This book is devoted to the Ixil Maya from the Western Highlands of Guatemala. Amidst sacred mountains and caves, coffee plantations, and hydroelectric power plants, the Ixil persistently weave their narratives into the textures of their ancestral lands despite war and genocide. Through an analysis of these narratives, this book seeks to bring the reader closer to the subject of relation-ships that Indigenous Peoples hold with sacred landscapes and the environment. Cultivating those relationships through ritual, ceremony, and communication with earth-beings is part of the spiritual practices described, depending on the context, as Maya spirituality and costumbre. Reflecting on how those relationships and practices are represented in oral tradition, history, and contemporary testimonies, this book hopes to bring closer some of the aspects of the Ixil philosophy of tiichajil (“good life”) and traditional ecological knowledge, particularly that of women Ancestral Authorities.
An important contribution to the redefining of animism within the current extraordinary efforts within ontological turn methods, but also when examining contemporary religious dynamics, analytical work with narratives and the relationship to the landscape. Above all, however, it is excellently processed as a unique non-linear view of the local history. […] It brings completely new data to the field of Maya studies.
Professor Milan Kováč,
Department of Comparative Religion at Comenius University
Monika Banach holds a Ph.D. in Culture and Religion Studies from the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. She is a lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research interests include the intersections of spirituality, environment, gender, ecological spiritualities, and traditional ecological knowledge. Banach has conducted ethnographic research in Peru and Guatemala. Since 2013, she has been involved in various projects in the Ixil region, including sacred landscapes, ontology, and spirituality, as well as being a member of the Chajul Murals conservation project.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
Purpose of the Study and Overview
The Ixil Region: Chajul, Cotzal and Nebaj
Notes on Ethnicity and “Mayanness”
Stories About the Place, Stories About the Landscape
Ethnography with a Disposition Toward the Pluriverse
Methods of Approach
Sacred Landscape of the Guatemalan Highlands
Chapter 1: THE PLACES AND THE RIVERS
K’atchb’al
The Prayer: Four Corners
Mundos
Structure of Authority
The Prayer: Enumerations and Dialog
Offerings and Ceremonies
Speaking with the Mountains
The Mama’
Naguales
The Rivers
Cambio del Año Maya: Costumbristas,
Spiritual Guides and Evangelicals
Chapter 2: B’AYAL I’ AND THE IXIL ANCESTORS
Archaeological Sites
Kamawiil
K’uy Kumam, the Ancestors
Places of Rest
Chapter 3: XE’ NALOJ, THE EMERGENCE OF MAIZE, AND THE APPEARANCE OF TX’OL VINAQ
The Split Place(s)
Naloj, the Ancestral Seeds
Xe’ Naloj, the Cave in Ilom
Tx’ol Vinaq – The First Ixil Ancestor
Congregations
Lacandones
The Four Invasions
Chapter 4: MUJERES DEL BUEN VIVIR: WOMEN ANCESTRAL AUTHORITIES AND LEADERS IN THE IXIL REGION
The Q’imb’al Women
Ixil Conceptualizations of Well-being and Good Life
Problems and Persecutions
CONCLUSIONS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ACRONYMS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
LIST OF MAPS
LIST OF TABLES
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Monika Banach
Monika Banach holds a Ph.D. in Culture and Religion Studies from the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. She is a lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research interests include the intersections of spirituality, environment, gender, ecological spiritualities, and traditional ecological knowledge. Banach has conducted ethnographic research in Peru and Guatemala. Since 2013, she has been involved in various projects in the Ixil region, including sacred landscapes, ontology, and spirituality, as well as being a member of the Chajul Murals conservation project.
