This book offers a view of the religious, social, and political changes occurring within the Guatemalan Mayan community of Momostenango by comparing traditional festivals to contemporary ones such as the Todos Santos festival, the Costumbria festival, and the Convite festival. Many of these indigenous festivals and ceremonies have become part of the hybrid culture which incorporates traditional Mayan values and themes of spirituality, initiation, and sainthood with modernized notions of competition, egoism, and globalism. The authors argue that instead of viewing the changes as an attack on traditionalism, many of the participants are instilling the festivals with a “shared cultural logic” which combines both the traditional and the modern within Mayan society, a “new expressive culture” (159).
The lead author, Garrett Cook, compares fieldwork material collected between 2005 and 2011 with previous fieldwork from 1976, which was presented in his book, Renewing the Maya World: Expressive Culture in a Highland Town (2000). The post-peasant Momostenango community divides the traditional and local Costumbria festival with the newly-created, political, hybridized, and globally-influenced “Mayan spirituality,” which is seen in the Convites and Disfraces festivals. By looking at both the traditional and contemporary festivals, the authors are able to show the hierarchal divide between the Ladinos, who are European-centric and modern, with the Indians, who represent the local indigenous community. The Ladinos place the local and everything that it values, i.e., tradition, on the bottom rung of the economic/social/political ladder. This book offers an understanding of how the traditional/local and the contemporary/global co-exist in this Momostenango, Guatemala, community.
The local ethnographic approach gives a detailed description of the present festivals: the Costumbria festival, the Convites, the Monkey dance, the Deer dance, and the Disfraces festivals as well as first-hand accounts of the festival participants, sponsors, and audiences. Unlike previous texts on Mayan identity, this book is concerned with how these changes affect individuals, the community, and the Mayan culture as a whole. Previous ethnographic accounts assert that the peasant community has disappeared and globalization has taken over when actually they exist together in one community. By participating in the Mayan festivals, be they traditional like Costumbria or new like Cofradia, individuals are able to connect with their Mayan roots and build an identity, even though it might not be considered authentic.
Chapter 1 gives a historical overview of the patron saint festival, Costumbria, and how it has evolved over the years. The Costumbria festival is heavily influenced by the Catholic Church and has implanted many religious symbols and values throughout the performance, like the honoring of saints. Though the festival is still quite traditional, it has also changed with the addition of superfluous street vendors; the sale of Westernized food such as fried chicken and hotdogs rather than tortillas; pirated DVDs sold on the street; and the performance of K’iche’- style bands with club music that perform near the Catholic church.
Chapters 2 and 3 offer a detailed ethnographic overview of the Cofradia dance group, which includes the Costumbria, the Monkey dance, and the Deer dance, also called the traditional dances or danzas tradicionales. These two chapters give a detailed description of the dance performances as well as personal accounts from local individuals. The Cofradia dances and processions are meant to honor, serve, and worship the ancestors and saints by carrying their representations from the Catholic church to the Cofradia house and then returning them to the church in July and November over two to three days. The Monkey dance, which is not as Catholic-oriented, is a nostalgic performance that relates to the Mayans’ Native American roots. It is considered to be a therapeutic and healing performance similar to Native American medicine societies in which performers became conduits for the spirit world through initiation, communicative dreams, clowning, and the performance of dangerous stunts or pruebas.
In chapters 4 and 5, Rhonda Taube offers insight into the new types of masquerade dances: the Ladino Convites dance and the Disfraces (disguises) dance. These dances are not considered authentic representations of Mayan culture but instead display the “cultural logic” of the new performances (98). The modern Ladino community, which embraces its European heritage more than its Indian heritage, creates an economic, social, and cultural divide that is less about race and more about class. Due to this divide, the Ladinos tend to affiliate themselves more with the Convites dance than the Disfraces to further distinguish themselves as a higher echelon of Mayan contemporary. The Ladinos use Western mass media, their wealth, and knowledge of popular culture to construct a new Mayan K’iche’ identity which is separate from the danzas tradicionales such as the Costumbria dance. For instance, both dances feature Western-style masks with characters from movies, television, popular media, and politics, such as Barack Obama, Predator, Santa Claus, Shrek, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Fidel Castro. In the new Mayan identity, modernity, which incorporates hybridity, is valued more than traditionalism.
This book is a useful addition to research on Mayan identity, politics, and festival. As Garrett Cook, Thomas Offit, and Rhonda Taube note, performances and objects function as cultural markers of a society’s identity (99). Though the Western-style masks used in the Convites and Disfraces dances are considered to be inauthentic by Mayan traditionalists, they are representative of cross-cultural consumption. The new Mayan identity is a derivative of an us versus them, or local versus global construct. The authors do not seem to prefer one side over another but instead offer readers an understanding of both the traditional and the contemporary voices. Ultimately, the Momostenango community has decided to combine their local and global ideologies to construct a Mayan identity that is not limited to tradition but also incorporates new ideas and performances.
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[Review length: 944 words • Review posted on April 16, 2014]