Reclaiming the Nation Through Public Murals Maya Resistance and the Reinterpretation of History

Reclaiming the Nation through Public Murals Maya Resistance and the Reinterpretation of History

David Carey Jr. and Walter E. Little

After traversing the twenty-kilometer road that leads from the Pan American highway up into the central highland town of San Juan Comalapa (henceforth Comalapa) in Guatemala, one of the first breaks from the verdant scenery is a mural painted on the cemetery walls. In 2002, teachers, artists, students and other community members sketched and painted the history of their nation, town, and people; the result stands as a testament to Mayan resistance. For the recent past, it depicts Guatemala’s civil war (1960 – 96), the poverty and racism that were among its causes, and Maya-Kaqchikel responses to violence and economic injustice. But it also portrays pre-Hispanic life, the Spanish Invasion, and the colonial era. Because it would have elicited harsh and probably fatal retribution, a mural with such stark political and historical overtones in a Mayan community was unimaginable just twenty years ago. Across the street and down a few hundred meters, on the former military barracks on the outskirts of town, community members painted another mural in 2006 that more specifically decries the civil war that claimed over 200,000 lives and displaced over a million people. Throughout the war, Maya suffered more than 90 percent of the casualties. Both the United Nations and Guatemalan Catholic Church’s human rights reports identified genocide against Maya in the early 1980s.1 Perhaps in some ways, this more recent mural was in response to community mem-

5 6 Radical History Review bers who pointed out gaps in the historical trajectory and depth of the cemetery mural. But it is also an indication of the fundamental role visual culture plays in conveying history in this town of about 20,000 people. In some of the outlying villages, Comalapa’s cemetery mural has inspired similar projects. Though photojournalists and artists have long protested the civil war and even the injustices of postwar Gua- temala through photography, murals such as these are among the first visual protests and expressions from Maya on these topics.2 In a nation that often silences them, this art form provides one of the few public voices for Maya. Though both murals represent a longer and broader historical expression than the thirty-six-year civil war, much of the content addresses violence (whether under colonial or national rule) and how local Maya adapted to such conditions. Read this way, the murals express Kaqchikel resistance, accommodation, and collaboration. At the same time, the artists and historians do not obscure intracom- munal bloodshed; oppressors were not always outsiders. These visual representations provide a window into how Comalapenses remember their collective history. As manifestations of Comalapenses’ self-perspectives and self-perceptions (which residents still struggle to express verbally), the murals materialize Comalapenses’ ideas and attitudes.3 In this essay, we approach the Comalapa murals as local visual critiques of the past and present. As Fernando Coronil suggests for photographs, the paintings can be considered “documents [that] offer a sophisticated reading . . . by striking a productive balance between treating images as texts and analyzing the contexts of their production and circulation.”4 Unlike most other analyses of such visual media as paintings and photographs,5 we place the significance of the murals within the oral historical narratives and ethnographic contexts of the artists. In fact, the murals are not just windows into the past; they are public protests to the oppression Mayas have suffered for centuries.6 Hence, the murals serve multiple purposes for Coma- lapenses: local historical representations of the past, critiques of the government and of themselves, expressions of community creativity, mobilizations of development aid funds, and a source of civic pride. This essay considers these multiple purposes, first, by culturally and historically contextualizing the murals as a distinct Comalapa tradition; second, by placing the murals in dialogue with the state and with Comala- penses who reconceptualize the past and critique the murals themselves.

Comalapa Artists Painting History and Culture As a form of artistic expression, painting is not new to Comalapenses. More than Western influences, their own tradition of painting informs the style of the murals. Around the mid-1920s, Andrés Curruchiche Cúmez (1891 – 1969) began painting images on the adobe walls of his home before anyone in the community had considered painting as a profession. Friends and family began to take notice of his talents, Carey and Little | Public Murals: Maya Resistance 7 and the local priest invited him to do some paintings in the Catholic Church.7 In the 1930s, he exhibited his paintings at the Guatemalan National Fair and sold them to international tourists. But in Comalapa, his neighbors, and especially his second wife, did not think that being an artist was an honorable profession. Despite this lack of support, Curruchiche persisted in his vision. Yet it was not until the 1950s that international art promoters discovered his works, which were subsequently exhibited in the country’s capital and abroad.8 His travels to exhibit his paintings in prestigious galleries throughout the United States and Europe were unprecedented for a Maya man or woman. That Curruchiche’s fame came at a time when Guate- mala and neighboring Mexico were trying to come to terms with and embrace their indigenous pasts is not coincidental. Yet he did not fit the indigenista intellectuals’ image of an idealized, docile “Indian.” In fact, Curruchiche maintains a hallowed place in Kaqchikel historical narratives precisely because he represented Maya by adhering to Kaqchikel epistemologies and worldviews. Perhaps more than any of his Mayan contemporaries who went against the grain of the indigenismo movement, Curruchiche celebrated autochthonous Mayan identities, perspectives, and realities that upset Ladino (nonindigenous Guatemalan) intellectuals’ portrayals of “good” Maya as those who maintained certain aspects of their culture but largely assimi- lated to national norms and state hegemony.9 Neither did Curruchiche adeptly navi- gate the world of galleries, art dealers, and critics. In many ways, his ethnic identity and themes distinguished him from his contemporaries in the art world. Walter Heil noted in 1958 in his catalog of a New York City exhibition, “The fact is, in com- parison with other ‘primitivists,’ who repeat an established formula, Curruchiche seems to furnish each painting with a new, and often extraordinary, vision.”10 Although his style became known as primitivista, to regard this form of painting as naive, untrained, simple, or even primitive is to misunderstand Curruchiche’s body of artistic work and that of the Maya artists who followed him. According to anthropologist Linda Asturias de Barrios, the style is local and “represents two distinct cultural visions from one pictorial style: the history of art within the western cultural context and that of Comalapa within the local Kaqchikel context.”11 His paintings are representations of Kaqchikel life as he interpreted it. They are simul- taneously ethnographic, reflexive, and critical. As Asturias de Barrios and Mónica Berger observe, the local concept of primitivismo helps mediate between “painted Comalapa” and “real Guatemala” because it captures the idealized imagined past and traditions, as well as the everyday — not always pretty — life of residents.12 To be clear, most Comalapenses conceive of primitivismo as a style that emphasizes past values and traditions that no longer exist. However, these renderings of the past are also critiques of contemporary life and statements of ongoing problems. One way of understanding Curruchiche’s works from the 1930s to the 1960s is as Gramscian “prison notebooks.”13 Like Antonio Gramsci, Curruchiche lived within a society that 8 Radical History Review discouraged its citizens from commenting critically on the government or even quotidian life. Curruchiche’s paintings brought Maya aesthetic sensibilities and little- known Maya beliefs to non-Maya Guatemala and to the world. Since he was not representing Comalapa and Kaqchikel Mayas in the idealized, pre-Columbian past as reenvisioned by the indigenistas, his paintings were subversive. By the 1960s, Curruchiche’s fame had reached such a pinnacle that Guate- malan president Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes visited Curruchiche at his home, and he liked the artist’s work so much that he invited him to give an exposition in the tour- isty town of Antigua. Although this may seem like small consolation for a man who was recognized in the international art world and had traveled widely, it remains rare even today for Mayas to show their art in government-sponsored exhibitions in Ladino-dominated cities and social spaces. Subsequently, Ydígoras Fuentes awarded Curruchiche one of Guatemala’s highest honors: the Order of the Quetzal.14 Cur- ruchiche’s legacy was to inspire a school of painters — men and women — who subsequently brought international recognition to Comalapa. As these artists devel- oped new locally based forms that were far more overt in their critiques of the government, harsh living conditions, contemporary violence, and gender disparities, the primitivismo style founded by Curruchiche continued to evolve. Some, such as Oscar Perén (who trained with Curruchiche), María Elena Curruchiche (whose father trained with Curruchiche), and Paula Nicho Cúmez, painted these themes during the latter years of the civil war. By documenting Maya poverty, wartime atrocities, and the oppression of women in the 1990s, these contemporary artists took risky positions of political dissent that jeopardized their well-being within their own communities and the nation more broadly. In the midst of state-level repression of Mayas and local-level power struggles in the mid-1980s, a group of female Maya artists led by María Elena Curruchiche came together to challenge both the state and male authority, while at the same time revaluing women’s social and political voices.15 Their tribulations as Maya women are represented in the film Del azul al cielo. When the cemetery mural was being painted, planning for the video was in process. Inspired by Nicho Cúmez’s life, the Kaqchikel-language film portrays a young woman struggling to pursue her artistic vision and career as a painter. Airing on Guatemalan television on July 3, 2005, it showed her confronting racism and sexism within and beyond Comalapa.16 Within these historical and contemporary political and cultural contexts, Comalapa paintings and murals can be understood as both critiques of Guatemalan (including Mayan) society and as expressions of creativity distinct to Comalapa. The Comalapa school of painting has had a significant local impact on its residents, who continue to be inspired by its renowned artists. For those involved in the mural project, painting in this style was never in question, particularly since it reinforced the autonomy of their community. Today, the mural itself has become an international tourist attraction and Comalapense artists are even more widely known throughout Guatemala.17 Carey and Little | Public Murals: Maya Resistance 9

Location Is Critique The location of the murals is significant. That the original appears on the cemetery walls and the second on the walls of a former military barracks speaks to the centrality of death and military aggression in their history. To be sure, the central locations and long walls of these venues lent themselves to the mural projects and guaranteed a captive audience, but they also inform Kaqchikel reconstructions of the past. According to their oral histories, the state’s actions, whether through neglect or aggression, often led to premature deaths. For instance, Kaqchikel elders decry early-twentieth-century governments’ inability to address epidemics in the highlands. And often state intervention only compounded the problem, such as government officials burying the infirm alive to prevent contagion during the 1918 – 19 influenza epidemic.18 In addition to victims of epidemics, the cemetery is also filled with young people who died at the hands of the military during the civil war. Even before the sketching began, the venues for these images highlighted this history. In addition to the symbolic and real links to Comalapa’s history embedded in the cemetery and military barracks, it is significant that the murals are located at the town’s main entrance. This strategic placement ensures that visitors and residents cannot miss the murals as they enter and depart the community. By drawing stares and comments of residents and visitors alike, the murals inspire civic pride even as they articulate local and national critiques. When residents proudly show them off to local students and foreign visitors, debates arise about what history should be represented and how it should be interpreted. At the very least, the murals have become a way for Comalapenses to talk about and critically engage their past, on their terms. According to Spanish anthropologist Santiago Bastos, the murals are part of complex cultural shifts in Guatemala that illustrate local Maya ideologies linked to national Maya politics.19 At the same time that Maya ideologies are find- ing various forms of open cultural expression, Mayas continue to struggle against discrimination and deteriorating economic, political, and social conditions in their communities.20

The Comalapa Cemetery Mural The cemetery mural is the result of a cooperative project that grew out of local community planning in conjunction with the Municipality of Comalapa, Proyecto Cul- tura de Paz en Guatemala of UNESCO, Cooperación Italiana, La Fundación Maya, and FLACSO-Guatemala.21 It is one of the few positive examples of compliance to the 1996 Peace Accords, which had been recommended by the United Nations’s Comisión para el Esclaremiento Histórico. Though they shared the same goal, these organizations had different motives for supporting the project. For example, the Municipality of Comalapa saw the project as a way for locals to create an alternative tourist attraction; UNESCO envisioned the mural (and the process) as the commu- 10 Radical History Review nity’s contribution to a more peaceful postwar society; and La Fundación Maya saw the venue as a popular effort to recover historical memory in which the community and authorities worked together. Though these institutions organized thematic and methodological workshops for the primary and secondary school student artists who did most of the painting, they did not contribute artistic personnel of their own.22 The presence of national and international nongovernmental and govern- mental organizations should not be construed as having a profound effect on how participants conceived of the project, the style in which they painted the murals, or particular ways in which history is represented. Rather, they helped facilitate new spaces for Comalapense social and political critiques that brought older and new, younger artists together. The generational bridging through the mural project paral- lels the process of conveying history through oral narratives and also helps materialize the difficult-to-talk-about atrocities of Comalapa’s past. The effect heightened consciousness raising at the community level in the postwar period. Notwithstand- ing the 1996 Peace Accords, highland Guatemala at the time of the project was (and today remains) a dangerous place for dissenting Mayas. Over 200 meters long, the mural’s vibrant colors at first deceive the viewer into thinking that the paintings reflect fond, collective memories of an imagined bucolic and harmonious past. On the contrary, Comalapenses are confronting their own and their nation’s long, harsh history. The mural consists of twenty-three themes, which are visually explained in groups of three to five panels. For the most part, the themes and panels are arranged chronologically, beginning with Maya origins, the Spanish invasion in 1526, and the colonial period (1526 – 1821). After three images of pre-Hispanic Maya life, the mural introduces the Span- ish invasion, replete with depictions of dismembered Maya. Of course, this theme is not new to Maya; it permeates their daily lives through other forms of visual culture. For example, many weavers point out that the two red stripes across the shoul- ders of the traditional Comalapan po’t (handwoven blouse) represents Mayan blood spilled by the Spaniards during the invasion. But the mural goes beyond simply recognizing this past to addressing the way this history is remembered differently. In a split image (fig. 1), above the dismembered Maya are two Spaniards (at least one of whom is a friar) reading and writing. Even as their compatriots are engaged in brutal battle, the two Spaniards pen what the empire wanted the world to know about its exploits: the crown and church were civilizing barbaric Indians. The books surrounding these two men tell the story as such. In contrast, Kaqchikel depictions of colonial life are integrated with representations of Maya gods and goddesses that can be interpreted as resistances to the Spanish government’s attempts to eradicate Maya culture and people.23 Even today in Guatemalan public schools, Mayan students, teachers, and parents chafe at representations of Maya as backwards, ignorant, dirty, and lazy. Though textbooks exalt ancient Maya, their authors argue that by the time the Span- Carey and Little | Public Murals: Maya Resistance 11

Figure 1. The Spanish colonial encounter. Photograph by Walter E. Little ish arrived, Maya were a degenerate group and have largely remained that way. By celebrating the achievements of ancient Maya and showing the continuity of their lives up to and through the Spanish Invasion and occupation, the Kaqchikel artists challenge this dichotomous depiction of Maya. They also highlight the brutality of the Spanish regime that initiated and maintained colonial rule. The first frame (fig. 2) after the Spanish invasion provides an example of the forced labor regime as a group of Mayan men construct the colonial church. But for Maya, colonial relations did not end with the retreat of the Spanish empire. By contrasting the Liberal governments’ privatization of communal lands beginning in 1871 with the painting of el cerro de Xejupilaj, which depicts Mother Earth and the notion that land is ultimately communal and without an owner, the artists evoke a sense that national governments too saw Maya as subjects from whom they could exact land and labor.24 For this and other reasons, many Maya refuse to celebrate Guatemala’s Independence Day. A history of land expropriation, forced labor, inadequate public education, and other detrimental policies forms the back- 12 Radical History Review

Figure 2. Forced labor regimes in colonial Comalapa. Photograph by Walter E. Little drop to the racism and other obstacles they face today. As one Mayan intellectual decried, “September 15th is not a day of independence for Maya; it is still a day of dependence. But maybe one day we will have our independence.”25 Ironically, Sep- tember 15 denotes Mexico’s independence from Spain in 1821, but Central America did not declare its independence from Mexico until 1823, and Guatemala did not secede from the Central American federation until 1839. But if independence for the nation was a slow process, for its Mayan citizens the struggle continues. In this sense, the mural can be read as an effort by the community to reinvent the nation in a way that is not only inclusive of but also responsive to Maya. Images of quotidian life and spirituality during the colonial and national periods demonstrate how Maya Carey and Little | Public Murals: Maya Resistance 13

Figure 3. The 1967 Comalapa Catholic Church conflict. Photograph by Walter E. Little maintained some aspects of their culture, religion, and economy despite territorial occupation and restricted access to resources. Curiously, only one panel covers the years Andrés Curruchiche lived. In a reflection of Kaqchikel Mayas’ ability to criticize themselves, the depiction of a struggle (fig. 3) that broke out between the traditionalist and reformist branches of the Catholic Church in 1967, in which one person was killed and many more injured, highlights internal strife in the community. Presenting Spaniards and Ladinos as the only instigators of violence would obscure Comalapenses’ reality and thereby defeat the purpose of both their oral histories and visual culture: to chart a path for the future by learning from a past they are constantly reconstructing. Indeed, more than any other panel, the church melee painting is emblematic of the way the mural is both an organic reflection of the past and a harbinger of issues to come. In 2005, the tension between the two Catholic groups flared again. By 2008, the tradi- tionalists broke off and formed a municipalidad indígena (indigenous municipality) to represent their interests. As this struggle continues today, the mural’s images remind and inform people of its roots. 14 Radical History Review

And in the mural itself, the artists develop the causal relationships between past events. Although it flattened the town and killed hundreds locally and thou- sands throughout the highlands, the 1976 earthquake serves as a profound moment of community solidarity that older residents and youths, who know it well through oral history, still rally around to express local attitudes of perseverance in the face of harsh natural and social conditions. But in many local historical narratives it also was a precursor to even worse damage. As such, images of the earthquake form a complex cornerstone of the mural and Kaqchikel historical narratives. Since many raconteurs claim that a number of aid workers who responded to the earthquake preached Marxism and fomented resistance to the military dictatorship, depictions of the earthquake flow into images of the civil war, which devastated Comalapa in the late 1970s and early 1980s.26 Perhaps the most provocative image of the entire mural is the one of soldiers killing Mayas dressed in their traditional clothes (fig. 4). One soldier holds a bloody knife as he approaches his next victim: a girl. Another soldier with a rifle is in hot pursuit of fleeing Maya. Pools of blood flow from those already killed. The artists then

Figure 4. The thirty-six-year Guatemalan civil war (La Violencia): Massacres. Photograph by Walter E. Little Carey and Little | Public Murals: Maya Resistance 15 take a bird’s-eye view (fig. 5) and paint a helicopter razing a village, reflecting the some four hundred villages that literally were wiped off the map during the civil war. The artists took a more sympathetic approach to insurgents who fought the Guatemalan military. The lone panel in which they appear portrays them as victims rather than perpetrators of violence. In this scene, a number of their comrades lie dead or wounded as the Catholic Church burns in the background. Of course, as both the United Nations and Guatemalan Catholic Church’s human rights com- missions reported, the military committed the overwhelming majority of the war crimes.27 Yet the way Comalapenses remember the civil war in their oral histories is more ambiguous. Many accuse both the military and insurgents of murder. And some are quick to point out that internal strife also ravaged the community. For example, whether disputes were old or new, significant or petty, residents only had to inform the local military commander that their nemeses were communists to have them killed. The difficulty of presenting the complexity of the civil war not withstanding, this example evinces artists’ simplification and distortion of local historical debates.

Figure 5. The thirty-six-year Guatemalan civil war (La Violencia): Displacement. Photograph by Walter E. Little 16 Radical History Review

In both the images and the prose and poetry that occasionally accompany them, the artists speak to the emotional losses that continued after the war’s ces- sation. For instance, in one poem a boy writes about losing his brother and father to the civil war: “There is so much I wanted to say to you papa, la violencia [as the civil war came to be known] robbed me of this beautiful word that I could never pronounce. I never learned anything of you papa, of how you died. God willing, I will learn where you are buried to be able to visit your tomb and bring you flowers, papa.” As in other Kaqchikel communities, forensic anthropologists have exhumed mass graves of the tortured and murdered in Comalapa that date to the civil war. Yet even as these findings allow closure for some families, many Maya continue to suffer the psychological effects of having lost loved ones and not knowing what happened to them or being able to provide them with a proper burial. The artists also point out that violence continued to reverberate after the civil war. One image (fig. 6) shows a father about to hit his son with belt. In a reflection of lynchings and other social conflicts in Guatemala, the subsequent panel (fig. 7) shows a group of men with sticks and machetes attacking another man. These images of domestic and social violence speak to the quotidian violence that continues to haunt postwar Guatemala.28 Unlike many other observers, Kaqchikel artists refuse to idealize Mayas by presenting their communities as harmonious and peaceful. By recognizing the conflictual nature of social relations — both before and after the civil war — Maya are pointing to a reality that need not devolve into torture and murder but has a history of doing so when violence (in any form) is not stopped.

Figure 6. Domestic violence within the Figure 7. Community violence and vigilantism in community. Photograph by Walter E. Little Comalapa. Photograph by Walter E. Little Carey and Little | Public Murals: Maya Resistance 17

Figure 8. The peace process. Photograph by Walter E. Little

The peace process as understood by these Kaqchikel artists is conveyed in a series that stretches for a few panels along the wall (fig. 8). The image begins with a Mayan man bound, blindfolded (a victim of torture?), and lying in a pool of blood. Stabbed into his back is the Guatemalan flag; blood drips from the guns held by the quetzal in the emblem. More damning than a critique of the state’s failure to stop the civil war, the image calls attention to the state’s active role in perpetuating it. In the process, the flag and the nation were tainted. As the peace process series continues, a white dove, at first grounded, blindfolded, and trapped, slowly breaks out of its confinement, flies off with a flower in its beak, and arrives at a gathering of young people — Maya and Ladino who are embracing each other and holding the Catholic Church and UN human rights reports (fig. 9). According to these artists, Guatemalans achieved peace by escap- ing the grip of the nation-state (particularly the military and oligarchy), not by col- laborating with it. In the painting’s background, a sign honors the fallen innocent martyrs of the civil war; in the foreground such traditional Mayan symbols as fire, flowers, and white, blue, yellow, and red corn representing the four cardinal direc- tions remind observers that despite violence and genocide, Maya identities, culture, and practices survive. To establish lasting peace and a just future, Maya are looking to their own cultural resources rather than turning to the government. 18 Radical History Review

Figure 9. Youths building a peaceful future. Photograph by Walter E. Little

Conspicuously absent in the postwar images, the state plays a negligent, even subservient role in healing Guatemala. In addition to symbols of Mayan culture and epistemology, the other major images are the Catholic Church and UN human rights reports, both of which identified the military as the perpetrator of the vast majority of the war crimes.29 No flag, constitution, national anthem, or other symbol of the state appears. Such depictions are not necessarily arguing for Mayan autonomy, but merely pointing out the abysmal failure and in some ways irrelevancy of the state in the lives of Maya. As they portray the horrors of the war, the artists advance a message of anti colonial struggle. Like Mayan public intellectuals and leaders such as Demetrio Cojti, these Kaqchikel artists demand an educational system and economic development that respects (even celebrates) cultural distinctions because they are para- mount to establishing equal conditions and opportunities for Maya (and other mar- ginalized groups, including poor Ladinos) and thus crucial precursors to establishing a peaceful, just, stable nation.30 Critiques of such contemporary problems as gender Carey and Little | Public Murals: Maya Resistance 19 and ethnic inequality, poverty, inadequate healthcare and education, malnutrition, and deforestation are both local and national. Yet the mural does not look to the state or international organizations to solve these problems. In contrast, by rejecting the state, the panels call for a revitalization of Comalapense ideals, traditions, and cultural practices. This celebration of community traditions and self-reliance can be traced to the themes Andrés Curruchiche and his followers painted. If stripped from the larger context of the mural, these themes, like the primitivismo style that influences them, could be interpreted as mere idyllic projections of the past, rather than visual materializations of Maya ideologies that are in opposition to and critiques of the government.31 The paintings depicting poor men and women dream- ing of computers, opportunities to study, and functioning freshwater wells illustrate these resistances and critiques (fig. 10). But the murals also highlight youths learning how to weave on a handloom in the community’s distinctive style and listening to elders (perhaps soliciting their advice). Almost invariably, the images of postwar Guatemala are devoid of outsiders. The contrast between pre- and postwar Guatemala in the mural is striking. In the earlier period, Comalapenses are subject to numerous assaults by natural and human causes. Most of these paintings depict suffering and conflict. The transition from war to peace shows a collective return to basic Comalapense traditions and moral values, rather than symbolizing a retreat from the harsh realities of contemporary life. In addition to representing popular forms of resistance, these primitivismo-inspired paintings are examples of how Comalapenses can recover their culture and improve their economic and social conditions.

Kaqchikel Reconstructions of History In contrast to its description in a 2002 article in the country’s largest newspaper, La Prensa Libre, the cemetery mural is not just “a type of permanent history.”32 In fact, it is a highly contested vision of history whose significance can be understood only in the conversations taking place and oral histories being told in Comalapa. Almost invariably Comalapa residents praise the mural but are quick to point out its historical gaps. “[The mural] is good, but there is still much history missing from it,” noted Andrés Curruchiche’s granddaughter.33 Though this common reaction can be attrib- uted to the multiple and varied ways people remember the past, it also speaks to the newfound freedom to publicly reconstruct history. After decades of being laconic because conversations deemed political invited retribution, with the signing of the 1996 Peace Accords, people cautiously embraced the freedom of speech and expression. With so many pent-up memories, no one visual portrayal could capture the past and present as Comalapenses know it. At the same time, as a mnemonic device, the mural holds the potential to fill in its own lacunae. Ixq’anil, an elder whose husband was shot and killed in front of their home during the civil war, remarks: “I like the 20 Radical History Review

Figure 10. Recognizing poverty/imagining new futures. Photograph by Walter E. Little Carey and Little | Public Murals: Maya Resistance 21 mural because it has history in it, and it is accurate. [It has] images of people taking a tuj [traditional Mayan sweat bath], women processing cotton, boys going to school but not girls.”34 Though she expounds on the economic and educational histories in Comalapa, there are no images of the tuj in the mural; the images of Mayan traditions and life ways conjured up this memory for her. Yet even as the mural critiques such inequalities as the history of men having greater access to schools than women, its very creation replicated these disparities. The forty youths who participated in the mural painting met with community elders and listened to testimonies and information about their history. However, because the history-telling sessions ended late, the twenty girls dropped out because their parents would not let them be away from home in the evening.35 Such forms of exclusion mean that women and girls continue to generate their own historical narratives and community critiques, as they have for generations.36 Comalapense families who support their daughters’ efforts to get higher educations and pursue professional careers still confront historical legacies that give more ben- efits and freedom to boys than girls. Partly for its ability to bring such histories alive and stimulate debate, even those who are critical of the mural welcome it. A local Kaqchikel ethnohistorian admitted, “I did not like the mural. . . . I would have liked to see more pre-Hispanic panels. There are only three of them. But of course, we do not know much about that. They did present more of la violencia and culture. But it was a good initiative.”37 But perhaps the most important factor in explaining its near universal acceptance is its very existence as one of the few sources of history from Maya perspectives. As the founder of a Kaqchikel school in Comalapa explains, “They stole our history. Our history from our grandfather, grandmother is not in any book. Because these books only have been written since 1492, but before 1492 . . . nothing.”38 Though he is proud of ancient Mayan writings, he insists that Guatemala’s history is a product of colonial relations. Since Kaqchikel determined the content of this less traditional venue, the result reflects a more autochthonous Maya history. Though public art (particularly murals) should be accessible to everyone, this ideal is elusive. A number of teachers praised the mural, noting that they brought their students to it to learn about history. “The mural . . . presents history well. I bring students there to teach them about history. Even though some parts [of our history] are left out, many foreigners come and when they see it they learn about our tinamït [pueblo/nation],” explains one teacher.39 At the same time, many working-class residents seldom have time to view and ponder it so carefully. One woman noted, “I like the mural but I do not have time to look at it since usually I am doing an errand or some other task while going by it.”40 Access to these images can only be as just as the society that surrounds them. Since many Maya are victims of their nation’s grossly unequal land distribution, inadequate public education, and 22 Radical History Review racism, few have time to enjoy art, no matter how public it is. Even as the mural calls attention to these injustices, they profoundly affect the way residents experi- ence its images. Juxtapositions such as these between the mural and the lives of those who pass by it every day remind us that the images are not static historical representations but, rather, evocative venues for reinterpreting the past and present according to the ways individual viewers’ (and the community’s) lived experiences change over time.

Conclusion On a superficial level, the Comalapa murals are like the Mexican murals of the revolutionary period. Each depicts similar scenes, denoting similar pasts of pre- Hispanic indigenous culture, the violence of the Spanish invasion and colonial periods, and equally turbulent national economic and political histories. The world-renowned Mexican murals symbolize Mexico’s social and political struggles and offer a way for Mexicans to embrace their conflictual pasts and reenvision indigeneity as part of national identity. They also represent a period of Mexican history in which revolution was fought on material and symbolic fronts for indigenous workers’ and peasants’ rights. As idealistic and romantic images, the Mexi- can murals represent the melding of an artist intelligentsia with a revolutionary government aimed at transforming indigenous people into new Mexican citizens, and inspiring non-indigenous, self-identified Mexicans to embrace their indigenous heritage.41 Although the Mexican murals were inspired by social revolution, ironically they are not as revolutionary as the Comalapa murals because the latter are based on local Maya interpretations of history. In contrast to the Comalapa murals that were designed and painted by Mayan artists (drawing on their own indigenous artistic techniques and themes), the Mexican murals were painted by nonindigenous artists who used indigenous people and indigenous themes in their works that ultimately were produced for the state, not indigenous communities. Though funded by national and international organizations, the Comalapa murals were produced by and for the local community. They should not be considered forms of revolutionary ideology, but as statements of a specific Maya community’s resistance to the state and a Maya view of history. The act of painting the murals, hence, serves to embody a visual critique of state repression, a community’s revi- sion of official state history, and a testament of Mayas looking toward a future based in Maya cultural values. Even in Guatemala today, this is a dangerous act for a Maya community far from the country’s capital, because it provides a forum for the kinds of issues that Mayas throughout Guatemala still have difficulty expressing verbally. These issues materialize through the collectively — and internally contested — painted mural. Carey and Little | Public Murals: Maya Resistance 23

As rural working-class indigenous people, the Comalapense muralists are not neutral or unbiased. Few, if any, emerged from the civil war unscathed. In Comalapa as in other Mayan communities, most Mayan families lost loved ones to la violencia. Regardless of where the artists’ sympathies lay, the images unequivocally condemn the war and the violence perpetrated against Maya. Yet the images and the mural itself are a testament to Maya’s refusal to see themselves merely as victims. Injected with symbols of their culture, worldviews, and customs at every turn, the critiques of the Spanish invasion, colonial oppression, civil war, peace process, and postwar Guatemala are stark representations of their anticolonial struggle. The persistence of Maya markers throughout the images is a reminder that Kaqchikel are not simply reinventing a sense of nation with the mural; rather, they have been reclaiming the nation at every step in its long, often harsh history.

Notes We wish to thank the Kaqchikel informants whose perspectives and analysis shaped this article and the anonymous reviewers at the Radical History Review whose comments sharpened it. The University of Southern Maine, College of Arts and Sciences Research and Creative Activity Fund provided funding for this research. 1. Oficina de Derechos Humanos de Arzobispado de Guatemala (ODHAG) — Proyecto Interdiocesano de Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica (REMHI), Guatemala, Nunca más: Impactos de la violencia, 4 vols. (Guatemala City: ODHAG, 1998); United Nations Human Rights Report, Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico (CEH), Guatemala: Memoria del Silencio (1999), available at shr.aaas.org/guatemala/ceh/mds/spanish/toc.html (accessed August 12, 2008). 2. See, for example, Oscar Iván Maldonado, ed., photographs by Daniel Hernández-Salazar, So That All Shall Know: Para que todos lo sepan (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007); Jean-Marie Simon, Guatemala: Eternal Spring, Eternal Tyranny (New York: Norton, 1987); Vince Heptig, A Mayan Struggle/La lucha Maya: Portrait of a Guatemalan People in Danger (Fort Worth, TX: Maya Media, 1997). 3. See Deborah Poole, “An Image of ‘Our Indian’: Type Photographs and Racial Sentiments in Oaxaca,” Hispanic American Historical Review 84 (2004): 38 – 82. Poole argues that photographs and other visual representations can serve to materialize difficult-to-express ideas and abstractions, like class, race, and ethnicity. 4. Fernando Coronil, “Seeing History,” Hispanic American Historical Review 84 (2004): 1 – 4 . 5. See, for example, Fernando Coronil, ed., “Can the Subaltern See? Photographs as History,” Hispanic American Historical Review 84 (2004); Patrick Fuery and Kelli Fuery, Visual Cultures and Critical Theory (London: Arnold, 2003). 6. Robert Carmack, ed., Harvest of Violence: The Maya Indians and the Guatemalan Crisis (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1988); Carol Smith, ed., Guatemalan Indians and the State: 1540 to 1988 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990); Walter Little and Timothy Smith, eds., Mayas in Postwar Guatemala: Harvest of Violence Revisited (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2009). 24 Radical History Review

7. Oxi’ Aj, interview by Carey, Simaulew, Comalapa, May 16, 1998; Jun Imox, interview by Carey, Xenimaquín, Comalapa, January 30, 1998; Waqxaqi’ Ajmaq, interview by Carey, Comalapa, April 5, 1998; Oxlajuj Kan, interview by Carey, Comalapa, March 7, 1998; Ixiq’, interview by Carey, Comalapa, July 9, 1998. David Carey Jr. conducted the oral history interviews in Kaqchikel during fieldwork in 1997 – 98 and 2005. Due to the continued political volatility of Guatemala and recurrent human rights abuses, we have preserved the anonymity of the interviewers. Their pseudonyms derive from the Mayan calendar. Female informants can be recognized by the “Ix” prefix to their one-word names. In contrast, male names have two words. 8. Linda Asturias de Barrios, “Mano de Mujer, Mano de Hombre: Producción Artesanal Textil en Comalapa, Guatemala” (PhD diss., State University of New York at Albany, 1994), 412; Linda Asturias de Barrios and Mónica Berger, “La pintura Kaqchikel de Comalapa,” in Arte Naïf: Guatemala (Guatemala: UNESCO, 1998), 176. 9. Steven Palmer, “Racismo intellectual en Costa Rica y Guatemala, 1870 – 1920,” Mesoamérica 31 (1996): 99 – 121. 10. Asturias de Barrios and Berger, “La pintura Kaqchikel de Comalapa,” 178. 11. Asturias de Barrios, “Mano de Mujer,” 413. 12. Asturias de Barrios and Berger, “La pintura Kaqchikel de Comalapa,” 189. 13. Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks (New York: International, 1972). 14. Lajuj Kan, interview by Carey, Pachitur, Comalapa, January 30, 1998; Ka’i’ Imox, interview by Carey, Panabajal, Comalapa, January 21, 1998; Oxi’ Kej, interview by Carey, Comalapa, June 14, 1998; Junlajuj Ajpu’, interview by Carey, Comalapa, August 2, 1998; Ix’aj, interview by Carey, Comalapa, February 9, 1998. 15. Asturias de Barrios and Berger, “La pintura Kaqchikel de Comalapa,” 187. 16. Gustavo Adolfo Montenegro, “Las mujeres no pintan,” Revista D: Semanario de Prensa Libre, no. 51, June 26, 2005; Margarita Carrera, “Cortometraje de Ana Carlos,” Prensa Libre, July 11, 2005; Ana Carolina Alpírez, “Del Azul al cielo,” El Periódico, June 12, 2005. 17. Kab’lajuj Kej, interview by Carey, Comalapa, April 26, 1998; Junlajuj Imox, interview by Carey, Comalapa, May 23, 1998. 18. David Carey Jr., Our Elders Teach Us: Maya-Kaqchikel Historical Perspectives, Xkib’ij kan qate’ qatata’ (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2000), 123 – 24. 19. Santiago Bastos, “La ideología multicultural en la Guatemala del cambio de milenio,” in Mayanización y la vida cotidiana, vol. 1: Introducción y analysis generales, ed. Santiago Bastos and Aura Cumes (Guatemala: Cholsamaj, CIRMA, FLACSO, 2007). 20. Little and Smith, Mayas in Postwar Guatemala. 21. FLACSO-Guatemala is La Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales. This overview is taken from field notes collected June – July 2002, June – July 2003, and July – August 2005, El Mural de Comalapa: Un camino hacia la paz (Guatemala: UNESCO, FLACSO, 2003), and Gustavo Adolfo Montenegro, “Fiel Retrato,” Prensa Libre, December 15, 2002, 6 – 7. 22. El Mural de Comalapa, 5, 9, 10 – 15. 23. Carmack, Harvest of Violence; Smith, Guatemalan Indians and the State; Robert M. Carmack, Janine Gasco, and Gary H. Gossen, eds., The Legacy of Mesoamerica: History and Culture of a Native American Civilization, 2nd ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2007). 24. Even before 1871, conservatives had initiated many of the land and labor reform programs that liberals used to expropriate Mayan land and labor. See Lowell Gudmundson and Carey and Little | Public Murals: Maya Resistance 25

Hector Lindo-Fuentes, Central America, 1821 – 1871: Liberalism before Liberal Reform (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1995); René Reeves, Ladinos with Ladinos, Indians with Indians: Land, Labor, and Regional Ethnic Conflict in the Making of Guatemala (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006); David McCreery, “State Power, Indigenous Communities, and Land in Nineteenth-Century Guatemala, 1820 – 1920,” in The Indian in Latin American History: Resistance, Resilience, and Acculturation, ed. John E. Kicza (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2000), 191 – 212; David McCreery, Rural Guatemala 1760 – 1940 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994), 337; Chester Lloyd Jones, “Indian Labor in Guatemala,” in Hispanic American Essays, ed. A. Curtis Wilgus (Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1970), 311 – 12; Ralph Lee Woodward Jr., “Changes in the Nineteenth-Century Guatemalan State and Its Indian Policies,” in Guatemalan Indians and the State: 1540 – 1988, ed. Carol Smith (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990), 68 – 70; Carol Smith, “Origins of the National Question in Guatemala: A Hypothesis,” in Guatemalan Indians and the State: 1540 – 1988, ed. Smith (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990), 83. 25. Kab’lajuj Tijax, interview by Carey, Comalapa, September 13, 1997. 26. Carey, Our Elders Teach Us, 145 – 46. 27. ODHAG, REMHI, Guatemala, Nunca más; United Nations Human Rights Report, Guatemala: Memoria del Silencio. 28. Little and Smith, Mayas in Postwar Guatemala; M. Gabriela Torres, “The Unexpected Consequences of Violence: Rethinking Gender Roles and Ethnicity,” in Journeys of Fear, ed. Liisa North and Alan Simmons (Montreal: McGill/Queen’s University Press, 1999), 155 – 75; Victoria Sanford, “Women in Danger: Feminicide and Impunity,” Report on Guatemala, October 12, 2007. 29. ODHAG, REMHI, Guatemala, Nunca más; United Nations Human Rights Report, Guatemala: Memoria del Silencio. 30. Demetrio Cojtí Cuxil, Políticas para la reivindicación de los mayas de hoy: Fundamento de los derechos específicos del pueblo maya (Guatemala City: Editorial CHOLSAMAJ: SPEM, 1994). 31. Poole, “An Image of ‘Our Indian.’ ” 32. Montenegro, “Fiel Retrato.” 33. Ix’aj, interview by Carey, Comalapa, August 14, 2005. See also Ka’i’ Tijax, interview by Carey, Comalapa, August 6, 2005; Ixiq’, interview by Carey, Comalapa, August 14, 2005; Ixpim, interview by Carey, Comalapa, August 14, 2005; Ix’ak’wal, interview by Carey, Comalapa, August 14, 2005. 34. Ixq’anil, interview by Carey, Comalapa, August 5, 2005. 35. El Mural de Comalapa, 11. 36. David Carey Jr., Engendering Mayan History: Kaqchikel Women as Agents and Conduits of the Past, 1875 – 1970 (New York: Routledge, 2006), 177 – 206. 37. Oxi’ Q’anil, interview by Carey, Comalapa, August 7, 2005. 38. Waqi’ Toj, interview by David Carey Jr., Comalapa, August 20, 2005. 39. Ka’i’ Tijax, interview by Carey, Comalapa, August 6, 2005. 40. Ixrusil, interview by Carey, Comalapa, August 6, 2005. 41. Alicia Azuela, Colleen Kattau, and David Craven, “Public Art, Meyer Schapiro and Mexican Muralism,” Oxford Art Journal 17 (1994): 55 – 59; Jeffery Belnap, “Diego Rivera’s Greater America: Pan-American Patronage, Indigenism, and H.P.,” Culture Critique 63 (2006): 26 Radical History Review

61 – 98; Dina Comisarenco, “Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Tlazolteotl,” Woman’s Art Journal 17 (1996): 14 – 21; Leonard Folgarait, “Revolution as Ritual: Diego Rivera’s National Palace Mural,” Oxford Art Journal 14 (1991): 18 – 33; Janice Helland, “Aztec Imagery in Frida Kahlo’s Paintings: Indigenity and Political Commitment,” Woman’s Art Journal 11 (1990 – 91): 8 – 13; Bernard S. Myers, “Tamayo versus the Mexican Mural Painters,” College Art Journal 13 (1954): 100 – 105; James Oles, “Noguchi in Mexico: International Themes for a Working-Class Market,” American Art 15 (2001): 10 – 33. Reclaiming the Nation through Public Murals

Maya Resistance and the Reinterpretation of History

David Carey Jr. and Walter E. Little

In a nation that often silences them, Maya in Guatemala are increasingly expressing themselves through public murals. When teachers, artists, students, and other residents of San Juan Comalapa painted the history of their nation, town, and people, they portrayed resistance, accommodation, and collaboration.

The persistence of Mayan markers throughout the images stands as a reminder that Maya-Kaqchikel are not simply reinventing a sense of nation with murals; rather, they have been reclaiming the nation at every step in its long, often harsh history. For the recent past, the images depict Guatemala’s civil war (1960–96), the poverty and racism that were among its causes, and Kaqchikel responses to violence and economic injustice. Based on local Kaqchikel interpretations of history, the murals serve multiple purposes for Comalapenses: local historical representations of the past, critiques of the government and of themselves, expressions of community creativity, mobilizations of development aid funds, and a source of civic pride. This essay considers these multiple purposes: first, by culturally and historically contextualizing the murals as a distinct Comalapa tradition; and second, by placing the murals in dialogue with the state and with

Comalapenses who think about the past and critique the murals themselves.

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