Thursday, March 08, 2007
Hatfields vs McCoys
My assignment here is to work with the Municipality (this term describes a region which, in the USA, would be equivalent to a County) of Santa Catarina Ixtahuacán. Sta.Cat.Ixt. is shaped rather like a fat football, oriented north-south. A fanciful story tells the tale how, 131 years ago, a falling out between Miguel Salquill and Manuel Tzoc led to half the population marching off and forming what became the Municipality of Nahualá. The story of their disagreement, according to an internet posting from Nahualá, goes like this:
Miguel Salquill was elected Governor of Santa Catarina Ixtahuacán. He played the marimba , drank liquor, and “introduced vices” on Saturday and Sunday, according to the views of Manuel Tzoc, who was the “principal cantonal” at the time. When the Church was damaged by an earthquake, Salquill wanted to repair it, but Tzoc wanted to tear it down and rebuild. This became a disagreement that could not be resolved, and it led to a bloody armed conflict at Pacaja (located between Chirijox and Racantacaj). The Gov’t of Gen. Barrios had to intervene, and declare the separation of Nahualá and Sta.Cat.Ixt. Miguel and Pascual Salquill were arrested and jailed in Santa Lucia Utatlan, while Manuel Tzoc was arrested and jailed in Quetzaltenango. The Salquills then sent a man from Totonicapán and a mulato with two heads (one human, the other animal) to kill Tzoc. The mulato opened the door to the jail and challenged Tzoc to a fight if he was truly strong. He entered the jail, found Tzoc, and gave him two blows to the head. Tzoc fell back, then escaped in the shadows and darkness, and changed into a “Culawicot” (an monstrous dragon with two faces) and came back to beat up the mulato badly, grabbing him and throwing him to the ground. After this, Tzoc was believed to have the power of more than one man. Several years later the Municipality of Nahualá was created, with Tzoc as its elected leader.
How can you contradict a story about a Culawicot? But Victoriano Guachiac, my authority on local customs and history and my Spanish teacher, assures me that this story is patently false and the disagreement between Salquill and Tzoc was based on their competition for a very attractive woman. But then, he lives in Santa Catarina Ixtahuacán.
The national maps of Guatemala show Nahualá completely bordering Sta.Cat.Ixt. on both the north and west. However, Sta.Cat.Ixt. claims all the land to the west and a good portion of the land to the north. Indeed, the national maps would place the new town of Sta.Cat.Ixt. that contains the seat of its government well inside the border of Nahualá. Adding to the confusion, towns claiming allegiance to either of these Municipalities are mixed together all along the northern and western borders.
The Municipalities do not work together. This makes it hard to devise a master plan for mitigating disasters, which is what I am supposed to be doing here. Help this town that “belongs” to Sta.Cat.Ixt. and ignore the needs of that Nahualá town next door? But this is a small problem. The looming issues involve communal land and water rights.
There is not enough arable land to go around, and we at the end of the dry season when water is scarcest. Moreover, we are coming into the planting season so all the men are getting their plots ready to plant corn. A fight took place recently, in which men from Nahualá reportedly drove a Sta.Cat.Ixt. farmer from his plot, sending him to the hospital with multiple machete wounds. As a result, there have been meetings and crowds of angry men at the municipal center in Sta.Cat.Ixt. every evening for several days now. The Alcalde (mayor) has met with the Alcalde de Nahualá and has been to Solalá to seek remedy, apparently with little success.
Tonight (Wed the 7th) the crowds were more angry and emotional. Quite a few men were carrying machetes. Men were milling around, several pickups loaded with men were driving here and there. Lots of shouting and waving of arms. It looked like things could get nasty. A story was circulating that several girls from Sta.Cat.Ixt. were driven away by people from Nahualá when they tried to get water, as usual.
I don’t have a dog in this fight; I left to go to my room and will try to catch up on the rest of the story tomorrow.
Victoriano came in, excited and disturbed, to say that eight men from Sta.Cat.Ixt. have been taken to the hospital with injuries. The hospital is an hour away. Right now there are barking dogs outside, trucks driving around, drumming going on.
My progress in facilitating the prevention and mitigation of natural disasters may be somewhat interrupted.
****
Thursday, the 8th. It is a quiet, cold, sunny morning. Tranquil and quiet. I received an early morning call from the Peace Corps HQ in Guatemala City. They had heard that there were problems last night, even a report of several people killed, and they wanted to be sure that I was OK, not in danger, and to remind me to avoid emotional crowds.
I was glad to say that all is calm. The reports I hear this morning indicate a few machete injuries, perhaps one serious, but no deaths or extreme violence. It appears that the main confrontation was at Chiquisis, one of the Sta.Cat.Ixt. towns that is adjacent to other Nahualá towns, about 10km from here.
Thursdays are market day, and the vendors are arriving and setting up their stands as usual. But this morning we also have the army here, a squadron from Huehuetenango with helmets, guns and riot gear. They arrived last night to tamp down the violence and assure calm. They are friendly, and seem to be enjoying the sunshine. Hopefully things will settle down and this can all turn into a legal issue in the courts.
My assignment here is to work with the Municipality (this term describes a region which, in the USA, would be equivalent to a County) of Santa Catarina Ixtahuacán. Sta.Cat.Ixt. is shaped rather like a fat football, oriented north-south. A fanciful story tells the tale how, 131 years ago, a falling out between Miguel Salquill and Manuel Tzoc led to half the population marching off and forming what became the Municipality of Nahualá. The story of their disagreement, according to an internet posting from Nahualá, goes like this:
Miguel Salquill was elected Governor of Santa Catarina Ixtahuacán. He played the marimba , drank liquor, and “introduced vices” on Saturday and Sunday, according to the views of Manuel Tzoc, who was the “principal cantonal” at the time. When the Church was damaged by an earthquake, Salquill wanted to repair it, but Tzoc wanted to tear it down and rebuild. This became a disagreement that could not be resolved, and it led to a bloody armed conflict at Pacaja (located between Chirijox and Racantacaj). The Gov’t of Gen. Barrios had to intervene, and declare the separation of Nahualá and Sta.Cat.Ixt. Miguel and Pascual Salquill were arrested and jailed in Santa Lucia Utatlan, while Manuel Tzoc was arrested and jailed in Quetzaltenango. The Salquills then sent a man from Totonicapán and a mulato with two heads (one human, the other animal) to kill Tzoc. The mulato opened the door to the jail and challenged Tzoc to a fight if he was truly strong. He entered the jail, found Tzoc, and gave him two blows to the head. Tzoc fell back, then escaped in the shadows and darkness, and changed into a “Culawicot” (an monstrous dragon with two faces) and came back to beat up the mulato badly, grabbing him and throwing him to the ground. After this, Tzoc was believed to have the power of more than one man. Several years later the Municipality of Nahualá was created, with Tzoc as its elected leader.
How can you contradict a story about a Culawicot? But Victoriano Guachiac, my authority on local customs and history and my Spanish teacher, assures me that this story is patently false and the disagreement between Salquill and Tzoc was based on their competition for a very attractive woman. But then, he lives in Santa Catarina Ixtahuacán.
The national maps of Guatemala show Nahualá completely bordering Sta.Cat.Ixt. on both the north and west. However, Sta.Cat.Ixt. claims all the land to the west and a good portion of the land to the north. Indeed, the national maps would place the new town of Sta.Cat.Ixt. that contains the seat of its government well inside the border of Nahualá. Adding to the confusion, towns claiming allegiance to either of these Municipalities are mixed together all along the northern and western borders.
The Municipalities do not work together. This makes it hard to devise a master plan for mitigating disasters, which is what I am supposed to be doing here. Help this town that “belongs” to Sta.Cat.Ixt. and ignore the needs of that Nahualá town next door? But this is a small problem. The looming issues involve communal land and water rights.
There is not enough arable land to go around, and we at the end of the dry season when water is scarcest. Moreover, we are coming into the planting season so all the men are getting their plots ready to plant corn. A fight took place recently, in which men from Nahualá reportedly drove a Sta.Cat.Ixt. farmer from his plot, sending him to the hospital with multiple machete wounds. As a result, there have been meetings and crowds of angry men at the municipal center in Sta.Cat.Ixt. every evening for several days now. The Alcalde (mayor) has met with the Alcalde de Nahualá and has been to Solalá to seek remedy, apparently with little success.
Tonight (Wed the 7th) the crowds were more angry and emotional. Quite a few men were carrying machetes. Men were milling around, several pickups loaded with men were driving here and there. Lots of shouting and waving of arms. It looked like things could get nasty. A story was circulating that several girls from Sta.Cat.Ixt. were driven away by people from Nahualá when they tried to get water, as usual.
I don’t have a dog in this fight; I left to go to my room and will try to catch up on the rest of the story tomorrow.
Victoriano came in, excited and disturbed, to say that eight men from Sta.Cat.Ixt. have been taken to the hospital with injuries. The hospital is an hour away. Right now there are barking dogs outside, trucks driving around, drumming going on.
My progress in facilitating the prevention and mitigation of natural disasters may be somewhat interrupted.
****
Thursday, the 8th. It is a quiet, cold, sunny morning. Tranquil and quiet. I received an early morning call from the Peace Corps HQ in Guatemala City. They had heard that there were problems last night, even a report of several people killed, and they wanted to be sure that I was OK, not in danger, and to remind me to avoid emotional crowds.
I was glad to say that all is calm. The reports I hear this morning indicate a few machete injuries, perhaps one serious, but no deaths or extreme violence. It appears that the main confrontation was at Chiquisis, one of the Sta.Cat.Ixt. towns that is adjacent to other Nahualá towns, about 10km from here.
Thursdays are market day, and the vendors are arriving and setting up their stands as usual. But this morning we also have the army here, a squadron from Huehuetenango with helmets, guns and riot gear. They arrived last night to tamp down the violence and assure calm. They are friendly, and seem to be enjoying the sunshine. Hopefully things will settle down and this can all turn into a legal issue in the courts.
Since it was clear that I wouldn´t get anything done at the Municipalidad today, I caught a ride on a pickup truck to, of all places, Nahualá where I can find an internet café. There is a really big Thurday market in Nahualá, and everything appears absolutely normal. No police, no army, no groups of men in earnest conversation.
Well, I had a bunch of pictures I wanted to upload, but the connection here is just too slow. When I get to a faster site, in Xela, I will post them.
