.

four cardinal directions, associated with different colours, indicate the integral world-view. Flowers are signs of wealth, natural abundance and the human-nature relation.

Cacao is another sacred symbol that stands for harmony and peace. Animals like chickens and turkeys are associated with death and transformation for generating new life. Blood is a substitute for death, life and passion. Combined with the rituals are be-havioural regulations and taboos like abstinence, fasting and avoiding certain food items. As one of the elders in San Benito said, they practice sexual abstinence thirteen days before and thirteen days after the mayejak takes place. If these codes are ignored, the harvest will be poor or damaged by animals. Likewise, misbehaviour can cause human illness as the life cycle of crops and humans are believed to be intertwined.⁵⁶

Unlike Siebers (1996), who observed that such practices were not relevant for cash crops, the mayejak, as performed by the farmers we worked with in San Benito, had also been adapted to newly introduced crops such as cardamom. A farmer commented on this practice: »Hay que hacer un mayejak para que sale el cardamomo, para que cresca, se sana. Si no hacen mayejak no sale y viene enfermedad. Eso es costumbre.« In his experience, a mayejak was necessary for the cardamom to grow well. Otherwise, the plants would not thrive and would be likely threatened by disease. This is custom, as he asserted. By contrast, an informant in Roq-há said that the mayejak was done exclusively for traditional crops like maize and beans. Since Roq-há is quite diverse in religious terms, he reported that only the 15 Catholic families in the village would practice the ritual. In reference to the protestant families, he commented: »Los creyentes nunca hacen mayejak« – the believers never do mayejak (field notes, 2003).⁵⁷ Among evangelical families, Siebers (1994) observed that God often substituted for tzuul taq'a. At the planting of maize, for instance, most of them did not perform customary rituals as described, but felt the need to pay ritual attention to this particular moment, to ask God for protection and a good harvest.

Among the Catholic community members to whom we talked, other collective rituals were performed by the eldest men and women at particular sites of worship such as lagoons, riverbanks, mountain tops or caves. The latter are considered to be sanctuaries, as it is believed that the tzuul taq'a reside therein and guard the forest ani-mals and control the climate, as an informant from the highland community of Xu-caneb explained. At the time of sowing, elder members of the community would go to a cave to pray for a good harvest. Again, it is essential to provide copal pom, candles, cacao beans, and animal blood to the land and the spirits of the elements. Likewise in Roq-há, where five days before the seeding of maize takes place, a group of ten male elders would go to the mountain. Women are not involved, because »the way to the cave is difficult, there are many rocks, mud, ascents and steep descents«, as was explained by one elder informant. By contrast, in San Benito, women were said to participate in ceremonies held at such mountain sites. In both communities, the elders gather in the village

56 Most of the cultural codes and taboos (*awas) are idiosyncratic and particular to each community (Wilson 1995: 109).

57 For an account of the history of the Catholic Church in Alta Verapaz and the influence of Protes-tant churches on traditional patterns of Q'eqchi' culture, see Wilson (1995: 158ff.).

chapel, called ermita, in the night before going to the mountain. The ceremony consists again of prayers and offers.⁵⁸ On such occasions, Siebers notes that all those who are considered to be important in the universe are addressed, »including God, the known Tzuultaq'as, the saints, the air, the moon, the sun, the village, nearby villages, the priest, the bishop, the pope, the trees, the animals and so on« (1994: 223). Here, it be-comes obvious that the rituals are religious expressions in which elements of pre-Hispanic and Christian origin merge. Wilson refers to such syncretic patterns in terms of a »fundamental unity of the sacred« (1995: 79). He further comments:

The mediating role of the mountain spirit might suggest that God and the tzuultaq'as are separate, but I tend toward the view that they are overlapping and indivisible. When asked how many gods there are, traditionalists had varying replies, from ›only one‹ to ›dozens‹. The issue is a nonissue for them, and they change their answers from time to time. The supernatural is one complex, and the fig-ure within it express only different aspects of the whole (1995: 79).

This observation also applies to the significance of saints within the religious realm.

As the following picture (Fig. 5.14) illustrates, Catholic families have commonly in-stalled an altar in their home consisting of images most often adorned with flowers, where candles and incense are burned on special occasions. The saints and other fig-ures from the Christian tradition are invoked alongside deities such as the tzuul taq'a.

Both occupy a similar discursive position in that they mediate between the land and the sky, the people and their God (Wilson 1995: 60).

Fig. 5.14 Religious practice involves the veneration of saints

58 A detailed description of rituals related to the planting of maize is given by Carter (1969: 71ff.).