Todos Santos

Due to the elevation of their village, the people subsist on a somewhat vertical economy. They grow corn and beans at lower elevations and cultivate potatoes at higher elevations. They also herd sheep, a source of meat as well as wool. On market day, families hike four to five hours to the center of Huehuetenango (Sitler 1999). There they sell produce and crafts. At the market, Todosanteros are able to purchase other crops with which to supplement their diet, such as bananas and coffee. Also, women sell their carefully manufactured huipils (known as klboj in Mam) and the men sell their elaborately crocheted handbags (pa' in Mam).

Most of the Mam of Todos Santos Cuchumatan consider themselves to be Catholic, however today about one third of the native population belongs to recently formed Protestant denominations (Sitler 1999). Despite the influence of Christianity, whether Catholicism or Protestantism, traditional aspects of Maya cosmology permeate their lives. For instance, much religious responsibility and influence is vested in the hands of the chiman (Oakes 1951): "The chiman is a soothsayer. Divination is at the base of everything he does" (178). In Mam, chiman means shaman, priest, grandfather, and ancestor. The chiman oversees the religious life of the Mam from birth to death. If a woman believes that she has become pregnant "the chiman prays for the woman and child-to-be at three places at the cross outside the church, at Cumanchun, and at his own table" (ibid: 41). Here one sees a wonderful example of the combination between Christianity and traditional Mayan religious beliefs. The chiman not only prays at the church but he also prays at Cumanchun, a local Mayan ruin. Indeed, Oakes states, "several Indians told me that it used to be the custom to leave the body of the dead all night on the pyramid at Cumanchun, the one that stands on the west side of the crossesŠ" (Oakes 1951: 50-51). Further, "when a chiman dies, one of his pupils takes all the dead man's equipment, including his table, stool, guitar, mixes crystals, fetishes, jicaritas and gourds, and lays it all on the top of the pyramidŠ" (Oakes 1951: 51).

As the name Todos Santos may indicate, the village is known for its celebrations of All Saint's Day (Oakes 1951, Sitler 1999). The fiesta features a tremendous horse race called corrida de gallos, or rooster race. After mass, the racers, dressed in their best costumes, assemble on the main road. They wear red bandanas around their heads and over their mouths, red ribbons are wrapped across their chests and arms, and sashes hang from their waists. The object of the race is to see how many chicken heads each team can pull off the ropes which are stretched across the road. Dancers also characterize The Festival of Todos Santos. They dance in elaborate rented costumes, and dance all day in front of the church.

The people of Todos Santos were severely persecuted by Guatemala's counterinsurgency campaigns in the 1970s and 1980s (Perera 1993). In 1982, the Guerrilla Army of the Poor (EGP) occupied Todos Santos and hoisted their flag over the municipality. The Guatemalan army saw this as a blatant aggravation and subsequently marched into Todos Santos and systematically executed "subversives" whose names were provided by informants. Some Todosanteros were tortured and many women were raped by soldiers. Those Todosanteros who fled into the mountains in order to avoid this vicious onslaught returned to find many of their loved ones dead and many of their houses and cornfields burned. Between the late 1970s and early 1980s, at least two hundred residents of Todos Santos were murdered by the army in order to halt further support to the guerrillas. Consequently, many survivors fled to Mexico, where several thousand still reside in refugee camps. Now, many men of Todos Santos are persuaded to become members of the civil patrol. The civil defense patrol trains and arms Todosanteros to protect their village from guerrillas. As a result, there is increasing conflict within the village between members of the civil patrol and those who see this institution as a tool of the Ladino government, a government that is blamed for the atrocities which occurred during Guatemala's bloody civil unrest.