Lords Of Atitlan

Movements of peoples and language groups fill the pages of Guatemalan history. Before the arrival of the Spaniards, the Tzutujil and Kaqchiquel repeatedly traded dominion over San Lucas Tolimán and Patulul. The Tzutujil, Kaqchiquel, and Quiché alternately ruled Santa Clara la Laguna. At the time of the Conquest, Chichicastenango (historically Chiavar) was the capital of the Quiché Empire. Chichicastenango remains the heart of the Quiché realm. Chiavar was once the capital of the Kaqchiquel Empire, however. The Quiché conquered Chiavar in the mid-15th century, and the Kaqchiquel reformed their capital at Iximché.

Long before the Spanish Conquest, San Andrés Semetabaj was the lake region´s most powerful city, as evidenced by its large ceremonial center containing seven pyramids buried by vegetation. I´m not an expert and I’ve only seen the pyramids from a distance behind barbed wire, so I can’t attest to their age. But San Andrés is old. Its importance as a crossroads and meeting place of cultures precedes the Maya. A tomb uncovered near the entranceway to San Andrés in the 1970’s is of pre-Classic origin (800-300 B.C.). The tomb belongs to a culture related to Kaminaljuyú, the archaeological site of adobe within the limits of modern-day Guatemala City. San Andrés remains Lake Atitlan´s great melting-pot. At its south-east limit of Godinez and Los Robles, San Andrés connects with Patzún (Chimaltenango), San Antonio Palopó, Santa Catarina Palopó, and San Lucas Tolimán. At its northern edge, San Andrés touches Tecpán (Chimaltenango), Concepción (Sololá), and the Department of Quiché.

Natural disasters, encroachments by the Spaniards upon the communal lands of the Maya, and the resultant search for arable land and available work have been the major impetuses for movements of peoples in the colonial and modern periods. After the 1942 and 1966 earthquakes which devastated Tecpán, many residents of Tecpán moved to San Andrés Semetabaj. Huipiles of San Andrés reflect the style influence of Tecpán. Aldea Panimatzalám and Caserio Tocaché are culturally as similar to Tecpán as they are to San Andrés. Caserio Chuitinamit (los Mendez) is a town of Quiché-speakers. Like the Quiché descendants of Totonicapán who inhabit Aldea Patanatic (Panajachel), Los Mendez ancestors came to Finca Santa Victoria (in their case, from Zacapulas) to pick coffee one December, and stayed.

San Andrés today is linguistically and culturally as much Quiché as it is Kaqchiquel. Chichicastenango´s sphere of influence ever expands. Vendors and buyers from rural Chichicastenango regularly attend San Andrés´ Tuesday market and the Monday, Wednesday, and Friday markets of Godinez. Some of these vendors eventually have taken up permanent residence where they do business. Most new residents to San Andrés speak Quiché and wear the traje of Chichicastenango. Within Chichicastenango, knee-length cortes are the fashion. In rural Chichicastenango, women wear long cortes; the women of Panimaché, longer than others. You´d never know that Chutiestancia, Sucún, and María del Carmen are parts of San Andrés. Almost all their residents share the cultural tradition of Chichicastenango, wear its traje, and speak Quiché.

Hurricane Stan in October 2005 provoked a new incursion of Quiché-speakers to San Andrés. Stan destroyed 44 households within tiny Panimaché Tercero across San Andrés´ border with the Department of Quiché. The affected families moved to a new suburb on a hillside just across from San Andrés´ center, Colonia La Nueva Esperanza. 69 households remained in Panimaché III. The Governor of Quiché, Juan Francisco Lux Lopez, appealed to the people of Tercero. Later he told newsmen, “We came to try to convince the people that they had to leave, and the people are aware of the risks. But for them it is a matter of their culture, of their ancestral lands.”

Normally on July 16 I attend the fair of María del Carmen in Cantón Naranjo, San Antonio Palopó, a place more culturally related to San Lucas than it is to San Antonio. This year I chose instead to go to María del Carmen, San Andrés Semetabaj, to experience the culture of Chichicastenango first-hand. My bus, the Trans Junior, stopped just beyond Caliaj. From there, I would have to walk. The bus dropped me beside a new colonia. I saw a dozen or so provisional houses (tents really), labeled U.S. Aid and Shelter Box. A couple of dozen small houses, constructed of wood or aluminum-sheeting, lay spread out among the stumps of felled pine trees, surrounded by pine forest and cornfields.

People rushed over to greet me. They all knew me. I knew them. Their familiar faces and long cortes gave them away. They were Panimaché III´s survivors of Hurricane Stan. I thought I had heard of all that transpired with Tropical Storm Agatha this May 29, but I knew in a flash that my information must have been incomplete. I asked, already knowing, what happened. On the afternoon and evening of May 29 another 45 houses fell, they told me. Having had more than they could take of falling earth and raging torrents, the people of Panimaché III had decided to abandon their homeland forever. Some moved to Panimaché I. The others bought tiny plots of land from Finca La Victoria, just above their former homes, within the municipality of San Andrés and the Department of Sololá. They call their colonia, La Victoria.

We visited. I took photos. We reminisced about Panimaché III before Hurricane Stan, after, and again after Tropical Storm Agatha. A few friends walked me to a pathway which entered the cypress and pine forests of the finca. There they directed me toward the remains of Panimaché III. We said goodbye. I promised to return. I then walked down to the river to see for myself the complete devastation of a town I once loved. Men from the new colonia armed with Stihl and Husqvarna chain-saws raced past me on their way to harvest lumber. How sad, I thought, that, through such negligent disregard for nature, new colonias will almost certainly beget the need for newer colonias. Mid-way along the trail, I stepped out of the Department of Sololá and stepped into Quiché. I never made it to the fair. But I had caught up with old friends, and I vow never again to abandon the relationship. Panimaché III is now a ghost town, but it will live forever in my heart through my continued friendships with its people, those of Colonias La Nueva Esperanza and La Victoria.

________________________________________
UNifeed online, U.N. Video Library, March 2006, No. 47