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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. "INTO THE MOUTH OF THE WOLF":

GUATEMALAN REFUGEES PREPARE FOR REPATRIATION

Steven L. Austin

submitted to the Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of The American University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology

Signatures of Committee

Chair : ^ .13

Dean qf the College

Date 1996 The American University Washington, D.C. 20016

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. C COPYRIGHT

STEVEN L. AUSTIN

1996

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Dedicated to the memory of the eleven repatriates who were killed on October 5, 1995, in the community of Aurora, 8 de Octubre, when a Guatemalan government army patrol opened fire on the community as they prepared for the celebration of their first year back in Guatemala, and to all of the other companeros and companeras who have found the courage to walk "into the mouth of the wolf."

Dedicado a la memoria de los once repatriados que fueron matado el 5 de Octubre, 1995, en la comunidad "Aurora, 8 de Octubre," cuando una patrulla del ejercito Guatemalteco les disparo a ellos, mientras que los repatriados preparaban una celebracion demarcando su primer ano en Guatemala despues de doce anos de refugio en Mexico, y a todos los demas companeros y companeras, quienes han encontrado el coraje andar hacia la boca del lobo.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. "INTO THE MOUTH OF THE WOLF": GUATEMALAN

REFUGEES PREPARE FOR REPATRIATION

Steven L. Austin

ABSTRACT

This dissertation is based one year of fieldwork,

conducted in Chiapas, Mexico, and the departments of Quiche

and Huehuetenango, Guatemala, from 1991 to 1992. The focus

of the investigation is on explaining the attitudes of

Guatemalan refugees toward repatriating. It contributes to

the refugee studies debate between proponents of forced

repatriation, and those who support voluntary repatriation.

The main site of the field research was a Guatemalan

refugee camp in Chiapas. Most of the refugees in the camp

were Kanjobal and Mam Indians. The strategy for collecting

data included anthropological methods such as household

survey, participant observation, and ethnographic

interviewing. Those interviewed for the dissertation

include refugees in numerous camps in Chiapas, refugee

workers, and Guatemalans who had already repatriated.

The dissertation discusses and analyzes many factors

influencing the refugees' decision concerning if and when

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. they wanted to repatriate to Guatemala. There is an

emphasis on the origins of the refugee crisis, and on

various aspects of Kanjobal culture, social structure, and

economics as potential influences on the repatriation

decision-making process. There is also a description of

social, economic, and security conditions in Mexico and

Guatemala.

Among the specific variables found to have significant

associations with attitudes toward repatriation were family

structure, ethnicity, gender, and place of origin.

Specifically, heads of household living in joint families.

Mam Indians, females, and refugees who had lived in the

Ixcan region of Guatemala expressed the greatest willingness

to repatriate soon and were making plans to do so. The

analysis of the data supports voluntary repatriation theory.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

There are many people to thank for their assistance

during the process of researching and writing this

dissertation. Most of all, I would like to express my

appreciation to my son, Benjamin Austin-Docampo, who has

demonstrated patience beyond his years while waiting for me

to finish this project. I also wish to thank my parents,

Joe and Kay Austin, and my sister, Susan Owens, for their

personal and financial support.

From the moment I first formulated the research problem

through the writing of the conclusions, Jim Bodine, the

chairperson of my dissertation committee, has been

personally supportive and has guided me in learning about

Mesoamerica. Thanks are also due to Dan Gross, who has been

a friend and mentor, and who made suggestions that improved

the quality of my fieldwork and data analysis. Ruth Landman

has made helpful comments on my research proposal and

dissertation. In general, she has been a personal

inspiration to me, with her combination of intellect and

compassion. I want to thank Pat Gindhart for her friendship

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. and support, and for reading the manuscript and offering

editorial suggestions.

The American University made the dissertation research

possible by awarding me a dissertation fellowship for the

1991-1992 academic year. I am grateful to the government of

the United States of Mexico for permission to conduct

research in their wonderful country. I also want to

express appreciation to Holly Reckord, Chief, Branch of

Acknowledgment and Research, Bureau of Indian Affairs, for

the extended leave of absence that was required to write the

dissertation.

In Comitan, I am grateful for the friendships I formed

with the volunteers with Witness for Peace: Meredith,

Heather, Barb, Anna Lee, Randall, and Florence. A Betti y

Oscar Cordero, y las preciosas ninas, Regina, Maritona, y

Alex: muchisimas gracias per ofreciendome, un extranjero,

posada en su casa y haciendo un lugar para mi en su familia.

Siempre les recuerdo con mucho carino. Also, thanks are due

Antonino Garcia Garcia of COMAR, and Chil Mirtenbaum of

UNHCR, for the warm reception they extended to me and for

their support for my research project.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Finally, the greatest thanks of all are due to the

Guatemalans in Chiapas, Mexico and Huehuetenango Department,

Guatemala, who received me in their villages and homes. A

special debt of gratitude is due the six representatives and

refugees in La Huerta, who were kind enough to allow me to

live in their community and to share their daily experiences

of anguish and grief, joy and hope: yujwal tios hayach. My

greatest desire is that the results of our collaboration

will help make for a more just and peaceful repatriation

process.

The title of the dissertation is based on a comment by

a Guatemalan refugee, who expressed his desire to repatriate

after an agreement on the six pre-conditions for

repatriation set forth by the refugees' leaders had been

signed by the Guatemalan government. I was somewhat alarmed

at the apparent naivete of the majority of refugees, who

seemed to be confident that they could trust the Guatemalan

army to respect their human rights if they could just get

the Guatemalan government to sign such a formal agreement.

When I expressed my concern, the refugee responded: "We

know that, even with a signed agreement, returning to

Guatemala will be like walking "into the mouth of the wolf."

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. This statement captured the feelings of wariness,

foreboding, and fear that many of the refugees shared with

regard to repatriation. The reader should not lose sight of

the fact that the refugees are human beings, people who were

violently and mercilessly uprooted from their homes. They

desire, more than anything else, to return to the land of

their ancestors, to continue pursuing their way of life in

peace and security. This desire will not be fulfilled

without conflict but, after 500 years of oppression, the

indigenous people of Guatemala know all about that. So, to

them I say: xel kalabaV yul bee xhin.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT...... ii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS...... iv

LIST OF...... TABLES...... xiii

LIST OF...... ILLUSTRATIONS...... xvi

LIST OF...... ABBREVIATIONS...... xvii

INTRODUCTION...... 1

Chapter

1.THE WESTERN HIGHLANDS OF GUATEMALA...... 14

Demographic Overview of Ethnicity in Guatemala...... 16

Huehuetenango Department: Geography, Climate, and Ethnicity...... 26

Land Distribution and the Guatemalan Refugee Crisis of 1981- 1983 ...... 35

2. KANJOBAL INDIAN CULTURE ANDSOCIETY ...... 43

Language Use and Code-switching in the Refugee Camp...... 49

Kanjobal and the Classification of Mayan Languages...... 51

The Kanjobal Indians and Their Neighbors in 1932...... 58

viii

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Social Structure...... 53

House Construction...... 66

The Individual's Life Cycle...... 75

The Civil-Religious Hierarchy in Santa Eulalia...... 84

Kanjobal Religion and Worldview...... 92

Economie Patterns...... 122

3 . THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND RESEARCH METHODOLOGY...... 128

The Process of Research Design...... 134

Phase One Research Methods...... 13 8

Phase Two Research Methods...... 155

Phase Three Research Methods...... 162

4. RESEARCH RESULTS FROM PHASES ONE AND TWO ..... 169

The Three Stances on Repatriation...... 169

Research Questions that Arose from Phase One Research...... 183

Is it Safe to Return?...... 187

5. LA HUERTA REFUGEE CAMP...... 199

The Refugees of La Huerta and Patterns of Land Tenure in Guatemala...... 202

The Arrival of Settlers in the Ixcan and Their Flight to Refuge in Mexico...... 205

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. An Ethnographic Description of La Huerta Refugee Camp...... 227

La Huerta Before the Refugees Arrived...... 228

A Brief Overview of the Refugees of La Huerta...... 238

6. SOCIAL, POLITICAL, AND ECONOMIC VARIABLES ASSOCIATED WITH ATTITUDES TOWARD REPATRIATION...... 290

Religion and Repatriation...... 297

Age and Repatriation...... 3 03

Family Structure and Repatriation...... 306

Education and Repatriation...... 310

Ethnicity and Repatriation...... 314

Gender and Repatriation...... 317

Political Factions and Repatriation...... 320

Place of Origin in Guatemala and Repatriation...... 324

Years in Exile and Repatriation...... 327

Other Important Factors With Regard to Repatriation...... 331

Summary...... 341

7. CONCLUSIONS...... 344

Summary of Findings...... 345

Additional Implications of Research Findings...... 3 58

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Suggestions for Future Research...... 365

APPENDICES

1. LIST OF MAM INDIAN VILLAGES IN HUEHUETENANGO DEPARTMENT...... 368

2. ALTITUDES OF SELECTED KANJOBAL VILLAGES.... 369

3. COMPARISON OF THREE CALENDARS USED CONCURRENTLY BY THE KANJOBAL INDIANS..... 370

4. ACTUAL SCHEDULE OF DISSERTATION RESEARCH... 372

5. 1991 LIST OF UNHCR/COMAR SPONSORED REFUGEE CAMPS IN CHIAPAS, MEXICO, BY ZONE AND MUNICIPIO... 374

6. SAMPLE OF HOUSEHOLD SURVEY USED DURING PHASE THREE...... 378

7. CODEBOOK...... 382

8. PLACES OF ORIGIN OF SELECTED HEADS OF HOUSEHOLD AND THEIR LAND TENURE SITUATION...... 385

9. HEADS OF HOUSEHOLD BY GROUP AND ANTICIPATION OF REPATRIATION...... 388

10. DESIRE TO REPATRIATE BY RELIGION...... 388

11. RELIGION AND ANTICIPATION OF REPATRIATION.. 389

12. AGE GROUP AND ANTICIPATION OF REPATRIATION.... 389

13. FAMILY STRUCTURE AND ANTICIPATION OF REPATRIATION...... 390

14. EDUCATION AND ANTICIPATION OF REPATRIATION. .. . 390

15. DESIRE TO REPATRIATE AND ETHNICITY...... 391

16. ETHNICITY AND ANTICIPATION OF REPATRIATION.... 391

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 17. GENDER AND ANTICIPATION OF REPATRIATION...... 392

18. DESIRE TO REPATRIATE AND POLITICAL FACTIONS... 392

19. DESIRE TO REPATRIATE AND PLACE OF ORIGIN IN GUATEMALA...... 393

REFERENCES CITED...... 394

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LIST OF TABLES

Table

1. Number of Guatemalans Self-Identifying as Indian Language Speakers...... 25

2. Population Estimates by Ethnicity and Climatic Zone for Huehuetenango Department, Guatemala in 1932...... 59

3. Cargo Positions in the Civil-Religious Hierarchy in the Village of Santa Eulalia... 90

4. Number of Chiapas Refugee Camps Visited from 1991 to 1992...... 147

5. Land Tenure of La Huerta Refugees by Region...... 205

6. Agricultural Seasons in La Huerta...... 234

7. La Huerta Refugees by Language and Religion...... 239

8. Age-Sex Distribution of La Huerta Refugees...... 245

9. Primary Occupations of La Huerta Refugees...... 253

10. Secondary Occupations of La Huerta Refugees...... 257

11. Heads of Household by Political Faction and Language...... 265

12. Heads of Household by Political Faction and Religion...... 270

13. Formal Education of Refugees over 15 Years of Age by S e x ...... 284

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 14. Heads of Household by Group and Anticipation ofRepatriation ...... 295

15. Hypothesis #1: Desire to Repatriate by Religion...... 299

16. Hypothesis #2 : Religion and Anticipation of Repatriation...... 303

17. Hypothesis #3 : Desire to Repatriate by Age Group...... 304

18. Hypothesis #4 : Age Group and Anticipation of Repatriation...... 305

19. Hypothesis #5 : Desire to Repatriate and Family Structure...... 3 08

20. Hypothesis #6: Family Structure and Anticipation of Repatriation...... 309

21. Hypothesis #7: Desire to Repatriate and Formal Education...... 312

22. Hypothesis #8 : Education and Anticipation of Repatriation...... 313

23. Hypothesis #9 : Desire to Repatriate and Ethnicity...... 315

24. Hypothesis #10 : Ethnicity and Anticipation of Repatriation...... 317

25. Hypothesis #11: Desire to Repatriate and Gender...... 319

26. Hypothesis #12: Gender and Anticipation of Repatriation...... 319

27. Hypothesis #13: Desire to Repatriate and Political Factions...... 323

28. Hypothesis #14: Political Factions and

xiv

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Anticipation of Repatriation...... 323

29. Hypothesis #15: Desire to Repatriate and Place of Origin in Guatemala...... 325

30. Hypothesis #16: Place of Origin in Guatemala and Anticipation of Repatriation...... 326

31. Hypothesis #17: Desire to Repatriate and Length of Exile...... 328

32. Hypothesis #18: Length of Exile and Anticipation of Repatriation...... 329

33. Phi Values for Independent Variables Significantly Associated with Attitudes Toward Repatriation...... 342

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure

1. Northern Huehuetenango Department Indian Villages in 1932 (according to LaFarge 1947)... 15

2. Ixcan Villages Where Many Refugees in Margaritas Municipio Originated...... 34

3. Mayan Language Family Historical Relationships.... 53

4. Phonemic Inventory of Santa Eulalia Kanjobal...... 57

5. The Guatemalan-Mexican Border Research Area ...... 140

6 . Guatemalan Refugee Camps in Margaritas Municipio Visited by the Researcher...... 141

7. La Huerta Refugee Camp, Chiapas, Mexico...... 231

XVI

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ALMG Academia de Lenguas Mayences de Guatemala 'Guatemalan Academy of Mayan Languages.'

CCPP Comisiones Fermantes de los Refugiados de Guatemala en México 'Permanent Commissions of the Guatemalan Refugees in Mexico' - the refugees' own political organization, formed by the refugees in 1986.

CCR Comité de Catechistas de los Refugiados 'Refugees' Catechists Committee' - organized by and for Catholic Guatemalan refugees who serve the refugee community as catechists.

CCS Comité Cristiano de Solidaridad 'Christian Solidarity Committee' - fomed under the leadership of the Catholic Church's Chiapas diocese, it is a Mexican non-government organization supporting the refugees while in Mexico through economic and social development projects and assisting them in preparing for their eventual return to Guatemala.

CEAR Comision Especial de Apoyo a Repatriados 'Special Commission to Aid Repatriates' - the Guatemalan government's agency charged with overseeing the return of external refugees and the internally displaced.

CIREFCA Conferencia Intemacional sobre Refugiados Centroamericanos 'International Conference on Central American Refugees' - a conference held in Guatemala, May 1989.

xvu

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. COMAR Comision Mexicans de Ayuda a Refugiados 'Mexican Commission for Assisting Refugees' - the Mexican government's agency responsible for the welfare of refugees living in Mexico, created in July 1980.

CONFREGUA Conferencia de Religiosos Guatemaltecos 'Conference of Religious in Guatemala' - an organization of Catholic priests and other religious workers in Guatemala.

CPR Comunidades Populates en Resistencia 'Civil Communities in Resistance' - Mobile jungle communities formed by displaced Guatemalans (mostly Indians) as a result of the counter insurgency campaign of 1981-1983. They are not an armed population, but are opposed to the Guatemalan government. Therefore, the military considers them hostile and attacks them as though they were guerrilla army units.

cue Coordinadora de Unidad Campesino 'Coordinating Committee for Peasant Unity' - a peasant union that was forced underground by the Guatemalan government in the late 1970s.

EGP Ejercito Guerrillero de los Pobres 'Guerrilla Army of the Poor' - Guatemalan guerrilla army, active in the northwestern departments of Huehuetenango, Quiche, Alta Verapaz, Baja Verapaz, Sacatepequez, and Chimaltenango.

FAR Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes 'Rebel Armed Forces' - Guatemalan guerrilla army, active in the Peten Department, the northernmost region of Guatemala.

IMSS Institute Mexicano de Seguro Social - Solidaridad 'Mexican Social Security Institute - Solidarity' - this Mexican government agency provides medical attention to those living in Mexico who do not have social security benefits.

xvou

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. including the Guatemalan refugees in the states of Chiapas and Campeche.

INI Institute National Indigenista 'National Indian Institute' - Mexican governmental agency that provides social and economic services to Mexican Indians and conducts anthropological research on Mexican Indian communities.

INTA Institute National de Transformation Agraria 'National Institute for Agrarian Transformation' - the Guatemalan government's agency which sets land reform policy.

KSE Kanjobal of Santa Eulalia, a variety of the Kanjobal (Maya) language.

KSMA Kanjobal of San Miguel Acatan, a variety of the Kanjobal (Maya) language.

NGO Non-government organization.

ORPA Organization del Pueblo en Armas 'Organization of Armed Citizens' - Guatemalan guerrilla army, active in the southwestern departments of San Marcos, Quezaltenango, Chimaltenango, and Solola.

PAC Patrulla de Autodefensa Civil 'Civil Defense Patrols' - village-level organization of Guatemalan citizens established and organized by the Guatemalan government's army. The citizens are required to go out on "sweeps" with regular army troops to search for guerrilla troops. The missions are very dangerous, and they receive no pay for serving several days each month. According to the Guatemalan government, PACs have been made voluntary, but there are reports that people are still being coerced to participate against their will.

UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

XIX

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. URNG Unidad Revolucionario National Guatemalteco, 'Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity' - coordinating body for the three Guatemalan guerrilla movements (EGP, FAR, and ORPA) , plus splinter group of the CUC; the URNG was established in 1980.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. INTRODUCTION

This dissertation is a study of Guatemalan refugees'

attitudes toward repatriation. At the time of my fieldwork,

most of the refugees had been living in exile in Chiapas,

Mexico for 10 years, from 1982 to 1992. The general social

science literature on refugees suggested a focus for my

research. As I prepared for the field, I read about the

debate between refugee theorists who advanced two opposing

views on the issue of repatriation. There were some

theorists who favored "spontaneous" repatriation. They

believed that refugees would usually repatriate of their own

free will when they perceived that conditions in their home

country had improved sufficiently. They would repatriate

without encouragement from external parties, and without

waiting for official assistance from national or

international sources, as soon as this condition was met.

Other theorists, who held the "forced" repatriation point of

view, argued that refugees usually do not repatriate without

encouragement from external parties. The necessary

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"encouragement" might range from the offer of incentives

from the refugees' home country (e.g., land, seed, schools,

and potable water), to the curtailment of incentives to stay

in the refugee camps by the host government and

international sources (e.g., food, education, and health

care assistance), to outright coercion. Neither side in the

debate seemed to be well-armed in defending their points of

view. I decided to use the Guatemalan refugees living in

Chiapas as a test case for these competing theories of

repatriation.

I had been personally involved with Guatemalan

refugees from 1983 to 1988, when I participated in the

Sanctuary Movement. During those years, I was working as an

ordained Baptist minister, and had been hired as a chaplain

to international merchant marine sailors by the Baptist

churches in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The Sanctuary Movement

was a network of people and organizations in North America

that assisted Central American refugees who were attempting

to enter the United States in search of political asylum.

Since the United States government refused to accept the

Guatemalans as legitimate political refugees, the

Guatemalans had to enter the country illegally. Those who

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3

participated in the Sanctuary Movement, therefore, did so as

a form of civil disobedience. Many of the refugees who were

caught after entering the United States were detained at a

Federal facility in Oakdale, Louisiana. Because of my

interest in human rights and Central America, and my

knowledge of Spanish, I decided to become a volunteer

chaplain at Oakdale Detention Center. Most of the

Guatemalans whom I met at the detention center, as well as

those who stayed temporarily in my home, were Maya Indians.

The Indians told me about their experiences of the

massacres, carried out by the Guatemalan army, that had

driven them from their homes.

When I started the Ph.D. program at American

University in 1988, I was intending to do the fieldwork for

my dissertation in a Guatemalan Indian village. However,

after the Guatemalan military continued its campaign of

violence against those who wanted to help the Indians, I

decided not to work inside Guatemala. I refocussed my

research, and began preparing to spend a year in Chiapas,

Mexico, conducting fieldwork in the refugee camps there.

The field research on which this dissertation is based

was conducted from September 1991 to September 1992.

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Several research techniques were used to gather information,

including interviewing refugee workers and social

scientists, visiting a variety of refugee camps and

interviewing refugees, visiting the refugees' home

communities in Guatemala and interviewing repatriates and

others, and a six-month intensive study of a single refugee

camp.

Most of the refugees that I met in Chiapas originated

in the Western Highlands of Guatemala. Chapter l provides

general background information on Maya Indians in Guatemala,

and on the geography, climate, ethnic groups, and economy in

the Cuchumatan Mountains. Guatemala is the largest of the

Central American republics in terms of area, and it is also

the most heavily indigenous country in the northern

hemisphere. Much of Guatemala's Indian population is

concentrated in the Western Highlands. Even to this day

there are not very many ladino 'mixed race' people in the

remote parts of the Western Highlands, where the Chuj,

Jacaltec, and Kanjobal Indians lived long before they were

invaded and subjugated during the Spanish Conquest.

Most of the refugees in La Huerta refugee camp (a

pseudonym) were Kanjobal Indians. There were also a few Mam

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Indian families, one Kekchi man, and a few ladinos. Nearly

all of the male refugees had made their living as peasant

farmers and agricultural laborers. Since the vast majority

of the refugees in La Huerta were Kanjobal Indians, chapter

2 provides a broad ethnographic description of their way of

life. There have not been many writings on the Kanjobal

Indians. As a baseline, I have drawn on the work of Oliver

La Farge who, in 1932, spent several months in Santa

Eulalia, a Kanjobal Indian village, as part of an expedition

sponsored by Tulane University's Middle American Research

Institute. This description is supplemented by my own

observations of their way of life. There is also a

discussion of how the society and culture of the Kanjobal

Indians have changed since La Farge's 1932 ethnographic

research.

Together, chapters 1 and 2 provide a great deal of

information that is essential with regard to understanding

how the Guatemalan refugees decided to stay in Mexico or to

repatriate to Guatemala. One of the factors influencing the

refugees' decision was whether or not they were reasonably

satisfied with life in their host country, Mexico. For

example, the refugees in La Huerta had originated from the

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tierra caliente 'hot country' climatic zone in Guatemala.

It was fairly easy for them to adapt to living in La Huerta,

which is also in tierra caliente. La Huerta is a small

Indian village much like the ones the Guatemalans had left

behind. The natural resources in the area were familiar to

them, as were the soils, the crops, and the growing seasons.

Thus, in many ways, the refugees were able to continue

making a living as peasant farmers and agricultural

laborers, as they had before fleeing to exile in Mexico.

The Kanjobal Indians also were able to build the same kind

of houses they had been building for centuries, and many of

them continued to live in the culturally ideal pattern of

the joint, extended family. I believe that all of these

factors enabled the refugees to endure the average 10 years

of refuge that most of them had experienced by 1992.

Without knowing anything about their social and cultural

background, it would be hard to understand how the refugees

had lasted so long in exile.

Chapter 3 discusses the theoretical background of the

research problem in more detail. It also discusses the

research method and plan, and the research techniques used

to gather information. The discussion is lengthy, but I

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believe it is important to discuss not only what you know

about a situation, but how you know it. The information

that I gathered was certainly shaped by my review of the

literature on refugees and Maya Indians before I went into

the field, but also by my own personal and professional

interests, and the experiences I had after I was in the

field. I have tried to discuss these experiences as fully

as possible, and how the research design changed over time

because of them.

The research design actually was carried out in three

phases. Phase One involved getting an overview of the

refugee camps in Chiapas. Particular emphasis was placed on

interviewing the refugees in a variety of camps. They were

asked about life in exile and how they felt about

repatriation. It became evident during Phase One that I

needed to do some research on the Guatemalan side of the

border to understand more fully the refugees' attitudes

toward repatriation. Thus, Phase Two of the research

process involved six weeks of research in the Ixcan region,

especially in the Ixil Triangle and in northern

Huehuetenango Department. The results of Phases One and Two

are discussed in chapter 4.

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When I returned from Guatemala, I entered Phase Three

of the research plan, which was an intensive study of one

refugee camp. La Huerta. In chapter 5 the similarities

between the geography and climate of the mountain rainforest

in Chiapas and the lands that the refugees fled in the Ixcan

are discussed. Chapter 5 has a description of the refugee

camp's physical layout and discusses the social interaction

that occurred there. La Huerta's origins as a Tzeltal

(Maya) Indian colony, demographic and social patterns among

the refugees, and the similarities in work and other

economic patterns between the two regions are highlighted.

Of particular interest in relation to the decision to

repatriate to Guatemala or stay in Mexico are the

improvements in social services the refugees have

experienced since living in exile. In Mexico they have much

better access to education and health care resources. Also

important in chapter 5 is the discussion of the social and

political relations between the Guatemalan refugees and

their Tzeltal Indian hosts in La Huerta. While the

Guatemalan refugees had been reasonably well received by the

Mexican Indians, the relationship between them was usually

tense in La Huerta, especially when it came to labor

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conditions and access to land. The formal political

organization of the refugees is discussed at several levels:

within La Huerta, among the refugee camps in the Mexican

state of Chiapas, and, at the national level, among the

refugees in the three states where there were refugee camps

(Chiapas, Campeche, and Quintana Roo). Finally, the issues

of land tenure and place of origin in Guatemala are

discussed in chapter 5. These issues are pivotal to

understanding the refugees' choices with regard to

repatriation.

The analysis of the data collected during my fieldwork

in relation to two variables that were used to measure the

refugees' attitudes toward repatriation is the topic of

chapter 6. The analysis is done by testing hypotheses that

state that there is no association between these two

dependent variables and several social, political, and

economic variables. The results of the statistical tests

are then discussed in light of the qualitative ethnographic

data. The statistical tests are used to discern whether

perceived or hypothesized attitudinal patterns are

statistically significant. The qualitative data are used to

interpret the results of these statistical tests. In some

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cases, where statistical tests were inconclusive,

qualitative data are used to either support or reject the

association between the variables. At the end of chapter 6,

there is a discussion of several factors that are thought to

be important considerations in the repatriation decision

making process, but were not measured in a way that allows

for statistical analysis.

The conclusions drawn from this investigation are

discussed in chapter 7. Basically, the refugees have been

very active in shaping the repatriation process. They are

constantly gathering information about life in Guatemala,

and weighing that information against the difficulties and

improvements in their lives in Mexico. All 84 of the

refugee families in La Huerta wanted to return to Guatemala

at some point in time. But the vast majority of them said

that they were willing to wait as long as it took for the

Guatemalan government to sign an agreement stating that the

government would respect their rights as outlined in the Six

Conditions that had been formulated by the refugees' elected

commissioners (the Comisiones Permanentes or CCPP). At

first, this seemed to lend credence to the "forced"

repatriation theorists: the refugees were not likely to

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return to Guatemala without some measure of "encouragement"

or coercion. But after several months of participant

observation and ethnographic interviews, I became aware that

the refugees were divided into two factions. The largest

faction continued to support the CCPP position. The other,

smaller faction said they were ready to repatriate

immediately, without waiting for a formal agreement with the

Guatemalan government. The members of this latter faction

were known as pro-retomo 'pro-return' refugees. They said

that, while Guatemala was still no human rights paradise,

the situation had improved enough to allow them to

repatriate in reasonable safety. They also complained that

the CCPP commissioners were needlessly delaying the

repatriation process to obtain their own political goals.

As time progressed, the Pro-Return faction grew in numbers

and political strength. Their perspective seemed to provide

support for the "spontaneous" repatriation theorists,

because the refugees were willing to repatriate when the

refugees perceived that the conditions they had fled in

Guatemala had sufficiently improved. Chapter 7 also states

conclusions concerning anthropological research methods and

refugee studies and makes suggestions for future research.

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It will be helpful to say a word at the beginning

about Guatemalan Maya Indian languages and orthography

adopted for this dissertation. The orthography of Mayan

languages in Guatemala has created much controversy in

recent years (Adams 1994). Before the work of the Summer

Institute of Linguistics or the creation of the Guatemalan

Academy of Mayan Languages (ALMG), there were no

standardized spellings. Anthropologists simply transcribed

Mayan words using whatever alphabetic representations suited

them. Later anthropologists sometimes used one of the

phonetic alphabets created by North American structural

linguists. This lack of a standard method for transcribing

Mayan languages has resulted in multiple spellings for the

same Maya word. As a simple example, one could consider the

numerous spellings for the various Mayan languages

themselves. For instance, Kanjobal was variously spelled

"Kanhobal," "Canhobal," and "Kanj obal"

In the 1950s, the Summer Institute of Linguistics

developed standardized alphabets for the four main Indian

languages of Guatemala. More recently, the ALMG has created

its own alphabet for each Mayan language in Guatemala.

Their work was recognized as authoritative by the Guatemalan

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Congress in 1990, replacing the orthography established by

the Summer Institute of Linguistics. The ALMG has promoted

"Qanjobal" and "Q'anjob'al" as the standard spellings for

the Kanjobal ethnic group and language. In this

dissertation, I have opted for the more common, traditional

spelling "Kanjobal" when referring to the language and the

people who speak it, rather than the more phonetically

correct Q'anjob'al. A list of the phonemes I collected for

the Santa Eulalia variety of Kanjobal (KSE), and the

orthographic representations I use for them in this

dissertation, appear in (Figure 4).

When using Kanjobal words or phrases in this text I

will observe the following conventions. Where the Kanjobal

variety is known with certainty, it will be indicated with

the following abbreviations: Kanjobal San Miguel (KSM),

Kanjobal Santa Eulalia (KSE). Lexical items appearing

inside front slashes represent a phonemic transcription of a

Kanjobal word. These will be followed by an English gloss

in single quote marks; for example /kaxhlan/ 'chicken';

/t'irich kaxhlan/ 'bald chicken.' Spanish words will be

underlined.

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THE WESTERN HIGHLANDS OF GUATEMALA

The vast majority of the refugees who are the focus

of this anthropological investigation are Indians who

originated from the Western Highlands of Guatemala,

particularly the Department of Huehuetenango. I spent most

of my time in the field working in refugee camps in

Margaritas municipio. Chiapas State, in southern Mexico. In

these refugee camps, the majority of the refugees were Maya

Indians who spoke either Kanjobal or Mam as their primary

language. In addition to these two Maya language groups,

there were also some speakers of two other Western Highlands

Maya languages, Jacaltec and Chuj. There were a few ladinos

who spoke only Spanish. The traditional areas of each of

the Indian language groups mentioned above are shown in

Figure 1.

Kanjobal Indians were the predominant language group

in La Huerta (this is a pseudonym for the Guatemalan refugee

camp I lived in for six months) in Margaritas municipio.

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They constituted 89% of the refugee population in La Huerta

(N=458). They were not only predominant in terms of

population, but political structure and leadership. All six

of the camp's représentantes 'representatives' were Kanj obal

Indians, as was the elected delegate to the Comisiones

Permanentes de los Refugiados Guatemaltecos en México

(CCPP), who lived in La Huerta. Also in the refugee camp

were Mam speakers (9%), a few ladinos (i.e., Guatemalans who

spoke Spanish only; 2%), and one Kekchi speaker. Because

the majority of the Guatemalan refugees in Chiapas, Mexico,

are indigenous people from Guatemala's Western Highlands,

some general description of the culture area is in order,

along with a more specific description of Kanjobal Indian

society.

DEMOGRAPHIC OVERVIEW OF ETHNICITY IN GUATEMALA

The total population of Guatemala in 1990 was

approximately 9 million. The percentage of the population

who are Indians is estimated to be between 30 percent and 80

percent. The wide variation between these estimates

reflects the politics of being Indian in Guatemala. The

statistics vary according to whether or not Indian identity

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is self-claimed or imputed by an outsider, the circumstances

under which the identity is claimed or imputed, the goals

and methods of the person(s) or agency conducting the

demographic research, and the political climate of the

moment.

The lower estimate of 30 percent for the Guatemalan

Indian population is based on research that was directed by

a Guatemalan Indian, with the results published in 1986 by

the Conference of Catholic Religious Workers in Guatemala

(CONFREGUA; see Adams 1994). The details of how the

research was carried out are not known, but Adams reported

that a person was counted as "Indian" in this study if they

identified themselves as speaking an Indian language (Adams

1994). Given the political climate in Guatemala, the number

of people willing to identify themselves as Indian in a

census like this may be very low. This is especially true

since the late 1970s and early 1980s, the years during which

the Guatemalan army carried out its brutal repression of

Indian communities during its counterinsurgency campaign.

During that time, identification as "Indian" was grounds for

persecution by the Guatemalan army. I assume, therefore.

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that the percentage of people who speak an Indian language

in Guatemala is probably much higher.

A higher percentage for the Indian population of

Guatemala, between 60 and 80 percent (between 5,400,000 and

7,200,000), is often cited by anthropologists, human rights

activists, and others, based on their personal impressions

formed from working in the Indian communities and their

definitions of the concept "Indian." Usually an Indian in

Guatemala is defined with some unspecified combination of

the following traits. First and foremost, an Indian is a

person who speaks an Indian language. Other indicators of

Indian identity include maintaining social and political

relations with relatives and friends in their natal village,

wearing traditional Indian clothing (men and/or women,

depending on the Indian group) , and living an "Indian

lifestyle," by adhering to Indian economic, religious, or

family cultural patterns.

The remainder of the population of Guatemala, the

non-Indian portion, are called ladinos, a complex social

term which is used to refer to the politically and

economically dominant people of Guatemala who are non-Indian

culturally and who usually have mixed racial heritage.

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European (largely Spanish or Gentian) and Indian.

Anthropologists in Guatemala from the 1930s to the 1950s

made many studies of a process they called ladinizacion

'ladinoization,' by which Indians could give up their

identity as Indians and become ladinos (Adams 1959; Colby

and Van de Berghe 1969; Nash 1955, 1967, 1970). The

process, as described by anthropologists, involved adopting

such outward symbols of ladino identity as learning to speak

Spanish, giving up traje 'traditional Indian dress, '

building a ladino-style house, and looking for wage work.

It is evident that genealogy is much less an important

factor in ladino identity than these social symbols, since

nearly everyone has some Indian ancestry.

In some circumstances, changing ethnic identity from

Indian to ladino can be beneficial, since Indians are still

severely discriminated against in Guatemala. Even the use

of the term indio 'Indian' has a pejorative connotation. It

is as offensive to Indians in Guatemala as the word "nigger"

is to African Americans in the United States. For their

part, Indians typically despise the ladinos as the powerful

political minority and the dominant economic class. When

referring to themselves collectively, Guatemalan Indians use

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more value neutral terms, such as pueblos indigenas

'indigenous peoples' or grupos étnicos 'ethnic groups.' As

individuals, they identify themselves as indigenas

'indigenous people.'

To a ladino, indios are gente sin razon 'irrational

people.' The phrase gente sin razon expresses the

mystification of ladinos at what they see as the

incomprehensible behavior of Indians. Indio also implies a

person who is uncultured, lazy, dirty, and capable of

nothing more than manual labor. According to the dominant

ladino culture, a ladino is a rational person (gente de

razon): cultured, industrious, and clean, with the capacity

for higher level learning and work. For example, a ladino

has the ability to run his own commercial enterprise.

Indians typically find the behavior of the ladinos equally

incomprehensible and morally objectionable (McLeod and

Wasserstrom 1983) .

In 1932, La Farge said the Kanjobal Indians of Santa

Eulalia identified several different non-Indians with whom

they were familiar. There were travelling merchants they

referred to as "Turks" and "Chinese." There were "Germans"

who owned and managed the coffee fincas 'coffee plantations'

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along the southern Pacific coast of Guatemala. Finally,

there were also "North Americans," evangelical missionaries

who were sent to Guatemala by the Devil.

In spite of the potential advantages, the process of

adopting a ladino identity usually means severing social,

economic, and political ties with one's village and family

members, a very costly requirement for many individuals.

Nevertheless, it is a common trend in Guatemala, and

partially explains the decline in the percentage of

Guatemalans claiming Indian identity in the last 30 years.

The 1989 Guatemalan census reported that there were

3,215,848 Indians, comprising only 37 percent of Guatemala's

total population (Adams 1994, p. 156) .

While ladinoization was not a focus of my research,

it did turn out to be relevant in the case of two Kanjobal

Indian brothers I met in Mexico. The elder brother was one

of the first refugees I met, in the camp at Rancho

Tepancuapan, a sixteenth-century Spanish hacienda. He

identified himself as a ladino and worked in non-Indian wage

work (cattle ranch foreman). His wife and daughters did not

wear Indian traje 'traditional dress' which includes a corte

'wrap-around skirt' and huipil 'woven blouse,' among other

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things. It was exceedingly rare to see Kanjobal-speaking

women, whether in refuge in Mexico or in their native

Guatemala, who did not wear the San Cristobal weave

(jaspeado 'mottled') corte. Even the Kanjobal women who did

not wear a huipil, wore the traditional corte. Several

months into my fieldwork, I met a man in another refugee

camp, rather distant from Rancho Tepancuapan, who strongly

identified himself as indigena 'Indian.' He was well-

informed about the indigenous peoples' convention (called

"500 Years of Resistance") that had been held in

Quezaltenango, Guatemala to mark the 500th anniversary of

Columbus' arrival in the Americas. I was very surprised

when he told me that he was the brother of the foreman at

Rancho Tepancuapan. He complained that his brother was not

concerned about promoting Indian rights or maintaining his

own identity as a Kanjobal Indian.

Many Indians in Guatemala fear that they will be

persecuted if their ethnic identity becomes Icnown to the

national government. Nevertheless, there is currently a

counter-trend to the process of ladinoization. Instead of

assimilating, many Indians are becoming more bold about

asserting their Indian identity, and demanding what they

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believe are their human and civil rights,- for example, to

speak their Indian language, to practice their religion, to

possess legal title to their lands, to associate with each

other freely, and to form their own political organizations.

Guatemalan Indians have started to associate with each other

across language lines, and have forged international links

between themselves and Indians and non-Indian sympathizers

in other countries.

As will be seen from my description, some traits of

the isolated "closed, corporate, peasant community" are

still visible (Wolf 1957). But Guatemalan Indian villages

have certainly been transformed in the last twenty to thirty

years. I believe the transformation has especially been

accelerated for those Indians who were forced into exile in

Mexico from 1978 to 1983, especially the Kanjobal, Chuj, and

Jacaltec Indians of Huehuetenango Department, since they

remained some of the most isolated Guatemalan Indians up

until that time.

By way of comparison, the 1990 decennial census

(based on self-identification) reported that there are

nearly 2 million American Indians (including some from

Canada and Latin America) and Alaska Natives in the United

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States, less than one percent of the total population

(United States Bureau of the Census 1991). It should be

noted that this is significantly higher than the number of

Indians who are enrolled as members of tribes recognized by

the United States government. Also, the number of people

self-identifying as American Indian in the United States

census has increased dramatically since the 1960s and 1970s.

No matter what percentage of the Guatemalan population one

chooses to accept as "Indian," it is clear that Guatemala is

one of the most heavily indigenous countries in the

Americas, in terms of both overall numbers and percentage of

the total population.

In Guatemala, the Indians speak at least 21 distinct

Mayan languages. Five of these languages are spoken in

Huehuetenango Department (Mam, Kanjobal, Acatec, Chuj, and

Jacaltec; these are marked with an asterisk in Table 1).

The statistics in Table l were reported in the 19 86

publication by CONFREGUA concerning the number of speakers

of Indian languages (Adams 1994). According to the

statistics reported by Adams, there are 2,812,400 Indian

language speakers.

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TABLE 1

NUMBER OF GUATEMALANS SELF-IDENTIFYING AS INDIAN LANGUAGE SPEAKERS

Guatemalan Indian Language Number of Speakers

1. Kiché 925,300

2 . Mam* 686,000

3 . Kaqchikel 405,000 4 . Q ' eqchi 356,600

5 . Kanjobal* 112,000

6 . Achi 58,000

7 . Chorti 52,000

8. Poqomchi 50,000

9 . Poqomam 32,000

10 . Jacaltec* 32,000

11. Chuj* 29,000

12 . Sakapultec 21,000

13 . Akatec* 20,000

14 . Awakatec 16,000

15 . Garifuna 4,000

16. Itza 3,000

17. Sipakapense 3,000

18 . Tektitec 2,500 19 . Uspantec 2,000

20 . Xinca 2,000

21. Mopan 1, 000

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HUEHUETENANGO DEPARTMENT:

GEOGRAPHY, CLIMATE, AND ETHNICITY

To understand Indians in Guatemala, it is important

to be familiar with the terminology associated with the

political subdivisions the modern nation-state of Guatemala

has superimposed on their traditional territory. Guatemala

is subdivided into political units known as departamentos

'departments,' which are roughly equivalent to states in the

United States. Departamentos, in their turn, are subdivided

into municipios 'townships,' which are similar to counties

in the United States. Municipios are made up of aldeas

'villages.' There are usually several outlying caserios

'settlements' associated with each aldea. Each munieipio

has a government seat called a cabecera 'county seat,' which

is similar to a county seat in the United States. In a

system that can sometimes be confusing, the municipio and

its cabecera both usually bear the same name. This makes it

necessary to distinguish between, for example, the municipio

of Santa Eulalia and the cabecera of Santa Eulalia, the

former being more extensive in area and larger in population

than the latter.

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All speakers of the closely related languages of

Kanjobal, Acatec, Jacaltec, and Chuj are originally from

Huehuetenango Department (see Figure 1). Linguists regard

these four languages as belonging to the Kanjobal subfamily

of Mayan languages (Zavala 1992) . When lumped together, the

people who speak these four languages number approximately

193,000 (Adams 1994, p. 180).

Mam speakers have traditionally lived in several

departments, including San Marcos, Quezaltenango,

Totonicapan, and the southern portion of Huehuetenango. The

Mam language is markedly different from the Kanjobal family

of languages and is only distantly related to it (England

1983). The portion of the Mam Indians who reside in

southern Huehuetenango Department speak various dialects of

Northern Mam. They live in about 15 towns (see Appendix 1

for a list of these villages). One of the largest Mam towns

in Huehuetenango Department is San Ildefonso Ixtahuacan,

which has about 12,000 inhabitants (England 1983, p. 6).

One of the most well known Mam villages is Todos Santos

Cuchumatan, a popular tourist destination.

The Department of Huehuetenango is dominated by the

Cuchumatan mountain range, which forms part of the Andean

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Cordillera. Cutting across the extreme northwestern portion

of the department in an east-west fashion, the main massif

of the Cuchumatan Mountains roughly follows the parallel at

15° 30' latitude. The topography of the department ranges

in elevation from 820 feet to 11,500 feet above sea level.

Most of the area covered by the Cuchumatan Mountains lies

between 5,000 and 8,000 feet above sea level, and most of

the Kanjobal population lives within that range of altitude.

Geologically, the land is mostly limestone with igneous

intrusions.

The Cuchumatan Mountains presented the ancestors of

the Kanjobal, Chuj, and Jacaltec Indians with a formidable

geographical barrier that halted their southward expansion

from what is today Chiapas, Mexico. They established no

villages further south than the mountain range's north

slope. The Cuchumatan Mountains also seem to have stopped

the northward expansion of the Mam Indians, who historically

migrated toward the Cuchumatan Mountains from the south.

Their territory did not extend beyond the south slope of the

Cuchumatan Mountains.

To reach Kanjobal country from the south one goes

from the town of Chiantla (altitude 6,200 feet), just north

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of the town of Huehuetenango (capital of the department by

the same name) to the mountain pass (elevation over 10,000

feet) after travelling a distance of only six miles. In

1932, this was still done by travelling two days on

horseback. There were no roads to accommodate automobile

traffic in the area until more recently (La Farge 1947).

At the time of my fieldwork in Huehuetenango

Department (December 1991 through January 1992), there were

unpaved, all-weather roads adequate to handle the cast-off

school buses used for public transportation in Guatemala.

The bus trip from the town of Huehuetenango to Santa Eulalia

takes about nine hours. The 153-mile trip from

Huehuetenango to Barillas, the furthest point toward the

north that is attainable by bus, requires 12 hours, assuming

there are no breakdowns.

Prehistorically and at the time of first contact with

Europeans, access to Kanjobal country was easiest from the

northwest, the area that is today Icnown as the southern part

of the Mexican state of Chiapas. For this reason, the trade

routes that the Kanjobal Indians exploited prior to contact

with Europeans were to the north, through the Ixcan, San

Ramon, and Ixquisis River valleys. Because of the

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similarity between the Kanjobal, Tojolabal, and Motocintlec

languages, it is believed that the ancestors of the

Kanjobal, Chuj, and Jacaltec Indians originated in southern

Mexico and moved further south into the Cuchumatan

Mountains.

The border between Mexico and Guatemala continues to

be very porous, with the Indians crossing at will. For

them, the international border is not a matter of

consequence, no more than a line drawn on a piece of paper.

Thus, even before the massacres of Guatemalan Indians that

precipitated the refugee crisis of 1981 to 1983, there were

kinship, friendship, and economic ties between Indians

living in villages in Guatemala and Mexico. While I was

living in La Huerta, Guatemalan peddlers travelled across

the mountains on trails that were established long ago, to

sell their wares in the weekly market to Mexican Tzeltal

Indians and Guatemalan Mam and Kanj obal Indians.

In 1992, there were numerous Kanjobal, Chuj, and

Jacaltec aldeas and caserios in Guatemala just across the

Mexican border, which is only about three kilometers south

of La Huerta. On foot it is only a journey of four or five

hours from La Huerta to the nearest Guatemalan Indian

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villages. Barillas and Quetzal are only about 20 miles from

the border, following the Ixquisis River valley from Mexico

into Guatemala (see Figure 2).

At the time of Oliver La Farge's ethnographic

research in towns of Jacaltenango (1927) and Santa Eulalia

(1932), the Kanjobal Indians characterized the Mam Indians

as cunning and dangerous. The Kanjobal Indians still feel

some distrust toward the Mam Indians, but the antipathy has

lessened some since the 1970s, as a result of the settlement

of the Ixcan River valley by landless Kanjobal, Chuj,

Jacaltec, and Mam Indians and the flight to refuge in

Mexico. Both of these experiences have forced the Mam and

Kanjobal Indians to live closer together, to cooperate with

each other for survival, and to pursue common political and

economic goals.

The climate of the lands encompassed by the

Cuchumatan Mountains is as variable as the topography. The

Indians of the region distinguish between tierra fria 'cold

country,' tierra tempiada 'temperate country,' and tierra

caliente 'hot country.' Each climatic zone is associated

with a range of elevation, temperature, expected amount and

pattern of rainfall, and crops which can be grown there.

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The town of Santa Eulalia, the cabecera ' county seat'

of the municipio by the same name, is located at an

elevation of 8,300 feet above sea level, and is considered

tierra fria. The rainy season there runs from June to late

November, the dry season from December to May. Temperatures

during the dry season range from 1° centigrade to 25°

centigrade. By way of contrast. Barillas, the main town in

the municipio by the same name, is considered tierra

caliente. The rainy season there lasts from May through

January.

As a matter of necessity, the Indians living in a

particular climatic zone are very familiar with these

factors as they relate to their economic mainstay of milpa

agriculture, the intercropping of com, beans, and squash.

These three crops are sometimes referred to as the "Mayan

trinity." In tierra fria there is usually only one harvest

per year, whereas in tierra caliente there are sometimes two

harvests. In addition to the Mayan staples of corn, beans,

and squash, other vegetables and fruits are planted and

harvested, depending on the climatic zone. In tierra fria,

for example, potatoes, apples, and wheat are commonly

cultivated. In tierra caliente, the additional crops, which

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cardamom, rubber, sugar cane, coffee, bananas, and

pineapples.

Guatemalan Indians also associate certain illnesses

with specific climatic zones. They believe people who are

natives of a village in tierra fria are highly susceptible

to diseases associated with tierra caliente, and vice versa.

A commonly heard complaint from Guatemalan Indians who

originated from tierra fria and found refuge in Mexico in an

area considered to be tierra caliente was that they became

sick with diseases they had never previously experienced in

their natal villages.

This perception of climatic zones and their

associated crops and illnesses became particularly

significant when the Mexican government forced about half of

the Guatemalan refugees to move from Chiapas to the Yucatan

Peninsula, beginning in 1984. Guatemalan Indians from

tierra fria who had found refuge in tierra fria in Mexico

objected to being relocated to the states of Campeche and

Quintana Roo because the Yucatan peninsula is considered

tierra caliente. They were not familiar with the rainfall

patterns or the agricultural seasons there. They were also

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afraid of the diseases associated with that climatic zone.

The refugees with whom I worked were some of the ones that

had refused to be relocated. According to them, many

refugees died during the first year or two of refuge in the

Yucatan peninsula camps because they had no resistance to

the diseases there. Yet, they did admit that the refugees

that had relocated to the camps in Campeche and Quintana Roo

had successfully adapted to the agricultural seasons and

weather patterns there.

LAND DISTRIBUTION AND THE GUATEMALAN

REFUGEE CRISIS OF 1981-1983

The unequal distribution of land in Guatemala is the

key to understanding the economy of the Kanjobal Indians and

other Maya Indians in the Cuchumatan Mountains. It is the

primary factor that led to the Indian rebellion in the

Western Highlands. In turn, the Indian rebellion led to the

government's counter-insurgency campaign in 1982-1983. Land

tenure was also a major issue of concern for refugees as

they contemplated repatriating from Mexico to Guatemala. It

was mentioned in every interview I conducted with the

refugees in Chiapas. Because it is such an important issue

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in the origins of the refugee crisis and repatriation it

deserves special consideration. At this point, therefore, I

will discuss briefly the land tenure situation from about

1944 to 1982.

Much has already been written on the historical

origins of the unequal distribution of land in Guatemala,

with its roots in the encomienda system, and later the

repartimiento system (Feldman 1985, 1992; Hill 1992;

Melville and Melville 1971; Nash 1970). There are also many

sources that discuss the early history of Guatemala (Carmack

1983; Collins 1980; Handy 1984; Lovell 1985; Smith 1990).

It is sufficient to say here that the laws of Guatemala have

never recognized the right of Indians to aboriginal title of

the lands they traditionally occupied prior to the arrival

of the Spaniards. Since the Spanish Conquest, land

ownership in Guatemala has been concentrated in the hands of

a few wealthy ladinos, in the form of fincas 'large

plantations' which grow cash crops for export. Most of

these plantations are concentrated along Guatemala's Pacific

coast. The main cash crops in Guatemala include coffee,

sugar, cardamom, bananas, and cotton. The national economy

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of Guatemala is completely dependent on the poor Indian

population for a steady, plentiful supply of cheap labor.

By contrast, the vast majority of Indians in

Guatemala are landless campesinos 'peasant farmers,' who

must rent land or sharecrop to provide for their families.

They cultivate milpas 'small agricultural plots,' on which

they grow com, beans, squash, and other cultigens for their

own consumption. Some Indians actually own some of their

own land, but it is not usually enough to provide for the

family for an entire year.

In 1944, Guatemala elected a civilian, Juan José

Arevalo, as president. Arevalo was followed by another

civilian president, Jacobo Arbenz, in 1951. The combined

presidencies of Arevalo and Arbenz (1944-1954) constitute

a decade of experimentation with democratic principles

unparalleled in Guatemalan history. For example, a new

constitution, adopted in 1945, gave all males over 18 the

right to vote. This right had previously been reserved only

for males who could read and write. The new constitution

outlawed the vagrancy laws that had been used to force

Indians to work on the coastal plantations. The

experimentation also included some limited land reform.

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which attempted to address the problem of land distribution.

It was over the issue of land reform that the

democratization of Guatemala was cut short by a coup which

was engineered by the United States' Central Intelligence

Agency.

The 1954 coup successfully installed a military

dictator, Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas, in the place of

Arbenz. Politicians that favored more democratic ideals

became marginal to the Guatemalan political process. A

ladino-led communist insurgency was started in eastern

Guatemala, with the goal of overthrowing the dictatorship.

Most of the combatants in the insurgency were poor ladinos.

The uprising did not last long, however. By the early

1960s, it had been militarily defeated, and the leaders of

the revolutionary movement went underground.

Upon their initial military defeat, the guerrilla

leaders started to rethink their methods for destablizing

the government. As a result of this evaluation, they

decided to involve the vast Maya Indian population in the

Western Highlands in the revolutionary movement. With this

goal in mind, the communists went into the Indian

communities from the mid-1960's to 1978. They assisted the

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Indians in improving education and health care in their

villages.

During this same time period, radical Catholic

priests had been training Indian catechists, or lay-

teachers, and establishing what are referred to as Christian

Base Communities. These priests were disillusioned with the

slow pace of development under the capitalist model, which

had not improved the lives of the country's rural Indian

population. In place of capitalism, these priests preached

liberation theology, a blending of Marxist political

ideology and Christian social theology. Liberation theology

teaches that God is on the side of the poor and stands ready

to assist them in the creation of a more just society. Some

liberation theologians even suggest that it is acceptable to

participate in armed conflict against the oppressors of the

poor. It was this kind of theological consciousness raising

that led to the establishment of the cooperatives in the

Ixcan region of northern Quiche and Huehuetenango

Departments.

Finally, in 1978, the communists publicly announced

they were once again mounting a military campaign to

overthrow the government. By this time, however, they had

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broad support from the Indian communities in the Western

Highlands, where the communists and the liberation

theologians had been busy over the past decade with their

political consciousness raising activities.

From 1978 to 1981, the Guatemalan government

struggled unsuccessfully against the insurgency.

Immediately after the 1982 presidential election results

were known, the Guatemalan military initiated a coup, in

which General Efrain Rios-Montt, an Evangelical Christian,

took control of the Guatemalan government. The man who had

been elected never took office, and Rios-Montt succeeded

General Romeo Lucks Garcia as dictator. This coup came as a

result of the Guatemalan army's frustrating stalemate

against the insurgency in the Western Highlands. Once in

power, Rios-Montt initiated a campaign of terror against the

Indian communities, aimed at ending the Indians' support for

the insurgency movement. The Indians in the Highlands

alternatively refer to the campaign as la represion 'the

repression' or la violencia 'the violence.'

Regional and global politics played a role in the

eventual failure of the communist insurgency. In

particular, the military victory of the communist

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Sandinistas in Nicaragua in 1979 created fear of similar

victories in Guatemala and El Salvador. When the staunch

anti-communist, Ronald Reagan, was elected president in the

United States, covert military assistance to anti-communist

forces in Central America was strengthened. The United

States' military assistance included the provision of

military hardware, the sharing of intelligence information,

and training for the Guatemalan army. Rios-Montt's efforts

to defeat the communist insurgency by threatening its base

of popular support received substantial support from the

conservative evangelicals who had helped to elect Reagan in

1980.

At this point, I will not go into detail concerning

la represion. which extended from 1982 to 1983. Much of my

time in the field involved listening to refugees tell their

stories about the effects of the counter-insurgency campaign

on their families and communities. In chapter 6, I include

their stories, which are based on the data that I gathered

through ethnographic interviews. With simplicity and

candor, the refugees' own words describe their experiences

far more effectively than I ever could. I will simply

summarize that the Guatemalan army burned 400 villages to

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Che ground during chat time period and was responsible for

killing an estimated 60,000 people, nearly all of them

Indians. La represion also caused approximately 2 million

Guatemalans to flee their homes (in a country which, at the

time, had a total population of only 8 million). One

million of these citizens were internally displaced and one

million became refugees in other countries. Of the latter,

45,000 Guatemalans became "official" refugees (that is,

documented by the UNHCR and the Mexican government), living

in camps along the Mexican border. One of these refugee

camps. La Huerta, became my primary research site.

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KANJOBAL INDIAN SOCIETY AND CULTURE

The vast majority of refugees in La Huerta were

Kanjobal Indians. I believed that continuity and

discontinuity with the past might be a factor influencing

the refugees' decision whether or not to repatriate. If

they were forced to adopt new ways of life as a result of

living in refuge in Mexico, this might contribute to greater

dissatisfaction with refugee life. I reasoned that deep

dissatisfaction with refugee life might cause the refugees

to want to repatriate sooner than if they were reasonably

content with their lot as refugees.

This chapter tries to make clear the ways in which

the Guatemalan refugees continue to live in a manner similar

to that described in 1932 by Oliver La Farge, in his

ethnography of the Kanjobal village, Santa Eulalia. The

majority of Kanjobal Indians, both refugees in Mexico and

those living in Guatemala, continue to make a living as

campesinos 'peasant farmers,' supplementing their

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subsistence agriculture with occasional wage work. In

Guatemala, some Kanjobal Indians also plant cash crops which

are sold to produce a cash income. They still speak their

language, live in extended families, and construct their

houses in the same manner as they did in 1932. The Kanjobal

Indians continue to think of themselves as being "from"

specific villages such as Santa Eulalia or Barillas or San

Miguel. Even though they may never have lived in one of

these villages, they identify themselves and each other by

the manner in which they speak the Kanjobal language. Many

Kanjobal Indians continue to practice costumbre 'traditional

Mayan religion.' Social and cultural continuity with the

past are discussed in detail in chapter 2.

In spite of these continuities with the past,

Kanjobal Indians have also changed since 1932. By 1992,

nearly all of the Kanjobal men I met spoke some Spanish.

Kanjobal men and women no longer wore their traditional

clothing as consistently as they used to. In the cases of

language and dress, however, Kanjobal women were typically

more conservative than Kanjobal men. Since 1932, Kanjobal

Indians have been introduced to, and deeply influenced by.

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Protestant missionaries and Catholic priests involved in

both Catholic Action and the liberation theology movement.

In anticipation of some of the conclusions drawn at

the end of this dissertation, I will note briefly here that

I did make some discoveries with regard to patterns of

continuity and discontinuity with the Kanjobal Indians'

cultural past. I discovered through my research that most

of the refugees perceived their lives to be about the same

as they had been in Guatemala. There were no major changes

in terms of climatic patterns, the crops that they planted,

or family and village life. Based on my own observations in

the refugee camps and in Kanjobal villages in Guatemala, I

have concluded that this perception is basically accurate.

In terms of religious change, the refugees who were

practitioners of costumbre were the most severely affected,

since their religious beliefs and rituals involve the

natural features of the physical landscape surrounding their

villages. Most of the refugees commented on the fact that

they did not have their own land on which to grow sufficient

subsistence crops or to plant cash crops, and they had no

hopes of obtaining such land in Mexico. I also discovered

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that discontent with refugee life did not always lead

directly into a decision to repatriate sooner than others.

The Mam and Kekchx Indians were small minorities in

La Huerta. I will not comment at length on their culture,

though I will address aspects of their society and culture

as they become pertinent to analysis of data collected for

the dissertation. The anthropological literature on Mam

Indian communities is extensive, and several key

ethnographies and journal articles are listed in the

References Cited section at the end of the dissertation (for

example, Oakes 1951a and 1951b; Wagley 1941, 1949, 1957;

Watanabe 1990, 1992).

Because of the remoteness of the Kanjobal Indians,

they have received much less attention from anthropologists

than the more numerous and easily accessible groups such as

the Mam, Quiche, and Kakchiquel. There are no known

accounts of the Kanjobal or Chuj Indian village social

structure or cultural patterns dating from the time of the

Spanish Conquest, while there are for some other Maya areas.

There is a description of Jacaltenango, a Jacaltec Indian

village, during the Colonial Period (Collins 1980).

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The earliest ethnographic description of a Kanjobal

village is that of Oliver La Farge, who described himself as

an amateur anthropologist and professional writer. La Farge

travelled to Huehuetenango Department as part of the First

and Third expeditions sponsored by Tulane University's

Institute of Middle American Research (Blom and La Farge

1926-1927). He spent an unspecified amount of time at

Jacaltenango in 1927 and six months living in Santa Eulalia

(a Kanjobal village) in 1932.

La Farge wrote monographs based on each of these

experiences (La Farge 1947; La Farge and Byers 1931). Based

on my own fieldwork, much of what he wrote about the society

and culture of Kanjobal Indians of Santa Eulalia in 1947 was

still pertinent in 1992. His monograph on Santa Eulalia can

be used as a baseline for understanding the social,

economic, political, and religious changes that have

occurred in Kanjobal country since 1932. There are two

other monographs on Kanjobal communities. One is Francis

Xavier Grollig's dissertation on the village of San Miguel

Acatan (Grollig 1959); the other is a dissertation by

Shelton Davis on Santa Eulalia (Davis 1970). Morris Siegel

wrote several articles on San Miguel Acatan (Siegel 1941a,

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1941b, 1941C, 1942a, 1942b, 1943, 1954a, 1972). 1954b,

Victor Montejo has written a book on his Jacaltec village,

Tzalala (Montejo 1987) and has compiled a collection of

Jacaltec stories (Montejo 1991).

I think it is most appropriate to refer to the

Kanjobal Indians as a "language group" rather than a

"tribe." The Indians who speak Kanj obal are not a tribe in

the sense of being members of a single, unified, political

entity. La Farge (1947) suggested that each municipio with

Kanjobal villages functioned more or less like a tribe. I

think this does not fit the reality of Kanjobal political

organization very well, since many of the Kanjobal Indians

that originated in one municipio now live in another one.

Rather than trying to force the Kanjobal Indians to fit into

foreign concepts like "tribe" or "municipio." I think it is

preferable to simply describe the political organization as

it is. The largest political unit among the Kanjobal

Indians is the village, with its surrounding dependent

caserios.

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LANGUAGE USE AND CODE - SWITCHING IN THE REFUGEE CAMP

Before going into the field in Chiapas, Mexico, it

was not clear which Indian language group I would be working

with most closely. From the anthropological work that had

been done by Beatriz Manz (1988), I knew that the Guatemalan

refugees spoke several different Mayan languages, including:

Chuj, Jacaltec, Kanjobal, Mam, Ixil, Quiché, Kekchi, and

Kakchiquel. But Manz' writings included no specific

breakdown on which languages were spoken in each refugee

camp in Chiapas. For this reason, it was impossible to

choose a language to learn in advance of my fieldwork.

Once I chose to work in La Huerta refugee camp,

however, the decision of which language to learn was easy.

The vast majority of the refugees in that camp were Kanjobal

speakers, as were all six of the elected leaders. Most of

the Kanjobal women were not fluent in Spanish. Many of the

older women, and some of the older Kanjobal men were

monolingual in Kanjobal.

The Mam Indians in the camp provided a strong

contrast to the Kanjobal Indians in terms of the ability to

speak Spanish. The Mam Indian men all spoke Spanish well;

there were no Mam men who were monolingual in Mam. Kanjobal

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and Mam Indian women also differed in their ability to speak

Spanish. Most of the Ham women spoke Spanish

conversationally, whereas Kanjobal women spoke very little

Spanish. One Mam Indian woman complained to me that there

were not very many people in the camp that she could talk

to, since there were so few Mam speakers and none of the

Kanjobal women could speak Spanish very well.

I think differences in competence with Spanish are

due, in part, to the more extensive and prolonged contact

the Mam Indians have had with the Guatemalan government.

The territory of the Mam Indians is not as remote as that of

the Kanjobal Indians, so delivering services to the Mam

Indians, such as education, is much easier. Classes in

Guatemalan schools are almost exclusively taught in Spanish.

Also, the Mam Indians have participated more extensively and

for a longer period of time in the pattern of migrating to

the Guatemalan and Mexican coast to find employment on

plantations, where they also learned some Spanish.

Conversing with the Mam Indians in Spanish, therefore, did

not present a serious problem.

My Kanjobal and Mam informants said that they did not

speak or understand each other's languages. This is

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understandable, since Mam is part of the eastern branch of

the Mayan language family. The only exceptions to this were

a few young Kanjobal males who had made friends with some

Mam Indians their own age since living together in La Huerta

refugee camp. These young people had taught each other a

few simple, common expressions in their respective

languages.

When Mam individuals attended refugee camp political

meetings, the Kanjobal représentantes would code-switch from

Kanjobal to /kastiya/ 'Spanish,' so that the Mam men could

participate. Casual conversation between several Kanjobal

Indians was always in Kanjobal, but if a Mam person

approached, they quickly switched to Spanish when they

wanted to include him. My Kanjobal informants did not claim

to understand Chuj or Jacaltec, though they recognized that

some lexical items were the same.

KANJOBAL AND THE CLASSIFICATION OF MAYAN LANGUAGES

Linguists consider Kanjobal to be a subfamily of the

western branch of the Mayan family of languages. It can be

seen from Figure 3 that the Kanjobal language is most

closely related to other languages in the Western branch of

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Mayan languages, especially Jacaltec, Acatec, Chuj,

Motozintlec, and Tojolabal. The latter two languages are

spoken in Chiapas, Mexico, not in Guatemala. According to

some linguists (Kaufman 1976a), the Kanjobal subfamily

should be divided into two branches Chuj and Kanjobal

Proper, as reflected in Figure 3. The two branches of

Kanjobal have been further subdivided according to the

following outline:

Kanjobal Subfamily I. Chuj A. Tojolabal B . Chuj II. Kanjobal Proper A. Kanjobal Complex 1. Kanj obal 2. Acatec 3. Jacaltec B . Cotoque Complex 1. Motozintlec (mocho) 2. Tuzantec

Other linguists think that Chuj should be classified under

Kanjobal Proper, with Tojolabal being a separate

subcategory, representing a midway point between Kanjobal

Proper and the Tzeltal-Tzotzil branch of Mayan languages

(Dakin 1987; Robertson 1977). This debate over the

classification of Kanjobal has still not been resolved.

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Modern Mayan Languages

Kekchi Pocomchi Pocomam Quiché Sipacapefio Saoapultec Tzutujil Cakchiquel Ospantec Mam Teco Aguacatec Ixil Jacaltec Acatec Kanjobal Motozintlec Tojolabal

Tzotzil

Choi Chontal Chorti

Mopan

Huastec Chicomuceltec

1 I 1— I— I— I--- 1 r 4,000 3,500 3,000 2,500 2,000 1,500 1,000 500 Approximate Time of Divergence (years ago)

Figure 3 : Mayan Language Family Historical Relationships (based on Kaufman 1974).

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My Kanjobal informants referred to several varieties

of speaking Kanjobal, all of which are mutually

intelligible, according to them. Each variety of Kanjobal

is associated with a distinct municipio in Huehuetenango

Department where Kanjobal speakers live. By their own

classification of their language, the Kanjobal Indians

included the following varieties (each variety label is

based on the name of the municipio where it is spoken):

Migueleno (spoken in San Miguel Acatan), San Rafael

Independencia, Santa Eulalia, San Juan Ixcoy, Soloma, and

Barillas.

Zavala, following Kaufman, differentiates between

Eastern and Western Kanjobal (Zavala 1992). Eastern

Kanjobal includes two varieties: Kanjobal San Miguel Acatan

(KSMA) and Kanjobal San Rafael Independencia (KSRI), which

are very similar. Together, the two varieties of Eastern

Kanjobal are referred to as "Acatec." There are

approximately 24,500 people living in these two municipios;

the vast majority of them are Kanjobal Indians. This

coincides well with Cojti's estimate that there are about

20,000 speakers of Acatec (Adams 1994). Western Kanjobal

includes three varieties: Kanjobal Santa Eulalia (KSE),

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Kanjobal Soloma (KS), and Kanjobal San Juan Ixcoy (KSJI).

Cojti estimated there are 112,000 speakers of Western

Kanjobal. In this dissertation, I will refer to specific

varieties of Kanjobal by the initials indicated above. When

not making a distinction as to variety, I will use the term

"Kanjobal." Generally, Eastern and Western Kanjobal do

share a common lexicon. But there are major differences

between Eastern and Western Kanjobal, not only phonological,

but morphological and syntactic as well.

Some work had been done on various aspects of the

varieties of Kanjobal proper prior to the time of my

fieldwork (Dakin 1976a, 1976b, 1982; Day 1973a, 1973b;

Hopkins 1967, 1978; Lara Martinez 1985; Martin 1977; Maxwell

1976) . I do not know of any complete grammars of KSE. The

first complete grammar of Acatec was not published until

1992. It was written by Mexican anthropologist Roberto

Zavala (Zavala 1992; see also, Penalosa 1986).

I had the opportunity to learn a little about both

the Eastern and Western varieties of Kanjobal. The family

of my main informant for the Kanjobal language, Diego, was

originally from Santa Eulalia, and this is the variety that

I learned the most about. Diego was also familiar with some

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Acatec vocabulary words that were different from KSE, as

well as with differences in verb conjugation. The refugee

family with whom I had my meals in the camp each day

originated from San Miguel Acatan municipio. so they spoke

KSMA. With their help, I was able to check for some

similarities and differences in lexicon, morphology, and

syntax, though this was not done on a systematic basis since

linguistics was not the focus of my research.

The phonemic inventory in Figure 4 is based on what I

learned from my Kanjobal language teachers. It is very

similar to the inventory provided by Zavala in his KSMA

grammar (Zavala 1992). There are two differences between

our inventories. One is that I have included 25 consonants

for Kanjobal, while he included 24 consonants for Acatec.

The "extra" consonant in the Santa Eulalia variety of

Kanjobal is the glottalized uvular /q'/. My informants were

adamant that /q'/ was a separate phoneme from /q/, providing

me wit examples of several minimal pairs to make their

point. The other difference is that I have included four

consonants that have been borrowed from Spanish and are not

native to Kanjobal. Spanish loan words do occur in everyday

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. m J-) jj 0 r~01 i k m cr CP

u m rH - r - i 01 (U > gg s M (H U IW I t o X X n k ><{ iJ U J-) 0) g$ k It c I t 0 I It 0) O JJ 0) I t OJ I t Æ £! n > X Ü O o iH i t 4J •m I t A G G I t 2 Ui OJ U-l -H> •HI t 4J I—I 0) I t N N I t > O U 4J I—I G I t k •H M M-4 I t k U I t G rH I t o W 4J J-) to TJ > M-l rH O I t P o

I t 0 -H 4J G a n u I t n M1 u u I t k -H jJ I t 0 6 G n 0) n cn G ■o OJ 01 N G ,§ x» -H I t u a u Q) • • 1—1 r—1 O G V 0) N 0) 0) I t • • I t 01 rH P O OJ c > -H > rH U 4J rH k 01 k 1C -H rH ■H a iJ G I t 01 a T3 n •• 4-1 c 01 I t JJ e o I t 01 JJ I t •H 01 01 OJ c G u I t •H t—1 G I t I t rH I—1 ■H 1—1 k K rH JJ U 01 Ol 0 G r—1 M-l 01 G OJ c u o •H 01 I t s §1 c u 1—1 k (U a 0 •H c o Ü k cn w >

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Kanjobal speech and, for this reason, I think it is

important to include them as part of the phonemic inventory.

THE KANJOBAL INDIANS AND THEIR NEIGHBORS IN 1932

Based on his visits to the Cuchumatân Mountains in

1927 and 1932, La Farge estimated the total population to be

about 57,200. This included approximately 52,000 Indians

(91% of the total inhabitants) and 5,200 ladinos (9% of the

total inhabitants). Most of the ladinos (4,000 or 77% of

all ladinos in the department) were concentrated in the

tierra caliente municipios of Santa Ana, San Antonio Huista,

Nenton, El Quetzal, and Barillas. By contrast, there were

far fewer ladinos (1,200 or 23% of the ladinos in

Huehuetenango Department) in the other 12 municipios, which

are classified as tierra fria and tierra templada. In these

municipios, the Indians were a much greater majority

(39,OOOIndians or 75%). This information is summarized in

Table 2, below.

La Farge wrote that, according to Adrian Recinos

(Recinos 1954), the Spanish colonial government organized

the Kanjobal, Chuj, and Jacaltec Indians into six main

villages just after the Conquest (see Figure 1): San Juan

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Ixcoy (Kanjobal), Soloma (Kanjobal), Santa Eulalia

(Kanjobal), San Miguel Acatân (Kanjobal), San Mateo Ixtatân

(Chuj), Jacaltenango (Jacaltec; Collins 1980; Craig 1977; La

TABLE 2

POPULATION ESTIMATES BY ETHNICITY AND CLIMATIC ZONE HUEHUETENANGO DEPARTMENT, GUATEMALA IN 1932

tierra tierra fria TOTAL

Ladinos 4, 000 1,200 5,200 Indians 13,000 39,000 52,000 TOTAL 17,000 40,200 57,200

Farge and Byers 1931). As indicated. La Farge classified

the first four villages as "Kanjobal." As noted earlier,

the separate classification of the language spoken in San

Miguel Acatan as "Acatec" is a recent phenomenon. La Farge

thought of Chuj and Jacaltec as distinct languages from

Kanj obal, but did not separate out Acatec.

La Farge indicated that, in 1932, each Indian

language group was associated with specific villages and/or

municipios of Huehuetenango Department, as follows:

Chuj: San Mateo Ixtatân, Nenton, and San Sebastian Coatan

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Jacaltec: Jacaltenango, Santa Ana Huista, San Antonio Huista, Petatân, Concepcion, San Marcos Jacaltenango, San Andrés Jacaltenango, and the southeast corner of Nenton municipio

Kanjobal: San Juan Ixcoy, San Pedro Soloma, Santa Eulalia, San Miguel Acatan, San Rafaël Independencia, Quetzal, and Santa Cruz Barillas

Each language group's settlements were located along a

different river valley trade route toward the north

(Mexico). The Jacaltec Indians settled along the San

Gregorio River watershed. The Chuj established villages

along the Ixquisis River valley, with the principal Chuj

village, San Mateo Ixtatan, at the river's headwaters. The

Kanjobal villages followed the northwestern slope of the

Cuchumatân Mountains and the Ixcân River valley trade route

(see Figure 2).

Kanjobalan languages were spoken in a couple of

locations in Chiapas, Mexico, before the refugee crisis of

1978-1983. La Farge noted that the villages of San José

Montenegro and Zapotâl, both in Chiapas, Mexico, were

Jacaltec and Kanjobal colonies, respectively. Zapotâl, said

La Farge, was founded by a group of Kanjobal Indians, who

were "fugitives from justice." He did not mention his

source for this information or the nature of their supposed

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legal transgressions (La Farge 1947). More recently, Zavala

noted that Kanjobal is spoken today in the Mexican municipio

of La Trinitaria, more specifically in the ejidos (Indian

villages on communally-owned land) of Cuauhtemoc, Benito

Juarez, and Lago Escondido (Zavala 1992).

Concerning the "original" six Kanjobal, Chuj, and

Jacaltec villages that were established in Guatemala after

contact with Europeans, La Farge noted that Soloma may have

been preeminent. He described the Indians in San Juan Ixcoy

municipio as "an independent tribe" of Kanjobal speakers.

He also mentioned that all Kanjobal Indians acknowledged the

importance of Soloma and Santa Eulalia as political and

religious centers.

Santa Eulalia municipio once included much of

northern Huehuetenango Department, its borders following the

Ixcan River southward from the Mexican border to the Amelco

River, which branches from it; from there, following the

Amelco River westward to the mountain ridge that separates

Soloma from Santa Eulalia. Two other municipios were

subsequently formed from Santa Eulalia municipio: Barillas

(1889) and Quetzal (1900). Quetzal originally consisted of

the aldeas of Nuca and Xoxlac, plus a couple of caserios and

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a finca 'large plantation.' These new municipios were

carved out of Santa Eulalia municipio at the request of

ladinos, who wanted to develop the area by establishing

fincas there for the cultivation of coffee.

In 1932, there were approximately 7,000 Indians and

100 ladinos in the municipio of Santa Eulalia. La Farge

stated that only a few hundred of the Indians spoke Spanish

well or were literate. Many of the Indian women, he said,

spoke no Spanish at all. In the more remote municipios of

Quetzal and Barillas, there were about 3,000 Indians and

1,500 Indians, respectively.

La Farge indicated that there was a shared sense of

common identity among the Indians in the three municipios of

Santa Eulalia, Barillas, and Quetzal. As evidence for this.

La Farge noted that an /7alkal chaq/ 'chief priest'

(/7alkal/ is a Spanish loan word, alcalde 'mayor') was from

the town of Barillas, and that the Indians in Barillas

continued to give financial support to the civil-religious

hierarchy at Santa Eulalia.

In 1932, at the time of La Farge's second visit to

the region, the river valleys to the north (Ixquisis, San

Ramon, and Ixcan Rivers) were uninhabited (see Figure 1) .

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This changed in the 1970s, due to several colonization

projects for landless Indians, some of which were guided by

Catholic priests and other missionaries (Falla 1992;

Morrissey 1975). The Ixcan colonization process will be

described briefly in chapter 5, largely based on information

from the refugees in La Huerta refugee camp.

SOCIAL STRUCTURE

The basic social and economic unit of Kanjobal Indian

society is the extended family. Kanjobal Indian extended

families are patrilocal, patrilineal, and patriarchal. La

Farge found no evidence of clans when he visited Santa

Eulalia in 1932. He also noted that the closest the Indians

came to tribal organization was the aldea 'village'

hierarchy.

The ideal Kanjobal household consists of two to four

generations living together in a single family compound,

often under the same roof. Specifically, such an extended

family household would consist of the following persons-,

grandfather and grandmother, their unmarried daughters,-

their sons (married and unmarried); their sons' wives,- and

their sons' children. At the time of my research, this was

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still the culturally ideal pattern of Kanjobal family

structure.

In general, Kanjobal Indians only marry other

Kanjobal Indians, particularly Kanjobal Indians from the

same municipio. According to the ideal patrilocal pattern

of post-marital residence, when a young man marries, his

wife will come to live with him in his father's house, and

they will raise their children there. Usually, the husband

has to perform an unspecified period of bride service, up to

a year, for his prospective father-in-law. After her

engagement, a female is expected to go to live in the

household of her future husband's parents. She gives her

labor to her father-in-law's household, and the children she

bears become part of the father-in-law's lineage. When a

new husband is very poor and his father-in-law is wealthy,

the new husband may go live with his new wife's family. But

this is the exception to the rule.

The joint extended family household pools labor for

agricultural and other economic activities, and shares the

fruits of everyone's labor. The joint extended family

shares a single cooking fire, and the women of the household

share such monotonous, daily tasks as making and maintaining

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the cooking fire in the morning, soaking and grinding c o m

for making tortillas, cooking meals, fetching water and

firewood, and supervising each other's children. The males

in the household work their plots of agricultural land

together.

Sometimes the extended household fissions,- for

instance, this can occur at the time of the grandfather's

death, or when a younger son marries and decides he wants to

manage his own nuclear family's financial affairs. When the

extended family fissions, the grandfather's eldest son,

under the rule of male primogeniture, inherits all of his

father's lands, his house, and other possessions. Property

inheritance is, therefore, patrilineal. The eldest son

usually remains in his father's household, helping to care

for his elderly parents until they die. Female children do

not usually inherit property from their fathers.

The male primogeniture inheritance rule leaves

younger sons of the grandfather in the disadvantaged

position of looking for wage work and/or some other means to

rent or purchase agricultural land so that they can make a

financial contribution to their family. If it becomes

necessary or desirable to break up the household, each

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younger son constructs a separate house for himself, his

wife, and his children. The new home is usually constructed

on or near the grandfather's compound. The separate nuclear

families then begin to manage their own financial affairs.

Each nuclear family will usually farm, cook, fetch firewood

and water, and do other chores, separately.

Ideally speaking, Kanjobal families are patriarchal.

The grandfather or, in his absence, his eldest son, is

usually considered the head of the family. He is

responsible for making most of the economic decisions, and

it is he who has the primary role in religious rituals at

the family level. The grandmother exerts considerable

influence on the daily household activities of her unmarried

daughters, her daughters-in-law, and her grandchildren. She

also has an important role in family religious devotion,

participating alongside her husband as a co-leader in

family-level rituals.

HOUSE CONSTRUCTION

In the more remote, rural areas, the typical Kanjobal

Indian house is still of wood construction, and is

rectangular. The houses vary in size, depending on the

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wealth and size of the family, from approximately 30 feet by

40 feet to 40 feet by 60 feet. There is usually a single

entrance and there are no windows. This house pattern was

still dominant in the refugee camps I visited, and in

northern Huehuetenango Department.

In 1932, when a house was to be constructed, a family

called a soothsayer /7aj txom/, to divine if a particular

piece of land were suitable. If the soothsayer agreed that

it was a good place for the house, the family erected their

family cross altar and the house was built around it.

Specialists were hired to build the house (La Farge 1947) .

I do not have any comparative data from my fieldwork

concerning the use of soothsayers or specialists in building

houses. At one house raising, a group of refugees pooled

their labor to move a very heavy thatch roof from one house

to another. The refugee family that was building the house

performed the rest of the labor over a period of weeks.

The basic procedure for raising a house was the same

in 1992 as it was in 1932 (La Farge 1947). Four stout

corner posts are positioned in post holes dug for the

purpose. Once sunk in the ground, the corner posts stand

about six feet high above the ground. The ends of each

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corner post are "Y"-notched. Two log beams that run the

length of the house are cradled in the "Y"-notched corner

posts and lashed down. Then two shorter log beams are laid

across the lengthwise beams, and are also lashed into place.

Triangular gables are then constructed at each end of the

house and a ridgepole laid between them, creating a high-

pitched structure for the roof. This completes the basic

support structure of the house frame. Rafters are also

placed at intervals across the width of the house, not so

much for structural support of the house as to provide

flooring for above ground storage for family possessions and

food, such as dried ears of com.

Walls are then constructed of smaller log poles (one

to three inches in diameter, and six feet tall) or sometimes

rough-hewn planks. The walls are constructed by lashing the

small logs perpendicularly to two horizontal supports, using

hemp rope or vines. The walls are then raised and lashed

into place on the standing house frame. In the middle of

one of the lengthwise walls, there is usually a single,

narrow opening which serves as an entrance. There is

usually a door in place, though not always. The door is

usually simply lashed to the top and bottom of a support

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post. Sometimes there is a stone or wooden cup-shaped pivot

on the ground, on which the door swivels.

The roof was traditionally made of thatch, and the

poorer Kanjobal Indians in Guatemala, as well as those who

are in exile in Mexico, still use this material. Some of

the Kanjobal families have started using lamina ds carton

'sheets of cardboard,' which have been treated with

creosote, or rectangular sheets of corrugated metal for

roofing. All of the houses have dirt floors, which harden

over time with use.

There are gaps between the log poles or planks used

to make the walls of the house, and these are not chinked

with mud or any other material. The gables are also left

open. This type of construction is functional in several

ways. The gaps between the logs used to make the walls, as

well as the open eaves, allow light to enter the house.

This lighting arrangement allows for some privacy, since

people on the inside of the house can see visitors as they

approach, but people on the outside cannot see in easily

(the "privacy" afforded is relative, since it is possible

for people to walk up close to the house and stare through

the cracks). The openness of the house also allows a

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welcome breeze to enter on the warmest days, and allows

smoke from the kitchen fire to escape. One of the

disadvantages tothis style of construction is that, during

the rainy season, clothes and other possessions stay damp

most of the time.

On the inside, houses are usually a single, open

room. Some of the larger houses have internal partitions,

though I never observed any completely closed-off rooms.

Generally, most of the houses have two functional sub-areas,

one for sleeping and storage of personal belongings, and one

for preparing meals. During productive, daylight hours, the

sleeping/storage area is mostly used by men and the kitchen

area is used mostly by women. The sleeping and storage area

usually takes up the most space in thehouse. The Kanjobal

Indians sleep on raised beds which are made of wooden

planks. They use no mattress or ticking other than piled up

blankets and clothing. There is usually a separate bed for

each married couple in the household, and one bed for all of

the children in the household, boys and girls. Sometimes,

after puberty, older children will get a separate bed.

Until puberty, boys and girls generally sleep together.

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The kitchen area is located at one end or corner of

the house. The kitchen area is where the cooking fire is

located. The fire is usually built on a raised, square,

wooden box which is filled with packed earth. The box

stands on wooden legs, approximately two feet above ground.

The dimensions of the box are approximately three feet by

three feet by eight inches (length x width x depth). Bowls

and eating utensils are sometimes placed on a simple, wood

plank shelf for storage. Water jugs rest along the wall

inside the house, on benches or on the ground. The grinding

stone, /samej/ (KSE) 'cooking griddle,' as well as pots and

pans are also stored in this area.

Kanjobal Indian houses are traditionally built with a

yard (/txotx/ 'yard;' /txotx/ can also mean 'soil' or

'territory') in front of the house. The front wall of the

Kanjobal house is called the /tzat naa/ 'face of the house'

and the house is conceived of as "facing" the yard. The

yard may be poorly defined, but it is occasionally marked by

a fence or by terracing. La Farge pointed out that this was

very similar to the ancient Mayan architectural pattern of

temple mound-plaza construction.

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In 1932, one of the most important features of

domestic space in the homes of costumbristas. Indians who

practice a unique syncretic blend of pre-Christian Maya

Indian and Spanish Catholic religious beliefs and rituals,

was the arrangement of the family's cross altars. Each

extended family had a series of crosses they prayed to each

time they went on a family prayer round. These included the

white pine cross placed in a conspicuous place on an altar

inside the doorway of the house, called /kurus ko7 mamej/

'cross of our fathers' ("fathers" refers to 'male

ancestors,' generally) and a cross planted in the ground

just outside the house door. These two crosses were

arranged along a single axis with the door of the house and

the family's milpa. This orientation underscores the

interrelatedness of the living family members, the mllpa,

and the family's deceased ancestors. The ancestors can

influence the welfare of living family members and the

success of the agricultural harvest. In La Huerta refugee

camp, some Kanjobal costumbre Indians had crosses in their

homes, though I never saw anyone with a cross in their yard.

La Farge noted the existence of a special term

/lob'al/ used to refer to the family's center place; that

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is, the land where one is bom, where one makes milpa, and

where the family crosses are located. La Farge did not

suggest what the term /lob'al/ meant. In Kanjobal, /b'al/

is sometimes used as a locative suffix, added to a verb to

create a noun. For example, /txonb'al/ 'marketplace' is a

combination of the morpheme /txon/ 'sell' and the locative

/b'al/ 'place.' I am not sure what the morpheme /To/ in

/lob'al/ means. Perhaps it is related to the verb

/chinlowi7/ ' I eat (fmits and vegetables).' If so,

/lob'al/ might be translated 'place where we eat our

tortillas and beans' (these are the staples of Kanjobal

Indian diet; there is a different verb in Kanjobal for

eating meat - /chinchib'ej/ 'I eat meat'). Whatever its

literal meaning, the special term /lob'al/ calls attention

to the importance of place in Kanjobal culture, especially

for their family structure and religious practices.

It might be noted that the arrangement of the

household crosses used during family-level prayer round

exactly mirrors the arrangement of the crosses of the

village Catholic church which are visited during a village-

level prayer round. More will be said about the process of

the family- and village-level prayer rounds in the section

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of this chapter on Kanjobal religion. This mirroring of

space and events at various levels of social organization in

Mayan society was called "replication" by Evon Vogt, in his

study of Zinacantan, a Mexican Mayan village (Vogt 1969).

Each Kanjobal household has its own /chuj/

'sweatbath.' The Kanjobal sweatbath is made of stone and

adobe and is semi-subterranean. It is either built into a

hillside or dug into the ground at a depth of eight to ten

inches. The sweatbaths generally measure six feet long,

four feet wide, and 3 and one half feet high at their peak.

They have their own separate thatched roof. The rock

fireplace is in the comer of the hut, and a wooden bench,

slightly raised off of the floor, is opposite the fireplace,

along the wall. Bathers enter the sweathouse only after the

fire has raised the temperature inside to sweltering. They

may simply sweat, poor water on the hot rocks to create

steam, or bathe with hot water. Some Kanjobal Indians in La

Huerta refugee camp had built their family a /chuj/, but not

all families had one.

It is interesting to note the influence that cultural

patterns have on spatial orientation. La Farge reported

that even though some ladinos in the town of Santa Eulalia

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built "Indian-style" houses in 1932, their use of space

provided a stark contrast to the Maya orientation. That is,

they made their houses out of the same materials used by the

Indians: pole walls, thatched roofs, and open gables, but

they put the front of the house right on the street and

placed their patio 'yard' behind the house, rather than in

front of it. This is in keeping with Spanish-style

architecture. By contrast, those wealthier Indians who

built Spanish style houses (that is, with plastered, white

washed walls and clay-tiled roof) continued to construct the

house away from the street, with a yard in front of the

house. Most Kanjobal refugees built their houses with the

front of the house opening onto a front yard. Those who

still practiced costumbre typically had their doors facing

the east.

THE INDIVIDUAL'S LIFE CYCLE

La Farge noted five life crises for the Kanjobal

Indians: marriage, birth, birth of the first bom, death of

ordinary members, and death of the family patriarch. Each

of these life crises is associated with rituals and taboos.

I did not collect comparative data on taboos or traditional

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rites of passage, but the basic pattern of the life cycle

was very similar in 1992 to that described by La Farge based

on his 1932 fieldwork.

La Farge did not discover any rituals for boys or

girls upon reaching puberty in Kanjobal society. It might

be noted that, for females, marriage follows closely after

puberty, at the age of 13 or 14. Boys typically marry

somewhat later in life, around 17 or 18 years of age. Only

after the birth of the first b o m child are the husband and

wife accepted in the community as adults. So the birth of

the first born child may be seen as functioning in the place

of puberty rites in other societies.

La Farge noted that the father of the groom-to-be

approaches the father of the bride-to-be on behalf of his

son to propose marriage. If the match is acceptable, they

negotiate the bride price (in 1932, bride price varied from

$5 to $8.30 in United States currency). Once the bride

price is negotiated, the groom's father prepares a large

feast and invites the bride's family. The boy's father

usually builds the newlyweds a house close to his own,- if he

is too poor to build them a separate house, then the husband

and wife come to live in his house. Immediately after the

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feast, the boy does bride service in his father-in-law's

milpa. and the girl goes to live with her new husband,

either in their own separate house or in the house of her

husband's father. She does not wait for the bride service

to be completed. If the girl does not produce a child, the

bride price can be returned and the marriage is considered

null.

According to my Kanjobal informants, a boy and girl

usually choose to marry each other. Dances and other social

events connected with the village patron saint fiestas, and

other community celebrations, provide young people with

opportunities to find a prospective mate. When a boy and

girl choose each other, they simply go to the milpa to have

sexual intercourse. Afterward, the relationship, if the

match is deemed a good one, is ratified by both sets of

parents, and the boy performs his bride service. It is not

clear if this element of choice on the part of the

prospective partners is something new since La Farge did his

research, or if he simply did not report this prelude to the

more formal negotiations between the fathers of the

prospective bride and groom.

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My Kanjobal language teacher, Diego, was a 17 year

old male. He was not married when I arrived in La Huerta.

He talked about wanting to get married, but said there were

no matches for him. One day a friend of Diego's told me

that he did not understand why Diego wanted "to continue

walking alone." Toward the end of my fieldwork in La

Huerta, Diego stopped showing up to teach my Kanjobal

classes. When I asked about it, he made some excuses about

having to work in the milpa with his father. Eventually, I

learned from a Kanjobal elder that he was actually

performing bride service, working for his future father-in-

law. Later, I found out that he already had the young woman

living with him in his father's house. As far as I know,

there was no ritual meal celebrated in this instance.

There was no Catholic priest residing in La Huerta.

A priest did come to visit once during my six months there,

and people told me he visited about once a year. At the

time of the priest's last visit, a number of the young

Catholic Kanjobal Indians, who had chosen a mate in the past

year, were married in one service in the village Catholic

Church.

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In 1932, La Farge noted that the ritual life of a

married couple began with the birth of their first child,

which usually followed closely upon marriage. This was

still true in 1992. Kanjobal Indians who practice costumbre

believe a husband and wife should "confess" their sins,

especially marital infidelity, to each other before going on

the family prayer round together, to ensure the well-being

of their expected baby.

Another of my young Kanjobal informants had been

married about a year when we first met. He told me that he

and his wife were expecting their first child. The young

man thought the child would be very healthy and lucky. He

said this was because he and his wife had sexual intercourse

on the day of a solar eclipse. He had been told that this

was one of the luckiest days for a child to be conceived.

According to La Farge, when the young married couple

discovered that the wife was pregnant, they went on their

first prayer round together, following the round of the

groom's father, to pay respect to his ancestors. The /chi-

o-sik'-w-i 7unin/ (KSMA) 'midwife' (literally, "she picks up

children") came as soon as labor began. Upon the arrival of

the midwife, the husband left the house and did not return

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until after the child was bom. The umbilical cord and the

afterbirth were both considered unclean, and were disposed

of (La Farge 1947) .

It was Kanjobal custom for the father of the newborn

to go pray to /xal Vaiwul/ (KSE) 'Santa Eulalia' at the

altar in the Catholic Church. Santa Eulalia is confused

with the Virgin Mary in Santa Eulalia popular theology. An

/7aj txom/ (KSE) 'soothsayer' came to the house to foretell

the child's future, according to the child's date of birth

on the two traditional Mayan calendars (see Appendix 3).

The mother observed a 20-day rest period after the

delivery. She was expected to bathe twice a day in the

family /chuj/ 'sweat bath,' and to eat lots of spicy foods,

especially lots of chiles. The child was taken on the

family's prayer round on the twentieth day after its birth.

The family's prayer round was repeated by the parents on the

child's first birthday (on the /7aab'il/ '365-day, solar

calendar'). After that, there were no birthday celebrations

for the individual, though one's birthday was considered an

important day for individual prayer after he or she becomes

an adult (La Farge 1947). I collected no data on birthing

rituals.

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Personal names among the Kanjobal Indians can become

quite confusing because of the way in which names are

recycled. Kanjobal Indians usually have two Spanish names,

each with a Kanjobal equivalent. For example, "Pedro Juan,"

would serve very well as baptismal name and surname,

respectively, for a Kanjobal male. Kanjobal personal names

sound "incomplete" to a person raised in a non-Indian,

Spanish-speaking society, as though a person only had two

baptismal names and no surname. During my field work I

heard a Mam Indian making fun of a Kanjobal Indian, calling

him a salvaje 'savage,' because the Kanjobal Indian did not

have a "real" apellido 'surname,' like "Ortiz" or

"Maldonado."

Children are generally named according to the

following rules. The eldest son usually receives his

father's two names, but in reverse order. Thus, the first

b o m son of a Kanjobal man named Pedro Juan will be named

Juan Pedro. Pedro then becomes the eldest son's surname.

Younger sons receive the father's baptismal name as their

surname, and their baptismal names from their saint day or

from some relative. Thus, all of the sons of Pedro Juan

will be surnamed Pedro. A first-born daughter typically

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gets her mother's baptismal name as her own baptismal name,

and her father's surname as her surname. Subsequently b o m

daughters get their baptismal names from relatives, and

receive the father's sumames as their own.

Kanjobal children are breast fed until the age of

eighteen months to two years. Mothers carry their babies on

their backs in a /yik b'al nak Vunin/ (KSE) 'shawl.' To get

the baby in the shawl, the mother bends over at the waist

and balances the baby on her back. The shawl is then draped

over the baby and tied in a knot at the mother's chest. The

shawl can be swung around to the front, in the fashion of a

sling, allowing the mother to breast feed the baby without

interrupting her household chores. Small Kanjobal children

spend the entire day close to their mothers, getting lots of

nurturing and attention.

Children acquire more responsibility when they reach

the age of five or six. A boy is given a small machete for

his own use, and he begins accompanying his father on trips

to fetch firewood. He also goes with his father to the

/7awal/ 'milpa' so that he can learn how to prepare the

soil, plant seeds with a digging stick, pull weeds, and

harvest the crops. Through this on-the-job training, young

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boys also learn about the agricultural seasons of the

various climatic zones. Girls of the same age begin to help

their mothers with chores like food preparation in the

kitchen area at home, or bringing water from the spring.

Even at this young age they l e a m to haul water in large

/moke]/ (KSE and KSMA) 'water jars,' which are extremely

heavy when full. Water jars are carried in one of two ways.

First, females may carry the water jars on their heads,

using a folded shawl for cushioning. Second, they may carry

the water jars on their backs, attached to a mecapal

'tumpline,' which is strapped across their forehead. They

also help to take care of younger siblings or cousins.

La Farge did not record any games played by Kanjobal

children. I observed Kanjobal children playing a marbles

game. They made their own marbles out of clay. The object

of the game was to shoot each other's marbles into shallow

holes dug in the ground. Occasionally they played with a

soccer ball, though this was more of a Sunday sport for the

adult males than for children.

Death is marked by wailing and by singing a /b'iit/

'lament.' The dead are buried underground, in the

camposanto 'holy ground' or 'cemetery.' Three days after an

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individual's death, his or her family goes on their extended

family's prayer round. This entails visiting all of the

sites in and around the village that are important to that

family, offering prayers and/or sacrifices to the

appropriate deities and ancestors. At the death of the

family patriarch, the eldest son inherits his father's

ancestral cross, or he may make one of his own.

THE CIVIL-RELIGIOUS HIERARCHY IN SANTA EULALIA

The formal political and religious structure in the

Kanjobal village of Santa Eulalia used to be very similar to

that of many Mayan villages. Political and religious

leadership was unified in a single hierarchy which, in

anthropological literature on the Maya, is referred to as a

civil-religious hierarchy. This hierarchy has been

described for numerous Maya villages in Southern Mexico and

in Guatemala (e.g., Cancian 1965; Reina 1966; Vogt 1969;

Wagley 1949; Watanabe 1992). The hierarchy functions as an

economic leveling device, keeping most people in a village

on about the same economic plane. It is also a means of

exchanging material goods for prestige in the community.

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The typical civil-religious hierarchy in a Maya

Indian village consists of a number of positions known as

cargos 'burdens.' The names for the positions vary from^one

village to another. Leaders in the village take turns

fulfilling various roles, alternating between religious and

political duties. Over time, as one ascends to a new level

in the hierarchy, the burden of an individual's

participation in the leadership hierarchy, in terms of the

commitment of time and finances to village needs, increases.

As a man proceeds through the offices in the hierarchy, he

becomes a principal 'village elder.' Principales are highly

respected in the village and, once they have completed

service in all of the positions, their obligation to finance

community events is lessened.

La Farge noted that support for the hierarchy had

already started to wane in 1932 (La Farge 1947). In a

number of Mayan villages today, the system of village

leadership has all but disappeared. Since the late 1800s,

the civil-religious hierarchy has been under attack, both by

the government and by Christian missionaries (Catholic and

Protestant). The Guatemalan government was worried about

the political autonomy that this form of local government

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offered to Indian villages. Because of this fear, the

Guatemalan government instituted political reform laws that

weakened the hold of the civil-religious hierarchy on the

local community. The missionaries were concerned about the

non-Christian elements of the religious festivals that the

hierarchies supported, the excessive financial burden placed

on community members who had to sponsor the fiestas (for

example, see Monaghan 1990, Smith 1977), and the excessive

ceremonial drinking that took place during such festivals.

In spite of the fact that the hierarchy was losing

support in Santa Eulalia, La Farge did try to collect some

information about it during his research in 1932 (La Farge

1947) . He admitted that his data were faulty. For this

reason his account of the hierarchy is not very clear.

Nevertheless, the following summary is based on my analysis

of his somewhat confusing description.

Historically, the civil cargos included the

following: several alcaldes 'mayors,' a council consisting

of several regidores 'aldermen,' a treasurer, the policia

'police,' and several mayores 'errand boys' (La Farge 1947).

The first alcalde, first regidor, and treasurer were

ladinos. All of the other positions in the hierarchy were

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filled by Indians {see Table 3). By 1932, the positions in

the civil hierarchy included only the first and second

alcaldes and one regidor. Younger family members were

called on in an ad hoc manner to serve in the position

formerly occupied by the mayores. The first and second

alcaldes were chosen annually by the principales 'village

elders,' who used soothsayers as their advisors.

As a group, the people serving in the civil hierarchy

were responsible for civil administration in the village.

Each civil cargo had its associated responsibilities. The

first alcalde's duty was to see that the village was well-

governed. The second alcalde was responsible for dealing

with the Indian community. The treasurer was the person

responsible for village finances. The assistant alcaldes

and regidores took turns serving every other week. The

policia and the mayores were youths, and only served every

other week. The policia had the important role of

maintaining public order during the very crowded festivals.

The mayores supported the alcaldes and the regidores by

running errands for them.

In 1932, many of the positions in the religious

hierarchy were still filled: mayordomo 'steward,' maestro

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cantor 'lead cantor,' two fiscales 'prosecutors,' two juezes

'judges,' four sacristanes 'sextons,' and five or six

semaneros 'laborers engaged on a weekly basis.' The people

serving in the religious hierarchy were responsible for

maintaining the village's Catholic church in good condition

and caring for the statues of the saints that were kept

inside the church. All of the positions in the religious

hierarchy were filled by Indians. The maestro cantor had to

be literate, to read the scriptures and lead music in the

church. According to La Farge, everyone in the religious

hierarchy, with the exception of the semaneros, were

considered to be permanently in those cargos. This would be

peculiar to Santa Eulalia, since the cargos in most Mayan

communities are redistributed on an annual basis.

Each of the church official positions had special

duties and responsibilities. The mayordomo was the person

who took on the primary financial responsibility for village

festivals, especially the festival of the village's patron

saint, Santa Eulalia. He had to come up with the money to

pay for musicians, costumes and masks for public dances,

fireworks, food, and liquor. The financial burden of these

festivals for one year was the equivalent of several years'

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wages. Thus, a mayordomo usually ended up with considerable

debt that had to be paid off over time through wage work on

distant coastal fincas. The fiscales and the juezes had

responsibility for collecting money to support the priest

and maintain the church building. The semaneros ran errands

for the fiscales and juezes on an alternate week basis.

They were the functional equivalent of the mayores in the

civil hierarchy. Table 3 summarizes the cargo positions in

the hierarchy at Santa Eulalia.

In spite of reduced support for the hierarchy that

was in evidence at the time of his visit, La Farge noted

that several Kanjobal villages continued to provide

financial support for the civil-religious hierarchy at Santa

Eulalia and participated in religious events there. He

suggested that this indicated that these villages were

politically interdependent. For example, he thought the

Kanjobal Indians in the villages of Santa Eulalia, Quetzal,

and Barillas still formed a single "tribe," since they all

supported the same civil-religious hierarchy. In the same

way, San Miguel and San Rafael Independencia were allied

with each other. As evidence of the unity of the villages

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TABLE 3

CARGO POSITIONS IN THE CIVIL-RELIGIOUS HIERARCHY IN THE VILLAGE OF SANTA EULALIA (The asterisk identifies positions still filled in 1932)

Civil Cargos Religious Cargos

Position Race Position Race

First Alcalde* Ladino Mayordomo* Indian

Second Alcalde* Indian Ma.esr.ro Cantor* Indian Assistant Alcaldes Indian First Fiscal* Indian

First Regidor* Ladino Second Fiscal* Indian

Second Regidor Indian First Juez* Indian

Assistant Regidores Indian Second Juez* Indian

Treasurer Indian

Policia Indian Sacristanes* Indian

Mayores Indian Semaneros* Indian

allied with Santa Eulalia, he noted that the Kanjobal

Indians in Barillas provided significant financial

contributions to the hierarchy in Santa Eulalia. Also, one

of the Chief Prayermakers in Santa Eulalia was from the

village of Quetzal. Finally, the villagers of San Mateo,

San Miguel, and San Juan all contributed to the Santa

Eulalia hierarchy and went there to pray at the time of

planting milpa.

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In addition to the formal civil-religious hierarchy,

there was a council of village elders (principales), all

Indians, who provided political leadership at the village

level. In Santa Eulalia, the principales numbered around 50

to 60 individuals, and included all of the people who had

ever served as /Valkal chaq/ 'Chief Priest,' important

church officials, and the /7aj txom/ 'soothsayers'

(including the /7ajqom bee kalap/ 'giver of the high road,'

who was the chief soothsayer). In their roles as elders,

these Indians, Christian and non-Christian, provided

leadership for their community.

The public festival dances are divided into two

groups /miman kanal/ 'big dances' and /yalix kanal/ 'little

dances.' The /miman kanal/ are more elaborate in terms of

costumes and music. They include the Cortez, the Deer

Dance, and the Dance of the Christians and the Moors. The

/yalix kanal/ 'little dances' include /kanal k'eq/ 'Black

Dance' and /kanal kooj/ 'Mask Dance'). The /kanal k'eq/ is

known in some parts of Maya country as the Dance of the

Bull, but Kanjobal Indians could apparently be jailed during

the festival for referring to it in Kanjobal as the /kanal

wakax/ 'bull dance.'

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KANJOBAL RELIGION AND WORLD VIEW

Since the time of the Conquest, Kanjobal Indian

religion has been a syncretic blending of elements from both

Mayan and Catholic theology. The blending of religions is

seen, for example, in the Mayan deities, who have taken on

the names and outward appearance of Catholic saints (for

example, Edmonson 1960). Santa Eulalia may be called by the

name of a Catholic saint, but in Kanjobal story-telling her

behavior is more similar to that of a Mayan goddess.

The Maya also typically blend together their

traditional deities and creation stories with those of

Judaism and Christianity. In this way, Jesus is sometimes

confused in their stories with the Mayan deity Hunahpû, Lord

of the Hurricane. At other times Jesus is believed to have

ascended into the heavens at the time of his death, where he

became /ko mam k'u/ 'our father sun.' The Catholic-Mayan

supreme deity is thought of as a duality. The term /ko mam

tios/ 'our father God' (/tios/ is a Spanish loan word, dios

'God') is used when referring to God as a heavenly being,

and nuestro sehor 'our Lord' when thinking of God as an

earthly epiphany. The Virgin Mary is addressed as /ko mi

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xajau/ 'our mother moon.' In one trickster tale related by

La Farge, Christ, with the unwitting help of his mother, the

Virgin, who could not control her laughter, turned Christ's

brothers into monkeys. To add to the confusion, the Virgin

Mary and Santa Eulalia are sometimes spoken of as though

they were the same person.

The Maya universe of "saints" is also ever-expanding,

and does not wait for papal ratification. This is seen in

the adoption to "sainthood" of various personages, some

beneficent, some evil, who have statues in Maya Indian

churches. I observed an example of this in 1992, in the

Catholic church in the Ixil village of Chajul, in northern

Quiche Department, Guatemala. At the front of the

sanctuary, on the main altar, there is a santo 'saint,'

dressed in a modern Guatemalan soldier's uniform. While I

was visiting the church, some Ixil Indian women came in and

made altars on the floor in front of the "soldier saint,"

offering him candles, small bottles of Quezalteca liquor,

and cigarettes.

Syncretism is also apparent in the peculiar beliefs

about the cross as a religious symbol in Maya country. The

Spanish were surprised (and pleased) to find that the Maya

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were already using the cross as a symbol when they arrived

in the New World. The cross continued to figure largely in

Maya religion. For example, in Zinacantan, sacred cenotes

'water holes' and crosses are associated with each other.

There was also the cult of the talking crosses in Quintana

Roo, Yucatan, from 1855-1861. These uses of the cross do

not reflect their complete conversion to orthodox

Catholicism. Rather, worshipping before a cross afforded

the Maya the appearance of adopting orthodox Christianity.

This allowed the Indians to fool the Catholic priests, while

maintaining secretly some of their pre-Christian religious

beliefs. For example, crosses in Santa Eulalia are treated

as deities, with personalities, power to protect the

villagers, and the ability to communicate with each other

and with religious specialists.

From the traditional Kanjobal Indian's perspective,

only Indians practice "complete" or "full" religion. In

Spanish, complete Catholicism is called costumbre

'traditional religion.' In terms of religious affiliation,

traditional Kanjobal Indians are referred to in Spanish as

costumbristas 'those who practice traditional religion.'

Ladinos, on the other hand, are Catholics and do not possess

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full knowledge of the spiritual world; that is, the

spiritual beings who inhabit the world, and the proper

ceremonies for showing these beings respect. For example,

only Indians know how to perform the xajamb'al 'blood

sacrifice,' which was founded by an agreement between /xal

7aiwul/ 'Santa Eulalia' and two Mayan deities.

Origin Stories from the Ancient Time

According to their own origin stories, the Kanjobal

Indians believe in a mythic past /paixa/ 'the ancient time.'

To describe this time, the Kanjobal Indians use the phrase

/yet paixa kam k'u/ 'ancient time when there was still no

sun;' that is, the time period before the sun was placed in

the sky. The time before the sun was placed in the sky is

thought of as a peaceful era. During this era, Christ was

active on earth, teaching the Kanjobal Indians of Santa

Eulalia the /miman kanal/ 'big dance.'

Also during the /yet paixa kam k'u/ "Jews" and

"Christians" were created, the creation of the world

completed, the village of Santa Eulalia founded, and the

village's ceremonials were established. The Maya adopted in

a very general sense the negative stereotypes of Jews that

Spanish Catholics taught them. But, as always, the Maya

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blended Catholic tradition with their own. Thus, for the

Maya, "Jews" are thought of as earlier, unsuccessful

attempts of the gods to create human beings, while

"Christians," created later in time, are the only true

humans. It should be remembered that the only real

"Christians" in Kanjobal thinking are the Kanjobal Indians,

since they are the only ones who possess knowledge of

"complete religion," which includes costumbre. "Jews" are

sometimes portrayed in Mayan public dances and traditional

stories as monkeys, a favorite Mayan symbol for imperfectly

created humans (see the origin stories as recorded in the

£Qpiii Wuj , for example; also Bricker 1973, 1981) . According

to the Kanjobal Indians, upon his death, the Lord Jesus

ascended into heaven and became the sun, bringing to an end

the /paixa/ the 'ancient time.'

Indians in each Kanjobal village believed themselves

to be descended from the original pair of humans, called

/7icham mamej/ 'old father' and /tx'utx 7ixnam/ 'old

mother.' The same belief is held among all the Maya Indians

of the Cuchumatan Mountains, and even by Maya Indians as far

away as the Yucatan Peninsula. Another local supernatural

being /7icham witz/ 'lord of the hill' (in Spanish, Senor

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Cerro) who is the controlling power of the hill on which the

village now sits, had to be asked permission before the

village of Santa Eulalia could be established on his hill.

According to their traditions, from the time their

village was created, the Kanjobal Indians suffered raids by

the Lacandon Indians who lived to the northeast. In these

raids, the Lacandon Indians would steal the children of the

Kanjobal Indians. /xal 7aiwul/ 'Santa Eulalia' (/xal +

7aiwul/ = 'lady' (honorific) + 'Eulalia') tried several

times to save "her children." Finally the Lacandon Maya

were destroyed by /7ajau yalan naa/ 'lord of the cave'

(/7ajau + yalan + naa/ = 'lord' + 'underneath' + 'house')

when he made the light dawn. /yalan naa/ is an actual cave

under the village of Santa Eulalia which extends under the

village Catholic church. The crudely carved wooden statue

/jolom konob'/ 'head of the village,' who is highly revered

by the Kanjobal Indians of Santa Eulalia, is kept there.

About one mile from Santa Eulalia there is a mountain pass

between two hills called /nub'il witz/. At this pass /7ajau

yalan naa/ 'lord of the cave' moved two hills together so

that the Lacandon Indians could not come through the pass

and raid the Kanjobal Indians ever again. It was at this

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time that three deities, /7ajau yalan k'u/ 'lord of the

sun,' /7ajau yalan naa/ 'lord of the cave,' and /xal 7aiwul/

'Santa Eulalia,' agreed together on establishing the

/xajamb'al/ 'blood sacrifice' ceremony, which will be

described below in further detail, in the section on

village-level religious ceremonies.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the

Lacandon Indians did raid the Kanjobal villages, and this is

thought to be the historical origin of these stories. In

1992, toward the end of my fieldwork, I planned a trip to

the eastern side of the Lacandon jungle, to visit the

Lacandon Indians in the village of Lacanja. When I told my

Kanjobal Indian informants that I was going to a Lacandon

Indian village, they were somewhat shocked. They stated

that the Lacandon Indians were very savage and expressed

concern that I might be in some personal danger.

Ethnocentric fears have not died out, even after the passage

of several hundred years during which there has been

virtually no contact between these peoples.

Supernatural Beings in Kanjobal Religion

La Farge noted that there was a hierarchy of

supernatural beings according to Kanjobal Indian beliefs:

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God, Our Lady, Santa Eulalia, and the Cross. The Kanjobal

Indians do not think of God as trinity, but as duality: God

the Father and Jesus, His earthly apparition. Our Lady is

the Virgin Mary, the mother of Christ/Hunahpu. The various

apparitions of the Virgin are thought of as different female

deities, not as separate appearances of one being. Santa

Eulalia is seen as being directly under the patronage of the

local deities /7ajau yalan k'u/ 'lord of the sun' and /7ajau

yalan naa/ 'lord of the cave.' There is also a male being

referred to as /naq 7ilya/ 'justice' (/naq + 7ilya/ = male

gender marker + 'justice').

Crosses, which are thought of as supernatural beings,

are placed in strategic locations throughout the village of

Santa Eulalia. There is the /miman kurus/ 'big cross,' the

guardian village crosses, crosses associated with

geographical features, the /kurus ko mamej/ 'cross of our

ancestors,' and the orthodox cross. They believe the

crosses have supernatural power to protect the village.

They are used as transmitters of prayers and information,

and they communicate with each other, with the soothsayers,

and other religious practitioners. La Farge, for example,

noted that a soothsayer in Santa Eulalia dreamed of La

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Farge's ancestors' cross. In the dream, the cross

complained that La Farge had not been "feeding it;" that is,

he had not been burning candles or making incense offerings

to it. The crosses are worshipped and addressed like one

might address a patron saint in orthodox Catholicism.

La Farge noted that there is a tendency to place a

cross in a public area, in front of a sacred place which is

accessible only to religious specialists. For example,

there is a cross planted across from the opening of /yalan

naa/ 'under the house,' the cave underneath the village

church. The /miman kurus/ is about twenty-five feet tall.

In a pattern that was common in Spanish missions, /miman

kurus/ is placed a slight distance from the front of the

church. It is at the center of much of the village level

ritual. At the base of /miman kurus/ are two small

indentations used as altars /miman kalpu/ 'big firebox' and

/yalix kalpu/ 'little firebox' where the first and second

Chief Priests make their offerings of incense and candles

for the village.

The village guardian crosses are all within a ten

minute walk of the village. The guardian crosses are placed

in the four corners /kaneb' skina/ (/kaneb' + skina/ =

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'four' + 'comer;' /skina/ is a borrowing from Spanish

esquina 'corner'), reflecting traditional Mayan cosmology.

In the east, there is /txom k'aq/ (La Farge translates this

as 'fire rushes out.' On the south side of the village,

there is a cross at /jolom wits/ 'head of the hill.' West

northwest of the village, there is a cross at /saq'Va/

'white water' (/saq' + 7a/ = 'white' + 'water'). Finally,

to the north there is a cross at the place called /max te7/.

La Farge says that /max/ in other Mayan languages means

'monkey,' but the meaning in Kanjobal has been lost. /te7/

is a marker in Kanjobal for something made of wood; thus,

/maxte7/ could simply be a type of tree, like /okote7/

'white pine.'

These village guardian crosses are maintained by the

Chief Priests, and all of the crosses are included in every

one of their ritual processions. One or more of these

crosses may be included in the prayer round of the extended

family, if it has some special significance to that family.

But a family going through its extended prayer round would

not go to all of the village guardian crosses.

The Maya place crosses at special geographical

features which are considered sacred, such as a mountain

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peak, the bottom of a rough gorge, or across from a cave

entrance. In the village of Santa Eulalia, these sacred

spots are numerous. There is a cross placed in front of the

Rosario chapel, which is called /nan konob'/ 'middle of the

village.' There is a cross between the juzgado 'town hall'

and the building that houses /j olom konob'/ 'head of the

village,' the statue that the Kanjobal Indians worship.

This cross marks the place of the tree to which /xal 7aiwul/

'Santa Eulalia' fled when she established the village of

Santa Eulalia. There are two crosses in the marketplace,

marking its northeast and northwest comers, and setting the

market off from the processional route. There are three

crosses, collectively called /yich kanan/ 'lap of the

cliff,' which are located along the processional route

before arriving at Calvario chapel. They are above /yalan

naa/ (sacred cave) and /yalan k'u/ (sacred hill). Finally,

in front of Calvario Chapel, there are three unnamed crosses

(probably crosses of the crucifixion) and two named crosses,

San Sebastian and San José.

The orthodox crosses include the cross of Christ in

the village Church and the crosses at the stations of the

cross. The orthodox crosses are not taken care of very

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attentively and do not receive many offerings. The crosses

at the stations of the cross are about three feet high, and

only come into play during Lent and Holy Week celebrations.

Religious Practitioners i n Eaota Eulalia

In the village of Santa Eulalia, there are a number

of individuals who perform a variety of religious functions

without holding a position in the civil-religious hierarchy.

These practitioners include soothsayers, born shamans,

■Curanderos, soul killers, naguales, and brujos. Some of

these religious practitioners do their work as a service to

the people in the civil-religious hierarchy, and thus as a

service to the community as a whole. Others provide

services to individuals in the community or work to their

own evil ends.

One of the more important religious practitioners in

Santa Eulalia is the soothsayer, known by the title /7aqom

bee kalap/ 'giver of the high path.' According to La Farge,

there were several soothsayers in Santa Eulalia who were

permanent, full-time practitioners, but there was only one

/7aqom bee kalap/. In midsummer, the soothsayers divined

where the principales 'village elders' could find the best

candidates to serve as first and second Chief Priest. The

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principales would then go to that town and pick out suitable

candidates, usually finding individuals of considerable

means who could bear the financial burden the office

entailed. The newly selected prayermakers take up their

positions on November 30 each year, at the end of the year-

bearer's tonalamatl, but they are not formally installed

until January 1 (see Appendix 3). Between November 30 and

January 1, they serve together with the past year's Chief

Priests.

Soothsayers also were specialists in the traditional

Mayan calendar. Because of this knowledge, they were called

upon by individuals to determine an auspicious day for

activities, such as taking a trip or planting crops. They

could also interpret the character of a person based on

their birth date in the Mayan calendar; for example, whether

they would be lazy or industrious, poor or wealthy (compare

with Colby and Colby 1981).

The Kanjobal Indians believe in a number of evil

religious practitioners. In Santa Eulalia, for example,

they believed in persons they called matagente. La Farge

did not record the Kanjobal word for the concept, but Robert

Zavala, in his grammar of Acatec, has /maVom 7anima/ (KSMA)

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'killer of souls' or 'killer of people' (Zavala 1992). La

Farge says that the Indians believed that only ladinos were

evil enough to be matagente. Even Mam Indians from the

village of Todos Santos, whom the Kanjobal of Santa Eulalia

otherwise greatly feared, were not wicked enough to become

matagente. The Kanjobal Indians also believe in the

existence of brujos 'sorcerers' and naguales 'transforming

witches,' who fulfill similar roles. Both of them are

considered evil. Brujos are sorcerers who work evil magic

spells for their own greedy and vicious purposes. Naguales

are witches who have familiars, companion animal forms that

they can change themselves into. Such transformations

usually take place at night, when naguales go about the

village committing evil acts like rape, murder, and

cannibalism.

La Farge refers to a class of religious practitioners

he calls "natural b o m shamans." In his terminology, these

shamans include brujos 'witches,' /Vanlom/ curanderos

'native healers,' /7ilum qinal/ 'time watchers,' and /7aj

txom/ 'soothsayers.' All of these religious practitioners

are thought of as beneficent, except for brujos, who are

terribly evil people who work to accomplish their own evil

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intentions. As in many traditional societies, there are

also practitioners of "good" magic, but they are sometimes

accused of being brujos in private.

The Kanjobal Indians also have their own /Vanlom/

'traditional healers,' who know how to treat a range of

physical illnesses and injuries. /Vanlom/ are trained in

massage therapy, as well as the preparation of medicines

from local flora and fauna. /Vilum qinal/ are people who

are specialists with the ability to see a person's companion

spirit and heal it when it is not well.

The /7aj txom/ 'soothsayer' is a paid specialist in

divinations. That is, the soothsayer can use the tonalamatl

'ritual calendar' (260-day cycle) to predict good and bad

days for specific activities or happenings, such as

beginning a trip or giving birth to a child (see Appendix

3). /7aj txom/ also have the ability to receive messages

from the crosses in the village. The messages may be

received in an auditory form, through dreams, or in the

hands and legs. Alcohol is often used in soothsayer

ceremonies. There is only one /Vaqom bee kalap/ 'giver of

the high path' at a time, and he is chosen from among the

many village soothsayers.

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Finally, there was another group of religious

practitioners in Santa Eulalia, known as /7alkal chaq/

'chief priests,' who conducted religious rituals on behalf

of the entire village. The term /7alkal chaq/ seems to be

similar to the chaacob 'rain priests' of the Yucatec Maya,

who were also elected annually. In Santa Eulalia, there

were several synonyms for /7alkal chaq/. For example. La

Farge has /sat 7icham/ for the First Chief Priest.

According to the linguistic data that I collected on KSE,

the term /sat 7icham/ does not make sense. The word

/7icham/ 'elder' is understandable, but /sat/ 'wide' is not.

It may help to note that La Farge did not always distinguish

phonemes clearly in recording linguistic data, especially

the following similar pairs of phonemes: /s/ and /tz/, /k/

and /k'/, /q/ and /q'/. It could be that La Farge meant to

record /tzat 7icham/ 'elders' face' as another term for the

First Chief Priest. La Farge stated that the first and

second chief priests were also called /miman kalpu/ 'big

firebox' and /yalix kalpu/ 'little firebox,' respectively,

for the altars at the /miman kurus/ 'big cross' in front of

the Catholic church, where they each made costumbre on

behalf of the village.

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For elders, knowledge of traditional ceremonies is a

source of respect and power in the eyes of the entire

community, not just their own extended family. Being

competent in ritual knowledge can be a source of prestige

for women as well as men. La Farge says that this is even

true for older women, whose husbands are not very highly

respected.

Kanj-oJaal Indian Christian Religious Ceremonies

There are a number of ceremonies that are an

important part of Kanjobal religious life: /xajamb'al/

'turkey sacrifice,' /sulub'al che'u/ 'sealing of the frost,'

/kanb'al nap/ 'first rain ceremony,' /ilum patan/ 'the

boundary ceremony,' /yalan k'u/ 'sun spirit ceremony,'

/yalan naa/ 'sacred cave spirit ceremony,' and /Voklajun

winaj/ 'thirteen men ceremony.' While outsiders might

consider these religious activities to be non-Christian,

Kanjobal Indians who practice costumbre think of them as

part of "true Christianity," which only they possess. In

addition to usual offerings of candles and incense, self-

flagellation sometimes is part of the rituals, particularly

in the rituals performed to bring on rain. Self-

flagellation is performed using a leather thong with bits of

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/txai/ 'glass' (originally /txai/ 'obsidian;' thus 'glass'

by extension) attached to it.

The /xajamb'al/ ritual involves the sacrifice of two

to four turkeys. The turkeys' throats are slit. The blood

is reserved and some of it is mixed with incense and burned.

Some of the blood is also offered to the green lizards that

inhabit the rocks. Among the Yucatec Maya, the original

pair of humans who gave birth to villages, 'old father' and

'old mother,' are sometimes referred to as Senor Iguano and

Senora Iguana. It is possible, therefore, that the green

lizards are considered intermediaries between the living and

their deceased ancestors, though La Farge does not suggest

this. Ants and spiders are some of the animals that perform

this role in other cultures. This suggestion is also

consistent with the Kanjobal Indian belief that /yalan naa/,

the cave under the village, is the dwelling place of /7ich

mamej/ 'Old Father' and /txutx ixnam/ 'Old Mother.'

The /sulub'al txe7u/ 'sealing of the frost'

ceremony is performed on a cliff near the archaeological

site of /pai konob'/ 'ancient village,' the prehistoric

settlement of the Santa Eulalians. The frost is thought to

exit through an opening in the cliff. The first Chief

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Priest is lowered over the side of the cliff to seal the

opening so that the frost cannot come out and destroy the

crops.

There are several other annual celebrations. The

/kanb'al nap/ ceremony is performed in May to ask for the

rainy season to begin on time. The beginning of a new year-

bearer period is marked by a special ceremony. The /7ilum

patan/ 'looking at the boundaries' ceremony is held each

September. It begins at the cross at the west end of the

village and includes visiting with /jolom konob'/ 'head of

the village.' There is a ritual involving /7ajau yalan k'u/

'sun spirit' and /7ajau yalan naa/ 'sacred cave spirit,' the

two deities who are considered the protectors of Santa

Eulalia.

There are ritual days oriented around both of the

calendars used by the Maya, the tonalamtl, or ritual

calendar, and the /7aab'il/ 'solar calendar.' Soothsayers

use these two calendars for purposes of divination.

Sometimes the calendars are consulted independently and

sometimes in combination with each other. The tonalamtl is

a non-linear calendar, a 260-day cycle that repeats

endlessly. The tonalamtl has twenty named days which are

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marked by coefficients one through thirteen. The same day

and number coefficient combination are only repeated every

260 days (13 x 20 = 260). Each number is valued as being

good and/or bad for specific events, as is each named day

(see Appendix 3). The year-bearer's tonalamatl is marked in

November of each year by the /7oklajun winaj/ 'thirteen men'

ceremony. /7oklajun winaj/ is a reference to the thirteen

spiritual beings or "lords" who rule the thirteen uinals.

The /7aab'il/ has a total of 365 days. The 365 days

are grouped into eighteen /7uinal/ 'twenty-day units,' plus

the /7oyeb' k'u/ 'five days' ((18 x 20) + 5 = 365). Each

/7uinal/ in the /7aab'il/ is simply numbered, as are the

days; they are not named. There is a celebration of /oyeb'

k'u/ 'five days' (/7oyeb' + k'u/ = 'five' + 'suns'), which

marks the transition from the last /7uinal/ '20-day month'

of the /7aab'il/ '365-day year' to the first /7uinal/ of the

new /7aab'il/.

Family Rituals

Kanjobal Indians use the term /chin ch'aq-in/ 'I make

costumbre' to speak of their acts of religious devotion. A

number of articles are typically associated with costumbre

rituals. Black beeswax candles (/yalix q'ap/ are usually

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used in costumbre rituals, since they are considered more

effective than /saj kandela/ 'white paraffin candles'

associated with Catholicism. Black candles are thought of

as being very "delicate," and can only be handled properly

by a costumbrista. In addition, /pom/ 'copal incense' is

commonly burned as a sacrifice to spiritual beings. The

smoke which rises in the air when the /pom/ is burned is

said to represent the clouds which bring badly needed rain.

Other items used in costumbre rituals include: resin from

the /7okote7/ 'white pine,' balls made of copal and pine

resin mixed together, and small sticks of white pine wood.

These items are also burned on household and village altars.

Flowers are used in costumbre rituals, simply being placed

on the household altar or at the foot of one of the numerous

village crosses. The prayers, black candles, and other

paraphernalia used to make costumbre are all referred to

with a single, multivocalic term /ko ch'aq/ 'our costumbre.'

The extended family prayer round includes locations

that are considered sacred to that particular family : the

family's kurus ko mam, the cross outside the house doorway,

the church (especially outside, in front of the church), and

several select crosses within the village. A Kanjobal

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Indian can "feed" and ancestral or village cross by offering

it flowers or by burning /pom/ or /oko te7/ on an altar in

front of the cross.

La Farge provided the following example of an

extended family's prayer round in Santa Eulalia. The family

began their procession with a sacrifice to the family's

kurus ko mam. From there, the family proceeded to Calvario

'Calvary chapel' and made sacrifices at the crosses located

there. From there the family procession continued to the

crosses located at /yich kanan/ 'lap of the cliff.' Then

the family made offerings on an altar in front of the

village church. Finally, the family went to the graveyard

to make an offering there.

At the center of the extended family's religious

ritual is the /kurus ko mamej/ 'cross of our ancestors' (the

phrase consists of the following morphemes : /kurus/, a

Spanish loan word, cruz 'cross,-' /ko/ indicates the first

person plural possessive 'our;' /mamej/ 'male ancestors').

The cross is carved from a single white pine tree. The tree

is offered incense before it is cut down. The side of the

tree that faces east is marked with the machete, and is

referred to as the /tzat kurus/ 'face of the cross.' After

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the tree is felled, two segments are cut off and notched so

they can be placed together to make a cross. The new cross

is addressed as /wunin kurus/ 'my child cross' (/w + (j)unin

+ kurus/ = first person singular possessive + 'child' +

'cross,-' /junin/ is possibly a Spanish loan word un nino 'a

child').

The /kurus ko mam/ represents, according to La Farge,

the "planting" of the family on a particular patch of earth,

and it is not moved except under the most extreme

circumstances. The territorial complex of the family's

place of planting, represented by the /kurus ko mam/, the

house, the yard, and the milpa is called /lob'al/. If the

land on which the family's house stands is sold to a new

owner, the cross usually remains in place. A small house is

built around it for its protection, and the family returns

to it periodically to perform the required acts of religious

devotion. If the extended family subdivides, new house

crosses will eventually be erected for each newly formed

household (incipient extended family), but only after a

generation or two has passed. Usually, the oldest son

inherits his father's ancestral cross, and continues leading

his family's devotion to it, as long as he remains in his

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father's house. If a man is away from his home, he can make

an offering at another cross, which "forwards" the offering

to his own ancestral cross.

In addition to the kurus ko mam altar inside the

house, an altar built in the yard in front of the house

doorway is included in the extended family's prayer round.

The outdoor altar is erected on a single axis with the kurus

ko mam and the family milpa. Prayers for the family's crops

are offered at this altar, first facing the house, then

facing the field.

During the extended family prayer round, prayers are

made by the male family head both indoors and outdoors.

First, prayers are said inside the house while facing the

altar of kurus ko mam. Next, prayers are said from within

the house doorway, facing the inside of the house first,

then toward the altar in the yard outside of the house. The

male elder proceeds to the outside altar, and says more

prayers, first facing the doorway of the house, then facing

the family's milpa.

Prayers may also be said at the village church as

part of the extended family's prayer round. The church

complex is divided into "zones," inside and out. Within

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each zone, it is considered proper to pray to particular

supernatural beings. Inside the church, people may

construct their own small altars, at which they b u m candles

and incense. Usually prayers and burnt offerings are made

inside the church on special occasions. For example, the

west end of the church is reserved for expressing devotion

to one's deceased ancestors, especially on All Saints' Day.

It might be noted here that the Maya believe the west is the

place where their ancestors reside after death. On All

Saints' Day, food offerings (/pichiV te7/ 'atûls,'

/guisquil/ 'chayote', and hard liquor) are left on the altar

of Icurus ko mam and sometimes on graves in the cemetery,

since it is believed that the ancestors come to visit their

living descendants on this day. Inside the church, at the

west end, the devout leave offerings of c o m for their

deceased ancestors, which is collected and used by church

officials.

While the extended family sometimes prays inside the

church, the bulk of their religious activities take place

outside the church, specifically between the church and

/miman kums/ 'great cross, ' which stands in front of the

church. Outdoor altars are made by placing a few stones

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together on which /pom/ and pine resin incense are burned.

Prayers are first said facing the church, then facing the

cross.

Extended families also make costumbre in their milpa,

when the field is prepared for planting. Here they make

offerings of /pom/ incense to /pixan ixim/ 'the c o m spirit'

(/pixan/ 'soul;' /ixim/ ' c o m ' ) . The Kanjobal expression

/pixan ixim/, in Spanish, is dueno dP la milpa 'lord of the

milpa.' Also, they used to play music on a talil 'clay

flute with four stops' to the corn while it was maturing.

Corn is referred to in Spanish as santo maiz 'holy com. '

It is the only crop to be so designated.

V illage Rituals

In the village of Santa Eulalia, there are several

places of religious significance: /yalan naa/ 'under the

house,' several Catholic churches, and a number of crosses.

These places played a part in the lives of all the Indians

in Santa Eulalia in 1932 . It is not Icnown what role they

all play today. The following is a brief description of

these places in 1932.

First, /yalan naa/ 'under the house,' is a sacred

cave where the wooden statue /jolom konob'/ 'head of the

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village' used to be kept. The statue was stolen by ladinos

some time before La Farge's arrival in 1932, and hidden in a

trash heap. After the Indians found the statue, they

started keeping /jolom konob'/ under lock and key, in a

building next to the newly constructed jailhouse. Offerings

of candles and incense were being made to /jolom konob'/ on

special occasions, on the ground outside the door of this

structure.

There were three church buildings in Santa Eulalia in

1932: the village Catholic church, Calvario Chapel, and

Rosario Chapel. The village Catholic church was constructed

in typical Spanish fashion, on the village square. In front

of the village church is /miman kurus/ the 'great cross,'

which stands about 25 feet high. The ground between the

church and /miman kurus/ is the sight of much religious

activity for the extended family, but most especially for

the village community as a whole.

Calvario Chapel was a simple structure at the

southwest end of Santa Eulalia. Outside of Calvario Chapel

were several crosses. Two of the crosses had names: San

Sebastian and San José. There were also three unnamed

crosses representing the crosses of Jesus and the two

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thieves with whom he was crucified. Villagers only-

worshipped at the Calvario Chapel during Lent and Holy Week,

which commemorate the death of Jesus in Christian tradition.

Crosses are placed between the village church and the

Calvario Chapel for reenacting the stations of the cross.

The Rosario Chapel had been only recently constructed

in 1932, by a relatively wealthy Indian, who was known as el

principal del pueblo 'the village elder.' It stands at what

the villagers referred to as /nan konob'/ 'the center of the

village,' a very sacred place in Mayan cosmology. The

Rosario Chapel was not included in village-level ceremonial

processions in 1932, however.

The family prayer round is distinct from the village

prayer round in several ways. The village prayer round

would not include the kurus ko mam of a specific extended

family. The village prayer round is conducted for the

welfare of the entire village, not just a single extended

family. Also, the village prayer round can only be carried

out by religious specialists 'prayer makers' who have

specialized ritual knowledge which is not part of the

cultural competence of every male head of household.

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According to La Farge, the ceremonial year in Santa

Eulalia included the following ceremonial days observed by

"laymen:" 1. the village's patron saint day; 2. the year

bearer ceremonies,* 3. planting time; 4. Holy Week; 5. the

Day of the Cross; 6. /sulub'al cheu/, the prayer to prevent

frost; 7. /xu jem/, the prayer said in July for ripening

green com; 8. the ceremony of the village boundaries,* 9.

the harvest; and 10. All Saints' Day. Some of these holy

days are pre-Christian in their inspiration (#2, #3, #6, #7,

#8, and #9 above), and others are Catholic (#1, #4, #5, and

#10, above). Both religious specialists and laymen are

involved in conducting the year bearer and the village

boundaries ceremonies.

The /qin xal 7aiwul/ 'festival of Santa Eulalia'

(Santa Eulalia of Barcelona; /qin + xal + 7aiwul/ =

'festival' + 'Lady' (honorific) + 'Eulalia') is celebrated

from Febmary 8 through February 12. Preparations for the

festival begin long before Febmary 8. For example, money

is collected from villagers to ensure that enough supplies

can be bought for a successful fiesta. The expense for

putting on the /miman kanal/ 'big dance' in 1932 was

approximately $170 in United States currency. The money

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went for renting a book that describes the steps for the

dances to be performed (usually rented from either San

Cristobal, Mexico or Totonicapan, Guatemala), masks and

costumes, paying a dance teacher, and purchasing candles,

resin and incense, fireworks, and liquor.

Two Indians in the civil administration are chosen to

travel to Huehuetenango to purchase the largest and best

candle they can find. Twenty days before their trip to

Huehuetenango, the Indians begin to observe the taboos of

abstinence and continence. The festival begins on February

8, with the bringing of the candle into the village.

The days of the /qin/ 'festival' are filled with

processions, when the statues of the Virgin and Jesus are

taken out of the village church and paraded around the

village in a clockwise fashion, mirroring the path of the

sun. Thus, the parades begin in the east and proceed to the

south, to the west, and finally to the north. This is the

same order in which prayers are said to the cardinal

directions.

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ECONOMIC PATTERNS

In this section of the dissertation, I confine myself

to a brief summary of the patterns of land distribution and

economics of the Kanjobal Indians in 1992. The general

pattern is the same as it has been since the turn of the

century. The Kanjobal region is still divided between two

groups. On the one hand, there are a few wealthy ladinos.

who own fincas 'large plantations,' which are used to

produce cash crops for sale on the international market. On

the other hand, there are the Kanjobal Indians, campesinos

who mostly practice milpa agriculture, producing corn,

beans, squash, and other food crops for their own

consumption. This pattern started to change in a limited

fashion from about 1960 to 1982, as some Kanjobal Indians

began buying their own land from ladinos and the Guatemalan

government's Institute Nacional de Transformation Agraria

(National Institute for Agrarian Reform, or INTA) in the

region of Huehuetenango Department that lies north of the

town of Barillas.

The average family in San Miguel Acatan, for example,

owns from 2.5 to 3.5 acres of land (i.e., from 1 to 1.4

hectares). This is not sufficient to provide food for a

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family for an entire year. Because of land scarcity and

other economic forces, many Kanjobal men now migrate to the

coastal plantations in Guatemala (and Mexico) or to large-

scale farms in the United States, where they can work for

several months per year as agricultural day laborers. This

work supplies the average Kanjobal family with the

equivalent of about $300 in annual cash income (Camposeco,

in Burns 1993).

For those Indians who possess legal title to the

lands they own, such title is subject to the whims of

relatively wealthy ladinos who live nearby. Land titles are

also the subject of constantly changing agrarian laws which

govern land use, occupation, and ownership. These laws are

completely beyond the comprehension of most of the Indians,

the majority of whom are illiterate and too poor to hire

lawyers. If they are "fortunate," the Indians may be able

rent or sharecrop some land to grow a surplus or cultivate a

cash crop. Such crops can be sold as a supplement to their

wage income.

The declining fertility of the land in the Guatemalan

highlands is another problem that complicates land tenure.

Even though agricultural land in the highlands is typically

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very fertile when it is first cleared for agricultural use,

the nutrients in the soil are depleted within three to five

years. The Indians are typically too poor to buy commercial

fertilizer; thus, they are faced with annually declining

agricultural yields. The steep terrain where the Indians

"make milpa," when coupled with the overuse of their

agricultural plots, causes serious problems in terms of soil

erosion.

Jeronimo Camposeco is a Jacaltec Indian, b o m in

1939. He worked for Guatemala's National Indian Institute

for 14 years, and studied social anthropology at the

University of San Carlos in Guatemala City. He has provided

a very clear, personal account of the extensive inter

village trading that has occurred in the Cuchumatan

Mountains, from prehistoric times to the present day (Burns

1993, "Introduction"). His own father was a travelling

merchant, who took Jeronimo along on trips from Jacaltenango

to San Miguel Acatan and other villages in the Cuchumatan

Mountains.

Camposeco noted that specific aldeas and municipios

in the Cuchumatan Mountains were known for the production of

certain goods. For example, the Kanjobal Indians of San

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Miguel Acatan (known as "Miguelenos") live in tierra

where there is an abundance of timber. The Miguelenos have

always supplied long, heavy pine posts used for house

construction to the Jacaltec villages, which are located in

tierra caliente where such wood is relatively scarce. They

also supplied the Jacaltecs with boards from hardwoods,

which were used to make furniture. The Kanjobal Indians

from San Miguel also exploited the maguey plant, which grows

in San Miguel municipio. Fibers were extracted and used by

the men to make rope, lassos, harnesses, morrals, sacks, and

nets for bearing burdens. The Kanjobal women of San Miguel

were known for their ability in weaving sashes from palm

leaves, which they sold to Jacaltec Indians. The Jacaltecs

made hats out of the palm sashes, and sold them to the Mam

Indians at the village of Todos Santos Cuchumatan. The

Jacaltec Indians sold traditional cortes 'skirts' and

huipiles 'blouses' to the Kanjobal women, who no longer

weave their own clothing.

Aside from these items, agricultural products were

also traded between villages. For example, the Miguelenos,

living in tierra fria. cultivated potatoes and apples, and

traded them with Indians living in tierra caliente, where

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they could not be grown. In return, the Jacaltec Indians

sold tierra caliente agricultural produce, such as tomatoes

and peppers, to the Miguelenos. The Miguelehos also raised

sheep for their wool. Migueleno men used the wool to make

their distinctive capixhayes 'wool ponchos.' This pattern

of inter-village trading is still common throughout the

Cuchumatan Mountains today.

The economic conditions of the Kanjobal Indians (and

other Indians as well), especially the lack of adequate land

resources, led directly to the settlement of landless

Indians in the Ixcan region (the area that was labelled

"uninhabited" in Figure 1) in the 1960s and 1970s (Davis

1983; Handy 1994; Morrissey 1978; USAID 1984). The process

of colonizing the Ixcan occurred simultaneously with the

guerrilla army's relocation to the Ixcan (Falla 1992;

Payeras 1983). Some of the Indians came to support the

guerrilla movement, though the support was not consistent

throughout the region. Some of the Indians became

integrated in the guerrilla army. Other Indians provided

food for the guerrilla soldiers or logistical information

regarding the movement of Guatemalan army troops. In many

cases, the Indians did not give direct support to the

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guerrillas, though their sympathies were definitely with the

insurgency (Frank and Wheaton 1984). The Ixcan colonization

process and interactions with the guerrilla army and the

Guatemalan army will be described in more detail in the

words of the refugees from La Huerta in chapter 5. For now

it is enough to indicate that all of these factors combined

led to the repressive counter-insurgency campaign of the

Guatemalan army from 1982 to 1983 (Americas Watch 1983,

1984; Black, Jamail, Stoltz, Chinchilla 1984; B u m s 1988,

1989, 1993; Calvert 1985; Davis and Hodson 1982; Jonas 1991;

Manz 1988; O'Dogherty 1989; Pax Christi 1982; Salvado 1988;

Simon 1987; Valencia 1984) . And it was this campaign that

resulted in hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing to

asylum in Mexico and the United States.

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THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This dissertation uses ethnographic research methods

to describe the physical setting and the patterns of social

interaction in a Guatemalan refugee camp in Mexico. The

goal is to contribute to mid-range theory building in

anthropology and refugee studies. The ethnographic research

techniques used in traditional anthropological community

studies can be helpful in building models that might predict

the behavior of refugees, specifically their behavior

regarding repatriation. Since the use of ethnographic

research methods and techniques have only recently been

applied in refugee camps, such models must be constructed

with some tentativeness and are open to revision as more

information is gathered.

Ethnographic research can be useful in helping

refugee policy makers understand the point of view of the

refugees themselves, a perspective that is often overlooked

in theoretical and policy discussions. In the case of my

128

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research, one of the main foci was: "What does it mean to

be a refugee "from the native's point of view" (Geertz

1979)? What does it mean to be uprooted violently from

one's homeland and forced into exile? What does it mean to

live in a foreign land for ten or more years, under very

difficult circumstances filled with conflict? What does it

mean to live with the ambiguity of not knowing if one will

ever be welcome to return to one's homeland? These

questions of meaning may seem irrelevant or self-indulgent

to many policy makers, whose main goal is usually to get

refugees to return home as soon as possible. From my point

of view, if the policies that governments and international

bodies create are to be more humane, then they must ask

questions of meaning.

The research method of this dissertation is based on

inductive reasoning. The research uses a single case study,

a specific refugee camp, and makes broad generalizations

based on the research results. Conclusions based on

inductive research can be confirmed or supplemented as other

anthropologists make studies of other refugee camps. This

will allow for cross-cultural comparison and the

construction of mid-range theory. Mid-range theory can then

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be used to devise new hypotheses of refugee behavior that

can be tested and used to construct even broader theories

concerning the repatriation of refugees. This method is in

keeping with the tradition of building theories in

anthropology, and the social sciences generally (Glaser and

Strauss 1967).

More specifically, the research discussed in this

dissertation will also contribute to studies of forced

migration and the theoretical debate on refugee repatriation

between those who alternatively promote "official" and

"spontaneous" repatriation. Those favoring official

repatriation suggest that refugees will not usually

repatriate of their own accord, but must be encouraged, or

even forced, to do so through official channels. Those who

favor spontaneous repatriation suggest that refugees will

return to their native land when the economic, social,

and/or political conditions they fled have changed

sufficiently to permit their return (Aguayo and Fagen 1988;

Aguilar Zinser 1990; Cuny and Stein 1988; Harrell-Bond 1989;

Stein 1986; Zolberg, Suhrka, and Aguayo 1989).

Much of the theoretical debate between proponents of

official and spontaneous repatriation seems to be rather

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devoid of content. Social scientists have only recently

begun the kind of research that can provide an in-depth look

at the opinions and actions of the refugees themselves.

From the official repatriation perspective, refugees are

treated as passive objects rather than active agents of

social change. That is, even while they are in refugee

status, refugees have the ability to prepare the conditions

for their own return (Colson and Scudder 1982; Mortland

1987; United States Committee for Refugees 1993).

The setting chosen as the main focus for research

(conducted from October 1991 to September 1992), a

Guatemalan refugee camp in Chiapas, Mexico (pseudonym. La

Huerta), suggests that there are many weaknesses in the

official repatriation construct of the "passive refugee."

While political refugees who are fleeing in terror may not

have many options as to when to leave their homes, they can

be very active in shaping their current circumstances as

refugees and their future circumstances as repatriates.

Most of the people that were living in La Huerta were

Kanjobal (Maya) Indians from the northwestern Guatemalan

department of Huehuetenango. The goal of the dissertation

research was to understand the relative importance of the

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economic, social, and political variables which were

influencing their opinions about repatriating to Guatemala.

By eliciting the refugees' opinions about repatriation it

was hoped that a model could be constructed that would

accurately predict when the refugees would in fact

repatriate. The research showed that survey-style

information gathering techniques were helpful in quickly

gaining an understanding of the "official" political line

promoted by the refugees' elected leaders. As will be seen,

a model predicting repatriation behavior based on survey

data alone would have been completely misleading.

Ethnographic interviews and extended participant observation

were absolutely essential to discovering intracultural

variation in attitudes toward repatriation.

Particularly important was the discovery that there

was a minority of refugees who no longer accepted the

official repatriation policy of their leaders. These

marginal members of the refugee community seemed

insignificant in terms of their numbers and their marginal

relationship to the refugees' own political structure. This

seemingly insignificant minority played a very important

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role in changing the actual repatriation behavior of at

least half of the official Guatemalan refugees in Mexico.

Rather than being passive objects of international

economic and political assistance, the Guatemalan refugees

actively gathered information from a variety of sources and

weighed the evidence about whether the human rights

violations, and the violence which they had fled in the

early 1980s, had abated sufficiently to permit their safe

return to Guatemala. During an average of 10 years of

refuge in Mexico (19 82-1992), the refugees have forged new

social and economic bonds across religious, community, and

ethnic lines. Indian parents have taken advantage of

educational opportunities for their children at

unprecedented rates. In the process, the Indians will

repatriate to Guatemala with trained educators and Western-

trained health promoters for their communities, where before

there were none. The Guatemalan refugees have also become

very effective at networking with international

organizations, governmental and non-governmental, and at

exploiting the political and economic resources they offer.

As they return to Guatemala, they return with a new sense of

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dignity, a new political consciousness, and a new awareness

of their ability to effect social change (Messmacher 1986).

THE PROCESS OF RESEARCH DESIGN

The original design for my dissertation research

called for spending eight months in the Mexican state of

Chiapas. Most of that time was to be spent living in a

Guatemalan refugee camp that was officially recognized by

the United Nations, to understand better the refugees'

perspective on returning to Guatemala. In particular, I was

interested in how their attitudes toward repatriation were

influenced by social and economic variables such as

religious affiliation, ethnic group, gender, education,

availability of work in Mexico, and land tenure in Mexico

and Guatemala.

The Mexican government knew that there was a large

number of Guatemalan refugees living in Mexico without any

immigration papers. According to one estimate, there were

200,000 illegal refugees in the state of Chiapas alone

(Salvado 1988). This was almost five times the number of

"legal" refugees (about 45,000 Guatemalan refugees were in

UNHCR camps in 1991). The government not only tolerated the

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illegal refugees, it benefitted from their presence, since

the government did not have to provide social, educational,

economic, or medical services to such refugees. Private

landowners in Chiapas also benefitted, since they could pay

lower wages to undocumented workers because the undocumented

refugees were more reluctant to complain about unfair labor

practices for fear of deportation.

Some local Mexican Indians did not want the

Guatemalans to stay in Chiapas because their presence

depressed wages for everyone (Guatemalans and Mexicans) by

creating an over supply of labor. This competition for work

resulted in conflict in some villages and towns in Chiapas

and a negative attitude toward the refugees on the part of

some Mexicans I met around Comitan. In spite of the fact

that the illegal refugees were more numerous in Chiapas, I

made a conscious decision to work only with refugees in

officially recognized UNHCR camps. This decision was based

on my fear that I might bring unwanted attention to the

illegal refugees on the part of Mexican authorities and/or

the local population.

According to my dissertation proposal, the research

was to be conducted over an eight month period and would be

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divided into four phases. In Phase One (two months), I

would get an overview of the situation by visiting all of

the refugee camps in Margaritas municipio and conducting

semi-structured interviews with several refugee religious

and political leaders, as well as government and non

government refugee workers. In Phase Two, I would spend

three months living in one particular refugee camp, which I

called Camp A. Focussing on one camp would allow me to

obtain information for an ethnographic description of the

daily life of one refugee community, and to learn more about

the factors that were influencing the refugees' thinking

about repatriation. For Phase Three (one and one-half

months), two additional refugee camps (Camp B and Camp C)

were to be chosen for specific social, religious, economic,

or other significant characteristics that would contrast

with the refugee population in Camp A. This would reveal

any inter-camp variation. For Phase Four (two and one-half

months), I would use a structured interview schedule to

gather information concerning repatriation to Guatemala from

randomly selected refugees in Camp A.

In the original dissertation proposal, much emphasis

was placed on providing as much anonymity for my informants

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as possible. The American University's Institutional

Studies Peer Review Board made several additional

suggestions in this regard, based on my fear that the

Guatemalan army might retaliate against the refugees for

cooperating with my research. This might seem like a remote

possibility to those not familiar with the situation, but

there have been accusations of information sharing between

the Mexican and Guatemalan armies along the border. Also,

during the early years of exile in Mexico, the Guatemalan

army had been known to make incursions into the refugee

camps. I decided that I would not tape record any of my

interviews and that my notes would be coded so the identity

of the informants would be known only to me. This resulted

in a loss of data, but, after the fact, it does seem to have

been wise to take these precautions, since the Mexican army

was certainly aware of my presence in La Huerta refugee

camp. In keeping with this concern, I have used pseudonyms

for the village and the individuals that I interviewed

there.

For a variety of reasons, it became necessary to

change the research design after my arrival in the field.

Overall, I spent eleven rather than eight months in the

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field. The changes included an additional two weeks for

Phase One research, six weeks of research on the Guatemalan

side of the border, six months of research in one refugee

camp (combining Phases Two and Four) , and dropping Phase

Three altogether. Thus, the research was actually conducted

in accordance with the following schedule, which is

summarized in Appendix 4.

PHASE ONE RESEARCH METHODS

Two weeks were added to Phase One to allow some

additional time to get settled in and because it took longer

than expected to visit the camps in Margaritas municipio.

It became evident within a few weeks of my arrival in the

field that visiting all 39 refugee camps in Margaritas

municipio was not a realistic goal (see the list of camps

obtained at the COMAR office in Comitan, Appendix 5) . Many

of the refugee camps are very remote and can only be reached

on foot. This means hiking several hours from the all-

weather road that crosses through the jungle, roughly

parallel to the Mexican-Guatemalan border (see Figures 5 and

6). The remoteness of some of the camps was especially felt

during the rainy season, which was in full swing when I

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began making my visits. The Spanish expression "El camino

esta muy jodido" took on a significance that could never

have been anticipated while sitting in an anthropology

classroom. One visit required walking a jungle "path" to

one camp for eight hours in a river of thick mud up to my

knees. In one place the mud was thigh deep, and claimed,

once and for all, the tightly-laced leather boot from my

left foot. It is still there, buried in the mud, as far as

I know.

Since I was not going to have time to visit all of

the camps in Margaritas municipio during Phase One, as

called for in my original proposal, I decided to select

refugee camps from several different Chiapas municipios.

This provided an even broader picture of the living

conditions of the Guatemalan refugees in Chiapas than I had

originally hoped for. Thus, in Phase One, I included camps

that differed from each other in the following ways. In

terms of climatic zones, some of the camps were in tierra

caliente 'hot country,' others in tierra fria 'cold

country.' I also included camps of various population

sizes, from small to large. Some of the camps were

comprised of people from one ethnic group, others were

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f t

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multi-ethnic. The camps visited in Phase One also varied

according to who owned the land on which the camp had been

established. There were camps on land owned privately by

ladinos. camps on ejidos 'communally owned Indian lands,'

and land owned by the Mexican government. The sampling of

camps in Phase One also included those that were relatively

accessible to the Pan American Highway (and received the

bulk of assistance from government and non-government

refugee agencies) and some that were more remote (and

received little or no assistance from the refugee agencies).

At the time I created the original research design, I

had decided not to do any research inside Guatemala because

of recent violence against people who were working with

Indians in Guatemala. Two events were especially important

in making this decision. One was the kidnap and torture of

Sister Dianna Ortiz in Quiche Department by the Guatemalan

army. Sister Ortiz is a Maryknoll nun who was teaching

Indian children the bible. The other event was the murder

of Myrna Mack in Guatemala City on September 11, 1990. Mack

was a Guatemalan anthropologist who had been helping

internally displaced Guatemalans in northern Quiche

Department gain legal title to their lands. She was stabbed

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to death, by a Guatemalan soldier. Many people from northern

Quiché had been chased from their homes during the violence

of the early 1980s and had formed mobile jungle communities

known as Comunidades Populates o n Resistencia 'civilian

communities in resistance' (CPRs; see EPICA 1993) . These

communities of "internally displaced" people have been

living "on the run" from the Guatemalan army since the

violence began (AVANCSO 1990; Falla 1992). Some individual

members of the CPRs had started to return to their natal

villages or had been relocated to new land by 1992, but many

CPRs still existed in Quiché Department.

I started out Phase One by interviewing refugee

workers in Comitan. These included people who were working

for a variety of non-govemment organizations (NGOs). The

most prominent and helpful of these organizations was

Witness for Peace, an American NGO that has provided a

pacifist presence in areas of conflict in Central America

since the late 1970s. The volunteers working in the Witness

for Peace office in Comitan not only accepted me as a co-

worker, but treated me as a confidant and several of us

became good friends. They were influential in helping me to

gain access to refugee strategy planning meetings and to get

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interviews with key refugee leaders. It was also at their

suggestion, and with their backing, that I first visited La

Huerta refugee camp.

Also at the beginning of Phase One, I attended an

important strategy planning meeting of the Comisiones

Permanentes de los Refugiados Guatemaltecos (CCPP) in San

Cristobal de las Casas. This afforded me the opportunity to

hear the refugees talk about returning to Guatemala, how

they were planning the repatriation process, which issues

were important to them, and the minimum conditions they

would accept before returning to Guatemala. It was also

during this meeting that I was introduced to people who were

serving the refugee population as employees of Mexican and

international NGOs.

During the course of my research, I attended several

informational and planning meetings, and participated as a

solidario 'co-worker' or companero 'comrade.' For example,

when I returned from my Phase Two research trip to

Guatemala, I shared openly with the refugees what I learned

during my visits to the communities they had fled.

Participation in such closed door meetings with the

Guatemalan refugee leaders and other solidarity workers

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enhanced the confidence that the leaders had in me. In

addition to helping me build rapport with the refugees,

these meetings were all very informative for me in terms of

understanding the refugees' overall leadership structure and

their process for planning the repatriation.

Also during Phase One, I paid a courtesy visit to the

offices of COMAR (Mexican Commission for Assisting Refugees)

and the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for

Refugees), where I was well-received and had good

interviews. Antonino Garcia Garcia was the main proj ect

designer for the COMAR office in Comitan. Mr. Garcia

granted me an interview, suggested camps that I might like

to visit, and provided me with an official pass that noted I

had COMAR's permission to visit in the refugee camps. He

suggested I use it each time I visited a refugee camp.

There were only a few occasions when the pass was really

helpful. One such occasion arose during Phase One, when two

COMAR field workers, who did not know who I was, tried to

get a group of refugees not to talk to me. Another was when

a military intelligence officer came to La Huerta to

investigate the reasons for my presence in the jungle. The

pass was also helpful each time I passed the immigration

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Station near the point where the jungle road branches off to

the village of Rio Blanco. Other than that, I just carried

the pass around with me and did not show it to anyone,

especially the refugees. I did not want the refugees to

think I was working for COMAR, and I thought showing the

pass might confuse them in this way. Chil Mirtenbaum, a

Bolivian, was the director of the UNHCR office in Comitan

(they shared the same building with COMAR). He was also

very friendly and provided information about the refugees.

Both of these men were helpful to me throughout my stay, as

problems, such as conflict over land and medical needs, came

to my attention in specific refugee camps

According to COMAR records, there were about 124

refugee camps in six Chiapas municipios along the Guatemalan

border in 1991 (Appendix 5). During the time I was

conducting field research, I visited 25 camps in four of

these municipios (Table 4). Two of the camps that I visited

during Phase One were suggested by a COMAR official in

Comitan, and several were suggested by Witness for Peace

representatives who were very familiar with the camps. Most

of the camps were chosen by me, as I followed leads after

being in the field for a while. For example, my first visit

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to Ojo de Agua refugee camp was based on a recommendation of

an elderly Mexican woman, Dona Maria, who runs a small

TABLE 4

NUMBER OF CHIAPAS REFUGEE CAMPS VISITED FROM 1991 TO 1992

Chiapas municiplQ No. of Camps No. Visited Margaritas 40 18 Trinitaria 21 5 Independencia 18 1

Comalapa 36 1 Amatenango 5 0 San Pedro 4 0 Total 124 25

restaurant near the ancient ruins of Chinkultic. On the day

that we met, she agreed to accompany me to Ojo de Agua so

that she could introduce me to the refugees, even though the

camp was three hours away from where she lived. Other

visits to refugee camps resulted from my participation in

solidarity and repatriation planning meetings, during which

refugees would invite me to come visit with them in their

camp. On a couple of occasions, I was visiting in one camp

and the refugees asked me to take them to see relatives or

friends in another camp. I generally followed up on such

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opportunities. Some of the visits were more extensive than

others (ranging from two days to a week), and I was able to

make return visits to several camps while in the field.

During Phase One of my research, the goal was to gain

a broad understanding of the factors influencing the

refugees' perspectives on returning to Guatemala. I

suspected that religion was a primary social factor

influencing the refugees' attitudes toward repatriation,

based on my review of the literature. There was significant

evidence that in the first three years of exile, Protestants

were returning at a higher rate than Catholics. Carmen Rosa

de Leon, director of the Guatemalan Commission to Aid

Repatriates (CEAR), noted that 80 to 90 percent of the

refugees in Chiapas, Mexico were Catholic, but that the

repatriates were about evenly divided between Catholics and

Protestants (WOLA 1989). I was also aware that other

concerns could be influencing their attitudes and behavior.

There were a number of questions that came to mind in this

regard: 1. Did the refugees feel they were being treated

well by the local Mexicans and by the Mexican government?

2. What information were they receiving about life in

Guatemala since the massacres of the early 1980s? 3. How

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did the news they received affect their disposition to

return? 4. Did the refugees feel that there was enough land

and work for them in Mexico? 5. Did the refugees own land

in Guatemala or were they landless?

To get the overview that I desired, I interviewed

refugee camp leaders including CCPP members, camp

representatives, education promoters, health promoters. Mama

Maquin representatives (a refugee women's self-help group),

catechists (lay-teachers of the Catholic Church), and

ordinary camp residents to leam more about these issues.

The people I chose to interview during Phase One were not

randomly selected. Rather, I used a non-random sample of

key informants who were well-informed on the issues I wanted

to discuss. The initial interviews were almost always with

the camp's représentantes 'representatives' (leaders chosen

by the refugees to represent their camp's political

subgroups), who would suggest several other people to

interview in addition to himself. This kind of sample is

sometimes referred to as a "snowball" sample, because it

gets bigger as it rolls down hill (Bernard 1988).

There are limitations to this kind of sampling.

Principally, it is impossible to apply one's conclusions to

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the entire population, as one could with a random sample.

For example, most of the people recommended to participate

in interviews were adult male refugees. For this reason,

there is a serious gender bias in the data that I collected

during Phase One. It would thus be inappropriate to

conclude that "all of the refugees in Camp X" thought in a

particular way based on these interviews since half of the

population was effectively excluded from the interviews.

The opportunities to talk to Indian women in the

refugee camps (and in Guatemala) were somewhat restricted

for me as a male foreigner. The male adults usually steered

me away from the women in the camp. After living with them

for a while, I concluded that this was attributable to at

least two factors. First, the Indians are generally

suspicious of outsiders and feel protective of the women in

their village. Second, the men tended to portray themselves

as the decision makers with regard to repatriation and as

being more knowledgeable about political affairs (from the

community to the international level). When I asked the

leaders of the refugee camps to include some women in the

interview samples, the response from the men was that the

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women did. not really know that much about the situation or

how to talk about it.

In spite of the men's assertions about the women not

knowing anything about repatriation, I have no doubt that

the women refugees had their own perspective on the issue

and that it was different from that of the men. I did the

best I could to include women in the conversations I had,

but, because of language limitations (e.g., in the refugee

camps, most Kanjobal and Chuj women were monolingual in

their respective Indian language) and the social constraints

just mentioned, women were not equally represented in the

interviews during Phase One.

The few conversations that I did have with Indian

women, along with occasional insights from talking to the

men, revealed that the women were quite knowledgeable about

the politics of the violence that they had experienced and

the politics of repatriation (Hooks 1993). Through the

interviews I conducted during Phase One, I became aware that

the women's opinions about repatriation were different from

their husbands'. Because of this sense that the women knew

more than the men let on, I made it a point to include women

in the interview sample during Phase Three of my research.

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in La Huerta refugee camp. This turned out to be critical

to the conclusions that will be drawn at the end of this

dissertation.

When I entered a refugee camp during Phase One, I

usually introduced myself as a university anthropology

student. Although this was the truth, it did not mean much

to most of the refugees I talked to, since most of them had

no way of knowing what an anthropologist or a university

student was. Usually, I had to settle for explaining that I

was also concerned about their human rights and that I

wanted to find out more about why they were in exile and

what they thought about the prospects of returning to

Guatemala. I told them that I planned to share the

information I gathered with people in the United States to

assist them in their return to Guatemala.

The refugees were typically very cautious when I

first arrived in their camps. I usually asked the camp

representatives to arrange interviews with individual heads

of household for me. In some refugee camps, the people were

more reluctant to talk with me individually, so I accepted

group interviews as an alternative. The group interviews

were very difficult to control, since some of them were

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quite spirited. As a result, the notes I took during the

group interviews were usually less rich in detail than those

taken during interviews with individual family heads. In

several camps, the group interviews I conducted led to

individual interviews, since some refugees subsequently

invited me to visit in their homes. The responses in the

group interviews and in the individual interviews were

sometimes very different. This led me to suspect that in

the group interviews there was a tendency to hold to the

official CCPP political rhetoric ("We won't return until the

government signs an agreement based on the six conditions").

In more extensive interviews with individuals, the refugees

were more frank about their individual desire to return home

sooner rather than later and were less specific about the

minimum conditions they would accept before returning

("We'll go back when it is safe and the army agrees to let

us live in peace").

My more in-depth research during Phase Three,

confirmed my sense that group interviews obscured

significant individual variation on attitudes toward

repatriation. That is, the refugees were not as monolithic

in support of the six conditions as they portrayed

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themselves to be in group interviews, where the pressure to

conform to group opinion was shaping the way they answered

my questions. It was only as individuals that the refugees

questioned the CCPP's political ideology, that it was still

not safe to return to Guatemala. Some of the refugees who

did not accept the CCPP's ideology had had visits from

relatives living in Guatemala. These relatives told them

that there was now peace in Guatemala and that they could

return in safety at any time. This led them to suspect that

the CCPP was delaying the repatriation process for their own

political purposes.

The interviews I conducted in Phase One were open-

ended, semi-structured interviews. I usually asked a few

questions about why they had left Guatemala and their

experience of the flight from their homeland. I also asked

questions about the conditions of exile in Mexico, if they

were respected by the government and the local residents; if

they had enough land for milpa ; if international assistance

in the form of food, housing, health care, and education had

been sufficient; if they had enough wage work available,- if

they were satisfied with the pay they received; and if they

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perceived their lives as refugees in Mexico as better or

worse than their lives in Guatemala.

PHASE TWO RESEARCH METHODS

During Phase One, it became evident that the

refugees' perceptions of political and social conditions

inside Guatemala were of great importance in shaping their

attitudes toward repatriation. Conditions in Guatemala were

discussed much more frequently in my interviews than

conditions in the refugee camps. The refugees often talked

with me and with each other about what they heard on their

shortwave radios each night about living conditions inside

Guatemala. They listened to broadcasts from a number of

sources. From Guatemala, they received news from Radio

Flash (the URNG's mobile station) and Radio Maya (a radio

station in Barillas). They also listened to a Spanish-

language station from Cuba and the Voice of America. In

addition to the radio, the refugees also: read the Mexican

newspapers (La Jornada. published in Chiapas, was a favorite

local paper); read Guatemalan newspapers that friends

brought them; heard reports from family members and friends

who came to visit them in Mexico,- and received reports from

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their CCPP representatives and solidarity workers. Some of

the refugees even crossed the border and went to see their

villages for themselves. From all of these often

conflicting sources of information they were trying to piece

together a picture of what life in their villages was really

like, 10 or 11 years after they had last seen them.

It thus became more important for me to understand

first-hand what the conditions were like in Guatemala. I

decided to change my research plan, adding six weeks of

research on the Guatemalan side of the border. Toward the

end of Phase One, I decided to conduct my research during

Phase Three in La Huerta refugee camp. Most of the refugees

in La Huerta had lived in villages north of Barillas, in

northern Huehuetenango Department, so I decided that

visiting their traditional territory would be very

important.

In addition to the villages in the vicinity of

Barillas, I also decided to visit some villages in the

neighboring Ixil Triangle region of the El Quiche

Department, since it had been severely affected during the

repression. There were no Ixil Indians in the refugee camp

I was working in. I simply thought it was important to

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visit the areas that had been most affected by the army's

counter-insurgency campaign from 1982-1983 (Hill and

Monaghan 1987; Lovell 1990; Stoll 1990, 1993).

Once I decided to do some research in Guatemala, my

research strategy became more participatory. I asked the

refugees if they had any questions for the family and

friends they had left behind, or for those who had already

repatriated. The refugees raised several concerns-. the

disposition of the parcels of land they had fled; the

reception they could expect to receive upon repatriation,

both from the army and from their former neighbors and

friends; and obligatory service in the civil patrols.

Concerning the land, the refugees wanted to know what

had happened to the land they had left behind. Had others

come to occupy it in their absence as they had heard on the

radio? Were their relatives working the land? If so, would

they give the land back to the refugees when they returned,

or would there be conflict? This was a particularly

important issue for those refugees who knew that their land

had been occupied by Indians from other parts of Guatemala.

The second issue that concerned the refugees was how

the Guatemalan government, including the army, would treat

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them upon, their return. On this point, the refugees had

received conflicting information based on a variety of

sources. In some cases, the refugees said they knew

refugees who had already repatriated to Guatemala. Some of

these repatriates had written to their friends who were

still in the refugee camps, saying that the Guatemalan

government had never provided the social benefits it had

promised to all repatriates. Promised benefits that were

never provided included schools and teachers, medical

clinics, staple food supplements for the first year of

repatriation until they could plant and harvest their first

crop, sheets of metal for roofing their homes, and potable

water projects in their villages.

The refugees wanted to know if the Guatemalan army

had been allowing repatriates to live their lives in peace,

or if they were harassing the repatriates. In conjunction

with this, the refugees wanted to know how the repatriates

had been treated by their former neighbors. Since the

refugees fled into exile in the early 1980s, the Guatemalan

army had waged a very effective propaganda war against the

repatriates. The army had convinced many of the Guatemalans

who had remained in Guatemala during the repression, that

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all those who had fled to Mexico were guerrillas or

guerrilla sympathizers. Such statements by army officials

in the newspapers and on radio were sometimes followed by

the rhetorical question, "Why would they have run away if

they were not guilty?" The propaganda campaign was

partially successful in creating doubts about the

Guatemalans who had fled during the repression.

Most of the refugees that I spoke to in the

Margaritas municipio refugee camps found the notion that

they were guerrillas bewildering. One refugee commented:

"All we did was plant milpa, cardamom, and coffee. How

could we have fought for the guerrillas? We had no

weapons!" Then, smiling and pointing to his machete he

added, "We had nothing but armas blancas 'knives.'"

Even if the notion were mildly amusing, it was still

a serious concern to many of the refugees. In one of the

group interviews I conducted, I asked if there was anything

the refugees wanted me to ask their former neighbors on

their behalf. One refugee made a very impassioned speech

before the rest of his community. He concluded: "What we

want to know is 'Will they [our former neighbors who stayed

behind in Guatemala] receive us as brothers, or as enemies?

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Will our return bring them joy, or will it create conflict?'

Tell them that we do not want to fight with them over the

land."

Finally, quite a few of the refugees wanted to know

if they would be obliged to serve in the civil patrols.

During the early 1980s, Indians in remote, rural villages

were forced by local army officers to form patrols and to go

out with the army on "sweeps," looking for guerrillas. The

Indians were obliged to go out several times a month

(depending on how many men were in the village) , for days at

a time. They received no pay for this duty. While on

patrol the Indians were assigned the most hazardous duty:

they were put in the front of the regular army soldiers as a

buffer between the soldiers and the guerrillas. Most of the

Indians hated this obligatory paramilitary service (Americas

Watch 1986). But the refugees had recently heard that the

government's policy on participation in the civil patrols

had changed; that is, that participation in the patrols was

voluntary. Many of the refugees wanted to know if this were

true or not.

Prepared with these questions from the refugees, and

a few of my own, I departed for Guatemala. I spent three

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weeks visiting in Quiché Department (mostly in the Ixil

Triangle area) and three weeks in Huehuetenango Department

(mostly in the Indian villages north of Barillas). I used

the same research techniques in both places. I talked with

any civilians I met who were willing to talk to me about the

repression in the early 1980s, the presence and role of the

army in their communities at the present time, and how they

felt about the repatriation of the refugees. I talked with

people I met along the path as I walked from one village to

the next, with ladinos and Indians, with NGO

representatives, with church workers, and with people

visiting the graves of their loved ones in cemeteries. The

interviews were always informal, the questions open-ended.

In responding to my questions, the people were usually

cautious about talking in front of others, but in situations

where they were alone, I felt they talked to me with

surprising candor.

When I returned to Mexico from Guatemala, I was eager

to go back to the camps that I had already visited and share

with the refugees what I had learned. For this purpose, I

revisited most of the refugee camps that I had been to

previously. I also gave a presentation at a meeting of

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refugee leaders and NGO representatives in the Margaritas

municipio village of Nuevo Huixtan. In all cases, I was

warmly received, and the refugees were very interested in

what I had to say. The fact that I had visited many of

their natal villages in Guatemala seemed to impress them

favorably and to lend credibility to my presence and work in

the camps. The results from Phase Two research are

discussed in chapter 4.

PHASE THREE RESEARCH METHODS

After visiting several refugee camps to give

briefings on my research in Guatemala, I went to visit the

La Huerta refugee camp to talk to the camp's six group

representatives about conducting Phase Three of my research

in their camp. Most of the refugee camps were subdivided

into groups, each with their own representative. In La

Huerta, there were six such groups. There will be more

details on the political structure of the refugee camp in

chapter 5. I chose La Huerta for several reasons. First, I

felt I had established good rapport with the leaders of the

camp on my initial visit. Second, there was a CCPP

representative in La Huerta, which would make it easier for

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me to le am about activities related to repatriation outside

of the camp. There were only a couple of CCPP

representatives per refugee zone. The thirteen refugee

zones in Chiapas state, and the camps included in each zone,

are noted in Appendix 5. Third, the camp was fairly remote

from the Pan American Highway and, therefore, was relatively

neglected by NGOs, COMAR, the UNHCR, and social science

researchers. This last point was not so much a question of

research methodology as a personal ethical stance in

reaction to the fact that more remote communities usually

get much less attention from researchers and aid agencies,

which ordinarily concentrate their efforts on communities

that are easier to reach.

I told the representatives that I wanted to live and

work in La Huerta for a total of six months. There would be

two parts to the research. First, I would conduct a

household survey to collect some basic demographic data on

each refugee family. The survey would also include a basic

opinion poll about repatriation. For this part of the

project, I hoped that all of the heads of household would

participate. I emphasized that the research was voluntary

and that if any of the heads of household were afraid to

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participate, they did not have to. The second part of the

research in La Huerta would be interviewing 25-30 heads of

household in-depth about the flight from Guatemala, their

lives in exile in Mexico, and repatriation. I told them

that the research results would be used to write my

dissertation, and that the information I gathered would be

used to promote a peaceful and just repatriation process.

The representatives discussed my proposal, and agreed

that they would like to cooperate with the research. First,

they wanted to talk to the family heads in each of their

groups, and then they would let me know for sure. In a

couple of days, we held another meeting, with all of the

heads of household present, and they agreed to let me do the

research there. They also said they would provide me with

food and shelter while I was with them.

I told them I would need to hire a research assistant

to visit in the homes with me and to teach me the Kanjobal

language. There were several qualifications for this job.

First, it would have to be someone who was bilingual in

Kanjobal and Spanish. The person would need to know the

members of the refugee community and would have to be well

respected. Finally, the person would need to be available

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to work with me all day long. While I knew this was a heavy

burden to ask (it meant giving up working milpa and the cash

crop harvests for the next six months), I was willing to pay

the local daily wage in return for the assistant's services.

For about two weeks, there was some controversy among

the six group representatives over choosing my research

assistant. They ultimately chose a young man, Juan Diego,

who was 15 years old, to assist me. He had completed six

years of primary school education, so they thought he would

be able to teach me their language. He also was generally

well-known in the community. I negotiated his wages with

the camp representatives and he started teaching me Kanjobal

the very next day.

While studying Kanjobal, I prepared a household

survey to be used in gathering demographic data and an

opinion poll in La Huerta (see Appendix 6). The survey was

based on my literature review and what I had learned during

Phases One and Two. Once the survey was ready, I discussed

it with the six camp representatives. They thought it was

fine, but did not find it acceptable for me to ask the

refugees the names of their villages in Guatemala or to talk

with anyone about issues regarding access to land in Mexico.

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Regarding the latter point, they were afraid their Mexican

hosts would be angered if the refugees complained too much

about this very sore topic. I reluctantly agreed to respect

this request. Fortunately, the refugees themselves could

not help talking about their home villages or the problems

related to access to land in Mexico, so I usually obtained

the information I needed without asking directly.

Each representative collected the names of the heads

of household in his group who were willing to participate.

Only a few chose not to participate. Once I had the list of

participants, Juan Diego and I started making house visits

in the late afternoon, when the men came home from working

in the fields. We continued with my Kanjobal lessons in the

mornings. With each visit, I explained the purpose of the

research and how the information would be used. I also

reminded each family head that participation was voluntary.

I conducted most of the interviews in Spanish, though toward

the end of my stay I was able to ask some questions in

Kanj obal. For those few elderly Kanj obal men who did not

speak Spanish, Juan Diego acted as translator.

Once the household survey was finished, I took a

three-week break from the field, and came back to

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Washington, DC. I think my departure and return to La

Huerta was helpful in terms of building rapport with the

refugees. Upon my return to the field, I started getting

more candid information about people's participation in

cooperatives in the Ixcan settlement project and about

people who had recently come to Mexico from the CPRs.

Previously, the refugees had not been very willing to talk

about these matters.

When I came back to the field after my break, I

worked with Juan Diego on drawing a random sample of 25

heads of family for the semi-structured ethnographic

interviews. We usually conducted one interview per

afternoon. Each interview generally lasted about an hour.

The questions were open-ended, and I asked many specific

follow-up questions for clarification.

During the six months that I was living in La Huerta

refugee camp, I also gathered information through

participant observation. This included eating my meals with

the refugees, attending church meetings and costumbre

rituals, visiting people in their homes, doing agricultural

work, playing basketball and soccer, travelling to nearby

fiestas, shopping in the village market on market days, and

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attending camp meetings for the heads of household and

regional meetings for camp representatives.

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RESEARCH RESULTS FROM PHASES ONE AND TWO

Before proceeding to a description of La Huerta

refugee camp and an analysis of the data collected during

Phase Three, I will summarize what I learned during Phases

One and Two. The conclusions drawn from these earlier

phases impacted the way in which I conducted research in

Phase Three.

THE THREE STANCES ON REPATRIATION

Based on the refugees' responses, I started to

perceive three different strains of thought on repatriating

to Guatemala among those in the Phase One non-random sample :

those who wanted to return after an agreement was signed

with the government (about 80 percent); those who never

wanted to return to Guatemala (about 10 percent of the

snowball sample) ,• and those who wanted to return immediately

(about 10 percent). While the sample was not random, I felt

that the way in which I had chosen the camps and the people

169

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to interview meant that the impression I was getting was a

fairly accurate approximation of how the refugees in the

Chiapas refugee camps felt about repatriating in general.

Stance One: Uis Q££iclal Position of ths CCPP

While in the field, I discovered that the refugees,

through their elected leadership in the Comisiones

Permanentes (CCPP), had developed a list of six conditions

that they wanted fulfilled before they returned. As stated

in a communiqué from the CCPP in October 1991, the six

conditions were as follows :

1. Repatriation must be a voluntary decision, made individually. The vast majority of the refugee population demand a collective, organized return.

2. That the Guatemalan government guarantee the right of the refugees to return to the specific lands that the refugees left behind when they fled into exile in Mexico.

3. That the Guatemalan government respect the repatriates' right to organize politically and to associate freely with each other.

4. That the Guatemalan government respect the repatriates' right to life and safety, for both individuals and communities. To achieve this, we believe it is necessary that the civil authorities in each municipio be responsible for the maintenance of public order.

5. That the Guatemalan government allow delegations of independent Guatemalan and international observers, and representatives of

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the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to accompany the refugees when they repatriate to Guatemala.

6. That the Guatemalan government allow free national and international movement of the CCPP members and all of the repatriates. (CCPP, October 16, 1991; my translation from a Spanish original).

Several of these conditions need some explanation.

The first condition expresses the refugees' belief that the

decision to repatriate should be made on an individual

basis. At the same time, most of the refugees preferred to

return collectively,- that is, as a group. They felt that

there would be greater safety in repatriating this way,

since repatriating as individual families might make them

more subject to attacks by the Guatemalan army and the civil

patrols.

The second condition listed above demands that the

refugees be allowed to return to the lands that they had

abandoned. The army officers in Huehuetenango and Quiche

Departments were not in favor of allowing the refugees to

return to their lands. Some of the officers had

expropriated the refugees' lands for their own use. The

army had also taken the liberty of resettling other landless

Indians, often from different language groups, on the lands

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abandoned by the refugees in the early 1980s to prevent the

refugees from returning there. The CCPP leaders were being

clear that the refugees wanted to return to the lands they

had settled, cleared, and cultivated for a decade or more

before the 1980s massacres occurred.

The fourth condition states that the civilian

authorities should be put in charge of civilian affairs in

the rural areas where the refugees lived. Currently, the

Guatemalan army has control of civilian affairs in most

rural locations. This condition would require the army to

relinquish the authority it has assumed in civilian affairs,

and allow the elected leaders to do their duties.

The seis condiciones 'Six Conditions,' which were

written and presented to the Guatemalan government as early

as 1988, were well-known to nearly all of the refugees in

Chiapas that I spoke to from 1991 to 1992. Any time I met

with camp representatives, or held group interviews with

these leaders present, the six conditions were given as the

minimum conditions that had to be met before they would

consider returning. Thus, the majority of the refugees

appeared to agree that they wanted to return, but they

wanted to wait until their CCPP leaders signed an agreement

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with the government of Guatemala that promised to fulfill

these conditions. They were nearly unanimous in their

statements that they would remain in Mexico as long as it

took for the accord to be signed.

The vast majority (approximately 80 percent) of the

refugees interviewed in Phase One expressed their preference

to wait for their elected leaders in the CCPP to negotiate

with the government for a comprehensive, safe, collective

return, based on the six conditions. They usually cited the

improvements in their social and political conditions in

Mexico, and their belief that it was not safe to return as

the reasons for remaining in Mexico as long as necessary.

Many of these refugees had been landless in Guatemala and

thought that the CCPP, while negotiating the return with the

Guatemalan government, might also be able to negotiate some

land reform that would provide them with their own parcels.

They tended to accept the characterization of the situation

inside Guatemala promulgated by the CCPP, that it was not

safe to return without the protection of a signed formal

agreement with the government.

During the first few weeks of my research, it seemed

that the refugees were all of one mind on repatriation.

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solidly behind the CCPP leaders. But the refugees were not

so monolithic as that. As I continued interviewing refugees

in Phase One, I became aware of two significant minority

opinions, which I call Stances Two and Three. The

perspective of the refugees holding each of these two

minority opinions is described below.

Stance Two: Those Who Will Never Return

There were some refugees who said they would never

return to Guatemala. Most of these people had experienced

the brutal violence of the 1981-1983 repression personally.

Some of the refugees expressing this point of view were

speaking as individuals. One Chuj refugee I met on a bus

trip from Comitan to the refugee camps told me that he was

the only surviving member of his family; not just his

nuclear family, but his extended family. He had watched

while all the others had been killed during the counter

insurgency campaign. He swore he would never go back to a

country where that kind of violence might happen again.

There were other individuals that I met who privately told

me they felt the same way, although no one ever voiced this

opinion in a group interview.

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The decision to stay in Mexico permanently was not

just one made by individual refugees. There were entire

refugee camps that were making plans to remain in Mexico

permanently. I encountered two such refugee camps (Ojo de

Agua and Rancho Tepancuapan) during the early part of Phase

One of my research, eind made numerous return visits to both

of these camps while I was in the field. Neither of these

refugee communities had strong ties to the CCPP leadership.

In fact, the leaders in both camps seemed interested in

distancing themselves from the CCPP. The refugees at Rancho

Tepancuapan were, however, knowledgeable about the

activities of the CCPP, since the 16th-century hacienda on

which they lived was a major stop-over point for refugees

passing through between the jungle refugee camps and

Comitan.

To remain in Mexico as a community meant obtaining

secure access to land where they could live and farm. It

also meant becoming Mexican citizens (mexicanizarse 'to

become Mexican'), an option that the Mexican government

eventually offered to all of the refugees, though the

Mexican government did not encourage the refugees to stay.

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The worst problem faced by the refugees in these two

camps was the tenuous access to the land on which they

currently lived. In both cases, they lived on land owned by

non-Indian patrones 'patrons,' relatively wealthy Mexicans,

who had allowed the refugees to settle on their land. In

exchange for this practice of offering posada 'a temporary

place to stay,' the patrones required the refugees to

perform several days of free labor each month in exchange

for free or reduced rental fees on their houses and miIpa

lands. This was in addition to the paid wage work they were

performing for the patron for wages below the market value.

Mexican wage workers in Chiapas were paid an average of 3-

6.000 pesos a day in 1991-1992. Guatemalans received 2-

3.000 pesos daily for the same work (3,000 pesos was the

rough equivalent of $1 in United States currency; for

perspective, a Coca Cola cost 1,000 pesos, one third to one

half of a day's wages for a refugee). Sometimes the

patrones failed to pay the refugees for any of their work.

This was also true in other refugee camps, like La Huerta,

where the patrons were Maya Indians. Low wages and non

payment of wages were also a source of friction between the

refugees and their "hosts." In one of these two camps, some

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of the refugees became so angry about not being paid

adequately that they refused to work anymore until they were

paid. This divided the refugees in the camp down the

middle, with half refusing to work and the others calling

them "lazy." The patron threatened the refugees with

eviction for their refusal to work for no pay. The refugees

felt they were in a very precarious position, one in which

they could be evicted at any moment.

This fear of eviction led both refugee communities to

look for other Mexican land that they could occupy. Since

the refugees had no money to buy land for themselves, they

had to find other patrones, who would provide posada on

their land in exchange for low rent, occasional gifts of

medicine, food staples, and cash loans, and a generally more

peaceful life. In both of these camps, I was asked if I

could personally help to buy land for them in Mexico. In

making this request, the Indians were asking me to enter

into a patron-client relationship. While I knew that they

felt this was an appropriate role for me (I was perceived by

them as a wealthy non-Indian), it was not a role that I was

at all eager to assume. Instead, I offered to mediate for

them with the Mexican refugee agency, COMAR, and the United

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Nations High Commissioner for Refugees office (UNHCR) in

Comitan and to help them in their efforts to find a new

Mexican patron.

In fact, I did try to help both groups find new land

by speaking to COMAR and UNHCR officials in Comitan. One

issue that was brought up by refugees in this minority who

wanted to remain in Mexico was where they would consider

resettling. For example, the refugees at the Ojo de Agua

refugee camp, who had lived in tierra fria in Guatemala,

refused to be relocated to tierra caliente anywhere in

Mexico. This was in spite of the fact that the parcel of

land on which they had settled was simultaneously claimed by

three Mexican land owners. At various times, all three of

them had threatened the refugees with eviction if they did

not pay rent in the form of working for them without pay.

In 1984, the residents at Ojo de Agua (along with half of

the refugees in Chiapas), refused to relocate to the refugee

camps established by the Mexican government far from the

Guatemalan-Mexican border in the states of Campeche and

Quintana Roo, in part, because the Yucatan Peninsula is

tiejcxa caH e m b a .

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On these grounds, in 1991 and 1992, these same

refugees refused to move to the Nuevo Libertad refugee camp

in another part of Chiapas state, which was also in tierra

caliente. They would not relocate there, even though Nuevo

Libertad was an asentamiento seguro; that is, a refugee camp

built on land purchased by the Mexican government for

refugees living in situations where there was serious

conflict with the private land owners. The refugees at Ojo

de Agua would not move there even though home sites in the

camp and milpa were being offered to them for as long as

they were needed, without rent or expectations of free

labor. This refusal to be relocated to refugee camps where

the ownership of the land was undisputed and where they

could live with a greater sense of autonomy and security was

difficult for Mexican and international refugee policy

makers to understand. The reasons for their refusal to move

to a different climatic zone were discussed in chapter 2 on

Kanj obal culture.

The fears of the refugees who did not want to return

to Guatemala ever were reinforced in the refugee camps.

During Phase One and Phase Three of my research, the

refugees commented on the bombs they heard exploding just

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across the border in Guatemala, as the Guatemalan military

conducted air raids in northern Quiché Department (whether

against the CPRs, the guerrillas, or both, was never clear

to me). One day, rather early in my research, I was

interviewing a refugee at the door to his home. As I was

asking him about repatriating, the man paused and listened

intently for a moment. Then I heard it too, the distant

booming. When the noise stopped, he said, "That's why we

don't go back. They are still bombing in the Ixcan. We are

afraid the army will kill us if we go back."

For those refugees wanting to return to Guatemala,

the hardships of refugee life in Mexico, the constant

conflict with Mexican (Indian and non-Indian) landowners,

inadequate access to land in Mexico for milpa. and gentle

pressure from the Mexican government and the UNHCR were not

enough to overcome their fear of repatriating. In spite of

these difficulties, they were adamant about not

repatriating.

Stance Three : The Pro-Return Group

At the opposite end of the spectrum from Stance Two,

there was a small, increasingly vocal, minority of refugees

that wanted to repatriate immediately, regardless of the

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political climate in Guatemala. They constituted

approximately 10 percent of the refugees interviewed in

Phase One. During the eleven months that I was conducting

research in Mexico and Guatemala, the refugees that shared

this opinion evolved into a political force of their own,

known as the Grupo Era Retorno 'Pro-Return Group'

(understood as "the group of refugees in favor of immediate

repatriation"), effectively challenging the leadership of

the CCPP.

The minority of refugees that expressed a desire to

return immediately to Guatemala were weary of living in

exile, especially of the hardships of refugee life. They

suggested that the CCPP was procrastinating in their

negotiations with the Guatemalan government for a collective

repatriation based on the six conditions. They often stated

their opinion that it was safe enough to return to

Guatemala. For the most part, they based this opinion on

visits from relatives and friends who came to see them from

Guatemala, and on radio news reports. Even though the human

rights situation was far from ideal in Guatemala, they felt

the time had come for them to go back.

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It was my perception that the refugees of this

persuasion were slightly more radical in their political

opinions, strongly affirming what they thought of as their

rights as indigenous peoples under the Guatemalan

constitution and United Nations declarations concerning

ethnic minorities. Those refugees who wanted to return

immediately sometimes mentioned that they stood a better

chance of demanding their rights effectively from inside

Guatemala, rather than from afar in Mexican territory.

During Phase Three of my research, it became apparent that

many of those who were in favor of returning immediately had

been part of the 1970s Ixcan settlement projects and the

cooperatives that were formed through those projects, but

this was not evident during Phase One. The CCPP was

effective in delaying the Grupo Pro-Retomo from returning

before I left the field in September 1992. But the could

not stop them completely. By January 1993, the first large

group of Guatemalan refugees repatriated, and many more

followed them. In the span of one year, approximately one-

half of the official refugees in Mexico repatriated.

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RESEARCH QUESTIONS THAT AROSE FROM PHASE ONE RESEARCH

What accounted for these differences of opinion

regarding whether or not to return to Guatemala and when to

return? Nearly all of the refugees admitted that the social

and political conditions in exile were better than what they

had had in Guatemala before the repression. Social

improvements often cited included the following: better

educational opportunities for their children and themselves;

better access to medical treatment in Mexico; and the

peacefulness of daily life in Mexico compared to the

constant fear in which they lived in Guatemala before and

during the repression.

Economic conditions in Mexico were generally

perceived to be about the same as they had been in Guatemala

by all of the refugees that I spoke to during Phase One.

Most of the refugees had been landless in Guatemala, so

being landless in Mexico was not a big change for them.

Most of them were also accustomed to conflict over land

ownership and tenure in Guatemala. For the most part, the

refugees had not changed climatic zones when they crossed

the border from Guatemala into Mexico. This meant that the

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crops cind agricultural cycle in Mexico were about the same

as in Guatemala.

There were some negative economic factors that were

regularly discussed by the refugees during Phase One. For

example, for refugees who had settled on either ejido or

private land, there were continuous arguments with their

Mexican landlords over payment of wages. Sometimes the

conflict arose because the wages were considered too low,

sometimes because the wages were not paid at all. The

refugees also objected to the obligation to perform free

labor in exchange for posada.

Many refugees said that they did not have adequate

access to land for milpa cultivation in Mexico. They felt

that in Guatemala they had been able to obtain access to

sufficient agricultural lands to provide a minimally

nutritious diet for their families. I discovered that

availability of land varied from one refugee camp to

another, but as a general rule, the refugees felt that they

were dependent on food staples such as corn and beans from

international sources like the United Nations. They all

agreed that the rations they received from such sources were

insufficient. At the time I arrived in 1991, refugees in

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several different camps expressed their belief that the c o m

and bean rations that the United Nations once supplied them

had been cut. Some said it was an effort to punish them for

not relocating to the camps on the Yucatan Peninsula in

1984. Others said they thought it was the beginning of an

attempt to force the refugees to repatriate.

Since the social and political conditions in Mexico

were much improved over those in Guatemala, and the economic

conditions in Mexico were generally about the same as they

had experienced in Guatemala, it was easy to understand the

point of the small minority of refugees planning to stay in

Mexico permanently. It also seemed fairly easy to

understand the point of view of the majority who seemed

content to stay in Mexico indefinitely, as long as they

thought they could obtain an agreement with the Guatemalan

government that would guarantee their human rights. They

were enjoying access to schools, medical services, potable

water, and other improvements in their lives. Thus, on the

surface, the attitudes of approximately 90 percent of the

Guatemalan refugees seemed to support the assumptions of

those who advocate forced repatriation. Ninety percent of

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the Guatemalan refugees would probably not repatriate unless

they were actively encouraged, or forced, to do so.

But, the picture was not that simple. First, there

was the minority of refugees that had started to advocate an

immediate return to Guatemala, even without an agreement

with the government that guaranteed their human rights.

What was motivating them to adopt this attitude toward

repatriation? How were the people in this minority group

different in economic, social, and political characteristics

from the other 90 percent, who were either willing to wait

indefinitely, or who wanted to stay in Mexico permanently?

Second, there were some indications that the 80 percent who

said they were willing to wait indefinitely for an agreement

with the Guatemalan government were not as monolithic as it

appeared at first glance. While they presented a unified

front in community-based, group interviews, some of the

refugees in the CCPP faction admitted privately that they

were ready to go back as soon as they perceived it was safe

to do so.

Based on the interviews conducted in Phases One and

Two, I drew several conclusions that changed the shape of my

original research design. First, one of the most common

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themes that arose in interviews about repatriation was the

refugees' perceptions of whether or not the Guatemalan

government would respect their human and civil rights.

Second, I began to suspect that religious affiliation was

not as much of a factor in the Chiapas camps as it once had

been, since most of the refugees I talked with, whether

Costumbre, Catholic, or Protestant, agreed that they would

not return before the Guatemalan government signed an accord

concerning the six conditions. Third, conditions in the

refugee camps were much less a factor than I might have

thought. Most of the people said they were willing to

endure the relative deprivation of refugee life until they

felt it was safe to return to Guatemala, and the army would

let them live in peace.

IS IT SAFE ENOUGH TO RETURN?

I will summarize what I learned in the two

departments where I concentrated my research in Guatemala:

Quiché and Huehuetenango. In both locations, I learned that

the residents in the Indian communities felt that the

overall political situation had improved significantly since

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the early 1980s, the years when the violence of the counter

insurgency campaign reached its peak.

In the Department of Quiché, I interviewed people in

Chichicastenango, Sacapulas, Nebaj, Cotzal, Chajul, Acul,

and Bijolom II. In Chichicastenango, several people shared

with me graphic memories of alternating raids by the

government and guerrilla armies on their town. One person

recalled a group of guerrillas that came into town and

gathered everyone into the town plaza for a demonstration.

They shot their automatic weapons at the Catholic church and

called it a whore. One man mentioned that he had been

forced to serve in the government army against his will.

Many informants told stories about friends and relatives who

had died during the repression.

The people I interviewed held varying opinions

concerning who was primarily responsible for the violence of

the early 1980s. One man likened the government army to a

dog that a family keeps around the house for protection.

"As long as you let the dog rest, it won't bother you. But,

if you wake the dog, it will attack viciously. That is what

happened with the guerrillas; they awakened the sleeping

dog." In this way, he excused the army from any culpability

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in the conflict by placing the blame on the guerrillas as

the party responsible for initiating the aggression.

In Sacapulas, an elderly Indian woman I met in the

local cemetery shared her memories from the repression years

with me. The village of Sacapulas is located high on a

hillside. She reminisced:

In those days, the river ran red with blood. On one occasion, some young girls were bathing in the river, there [indicating the river that runs past the village in the valley below] . While they were in the water, several bodies came floating down the river and bumped into them. The bodies were mutilated. We never found out where those bodies came from.

In recent years, she noted, the situation around Sacapulas

had been more peaceful.

The situation was still fairly tense between the army

and the civilian population in the Ixil Triangle, which is

formed by three Ixil Indian villages, Nebaj, Cotzal, and

Chajul. In each of these villages there were posts guarded

by civil patrol members. The army had a noticeable presence

in all of the Ixil Triangle villages, with a strategically-

placed barracks nearby. Soldiers were present during the

festival I attended at Chajul, adding to a situation that

was already tense from the over consumption of alcohol.

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The people in the main Ixil Triangle villages were

less willing to talk to me, compared to Chichicastenango and

Sacapulas, though I did have good interviews in Acul and

Bijolom II. In all of these communities in northern Quiché

Department, there were people who were returning from exile,

both internal (that is, from the CPRs) and external (from

refuge in Mexico). In each village I visited, the returnees

and repatriates were building new homes in marginal areas on

the outskirts of the already established village.

The reception that the repatriates and returnees

received was reportedly mixed. Some said that they were

being treated well, meaning that their neighbors were

sharing land with them, and helping them to get their lives

started over again. One man I met in Bijolom II admitted he

had served for a while in the guerrilla army. He said that

when he first returned to the village, his former neighbors

were very suspicious of him, though now they were more

accepting of him. He had converted to Protestantism as a

step toward regaining their confidence. In some cases

returnees said they had been pressured into joining the

local civil patrol, even though they did not want to do so.

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In Huehuetenango Department, I interviewed people in

the towns of Huehuetenango, San Miguel, and Barillas, and in

the more remote villages of Xoxlac-Momonlac, and Saqchen.

Generally speaking, life in Huehuetenango Department seemed

more relaxed than in Quiché Department. In the

Huehuetenango towns and villages I visited, the army

presence was less noticeable; that is, I did not see

soldiers everywhere I went, and the people I interviewed did

not indicate that the army was perceived as an immediate

threat.

In Huehuetenango, I interviewed an informant who

worked for the Catholic Church preparing for the return of

the refugees. He mentioned that refugees returning to

Huehuetenango Department would face several difficulties.

The first difficulty was the attitude of those who stayed in

Guatemala during and after the repression. He said the army

had been very effective in convincing many of them that the

Guatemalans who had fled to exile in Mexico were communist

guerrillas. One of his jobs was to try and undo this myth

before the refugees came back. A second issue was the land

that the refugees had abandoned. Land in several villages

in northern Huehuetenango abandoned by the refugees had been

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resettled in the refugees' absence by landless Indians from

other parts of Guatemala. It was his assessment that many

of the newly resettled Indians felt strongly that they did

not want the refugees to come back, since this would mean

becoming landless again.

In the towns of San Miguel and Barillas, the people I

interviewed (ladinos and Indians alike) generally seemed to

want the refugees to come back home. One ladina (a non-

Indian woman) in Barillas commented that it was time for the

refugees to return since it was now safer. Only one person

I talked to in Barillas voiced the opposing point of view.

He was an Indian who had a coffee and cardamom buying

business in the middle of town. It was his opinion that the

refugees were all communist guerrillas, and that they should

not be allowed to come back to Guatemala. They had made

their choice when they left for Mexico.

On the soccer field in Barillas, one Indian man told

me a story about how the people of Barillas had successfully

persuaded the army to abandon the barracks in their town.

While the soldiers were in town, the commander made constant

demands on the townspeople's time. They were required to go

out on patrol, to maintain the roads, and to do personal

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chores for him such as working in his garden and cutting his

firewood. The mayor explained to the local commander that

the people of Barillas did not want the government army or

the guerrillas in their town. Soon after that, the soldiers

packed up and left town in the middle of the night, without

an explanation. By the time I arrived in Barillas in 1992,

the land on which the barracks stood was being used for

grazing a few goats and there was not a soldier in sight.

My informant said the people were no longer required to

participate in the civil patrol, and many did not.

In the more remote villages of Xoxlac, Momonlac, and

Saqchen, I interviewed people who had gone into exile and

were now repatriated, as well as people who had remained in

Guatemala during and after the repression. The feeling in

these villages was less tense than in the rural villages in

the Ixil Triangle. In spite of the more relaxed feeling,

the most common response to the question "How's it goingl

was "Pues, aqui estamos patrullando" ("Well, here we are

patrolling."). By this phrase, they meant the people of

their village had formed a civil patrol and were being

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vigilant in watching out for the guerrillas. This

illustrated that the villagers still felt the army's

presence it their area.

As I was walking from Centinela to Xoxlac, I

encountered an elderly man and his sons who were on their

way to Barillas. We talked for a while. When I told them

that I was working in Mexico with the refugees, one of the

elderly man's sons said that the old man was his father.

Theson had repatriated from Mexico a few years earlier, but

his father was still a refugee in one of the camps in

Chiapas. His father had obtained permission from COMAR to

return to Guatemala for a brief visit to see about the

possibility of repatriating. The son was very glad to see

his father, but the civil patrol commander in their village

had treated the old man disrespectfully, accusing him of

being a communist guerrilla. The civil patrol commander

told the old man that he could not come into the village

until he had obtained written permission from the army.

They were returning to Barillas to try and obtain that

permission.

When I arrived in Xoxlac, I was asked by one of the

villagers to wait in the civil patrol guard house. No one

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was there at the moment that I walked up. The civil patrol

commander came out to the guard house to talk to me,

carrying an ancient rifle. He said the army had warned him

that people who looked like me. North Americans with beards

and long hair, might enter the village to ask the people to

cultivate drug crops. He had been told that they might be

offered lots of money to do this and that they should

immediately report any strangers in their midst to the army.

It took about an hour to convince him that I was not a drug

trafficker, and that I had been working with the refugees in

Chiapas. Finally, some other villagers came out of their

houses and joined in our conversation. The village elders

decided to let me spend the night in their school building,

since it was not being used.

In the more remote villages of Xoxlac, Momonlac, and

Saqchen, the story was generally the same,- the people wanted

the refugees to return. All of these communities already

had repatriates living in them. One elderly man, a

Protestant church leader who once had been a refugee in

Mexico, said.

Look around you. This is their land, too. All they have to do is come back and start working it again. There are some of us who have continued to

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work the land planted by our relatives, but when they return they can have it back. Maybe they will need to compensate their relatives who continued cultivating the land for them, with some money or a gift of land. But, there is plenty of land for everyone.

While acknowledging that they wanted the refugees

back, the economic and social conditions were very

difficult. The villagers in Guatemala may well have been

giving a more positive outlook for the future than was

really warranted, since there had been a decrease in

available cultivable land during the refugees' absence. It

seems certain that there will be conflict of water and

firewood resources as well, regardless of the good will

toward the repatriates that may be present in some

communities. The Guatemalans who had already repatriated in

these villages said that the Guatemalan government had

offered them many inducements to return from exile, but that

the government had not followed through on any of them. For

example, they had been promised land to settle on, beans and

corn for the first year after they returned, metal sheets

for the roofs, teachers and medical services, and a potable

water system. In Xoxlac, the Indians had built their own

clinic and school to replace the ones that the government

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army had burned to the ground during the repression. But

the government had never supplied a teacher, or even the

money to pay the education promoter who lived in the

village. Instead, the education promoter, who had been

trained in refuge in Mexico, had to work in the fields to

earn his living, and the Indian children were without

education once again. The clinic was completely void of

medicine and personnel.

One repatriate whom I met along the path from

Nicololen to Xoxlac confided that he had had trouble getting

land for milpa in his natal village. He reported that there

was conflict over land between the people who had remained

in Guatemala since the repression and those who had gone

into exile. Repatriates had been told by some that the land

they left was no longer theirs and they had no more rights

to it. Those who had stayed behind felt like they had

suffered the worst deprivation during and after the

repression. Therefore, they felt justified in claiming all

of the land that had been abandoned by those who went into

refuge. There was also conflict in his village over where

repatriates could gather firewood and the sharing of water

resources. He had finally given up on reconciling with

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these people. At that moment, he was on his way to look for

work on a nearby finca, where he could resettle with his

wife and children.

In Huehuetenango Department, then, the people I

interviewed were agreed that violence and political

repression had improved since the early 1980s. Repatriates

agreed that the Guatemalan government had not done any of

the things it had promised to help the refugees during the

repatriation process. And, there were serious differences

among individuals and between communities with regard to how

the people felt about the refugees and their relationship to

the guerrilla movement, and what their return would mean

with regard to sharing scarce resources, such as land,

water, and firewood.

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LA HUERTA REFUGEE CAMP

During my fieldwork, I learned quickly that not all of

the refugees had had similar experiences before or during

the repression. For example, the refugees varied as to

whether or not they held title to their land, were in the

process of paying for their land, or payed rent for it.

Some of the refugees had worked the land communally, others

in the more traditional way, by extended families.

The refugees also had different experiences of the

repression once it began in 1982. Some of the refugees who

lived in the Ixcan cooperative zone in Quiché Department,

and some who lived in the vicinity of Barillas in

Huehuetenango Department, had personal experiences of the

violence perpetrated by the Guatemalan army. Other

refugees, who had lived closer to the Mexican border, did

not see the violence first-hand before fleeing their

communities, but learned about it from others.

199

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Before providing an ethnographic description of La

Huerta refugee camp, I will share some of what the refugees

had to say about their lives before the repression, how the

repression affected the region in which they lived, and the

experience of fleeing their homes. I gathered this data at

the end of my research experience through in-depth, open-

ended interviews with several of the heads of household in

La Huerta. Since I did not have time to interview all 84 of

the heads of household in this way, I interviewed 23

individuals. I asked open-ended questions about the lives

the refugees had lived in Guatemala before the repression,

how they came to know about the repression in their

villages, their flight to Mexico, and how life as refugees

in Mexico compared with their lives in Guatemala. I also

asked these informants to talk at length about how they felt

about repatriating. The 23 heads of household with whom I

conducted more in-depth interviews are listed in Appendix 8.

Some of the heads of household who were living jointly

preferred being interviewed together. For such cases, there

are two numbers listed in the "Head of Family" column in

Appendix 8, but they are only counted as one interview.

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At the beginning of my research, the six camp

representatives asked me not to ask people the names of

their villages of origin. But whenever I talked with the

refugees about their lives in Guatemala, they always named

the village where they had lived. This information, along

with information on land tenure in Guatemala, proved to be

critical in understanding the attitudes of the refugees

toward repatriation. For this reason, I think it needs to

be discussed. To help protect their identity, I have only

noted the general vicinity from which they fled, not the

specific villages (see Appendix 8) .

Most of the refugees in the random sample were from

villages in one of four regions in the Ixcan (the area that

was labelled "uninhabited" by La Farge,- see Figures 1 and

2): the area around Chancolin, the area around Xoxlac, the

area closer to the Guatemalan-Mexican border, and the Ixcan

cooperatives region (the area that lies between the Ixcan

and Xalbal Rivers). The single exception to this

generalization was Head of Household #32, à Kekchi Indian

from Alta Verapaz, who had married a Mam woman from the

Ixcan region.

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THE REFUGEES OF LA HUERTA AND PATTERNS

OF LAND TENURE IN GUATEMALA

In terms of land tenure in Guatemala, the refugees in

La Huerta fell into four distinct groups. The first group

consisted of landless Kanjobal Indians. They made up 22

percent of the random sample (5 of 23). They had been too

poor to buy their own land, and were thus living on fincas

west of the Ixcan River, working as agricultural laborers

and renting land for milpa.

The second group of refugees consisted mostly of

Kanjobal Indians. In contrast to the landless Indians in

the first group, however, they, along with a few poor

ladinos. had been buying former fincas north of Barillas,

also west of the Ixcan River. At the time they fled to

refuge in Mexico, they still did not hold title to their

land because they had not finished paying for it. The

people who were in the process of buying their land, but

still did not hold title, made up 30 percent of the random

sample (7 of 23).

The third group with regard to land tenure was made up

of refugees who had already bought their land and held title

to it. They made up 22 percent of the random sample (5 of

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23). In the random sample, most of the people in this

category were Kanjobal Indians (one Kekchi Indian). These

people had settled throughout the area north of Barillas and

west of the Ixcan River.

The fourth group with regard to land tenure consisted

of those who had been living in cooperatives in the Ixcan

region, under the leadership of the Catholic priests, when

the counter-insurgency campaign grew in intensity (from 1981

to 1982) . They were mostly Mam Indians (one Kanjobal

Indian) who were in the process of buying their land

cooperatively with help from the Church, but had not

received the title to the land before going into refuge.

The refugees who had lived in the Ixcan cooperatives

constituted 26 percent of the random sample (6 of 23).

As seen in Table 5, there is a relationship between the

five regions in which the refugees had lived and the type of

land tenure that predominated there. The people living in

the vicinity of Chancolin were buying their land, and most

of them already held title to it. Three of the people from

the Xoxlac area were renting land, one was buying land, and

the other had title to his land already. Most of the people

living along the Guatemalan-Mexican border were in the

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process of buying, but none of them yet held title to the

land. In retrospect, there is some evidence that the people

who said they were renting land along the border may, in

fact, have been buying their land. In some cases, I

interviewed heads of household from the same village and

some told me they were renting, and others said they were

buying. They may have confused paying payments with paying

rent. And, all six of the people from the land between the

Ixcan and Xalbal Rivers were living in cooperatives. The

chi-square for the data in Table 5 is 30.992 which, with 12

degrees of freedom, has 0.000 probability of being due to

chance, but the data are too sparse for the tests of

significance to be considered reliable.

Those who had bought their land around Chancolin and

the border area (or were in the process of buying) did so

through the Institute National de Transformation Agraria

(the National Agrarian Reform Institute, or INTA), or from

private landowners. The renters who mentioned the source of

the land they rented were renting tierra national (land

belonging to the Guatemalan government) through INTA. The

one cooperative in the Ixcan that most of the Mam Indians

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had lived in was being purchased from a ladino who lived in

Guatemala City.

TABLE 5

LAND TENURE OF LA HUERTA REFUGEES BY REGION

Type of Land Tenure

Region Buying Cooperative Renting Titled TOTALS

Alta 0 0 0 1 1 Verapaz

Chancolin 1 0 0 3 4

Ixcan 0 6 0 0 6

Xoxlac 1 0 3 1 5 Border Area 5 0 2 0 7

TOTALS 7 6 5 5 23

THE ARRIVAL OF THE SETTLERS IN THE IXCAN

AND THEIR FLIGHT TO REFUGE IN MEXICO

The refugees had moved into and fled these four regions

under very different circumstances. As a way of summarizing

these circumstances, I will retell the stories of several of

the heads of household, at least one from each of the four

regions. Because the stories of the heads of household from

the same village or region tended to be similar, this method

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will provide a fairly complete picture of the variety of

situations the refugees fled. All four places of origin

were in what the refugees referred to as the "Ixcan." In

this section, I am using the term "Ixcan" like the refugees

did. That is, Ixcan will refer to the entire area north of

the areas traditionally associated with the Kanjobal and

Ixil Indians (far northern Huehuetenango and Quiche

Departments). Some writers use the term more restrictively,

to refer to the lands between the Ixcan and Xalbal Rivers

only. I will refer to the latter as the Ixcan cooperative

area.

The refugees from the cooperatives region represent a

very different case from the refugees from the other three

areas. All of these families had been involved in the Ixcan

cooperative movement. Based on the information I gathered

in the refugee camps, I believe that they had closer ties to

the guerrilla movement than the refugees who originated west

of the Ixcan River. Because of this, their villages were

targeted earlier than the villages west of the Ixcan River.

Also, their villages were more severely attacked by the

Guatemalan army from 1981 to 1983.

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In 1966, a Maryknoll priest named Edward Doheny began

coordinating a colonization project in the Ixcan in

conjunction with INTA, the government's agrarian reform

agency. The project involved both the purchase of private

land and the purchase of national lands for which INTA held

title. He resettled some Indians on lands along the Ixcan

River, where they carved out parcels for settlements and

agriculture. Most of the settlers were Mam, Kanjobal, Chuj,

and Jacaltec Indians, with a few ladinos. They found the

land to be very fertile (Falla 1992).

In 1969, Father Doheny was replaced by Father William

Woods, whom the refugees referred to as "Padre Guillermo."

The Kanjobal catechist in La Huerta recalled that Padre

Guillermo used to come to his village of Nuca (where he

lived before moving to the border region) to perform

marriages and say Mass during the village ' s patron saint

festival. He said that Padre Guillermo originally asked the

Kanjobal Indians to go with him to settle the Ixcan, but

most of them refused, so he went to the towns of

Huehuetenango and Xela [Quezaltenango] to get others to go

with him. That is why there were many Mam Indians who

settled there.

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One of the refugees from this area, Head of Household

#42, was born in a Mam village in southern Huehuetenango

Department. His family moved to the Ixcan region when Kjell

Laugerud was president (1974-1978).

Padre Guillermo came to our village and told us that we should go to the Ixcan because there was plenty of good land for everyone. That's why we went to the Ixcan. There were 400 cuerdas for each head of household. We were united, working together in our cooperative. We had our meetings every 15 days; if there were problems, we'd discuss them. The representatives would meet more frequently.

In 1970, the Ixcan Grande Cooperative was formed. The first

settlement was at Mayalan, and the second at Xalbal. Father

Woods had his home in Xalbal. The other settlements in the

cooperative that eventually were started included Pueblo

Nuevo (also called Resurrecion), Los Angeles, and Cuarto

Pueblo.

Even though the cooperatives got off to a good start.

Father Woods was obviously aware that there could be

violence in the near future. Head of Household #42

continued: "Padre Guillermo said, 'Each one has to work

hard to protect and work their land. They might kill me.

That's when you'll know they will continue killing.'"

Father Woods' words proved prophetic. His small plane was

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shot down by the Guatemalan military on November 20, 1976.

That was the beginning of more serious violence in the

Ixcan.

Father Woods was replaced by another priest from

Stuttgart, Germany, named Father Karl Stetter ("Padre

Carlos"). Head of Household #42 remembered him as the

person responsible for obtaining short wave radios so the

cooperative settlements could communicate with each other.

On November 19, 1978, Padre Carlos was kidnapped by the army

(Falla 1992, p. 20). Head of Household #46 said that the

soldiers kidnapped him, stripped him of his clothes, and

beat him. He was taken away in tears and forced into exile

in El Salvador.

The harassment and murder of these priests, along with

the kidnapping and torture of cooperative leaders from 1978

to 1981, was a prelude for what was to come during the

counter-insurgency campaign. By 1980, the army had built

barracks near many of the cooperative settlements. In 1981,

the violence became more pronounced, with the massacre of

the leaders of Cuarto Pueblo settlement (April 30). From

February 13-28, 1982, there were more severe massacres in

the eastern cooperative settlements, between the Chixoy and

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Xalbal Rivers. In March, the violence spread toward the

west, with the attack on Cuarto Pueblo occurring on March

14, 1982. Head of Household #42 recounted the events of

that day:

In 1982, the soldiers started the massacres. One Sunday - I think it was April 14 [should be March 14] - in Cuarta Puebla [Cuarto Pueblo], the soldiers killed a lot of people. The Catholics were in their church, and the evangelicals were in their church. The sin religiones ['costumbre practitioners'] were in their houses. Some of the people were in the market. Notice came that the army was on its way, but we didn't believe it at first. About 90 people [guerrillas] came and said they were going to protect us. When the soldiers arrived - without one word - they burned the people in their churches, Protestants and Catholics, alike. They left a huge pile of bones. I went to see it, so I know.

Most of the Mam families in La Huerta said that they

fled immediately after the attacks on their settlements in

February and March of 1982. Only Head of Household #41 fled

to Mexico directly and remained there (August 15, 1982).

Head of Household #46 said that her mother fled to Mexico in

1982. Her mother arrived in the Puerto Rico refugee camp,

but she decided to return to Guatemala because there was not

enough food and so many people were sick.

Heads of Household #42, #46, #64, and #66 all chose not

to go into exile in Mexico at first. Instead, they joined

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the large number of "internally displaced" Guatemalans

living in one of the Comunidades Populates en Resistencia

('Civil Communities in Resistance' or CPRs) in the dense

jungle. Head of Household #46 said her CPR had about 15

different settlements. It typically took two hours to travel

from one settlement to the next. They were constantly

vigilant, moving between settlements to avoid contact with

the army. At each location they sowed milpa and bananas,

but the army always came and chopped the crops down with

machetes. This meant that the people usually did not have

much food. The children were always scared because of the

helicopter attacks. The people in the CPRs had to build

underground shelters in which they could hide. They also

had to build their cooking fires in the middle of the night

and put the fires out at daybreak, so the soldiers could not

spot the smoke.

All four of these heads of household mentioned the

severe deprivation of life in the CPRs (primarily the

constant attacks by the Guatemalan military and the lack of

food and medicine) as the main reasons they finally left the

CPRs for the relative safety of Mexico. Head of Household

#42 said that in his CPR, all they had to eat just before

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leaving for Mexico was one banana each day for each adult

and two bananas for each child. Head of Household #66 said

that her daughter, who was only two or three years old in

1987, became very ill.

My little girl was very swollen [her belly was distended]. There were no medicines or doctors; only curanderos del monte ['traditional healers']. None of their medicines seemed to work. Finally I asked permission of the community leaders to leave for Mexico, so she could get treatment. They said, "Yes." So then I came to Mexico. Finally, we arrived and the girl was treated. She had several parasites, worms about 10-12 centimeters in length, that left her body. The parasites left her very weak and thin, but she eventually recovered.

Head of Household #81, who was also the representative

of Group 3 in La Huerta refugee camp, said that his father

had led a group of Kanjobal Indians from Nenton municipio to

relocate to the area around Chancolin, while Lucas Garcia

was President (1978-1982). Head of Household #35 was also

in this group of 55 settler families. Before moving there,

the representative and his father had gone to the Ixcan area

to see the land that they had heard was so abundant. In

comparison to where they lived around Nenton, the land was

more productive, allowing for two harvests per year rather

than just one. So they decided to move to the Ixcan.

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Together, 55 heads of household bought a total of 15

caballerias of land (one caballerla equals approximately 400

cuerdas or 33.5 acres). Each head of household had his own

parcel, according to what he could pay. Head of Household

#35 said that he owned 200 cuerdas. and his son owned 300

cuerdas. The representative said that he and his family

owned around 1,250 cuerdas in total. Most of this land was

sown in coffee and cardamom, with some land reserved for

planting milpa.

Typical of the refugees from the area around Chancolin,

the representative (Head of Household #81) said that

everyone in his joint family fled Guatemala in August of

1982. He said that as early as 1981, he had seen people

from the Ixcan cooperatives zone (between the Ixcan and

Xalbal Rivers) passing through his area. These early

migrants said that the war in the Ixcan was getting worse.

But the representative said that the heads of household in

his group thought they would be safe from this violence. He

said.

The people in the Ixcan were being helped by the Church to buy their land. The news on the radio said the reason the people in the Ixcan were in trouble with the army was that the Church and the settlers had not made payments on their land [that

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is, the Ixcan settlers were in default on their property]. Since we were buying our own land, and we had been making payments on time, we thought the army would not attack us. At least that's what we thought ....

He said that the repression began in their area when

the army tried to form a civil defense patrol (Patrulla de

Autodefensa Civil, or PAC) in the neighboring village of

Nubila. The soldiers first took a census of the residents

there, and then forced the people to join the patrol.

The people in the village did not like to go out on the "sweeps" [that is, looking for the guerrillas]. One day some soldiers became angry with the villagers. They put gasoline on the houses and the churches and burned them. There were about 18 soldiers there. It was on a Sunday, which was market day in Nubila. The soldiers put gasoline on the houses and the churches and started burning everything. They burned about 12 houses. They tore down the roofs and stole things like radios and money from the houses. They killed the animals, too. My brother, along with about 12 other men from our village, had gone to buy some supplies for our family. The soldiers shot at them from a distance. The army caught two of them and tied them up. Finally they let the two of them loose. We decided everyone should leave immediately after that incident. We weren't going to take any more chances.

They arrived in Mexico in one day, 21 families travelling

together. Some of the families with them were from Nubila.

They brought their mules with them, but the PAC was

following them and stole the animals. The women and

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children, especially, had a difficult time travelling across

the rugged terrain. The children kept falling down, and

their faces were all muddy,* the women were sick. He

continued his story saying.

When we arrived, we asked "What are we going to do?" The women were crying. "We have no food and nothing planted for future harvesting." We didn't know how we were going to live. At first there were sweeps into Mexico by the Guatemalan army and the PACs. They sent some helicopters to attack us. Two of our people went back [to Guatemala] to try and find some com, but the soldiers killed them. They [the soldiers] took them back to Barillas and they were never heard from again.

But when we arrived, the Mexicans treated us well. There were lots of people arriving in Monte Flor [a Tojolabal (Maya) Indian community across the border from Guatemala, in Mexico]; a total of 14 groups of refugees arrived. We spent two and a half years there. We used up all the firewood, but still the Mexicans treated us well.

He said that his family eventually relocated to La Huerta

from Monte Flor because the Guatemalan army continued its

campaign of harassing the refugees along the border.

At Las Delicias, the soldiers killed six people. In Flor de Café, they bombed the refugees. In Nuevo Huixtan, they also dropped bombs, but no people were hurt; they only killed one pig. That's why we moved here. Because we were afraid there in Monte Flor.

Head of Household #8, a Kanjobal Indian, was b o m in

the Xoxlac area. He and several other families were renting

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hierra nacional there when the repression began. The land

was very productive, and they planted cardamom, coffee,

sugar cane, milpa. bananas, and squash. Since the original

settlers had moved there, however, many children had been

b o m in their village, and land had become scarce. Everyone

was willing to work, but there was not enough land for

everyone to make a living. Another head of household (#57)

from the same area made a similar obsezrvation, noting that

when his people first began renting the land from the

government, there were only 63 people named in the title,

but he estimated that when they fled the repression in

1982, there were 500 heads of household and 1,500

inhabitants. The result was that there were 500 families

sharing the same amount of land that was formerly shared by

63 families.

The repression began in his area in 1982, when five

helicopters landed at Yalanhuitz and soldiers got out of

them. Three days later, the soldiers arrived in his

village.

The soldiers went on to the village of Canana and stayed there for the night. When day broke, the soldiers left Canana and everywhere they went, they killed people. In one day they killed 18 people on the path. Later, we heard the soldiers

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were coming back toward our village. We left everything behind, including the horses, pigs, and dogs . . . everything. We were afraid they would b u m our houses and kill us. When they arrived in the village, they shot at the people, but everyone left. No one was killed. That's when we sought refuge in Mexico. First we came to Rio Azul, a little below San Pedro. Within two weeks, the [Guatemalan] soldiers arrived. They had followed us to Mexico. They shot at us there too, but they didn't kill anyone.

After arriving in Rio Azul, the refugees had no food, so

some of them started to think about going back to their

village to get some com. Finally, some of them did go

back.

They managed to arrive in the village okay, but while they were returning to Mexico, they encountered the soldiers. There were four men and five women. For one night, the soldiers kept them tied up at Momonlac. The soldiers were threatening them. Some of the people got loose and ran away. One elder died there. The soldiers took the rest away to Ixquisis, and made the people work as cooks. Finally, the soldiers returned to their barracks in Barillas and left those poor people behind.

After living in Rio Azul for two months, he took his family

to Monte Flor for a few days and then on to La Huerta.

Head of Household #8 said that the land in his

community was titulo sn general. meaning that the land was

"rented" jointly by the community. Each nuclear family had

between 20 and 50 cuerdas. which was not enough, so most

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families rented additional milpa land, and sometimes they

had to buy com. Basically, they lived a very sheltered

life there, without any real help from the government or the

Church. A few people had travelled outside the village on

business and such, but not many. "We didn't know anything

about cities, or the other departments, or the capital city.

We were working peacefully in our aldea."

In 1981, the army built barracks for the soldiers in

Barillas. The soldiers started requiring everyone who was

over 18 to carry an identification card. A story began to

circulate that a man from one of the remote villages went to

Barillas and was beaten for not carrying his identification

card.

After that no one wanted to go to Barillas. I went to Quetzal to get an identification card for my wife. My brother-in-law knew how to do it. The soldiers said they were looking for foreigners who were trying to take over the country, but we never saw any.

Meanwhile, the war was getting closer to us. One day in 1982, I went to work in the milpa near Momonlac. I went with my relatives, five of us, early in the morning. While we were working, we heard helicopters. This was at about 8:00 or 8:30 in the morning. There were five helicopters and they were making a lot of noise. We couldn't make it back home . . . we were too far away. The paratroopers jumped out of the planes with their parachutes, and landed there between Saqchen and

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Momonlac. After about 30 minutes, we heard the people of Saqchen shouting. Then the people started running. The soldiers grabbed the ones who couldn't escape and forced them to call the others back.

The refugee and his relatives finally decided they should

try to make it back home. They were afraid the soldiers

would capture them if they found them in the field. When

they returned, they told their village council about what

had happened. The people in the village knew nothing about

the incident. The leaders gathered in the municipal

building; everyone was afraid the soldiers would come to

their village next. The attack on Saqchen produced

internally displaced refugees, who fled south to this man's

village.

The people left Saqchen and came to our village. They made the trip in about one day. At first they stayed on the rim of the colonia. We could hear the roosters crowing, the dogs barking, the people talking. But they didn't come into our village. In the morning, they continued on to Xoxlac. When they arrived there, so did the soldiers. The captain started questioning them: "Why did you leave? Why are you gathering here?" He became very bravo ['aggressive'] with the people. The soldiers looked through all of the papers in the auxiliatorio ['governmental building'], but they were just the normal papers that officials always keep. The captain threatened the people again: "You're giving food to them [the guerrillas] . They're here in your community. They're bearded people, from Cuba."

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He really got angry. But the people of the village kept saying they knew nothing. The captain finally told them: "In one week, this village is going to be burned."

After that, things calmed down for a while. The soldiers eventually came back and spent about half a day harassing the people. They broke down some doors to houses and stole food and other things. The captain had the mayor of the village line up all the villagers so that he could inspect their hands, to see if everyone worked with the machete. If not, then maybe he would have accused them of fighting for the guerrillas. The soldiers then asked our mayor for some volunteers to carry their backpacks to Finca Los Angeles. He agreed, and some people carried the backpacks to Los Angeles for them. But the people dropped the soldiers' backpacks as soon as they got there, and ran all the way back to the village.

At this time, the soldiers restricted the people to

their villages. The mayor also told the villagers not use

the paths anymore, not to travel to Nuca or Barillas. In

recounting the massacre at Xoxlac, which occurred July 24-

25, 1982 (Falla 1992), he said.

But some of the people knew nothing about all of this. People from other villages left for Xoxlac to sell clothes, bread, and com, like always. On Friday they arrived in our village to sell their wares. About daybreak on Saturday morning the vendors left for Xoxlac. Between 8:00 and 9:30 a.m., a notice came out from the authorities in our village that the soldiers were killing people in Xoxlac and Momonlac. They tortured some, and mutilated their bodies. There were clothes, corn, and other things spread all over the path.

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At Canana the soldiers grabbed 10 or 15 people and put

them in jail. One by one they killed those people and put

their bodies in the latrine. The soldiers kept on

questioning the women and children about the guerrillas.

Finally the soldiers left for Nuca and then to Barillas.

The refugee concluded this portion of the story:

Seventy-five to eighty people died from Xoxlac to Canana on the path that day. On Sunday or Monday, our mayor went to see if it was true. It was. The people were there, dead in the road. With sadness, we started burying the dead.

The mayor of his village travelled to Barillas to ask the

mayor there what was going on, why the soldiers were

attacking the peasants. But the mayor of Barillas did not

offer to investigate anything. "He just said, 'Bury the

dead and forget about it.'" The refugee concluded: "That's

how those people died, like chickens or dogs. Nobody

reclaimed their bodies."

Within a week, the people of his village made the

decision to leave for refuge in Mexico. There was a

comisionado militar 'military commissioner' in his village.

The commissioner said the soldiers would probably come back to kill us. The mayor sent the commissioner to Barillas to see if he could get any information, but the mayor refused to see him. When the commissioner returned to the village from

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Barillas, he asked the people: "Should we stay and await death, or search for a path to another place?"

About that time, his village received news that the

Guatemalan army had seized the road from Canana to Ixquisis.

The villagers reasoned that the soldiers would soon be on

their way back to Xoxlac. The people began wondering if

they should flee to the mountains or to another place.

Finally, they decided to go to Mexico.

We decided at first just to go to Yalanhuitz on the [Guatemalan side of the] border with Mexico, across from Rio Azul. We were still on our land [that is, Guatemalan soil] . We thought "If the soldiers come, we will cross the border." We had to start walking at about 3:00 a.m. One whole day we walked, each one with his own load. Meanwhile the soldiers stayed a few days in Ixquisis, so we arrived in Yalanhuitz without the soldiers finding us. When the soldiers got to our village, only the houses were there. The people had already left; they'd already heard the rumors. Only the animals were there. My friend said to me : "It doesn't look like we'll go back to our country." The women cried there in the milpa because we had left our place.

After crossing into Mexico, the refugees heard the soldiers

arrive at Yalanhuitz. "We could hear them shooting and

burning the houses. But we were safe in Mexico. That ' s our

story, very long and very sad."

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In general, the refugees that lived closest to the

border did not experience violence at the hands of the

Guatemalan military directly. They said that they knew to

flee before the soldiers arrived in their villages because

the refugees from Chancolin and Xoxlac were already passing

through their area on their way to Mexico. For example.

Head of Household #12 stated: "We lived close to the

border. For that reason, the army didn't arrive quickly

where we lived. Others came through and notified us what

was happening in the villages further south. They said we

should leave for Mexico too, or else we might be killed."

Another Head of Household (#4), the elderly ladino.

said that he and his wife lived close to Barillas, but he

was in the process of buying finca land close to the border.

He had left his family in Barillas while he went to glean

the corn fields on his land by the border. While he was

there, two of his co-workers decided to return to Barillas.

They were warned not to go, but they did not listen. They

were caught by the army, and he presumed they were dead.

That was when he decided to leave for refuge in Mexico. He

left his wife and children behind in Barillas, and had not

heard from them in 10 years. He said the army entered his

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area after a rich ladino. who owned some land nearby,

accused the peasants near the border of siding with the

guerrillas. "But," he said, "it was not true. There were

no guerrillas in our village."

It is important that the refugees who had lived west of

the Ixcan River consistently denied that the guerrillas were

in their villages. Instead, they claimed neutrality in the

guerrilla army's battle against the Guatemalan government.

I have concluded that they were being truthful, in spite of

claims by both the Guatemalan army and partisans of the

guerrilla movement, that there was widespread support for

the guerrilla movement in this part of Huehuetenango

Department. Even though they did not give direct support to

the guerrilla army, there is no doubt that the refugees'

sympathies were with the guerrilla movement.

Head of Household #31 stated that the 30 to 35 families

in his village had been living in that area for five years

before the repression started. This would mean they moved

there around 1977, since the counter-insurgency campaign

reached their area around 1982. He said that the people in

his village were also notified by others that the soldiers

were coming.

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No soldiers arrived in our village while we were still there. We left before they arrived. We were notified by others [that is, other refugees fleeing to Mexico] that the soldiers were coming. Our village is very close to the border. It only took us one hour to arrive in Monte Flor.

By the time all of the families in his village arrived in

Monte Flor, he said there were already a lot of people there

from the Chancolin area, since they were among the first to

arrive there.

Head of Household #34, the catechist in La Huerta

refugee camp, was living close to the border when he fled to

Mexico. He agreed that the soldiers did not enter his

village, but noted that they had passed very close by. He

added the following miracle story to explain why his village

had been spared a visit by the Guatemalan army soldiers.

First, the soldiers came in four or five helicopters and landed in the valley at Xoxlac. There were ten to fifteen soldiers in each helicopter. When they landed, they started walking toward the border, where our village is. There is a big valley there between the path and our village. Miraculously, when the soldiers passed near our village, a lake appeared to fill the valley - it was all blue - so they went around the edge of the lake and passed us by.

He repeated the stories, already recounted above, about the

attacks on Saqchen, Xoxlac, Canana, and Nuca. Because of

these attacks, on August 2, 1982, the people in his village

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went into hiding in the mountains. They arrived in Mexico a

few weeks later, on August 26th, 1982. Head of Household

#65 said that he left his village with 20 to 25 other

families. At first they fled into the Guatemalan jungle for

four months, then they entered Mexico at Monte Flor. Many

of the people living near the border referred to passing

several weeks to several months hiding in the mountains

before they sought refuge in Mexico. This is in contrast to

the villagers from the Chancolin and Xoxlac areas, who

usually stated that they took more direct, intentional

routes to refuge in Mexico. One head of household from

Chancolin said that it took his family about 20 days to

arrive in Mexico. But they were not trying to hide out in

the jungle. He said the families that he fled with were

simply afraid to take the familiar paths for fear that they

would be caught by the army. They walked through the jungle

instead, which took them much longer than if they had used

the paths. One group of families from the Chancolin area

said they arrived in Mexico in one day.

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AN ETHNOGRAPHIC DESCRIPTION OF

LA nuERTA REFUGEE CAMP

In 1992, La Huerta refugee camp was a very complex

social scene. First, La Huerta was a Mexican Tzeltal (Maya)

village before it additionally became a Guatemalan refugee

camp. Second, the refugees themselves were not a

homogeneous community. They varied by primary language

spoken (Kanjobal, Mam, Kekchi, and Spanish), religious

affiliation (Catholic, Costumbre, Protestant, and non

religious) , and land tenure (in Guatemala and in Mexico) .

The circumstances of their flights from Guatemala varied,

and they had taken a number of different paths to refuge.

To explain the attitudes the refugees had toward

repatriating to Guatemala, it is necessary to understand the

social context of La Huerta in all of its complexities.

This chapter begins with a description of La Huerta before

the arrival of the refugees. Next, there is a brief

demographic overview of the refugees and their living

conditions in Mexico. Finally, there is a description of

land tenure situations of the refugees before they fled

Guatemala and the paths they chose to follow into refuge.

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The statistical tests of significance used in this

chapter include the independent samples t-test and the chi-

square. For purposes of this dissertation, the results of

any statistical test with a probability equal to or less

than .05 and greater than .01 are considered "slightly

significant;" results with a probability equal to or less

than .01 and greater than .001 are "significant;" and

results with a probability of .001 or less are "highly

significant." If the probability that the results of a

statistical test are due to chance is greater than .05, the

results will not be considered statistically significant.

LA HUERTA BEFORE THE REFUGEES ARRIVED

In the late 1960s, a group of landless Tzeltal (Maya)

Indians from around San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas

moved into the Lacandon jungle and carved out a colonia

'settlement' at La Huerta. Tzeltal culture has been

discussed in a number of ethnographies (Guiteras Holmes

1992; Nash 1985; Villa Rojas 1990). The land they settled

on was converted to ejido land. Under Mexican land laws,

this is land owned communally by an Indian group. This was

part of a larger Mexican government campaign to resettle

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landless Indians in the sparsely inhabited jungle region

along the Mexican-Guatemalan border. It was similar to the

resettlement of landless Guatemalan Indians in the Ixcan

area during the same period. Already living in the Mexican

jungle before the colonization program began were Tojolabal

(Maya) Indians. They are indigenous to this southernmost

region of Mexico and already had a few villages there; for

example, Rio Azul and Monte Flor. In addition to the

Tzeltal Indian colonists, other Maya (Tzeltal and Tzotzil)

Indians from around San Cristobal settled colonies in other

parts of the jungle. For example, Pacayal, also known as

Nuevo San Juan Chamula, was established by Tzotzil (Maya)

Indians from San Juan Chamula in 1964 (Earle 1988) .

The colonia of La Huerta was established in tierra

caliente. in a lowland valley, which lies just east of the

Sierra Madre Mountains. The site of the colonia was

previously inhabited by the colonists' Maya ancestors, as

evidenced by the unexcavated temple mounds in the area.

When the Tzeltal Indian colonists arrived in La Huerta, they

had their work cut out for them. Access to the area was

difficult, because there were no roads that would

accommodate cars or trucks. Refugees noted that they had to

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walk from Monte Flor to Pacayal in 1982 to get their food

supplies from COMAR. By 1984, the road had been extended as

far as Santo Domingo colonia. By the time of my fieldwork,

ten years later, there was a rough, all-weather road all the

way to Flor de Café.

The colonia was laid out in a typical Spanish grid

pattern (100 meter squares) , with numbered avenidas

'avenues,' and calles 'streets' named for important dates

and heroes in Mexican history (Figure 7) . The area of the

original colonia was fairly dense, about 500 meters by 300

meters. The rectangular houses, made of wood planks with

open eaves, were built facing the streets. By the time I

arrived in 1991, the colonia had about 500 Tzeltal

inhabitants. They had built a Catholic Church (at the

center of town) and a Protestant (Presbyterian) Church (on

the edge of town). The Catholic Church was constructed

after the Guatemalans arrived in La Huerta with carefully

cobbled stones excavated from one of the temple mounds in La

Huerta. There was also a primary and secondary school, with

a Tzeltal Indian for a school master. The secondary school

was a boarding school. Indian children from neighboring

villages stayed in dormitories during the week in order to

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D n D Q u n o 2 £J i : .

CC(A i l l l i §" .1111 § —ID MmII n ^n n n m m Uî I K Jes i ICQ j I

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attend. The home of the school teacher, ably managed by his

non-Indian wife, had multiple functions as bus stop,

hospedaje 'cheap hotel,' village cinema, and a very informal

comedor 'diner.' The village also had a concrete basketball

court, a medical clinic, and a casa ejidal 'ejido house' for

community meetings.

The terrain surrounding the colonia was mostly

mountainous, rocky, and thick with vegetation. The Tzeltal

Indian colonists began the very difficult, time consuming

work of clearing the land of trees and other vegetation so

they could plant milpa for subsistence (crops include corn,

beans, chayote, garlic, peanuts, guayaba, bananas,

plantains, and chile peppers). They also cleared land for

intercropping coffee and bananas as cash crops. In

addition, some of the colonists experimented with other cash

crops such as pineapples, oranges, and limas (a fruit

similar to an orange in size and general outward appearance,

but which has a green skin, white pulp, and juice that

tastes like slightly sweetened water).

Typical of this geographical region, there are

distinct rainy and wet seasons in La Huerta. February,

March, and April are the dry months, during which there is

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little or no rainfall. From May to August, there is

moderate rainfall, but usually the rain falls at night only.

In September and October, the rains pick up a little, and

from November through January there are heavy monsoon-like

rains without respite for weeks at a time. The climatic

patterns and agricultural cycle are summarized in Table 6.

My informants said that, since it is in tierra

caliente, the land in La Huerta is very productive. By this

they mean that there are two c o m harvests each year. Even

though the climate was favorable for two harvests, one of my

Guatemalan informants noted that the land was fertile enough

for only one or two harvests. After that, he said, "la

tierra no da," meaning the land doesn't produce well

anymore. Specifically, he said that the c o m cobs became

very small after one or two harvests. Because of this, the

peasants must move to another parcel of land every year or

two. They let the original parcel lie fallow for several

seasons so the soil's nutrients can be replaced. Two

varieties of c o m are planted. One is a short variety that

is ready to harvest about one and one-half months after

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Reproijuceij with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproctuction prohibitect without permission. 235

planting. The other is a tall variety (about eight feet

high) that grows to maturity in three to four months.

The first planting of c o m is in May, usually between

the 10th and the 15th of the month. This planting follows

the celebration of the village's patron saint festival,

which occurs during the first few days of May. Five or six

c o m seeds are planted in each hole, which is made with a

digging stick. The holes are about five to six centimeters

deep, and about one meter apart. The Tzeltal Indians work

communally, in groups of 15 or 20. It is customary that

both Tzeltal men and women plant milpa. A Kanjobal

informant noted that this was a difference between Kanjobal

Indians and "the Mexicans," (as they called their Tzeltal

patrons) since the Kanjobal women do not help plant milpa .

They do, however, help weed and harvest milpa.

There are two types of black beans, one which can be

planted in the same hole as the com, another which must be

planted separately. For the beans that can be grown with

the com, about three seeds are placed in the same hole as

the c o m seeds. As an alternative, it is possible to come

back when the c o m is about fifteen centimeters high and

plant the beans in the ground next to the c o m plant. Later

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in May, they sow peanuts. In June, there is the first

weeding of the milpa. The first weeding should be done

within the first month after planting or "the weeds will

make the c o m die from the cold." Weeding is usually done

with a hoe, but sometimes the weeds are pulled up with the

hands only. The dirt is shaken from the roots of the weeds.

The weeds are then chopped up with the hoe so that they do

not grow back. In July, when the c o m plants are about

three feet tall, they weed the milpa again. This corn crop

is harvested in August. When the corn is harvested, the

stalks are bent over. Also, the crowns of the plants are

cut "so that the birds don't come and pull on the plants

when they get hungry." If the milpa is a large one, the

peasant will build a small house in the field where the ears

of corn can be stored.

Around October 6-15, the second corn crop is sown.

My Kanjobal informant told me that, if the crop is sown

after October 20th, the rats will eat the seeds. This

second c o m crop is ready for harvesting in about three

months, depending on the amount of rainfall. The Indians

weed the second milpa once in early November, and again in

December. In early January, the second milpa crop is weeded

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for the third time. By the end of January, and on into

February, the c o m is ready to be harvested.

During the month of July, the Tzeltal Indians at La

Huerta begin to clear the underbrush in their cafetales

'coffee fields.' In September, some of the Mexicans do a

second weeding of the coffee fields. According to one of my

Guatemalan informants, this second weeding was only done by

"Mexicans who have lots of knowledge," to help them find the

coffee beans that fall on the ground during the harvest. In

October, they begin to harvest the ripe coffee beans. In

November, all of the coffee beans, red (ripe) and green

(unripe) alike, are harvested. Sometimes the coffee harvest

extends into the first part of December. The coffee beans

are dried over a period of several days in the sun, being

raked numerous times into rows on top of an outdoor cement

drying floor. Once the coffee beans are harvested, the

coffee trees need to be trimmed of dead branches, and the

top of the trees are pruned so they do not keep growing

taller.

To supplement what could not be grown or made

locally, there was a weekly market in La Huerta. Vendors

came from as far away as Comitan and La Trinitaria to sell

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their produce. They started setting up their stalls in the

plaza late each Thursday afternoon. The market usually

lasted through late Sunday morning. Fresh produce sold in

the weekly market included the following items from tierra

fria: potatoes, apples, avocadoes, mangoes, tomatoes,

pears, peaches, plums, carrots, and onions. In addition to

fresh produce, the merchants sometimes sold salted fish and

shrimp (from the coastal area around Tapachula), chorizo

'sausage,' and cheese.

A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THE REFUGEES OF LA HUERTA

In 1992, there were 458 Guatemalan refugees in La

Huerta. There were representatives of four language groups

and several different religions, as shown in Table 7. This

is based on the information that was gathered during the

household survey. There were approximately 10 heads of

household who chose not to participate in the study. My

Kanjobal research assistant said that there were another 40

people in these families. For purposes of this study, they

are not included.

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TABLE 7

LA HUERTA REFUGEES BY LANGUAGE AND RELIGION

Spanish Kanj obal Mam Kekchi TOTALS

Non 0 1 3 0 4 religious

Orthodox 9 190 38 1 238 Catholic

Costumbre 1 199 0 0 200 Catholics

Protestant 0 16 0 0 16

TOTALS 10 406 41 1 458

The languages referred to in Table 7 were the

languages the refugees identified as the language they

preferred to speak. The Spanish-speaking people were all

ladinos who had lived among the Kanjobal Indians, west of

the Ixcan River. One of the ladinos was an elderly man who

had married a Kanjobal wife in Guatemala. He said he had

learned to speak Kanjobal at home from his wife and from the

other Indians while working in the fields together. The

other nine ladinos were members of one extended family, and

they reported that they spoke no Indian languages. The lone

Kekchi speaker had married the daughter of a Mam Indian in

La Huerta, and had taken up residence with her in La Huerta

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about 1990. He, along with all of the Mam Indians,

including the Mam women, were bilingual (Mam or Kekchi and

Spanish). In contrast to this, most of the Kanjobal men

were bilingual in Spanish and Kanjobal, but the Kanjobal

women were monolingual Kanjobal speakers.

Religion in La Huerta

In terms of religion, there are several interesting

observations to be made. One is that the elderly lading man

claimed to practice costumbre. the syncretic blend of

Catholicism and Maya traditional religion discussed at

length in chapter 2. This was very unusual, since ladinos

tend to look down upon costumbre. But he was adamant when I

questioned him on the point. Perhaps this was the result of

his wife's influence, and that of the other Kanjobal Indians

that he had lived with for so many years. The other lading

extended family was Orthodox Catholic.

Another important point concerning religion is the

effectiveness of missionaries in introducing new religious

ideas to the Kanjobal Indians. Since La Farge's visit to

Santa Eulalia, Catholic and Protestant missionaries had made

many converts among the Kanjobal Indians, as they had in

other parts of Guatemala (Annis 1987; Reina 1974; Sexton

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1978; Stoll 1982, 1988). The presence of Protestant

missionaries in the area of Santa Eulalia as early as 1932

was mentioned by La Farge (La Farge 1947). But their

activity was ignored by him, both because he did not want to

be identified with the missionaries (the Protestants were

hated by the majority of the Indians in 1932) and because he

was only interested in "reconstructing" Kanjobal Indian

culture of aboriginal times ("anthropology on the hoof," as

he called it). In the 1950s, Catholic priests involved in

the social movement Catholic Action started teaching the

Indians more orthodox Catholicism. Adopting Protestantism

or Orthodox Catholicism usually meant withdrawing from the

civil-religious hierarchy and the cofradias 'religious

brotherhoods,' giving up consumption of alcohol, and not

conducting ritual animal sacrifices, among other things

associated with costumbre.

In La Huerta, the Kanjobal Indians were about evenly

divided between costumbre and Orthodox Catholicism. The

costumbre Indians continued to follow the religious beliefs

and practices documented in Santa Eulalia by La Farge in

1932 (La Farge 1947). The Orthodox Catholic Kanjobal

Indians had been influenced by the Catholic Action priests.

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and had been introduced to liberation theology by Catholic

priests in a limited fashion in Guatemala (Bermudez 1986;

Berryman 1984; Migûez Bonino 1975; Miranda 1974; Richard and

Melendez 1982; Segundo 1976). There was one Kanjobal

extended family (three brothers, their wives, and children)

that was involved in the Central American Church (a

significant Protestant denomination in Guatemala). One of

the three brothers said that he was non-religious, but that

everyone else in their extended family was Protestant. One

of the Kanjobal Indians was worshipping each Sunday at La

Huerta's Presbyterian Church. He is the only refugee I knew

that interacted religiously with the Tzeltal Indians in La

Huerta.

In contrast to the Kanjobal Indians, all of the Mam

Indians were Orthodox Catholics. None of the Mam Indians

said they practiced costumbre. All of the Mam Indians in La

Huerta had lived in cooperatives in the Ixcan. Most of them

had moved from San Ildefonso Ixtahuacan under the leadership

of "Padre Guillermo" (American Maryknoll priest, and "flying

missionary," William Woods), between 1969 and 1976. They

had all been introduced to Catholic Action and liberation

theology in Guatemala.

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In La Huerta, all of the Orthodox Catholics (Kekchi,

Ladino, Mam, and Kanjobal alike), were unified under the

leadership of a Kanjobal catechist. La Huerta had one

Catholic Church, which was built and cared for by their

Tzeltal Indian patrones. The Tzeltal Indians used the

building early on Sunday mornings for their worship

services. Once the Tzeltal Indians finished with their

rituals, the refugees used the same building during the late

Sunday morning hours. The refugees also met in each other's

houses for prayer services and political meetings. There

were two Spanish Catholic priests working in the Mexican

refugee camps who had previously served parishes in

Guatemala. They organized and trained the catechists in the

Chiapas refugee camps. The two priests could not visit all

of the refugee camps frequently, so they trained the

catechists to spread liberation theology at the local level,

just as they had done in Guatemala.

Age and Sex Distribution

The age distribution of the refugee population in La

Huerta is typical of that for most Third World countries

(see Table 8). Overall, the population is very young, with

66 percent of the population under 20 years of age. The

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mean age of the refugees in La Huerta is 17.6 years. Almost

half of the refugees were b o m in Mexico (217 of 458, or 47

percent) . As can also be seen from Table 8, the life

expectancy for the refugee population is very low. There

are very few people over fifty years of age.

The refugee experience has also shaped the age

distribution. The fact that the population is skewed toward

youth also could be a reflection of the high rate of death

that the refugees experienced when they first fled to Mexico

in 1982. All of the refugees who arrived in Rio Azul in

1982 reported that a large number of people died there in

the first few months from dysentery and vomiting. For

example, one refugee reported: "A lot of people died there

in Rio Azul during the first three or four months . . . ten

to fifteen people daily. People were dying at such a rate

that we could not bury all of the dead. Those who survived

the flight were very weak from exhaustion, and the cemetery

was a long way away from the colonia. " Dysentery would have

significantly reduced the number of elderly refugees and

children under 10 years of age, since these are usually the

populations most at risk of dying from dysentery. It should

be noted that there are nearly twice as many young people in

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TABLE 8

AGE-SEX DISTRIBUTION OF LA HUERTA REFUGEES

Ages Male Female TOTALS

0-9 99 95 194

10-19 60 46 106

20-29 28 33 61

30-39 21 23 44

40-49 14 9 23

50-59 5 7 12

60-69 9 7 16

70-79 2 0 2

TOTALS 238 220 458

the 0-9 age group (mostly born in Mexico) as the 10-19 age

group (mostly born in Guatemala). Those who were between 10

and 19 years old in 1992, were between 0 and 9 years old at

the time of the flight to refuge.

Family Structure. Kinship, and Marriage

Even in refuge, the extended family was still very

strong among the refugees. Thirty-six of the 84 nuclear

families (43 percent) were living jointly, that is sharing

economic resources, a single cooking hearth, and family

chores. Many of the Kanjobal Indians who were not living

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jointly still had extended family members living nearby in

the same village. The joint families usually united two or

three nuclear families, but as many as four nuclear families

comprised one Kanjobal extended family unit. The mean

number of people per nuclear family was 5.5. This is very

close to the mode of six members per nuclear family (15

nuclear families had 6 members).

The Mam Indians in the camp were not living in joint

families. They were, however, joined by their common

history of having lived together in the Ixcan cooperatives.

Some of them were related by marriage, if not by blood.

Among the Mam Indian heads of household were three women

whom the camps' representatives classified as viudas

'widows.' In point of fact, all three women had been

abandoned by their husbands. Along with their children,

these women had been left to fend for themselves. Wagley

reported that divorce was common in Santiago Chimaltenango

and that children who were infants or in arms, usually

stayed with their mothers (Wagley 1949, 42). Two of the Mam

'widows' had been married to a pair of brothers. Though

they were not related to each other, they were close friends

and spent much time together during the day, weaving and

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taking care of their children. There were no Kanjobal women

in La Huerta who were in a similar situation of having been

abandoned by their husbands, or who were forced to provide

for themselves economically. In La Huerta, elderly Kanjobal

women with no husbands lived with their sons in extended

families.

There were two ladina heads of household (a mother

and daughter) living jointly. The daughter of this pair was

anomalous among the refugees in that she was the only

refugee that I met who had married a Mexican, a Tzeltal

Indian from the colonia of La Huerta. The young ladina's

elderly mother lived with her and her Tzeltal husband.

According to what they told me in interviews, they all

planned to return to Guatemala when an agreement was reached

concerning the six conditions. The only other refugee I met

who married across ethnic lines was the Kekchi man already

mentioned, who married the Mam woman in La Huerta. He was

living with his wife and children next to his Mam father-in-

law's compound, but they were not living jointly in the

sense of sharing economic resources.

The Kanjobal Indians in La Huerta tended to marry

each other. Many of the refugee families in La Huerta had

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fled the repression together. There were numerous instances

of children from these families marrying each other in La

Huerta. If there was no suitable match for a young person

in La Huerta, the Kanjobal Indians sometimes sought out

former neighbors and relatives in other refugee camps to

find one.

While most of the Indians in La Huerta were not

marrying across ethnic group lines, there were instances of

compadrazgo 'godparenthood' that cut across ethnic

boundaries. One afternoon, as I visited with a Kanjobal

family, a Mam Indian came by their house and invited the

young Kanjobal girls to come and harvest peanuts in his

field. When I asked what the connection was between the Mam

man and the Kanjobal family, the Kanjobal mother responded

that they were compadres 'co-godparents.' She said that he

also came by to bring firewood for their family on occasion.

Later, I realized that in public they referred to each other

as "compadre" and "comadre." I was surprised by this

extension of compadrazgo across ethnic lines, especially

given the traditional animosity between Mam and Kanjobal

Indians. When I asked about it, my informants said that

they still usually chose compadres from among their own

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ethnie group, but that in refuge they had sometimes chosen

godparents from groups other than their own.

Refugee. Settlement. Pattern

In 1992, the refugees in La Huerta spoke of their

people as living in two areas: /yul konob'/ 'in the

village' and /yiib'an/ 'above.' 'In the village' was where

the people closest to the village center had settled; that

is, near the original area laid out in grid fashion by the

Tzeltal settlers. Slightly more than half of the refugees

in La Huerta lived in the village. This is the area that is

shown in Figure 7. In most cases, these refugees had built

their homes in a ring around the original colonia, and over

the seven to eight years that most of the refugees had been

in La Huerta, new footpaths had been worn to connect the

Guatemalan homes with each other and with the rest of the

village. Close by these refugee homes were some Tzeltal

colonists who had recently arrived in La Huerta, and built

houses along the footpaths, on the rim of the original

community. The most marginal homes in the colonia were

those of the Mam Indian family that lived on the north side

of the all-weather road, apart from the main colonia. This

settlement pattern is evident when looking at the

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distribution of Guatemalan and Mexican houses shown in

Figure 7. I only knew of one refugee family that had

settled in the original colonia. and that was the young

ladina. who married the Tzeltal Indian.

The refugees who had built houses /yiiban/ 'above,'

lived on La Huerta ej ido land, but removed from the colonia.

This area is not shown in Figure 7. Some of them lived as

much as four kilometers south of La Huerta's village center,

much closer to the Mexican-Guatemalan border. Over the

rough mountain trails it would take an hour just to reach

some of their homes. On a couple of occasions in 1992,

while visiting with refugees in this area, I was close

enough to the border to see some Guatemalan army helicopters

that were bombing villages just across the border.

When asked why some chose to live in the colonia and

others in the more distant part of the ejido. I was told

that it was a matter of each Mexican patron and the land

that he had to spare. Some background information is

necessary to a proper understanding of this comment. By

1992, each refugee family in La Huerta had been assigned to

a Tzeltal family. The refugees called the Tzeltal family

they were assigned to their patron. The term implies a

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great deal of inequality in this social context. A patron

is someone's superior, and, in Guatemala, was ordinarily

used by an Indian to refer to the lading who owned the land

on which he sharecropped. This is very different from the

more egalitarian "older brother-younger brother"

relationships adopted for the refugees by the Tzotzil

Indians in Pacayal (Earle 1988). In some cases, the

patrones had land in the colonia to offer to their client

family, and in some cases they did not. For those who did

not have land in the colonia. they offered the refugees some

land for posada in the more remote milpas or cafetales.

The refugees living in the colonia had better access

to some social programs and improvements. The primary

school for the refugee children was located in the colonia.

In terms of medical care, there was a medical clinic in the

colonia that was staffed by a Mexican doctor every couple of

weeks. All of the Guatemalan health promoters also lived in

the colonia. Some of the refugees living in the colonia had

electricity in their homes, though most did not. Usually

this meant a single wire coming into the house, which

provided current for one light bulb to light the house for a

couple of hours after dark. Those refugees living in the

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colonia also had easier access to water, which was piped to

taps in different parts of the village. Women in the more

remote areas still had to haul their water long distances

each day from the nearest spring.

Some of the more recent arrivals to the camp included

the Mam Indian widows. When I first arrived in La Huerta,

they all lived above the village, in the hinterlands closer

to the border. Before I departed from the field, all three

of them had moved into the colonia. The Mexican patrons

only allowed them to do so after three refugee families had

repatriated to Guatemala, abandoning their homes in the

colonia.

EggJiamic-Eattems

For the most part, the refugees in La Huerta

continued to work as they had in Guatemala (see Table 9).

This meant that most of the men worked in the fields as

peasants (79 out of 96 adult men, or 82 percent), and the

women took care of the children and did household chores (89

out of 95 adult women, or 94 percent). The refugee men

typically worked for their Tzeltal patrons as day laborers.

In most cases, the work was supposed to be paid by the day,

between 2,000 and 3,000 pesos (3,000 pesos in 1992 was

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TABLE 9

PRIMARY OCCUPATIONS OF LA HUERTA REFUGEES

Male Female

0-15 >15 0-15 >15 TOTALS

no employment 80 1 65 0 146

agricultural 8 79 1 2 90 day-laborer

housework 1 0 7 89 97

education 0 4 0 1 5 promoter

carpenter 0 1 0 0 1

student 53 6 52 1 112

store owner 0 1 0 0 1

tailor 0 1 0 0 1

other 0 3 0 2 5

TOTALS 142 96 125 95 458

roughly equal to US$1). I estimate that the refugee men

worked about 200 days per year for wages. At a rate of

3,000 pesos per day, the average adult male could expect to

earn 600,000 pesos each year. This would be the equivalent

of US$200 annually.

Labor relations were usually tense in La Huerta. The

refugees complained that the Mexicans sometimes reduced the

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wage rate after a contract had been completed. This

happened once during my fieldwork, at the end of the coffee

harvest. Prior to the harvest, wages for picking the coffee

beans were negotiated by the refugees' six representatives

at a rate of about 4,000 pesos daily for adult males, and

2,000 pesos per day for women and children. After the

contract for the coffee harvest was completed, the price of

coffee fell significantly on the international market, and

the Mexicans refused to pay the agreed upon wages. They

insisted on a unilateral reduction in wages, which angered

the refugees. The refugees occasionally grumbled that their

work was sometimes not paid for at all, when it had been

agreed upon in advance that they would be paid. This unpaid

labor was in addition to the labor that the refugees were

expected to contribute as "community service" each year. On

average, the expectation for this community service was

about 20 days per year.

In addition to the refugees who were employed

primarily as agricultural laborers, there were some refugees

who had obtained special skills which they used as their

primary occupation (Table 9) . For example, four men and one

woman were employed as education promoters in La Huerta, all

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of them working in the refugees ' primary school. The

education promoters were paid by COMAR, about 250,000 pesos

per month (equivalent to US $83/ month). Considering that

the education promoters also usually worked in the coffee

harvest, I would estimate that they averaged three times the

annual cash income of the agricultural day laborers. There

was one Kanjobal man who was a carpenter. He was thought to

be highly skilled and was employed by both the Guatemalans

and the Mexicans to make wooden furniture. His carpentry

shop was in a prime location in the colonia. There was one

man whose primary occupation was "tailor."

The women listed as agricultural laborers under

primary occupation were Mam widows, who did not have

husbands to do this work for them. When asked what the

women in their households did, the Kanjobal men usually

responded that they took care of the household chores and

the children. According to my observations, this

generalization was true. Kanjobal women did not usually

work in the agricultural labor market, though some of them

did work during the coffee harvest. During the coffee

harvest, schools were closed in most of the refugee camps so

that the children could participate in the harvest, too.

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Agricultural wage work for women and children might properly

be considered a secondary occupation, but it is not

reflected in Table 10, which is based on information

collected relatively early in my fieldwork experience, by

means of the household survey.

Most of the male refugees in La Huerta had some

occupation through which they contributed income to their

families. The one adult male (over 15 years old) listed as

"unemployed" in Table 9 was an elderly blind man who could

not work. Even the elderly ladino man in La Huerta, who

complained of numerous physical ailments that prevented him

from working as an agricultural laborer, managed a small

general store next to his home.

A number of refugees had secondary occupations that

they used to obtain more income. Most of the education

promoters also worked in the coffee harvest. There were a

couple of Kanjobal men who had carpentry skills that they

used avocationally. A number of Kanjobal women were

potters. They made large clay pots for storing water and

smaller ones for cooking. The pots were dried on the ground

beside an outdoor fire. They were relatively plain,- that

is, they were not painted, incised, glazed, or decorated in

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TABLE 10

SECONDARY OCCUPATIONS OF LA HUERTA REFUGEES

Male Female

0-15 >15 0-15 >15 TOTALS

agricultural 0 2 0 2 4 day-laborer

health 0 2 0 0 2 promoter

carpenter 0 2 0 0 2

student 0 1 0 2 3

handicrafts 0 2 0 6 8

store owner 0 6 0 1 7

tailor 0 1 1 0 2

other 0 0 0 1 1

TOTALS 0 16 1 12 29

any manner. The Mam women were all able to weave with the

backstrap loom, and used their talents to make morrales

'carrying bags,' huipiles 'blouses,' sashes, and cortes

'skirts.' They also knew how to finger weave inexpensive

puiseras 'bracelets.' They sold their handicrafts to

tourists in San Cristobal through Mama Maquin, a non

government organization started by and for Guatemalan

refugee women. I do not know how much income the refugees

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received from such activities, but considering the fact that

the adult men only averaged about $200 per year, any income

at all would have been significant.

A favorite secondary occupation of the Kanjobal

refugees was the operation of a small general store. The

refugee community had its own lending facility to assist

entrepreneurs who wanted to open a store. They lent money

at 6 percent interest. These stores sold a wide variety of

items including soft drinks, potato chips, flashlights and

batteries, candles, cookies and crackers, notebooks, pencils

and pens, western and non-western medicines, at. cetera.

Many of the men who had these stores in their homes, even

those who lived several kilometers south of the colonia.

would bring some of their merchandise to the plaza on market

days and set up a vending stand. One of the wealthier

Kanjobal refugee families had a tradition of making rope.

After twisting the rope on a homemade spinning device, they

would craft mecapales 'burden straps,' horse bridles, and

medium to large mesh bags for carrying bulky items. The

four heads of household in this joint family were the only

people in La Huerta to have these skills. They sold their

rope handicrafts in the market on Sunday mornings, along

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with a very large supply of rubber boots and plastic shoes.

I did not collect data on the income that the refugees

received from such secondary occupations. Margins of profit

in the stores must have been very small considering the kind

of merchandise they had for sale.

The refugees who counted as having a secondary

occupation as "student" were adults who were occasionally

participating in a literacy program. Other secondary, non

paid occupations included those working as health care

promoters. These two men served the refugee community's

sick, and sometimes the Tzeltal Indians, since there was no

resident medical doctor in La Huerta. In addition to the

health promoters, there was at least one man who worked

avocationally as a traditional healer. I do not know if he

was paid for his services.

There were about ten people (mostly older men and

teenage girls) who were learning to use manual sewing

machines (operated with a foot pedal) in the refugee

community's sastreria 'tailor shop.' Four or five such

machines had been donated by a non-profit organization,

along with some material and patterns for learning to sew

western-style skirts, blouses, pants, and shirts. To the

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best of my knowledge, the tailor apprentices were only

making clothes for themselves and other refugees, and did

not charge for them. For example, they did not sell the

clothes they made in the weekly market. As I was about to

leave the field, the sastreria had fallen on hard times.

The non-profit organization that originally donated the

material for the clothes was not able to donate more cloth,

and the refugees had no money to buy their own material.

Aside from the income-generating labor activities,

almost all of the refugee families had to sow their own

milpa for subsistence. Access to sufficient milpa land was

one of the most contentious issues between the refugees and

their Tzeltal patrons. This was one of the issues the six

representatives in the camp asked me not to explore with the

refugees during the household survey portion of my research

because it was so politically sensitive. Fortunately for

me, most of the refugees could not help but make some

statement about lack of access to adequate land in Mexico

when asked to compare their lives as refugees to their

former lives in Guatemala. In addition to the statements

made by the individual refugees during more extensive

interviews, I held a special community meeting toward the

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end of my fieldwork, with the support of the

representatives, calling together all of the heads of

household to discuss land issues. The meeting was held in

the refugees' primary school. They felt that holding the

meeting at the school would minimize the chance that the

Tzeltal patrons could eavesdrop on their complaints about

land. The representatives said that the school was on

"their" land, and that the Mexicans were not allowed to go

there. Most community meetings were held in the sastreria.

which the refugees believed to be a less secure location.

From the individual interviews and the community

meeting, I learned the following information with regard to

land tenure in Mexico. Most of the refugees were given

between one and five cuerdas of land for planting their

milpa (one cuerda equals approximately 1,600 square meters),

along with land on which to put their houses. A few said

they received no milpa land from their patrons. They

usually completed their statements about milpa land with the

phrase "h q alcanza." meaning that whatever the amount their

patron gave them, it was not sufficient to feed their family

for an entire year. They were dependent upon food donations

from international sources.

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Some of the refugees who had owned land in Guatemala

also mentioned that one of the biggest changes in their

quality of life in Mexico was that they had no land to sow

their own coffee and cardamom for cash crops, as they had in

Guatemala. Instead, the refugees were in a dependent

position of working for wages to help the Tzeltal Indians

care for and harvest their cash crops. Financially, they

knew that they would have benefitted more from having their

own land for sowing cash crops. But they could not afford

to rent or purchase land in Mexico for these purposes.

There was a note of both sadness and bitterness at having

lost the land in Guatemala that they had cultivated with

cash crops for as long as 20 years before fleeing Guatemala.

The Comité Cristiano 'Christian Committee,' a non

government organization associated with the diocese of San

Cristobal de las Casas, helped the refugees in La Huerta

rent some land for subsistence agriculture. The Committee

rented the land at a rate of 100,000 pesos (approximately

US$33) per hectare per harvest. The refugees used this

money to rent land that was worked communally: six cuerdas

for milpa and another two cuerdas for black beans.

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Aside from sowing milpa most of the refugees kept

chickens. In the early years, some of the refugee families

also raised pigs. But the pigs were very destructive and

the Tzeltal Indians established a rule that the refugees

would not be allowed to keep pigs any more. Some of the

refugees who lived 'above' the colonia were raising turkeys

and rabbits. They kept the rabbits in a cage that was made

similar in shape, proportion, and style to the refugees'

houses, except that the rabbit cage was raised up on stilts

to keep the rabbits out of the reach of dogs and wild

animals.

As indicated in Table 6, the months of March and

April, during the dry season, were relatively light months

for agricultural labor. These were often the months when

the refugees were asked to perform "free" community service

for the Tzeltal patrons. This labor included everything

from digging ditches to drain rainwater away from the

houses, to repairing leaky roofs on homes, to cutting weeds

in common areas around the colonia. Because of the reduced

need for local agricultural labor at this time of year, some

of the Guatemalans chose to migrate to other parts of

Chiapas in search of employment. The dry season was also an

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intense period of political activity among the refugees,

since they could travel to attend meetings for extended

periods of time without angering their patrons. Also during

the dry season, there were a number of village patron saint

fiestas in the region, which were very popular affairs.

The Refugees' Political Structure and Process

In 1992, there were six named political factions in

La Huerta refugee camp, each faction with its own chosen

leader. The refugees referred to these factions as grupitos

'little groups.' In the interest of simplicity, I simply

refer to them as factions or groups. The names of the

factional groups were taken from the villages from which the

representatives had fled at the time of the repression. For

the purpose of concealing the identity of my informants, I

have simply numbered the groups one through six (see Table

11) .

The representative for Group 3 told me that the six

groups present in La Huerta refugee camp in 1992 were an

amalgamation from two camps, Monte Flor and Media Luna.

Originally there were 14 groups in Monte Flor. Three of

these groups left Monte Flor to come to La Huerta. Three

more groups came from Media Luna, for the total of six

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TABLE 11

HEADS OF HOUSEHOLD BY POLITICAL FACTION AND LANGUAGE

Group # Spanish Kanj obal Mam Kekchi TOTALS

1 2 21 1 0 24 2 0 4 0 1 5

3 0 14 5 0 19

4 1 9 1 0 11

5 0 12 0 0 12

6 0 13 0 0 13

TOTALS 3 73 7 1 84

groups. Only one head of household of 84 (he belonged to

Group 6) ever mentioned having been in Media Luna. I do not

know why they were reluctant to admit this to me. Most of

them simply reported having been in Rio Azul and/or Monte

Flor, and then, after a couple of years, moving to La

Huerta. Most of the heads of household said they arrived in

La Huerta between 1982 and 1985 (62 of the 84, or 74 percent

of the refugee families in La Huerta in 1992).

According to the information given to me by the heads

of household, most of the people in Groups 1 and 6 arrived

in La Huerta within the first year of seeking refuge.

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Groups 2, 4, and 5 arrived next. Most of the people in

Group 3 arrived a few years later, between 1984 and 1985.

The representative for Group 3 mentioned that his joint

family (encompassing four heads of household) lived in Monte

Flor from 1982-1984, and moved to La Huerta only after the

Mexican government relocated some of the refugees to the

Yucatan Peninsula. The relocation process started in 1984.

He said that one day in 1984 he saw a group of refugees from

Monte Flor on foot, leaving the community with their

possessions. Some Mexican soldiers were walking behind

them. He asked the soldiers if the removal was voluntary or

obligatory. The soldiers said it was voluntary, so he and

his group decided not to go with them. He said Mexican

government representatives told the refugees who remained

behind in Chiapas that they should look for posada, 'a

temporary place to settle,' further inside Mexican

territory. That is why they came to La Huerta. With the

arrival of a majority of the members of Group 3, from 1984

to 1985, the political structure in La Huerta took the shape

that it was in 1992. Between 1985 and 1992, each of the six

factions picking up a straggler or two as a new member, but

the basic structure remained the same.

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The dominant leader among the six representatives was

the leader of Group 3. In spite of the fact that he was one

of the last representatives to arrive in La Huerta (1984),

he was very well respected within the whole community, and

the other five representatives tended to look to him for

leadership. His family, one of the largest joint families

in La Huerta, was also the wealthiest. In addition to the

joint income of four heads of household, they had a large

business selling shoes in the plaza marketplace on Sundays,

and gained income from their cottage industry of making rope

and hand weaving items. This was the only refugee family I

Icnew that owned a horse, which was used for hauling firewood

and other burdens.

Individual heads of household chose to belong to a

particular political faction according to whom they

perceived as being the most effective leader. In many

cases, the families in La Huerta had gone into refuge with

other families from their villages in Guatemala. Often,

refugees continued to have men serving as their leaders who

had been their leaders back in Guatemala. I know this to

have been the case for the representative of Group 3. His

father, who was still living with him, had been a leader of

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a group of Miguelefios who moved from Barillas into the

Chancolin area to buy their own land when Lucas Garcia was

President. He said that 21 families left the Chancolin area

together and arrived in Mexico on August 18, 1982. Since

arriving in Mexico, he had succeeded his father as the

representative for the group. But his group had not

remained completely intact. Some of the families had stayed

behind in Monte Flor when his extended family migrated to La

Huerta. Still other families in his group migrated to other

camps in Chiapas.

While some refugees stayed with the political

alliances they had formed in Guatemala, this was not always

true. Heads of household sometimes changed allegiances once

they were in refuge. This became obvious after I listened

to people tell their stories about where they had come from,

and the fact that they were no longer under the leadership

of one of the leaders from their community of origin, even

though there was one in La Huerta. For example, not

everyone from San Juan Domingo de las Palmas was under the

leadership of the representative from that community. One

of the side effects of the process of being forced into

exile was that old political alliances often shifted. The

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refugees who came from several small communities in

Guatemala, most of them ethnically isolated, were forced to

live together in large, multi-ethnic communities when they

sought exile in Mexico. They became exposed to new

challenges and new leaders emerged to meet those challenges.

Kinship and religion were also important factors in

choosing leadership. Heads of nuclear families who were

members of the same extended family, whether living jointly

or not, were always members of the same faction in La

Huerta. Table 12 shows the frequency of heads of household

by political faction and religious affiliation. The

factions were not completely segregated by religious

affiliation, although some trends are evident. For example,

the representatives of Groups 2 and 3 were Catholic and the

majority of the heads of household in those groups were also

Catholic. Group 1 was about evenly split between costumbre

and Catholic, and was under the leadership of a very strong

Catholic representative. The three factions with Catholic

representatives were the three dominant factions. In

particular, the representatives for Groups 1 and 3 were the

most successful in attracting followers to their factions

and keeping them there. The leaders of Groups 4 and 5 were

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TABLE 12

HEADS OF HOUSEHOLD BY POLITICAL FACTION AND RELIGION

Non Orthodox Group # religious Catholic Costumbre Protestant TOTAL

1 1 12 11 0 24

2 0 4 1 0 5

3 0 18 1 0 19 4 0 4 7 0 11

5 0 3 9 0 12

6 1 3 7 2 13

TOTALS 2 44 36 2 84

practitioners of costumbre. as were the majority of their

members. And, while Group 6 was mostly costumbre. the

leader was from a Protestant family (though he currently

claimed to be non-religious) , and his two Protestant

brothers were in that group. Members of most Protestant

churches in Guatemala are not allowed to drink alcoholic

beverages. Because of this representative's problem with

alcoholism, he had stopped identifying himself as a

Protestant, and no longer participated in Protestant church

activities. Groups 4, 5, and 6 were more marginalized in

the refugee community in terms of numbers and political

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power. A chi-square statistic was calculated for the data

in Table 12, but the test of statistical significance is

suspect due to sparseness of data. In spite of this, I

would say, based on my qualitative research, that there is a

significant association between religious affiliation and

factional affiliation.

All six of the group representatives in La Huerta in

1992 were Kanjobal Indians. According to the data in Table

11, language group (ethnicity) was not an important factor

in choosing leadership, although it is worth noting that

five of the seven Mam heads of household were integrated in

Group 3. The chi-square for these data yielded a .105

probability that they are due to chance, which suggests that

the differences between the groups is not statistically

significant. But once again, due to sparseness of data, the

results of this test of significance are suspect.

Formal education was not a factor in selecting

leaders. The average years of schooling for the 78 heads of

household who were not serving as representatives was less

than one year (.872) . The average years of education for

the six representatives was slightly less than that (.833).

A t-test was run on these two means and the results indicate

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that the variation could be due to chance (T-.067, with 6.3

degrees of freedom; probability = .949). The t-test used in

this section is an independent samples t-test, and the t-

score is based on pooled variances.

Because of political conflict with the Tzeltal

patrons, and the resulting conflict within the refugee

community, the refugee population in La Huerta had gone

through at least two major upheavals between 1984 and 1988.

The first major population change was due to conflict over

construction of the Mexicans' Catholic Church. The Tzeltal

patrons required their refugee client families to supply

labor in the construction of the church. The leader of

Group 6, formerly a Protestant, told me that the Protestant

heads of household, most of whom were in his faction, had

objected to laboring in the construction of a Catholic

Church, so they refused to participate. Their Tzeltal

patrons were angered by this and, eventually, most of the

Protestant families left La Huerta to relocate to one of the

refugee camps in the Yucatan peninsula,- all except for the

one joint family of three brothers in Group 6.

The second major population change occurred in 1988,

when the refugees as a whole objected to working after they

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had not been paid for a long time. The representative for

Group 3 told me about this incident as follows :

There had not been any work for two weeks. All of the heads of household were refusing to work, and the Mexicans were getting angry. We discussed among ourselves the possibility of relocating to another camp, and even started asking about posada in another camp. All of the women were nervous . . . they were asking lots of questions. Finally the Mexicans told us they really wanted us to stay, and that we should try to work things out. So we stayed, and now things are more or less peaceful.

The representative and his brother found the situation

mildly humorous in 1992, though it obviously caused a lot of

tension in 1988. In spite of the rather peaceful ending to

the representative's account of the story, I informed

through other sources that a number of Mam Indian families

left La Huerta over the issue of non-payment of wages at

that time. They migrated to other camps in Chiapas. In

1992, four of the Mam families in La Huerta had only been

there for five years or less. One of the families had left

as a result of the conflict just alluded to, and had

returned to La Huerta in 1991.

In addition to losing community members through these

major incidents, all six of the groups had picked up a

straggler or two in the four years leading up to my research

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(that is, from 1988 to 1991). These were usually families

that had experienced conflict in the refugee camp where they

had been living previously and felt the need to relocate.

Half of them were absorbed into Groups 1 and 3 (9 of 18),

the most politically powerful factions. The other half were

about evenly dispersed between Groups 2, 4, 5, and 6.

The six faction representatives had responsibility

for settling disputes within the refugee community. My

presence generated a number of conflicts that the

representatives had to deal with. One of them had to do

with the selection of my research assistant. The

representatives first chose one young man to help me.

Almost immediately, I found out that the choice had been

controversial, and that the representatives were still

discussing who would be the most appropriate candidate. Two

weeks after working with their first choice, the

representatives decided to name someone else as my

assistant. The other controversy had to do with a Kanjobal

Indian man who accused one of the Mam "widows" of having an

affair with me. As it turns out, the Kanjobal man had been

pressuring the "widow" to have sex with him, but she had

rejected him. He, in turn, became jealous because she would

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sometimes come to visit me on Sundays or invite me to her

house to share a meal with her and her two children. The

"widow" told me the story of how the dispute was resolved.

He went to his representative (Group 2) and accused me of messing around with you. I told the representative that you and I were not doing anything wrong, that we were just visiting with each other. I told him "I am a Mam Indian, and the Kanjobal women in the camp do not speak Mam or Spanish. Because of this, they get very nervous if I go to their homes. So I go visit Don Esteban instead, so that I can have someone to talk to in Spanish." His representative told him that he knew you and me, and that we were not doing anything wrong. That if anyone was causing trouble, it was him, and that he should stop it.

Though these two disputes involved my presence,

arguments like this constantly erupted in the refugee

community. For example, there was often conflict over the

distribution of commodities that were donated to the

refugees by international sources, through COMAR. At one of

the distributions, a Mam "widow" was denied her usual

portion of the corn, beans, cooking oil, and canned meat,

because she was planning to return to Guatemala with the Pro

Return faction. She had made this decision against the

wishes of her group's leader (Group 1), who was more in

favor of waiting until an agreement could be signed with the

government for a collective return. To show his

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displeasure, he had decided to punish her by not giving her

the food ration to which she was entitled. When she

complained, some of the other representatives interceded for

her, saying that it was wrong for her to be punished for

choosing to return. Eventually the leader of Group 1

relented and shared some of the food with her.

Sometimes there was conflict between the groups

concerning who would be named as a new education or health

promoter, or similar positions of prestige and leadership in

the community. Such conflicts were resolved through

building group consensus, which was sometimes a very slow

process. Sometimes the consensus was forged in meetings of

the camp's six representatives, and sometimes in community

meetings that involved all of the heads of household.

In addition to settling disputes with the Tzeltal

Indians and within their own community, the representatives

were the liaisons with COMAR, the UNHCR, NGOs, and visiting

solidarity workers. When COMAR needed information from the

community, they would gather the six representatives and

talk to them. If a community member needed special health

services through COMAR, it was arranged through his or her

faction's representative. If an NGO wanted to start work in

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the refugee camp, they had to get the approval of the six

representatives. One of the reasons that the NGO Mama

Maquin had never been successful in La Huerta, was that the

Kanjobal men were opposed to it. The focus of Mama Maquin

was on teaching women to read and write, something the

Kanjobal male heads of household did not find appealing.

The representatives were also the links in the

hierarchical chain between the refugee community and the

elected refugee leadership in the Comisiones Permanentes

(CCPP). The representatives played a very important role in

this regard. They were the ones that gathered opinions and

suggestions from the heads of household in their community

and forwarded them to the CCPP. They were also the ones to

communicate the decisions and actions of the CCPP to their

community.

The CCPP was started in 1986 by the refugees in the

camps in the Yucatan Peninsula states of Campeche and

Quintana Roo (the refugees who were relocated from Chiapas

starting in 1984). At that time there were 64

commissioners. The CCPP had many purposes. The main

purpose was to galvanize the refugee community's opinion

about repatriation and be the singular voice for that

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community in negotiations with the Guatemalan government

over the conditions for repatriation. They also worked to

obtain international support for their plight by traveling

to foreign countries and speaking to groups that were

sympathetic. Through this means, the CCPP received material

and technical assistance, pledges of individuals to

accompany the refugees when they returned, and to put

pressure on the Guatemalan government to negotiate with them

in good faith. In 1988, the refugees in Chiapas decided to

join the CCPP's efforts. Each refugee zone was allowed to

elect a certain number of men as their CCPP representatives.

By 1992, there were 70 commissioners, and they served on

several committees (international, education, languages,

recreation, etc.). One of the two CCPP representatives for

the Maravilla Tenejapa Refugee Zone was a resident of La

Huerta. He was a close friend of the representative of

Group 3, and he was a member of that faction. Their fathers

had been leaders together in the same community in

Guatemala, near Chancolxn.

The CCPP would meet three or four times each year in

full assembly. This was very costly for the refugees in

terms of money and time. The other heads of household

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contributed money so they could attend the meetings, which

were often held far away. They also had to cover their CCPP

representative's responsibilities with the Tzeltal patrones.

The catechist in La Huerta told me that many of the

community members resented this extra duty, and that they

were not very cooperative in taking up the slack for the

representatives.

At the meetings, the CCPP members would discuss

problems in refuge (with COMAR, for example), current events

in Guatemala, conditions for the return, the state of

negotiations between the Guatemalan government and the

guerrilla army, and any land offers that the Guatemalan

government might have made. Sometimes, when an offer of

land was extended, the CCPP would send a delegation to

Guatemala to view the land and see if it was acceptable or

not. They would also give reports on any international

delegations that might have taken place since the last

meeting.

To pass on any news that was learned at these

meetings to the refugee communities, the CCPP

representatives held meetings for the representatives of

each camp in their respective zones. In the case of La

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Huerta, the six representatives would gather with the

representatives of all the other camps in Maravilla Tenejapa

Refugee Zone and the two CCPP representatives would debrief

them all. After this regional meeting, the six

representatives for La Huerta would return to the refugee

camp and call a meeting of all of the camp's household heads

to pass the information on to them.

In addition to the six representatives in La Huerta

refugee camp, the catechist was an important political

leader. The catechists had developed a well organized

network among the refugee camps in Mexico. The two Spanish

Catholic priests who were serving the refugee community were

bold proponents of liberation theology. They would call the

catechists together regularly to discuss current events in

world news and events in Guatemala, in addition to theology

and spirituality. These sessions were very politically

oriented, based on Paolo Freire's model of popular

education. The catechists were even trying to organize

religious leaders across religious lines, to include

Catholics, costumbristas. and Protestants.

In La Huerta, the catechist also taught the people in

accordance with liberation theology, the most basic tenet

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being that God is on the side of the poor and stands with

the poor in their fight against the rich. At one point the

catechist called on the Catholic community to attend

a series of prayer meetings that were to be held during the

week in various refugees' homes. Ostensibly the meetings

were held to express concern for a young man in the refugee

community who was suffering from a serious mental illness.

He had been diagnosed by a Mexican psychiatrist as being a

paranoid schizophrenic. Even at these meetings, the theme

of liberation theology was announced, in homilies and in

prayers. In this way, the catechist also served as a

political leader, using the gathering as an opportunity to

talk about conditions in Guatemala, and to remind the

faithful that God was on their side.

Heal.th. .and. JLd.u.ca.tion in. La. Huerta

The refugees in La Huerta received better health care

services and had more educational opportunities in refuge in

Mexico than they had in Guatemala. The refugees were

sometimes treated in a clinic in La Huerta that was staffed

by a medical doctor, who was sent to treat the Tzeltal

Indians every two or three weeks. This was a service of

Mexico's Institute Medical de Seguridad Social (IMSS).

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Also, there were two refugees in La Huerta who had been

trained as health care promoters. They had received the

training from NGOs and from the hospital in Comitan. The

biggest difficulty the refugees faced was the lack of

medicine and simple medical instruments (thermometers,

stethoscopes, etc.). In Poza Rica, there was a better

equipped and staffed regional health clinic. The more

serious medical cases that the health promoters could not

treat effectively in the camp were sent to this clinic. I

provided transportation for a number of refugees to get to

Poza Rica for treatments of different kinds. Finally, there

was the hospital in Comitan which performed needed surgery

for the refugees. It is my understanding that these

procedures were provided for the refugees at no cost. One

refugee had surgery on his cataracts at the hospital in

Comitan and was given eyeglasses to wear. During my

fieldwork, the CCPP representative's wife needed to have a

hysterectomy. I gave them transportation to and from the

hospital and let them use the room I rented in Comitan as a

place for the woman to recuperate after her surgery. They

would never have had the opportunity to go to a hospital

where they had lived in Guatemala.

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Educational opportunities were also greater in Mexico

than they had been in Guatemala. When living in Guatemala,

most of the refugees had to travel to Barillas to attend

primary school. This was a major expense for Indian

families in terms of paying for transportation, room and

board, loss of income, not to mention intangible costs such

as the psychological stress of separation. For these

reasons, most Indian children, boys and girls, did not

attend school. Those few who did go to school did not stay

for more than two or three years.

In La Huerta, and in every refugee camp, COMAR had

helped the refugees establish a primary school for the

children. COMAR also helped to train some of the refugees

as education promoters and paid them for their work.

Secondary school was more costly for the families, so very

few refugee children went beyond primary school (see Table

13). The nearest secondary school was in Nuevo Huixtân,

several kilometers and one long, bumpy bus ride away.

There is a slight difference in the average years of

formal education for Mam and Kanjobal Indians in La Huerta

over the age of 15, although the difference is not

statistically significant. The Mam Indians over 15 (N=19)

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TABLE 13

FORMAL EDUCATION OF REFUGEES OVER 15 YEARS OF AGE BY SEX

Years of 16-30 Over 3 0 School Years of Age Years of Age TOTALS

Male Female Male Female

0 24 38 34 39 135

1 3 2 0 1 6

2 4 3 6 2 15

3 4 6 1 0 11

4 3 0 1 0 4

5 4 2 1 0 7

6 5 2 0 0 7

7 1 0 0 0 1

8 1 0 0 0 1

9 2 0 0 0 2

10 2 0 0 0 2

TOTALS 53 53 43 42 191

averaged 1.7 years of education, and the Kanjobal Indians in

the same age group (N=166) averaged 1.0 years. A t-test

yielded a score of -1.325 which, with 183 degrees of

freedom, has a probability of .187, meaning that the

difference between the groups is within the range of what

could be expected by chance.

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There was a significant difference in years of

education for males and females over 15 in the refugee

population at La Huerta. Within this age group there were

95 females and 96 males (N=191). The average years of

formal education for the females was .6 and the average for

males was 1.7. A t-test yielded a t-score of 3.768 which,

with 189 degrees of freedom, has a 0.000 probability of

being due to chance. Thus, the difference between males and

females for education is highly significant. This result

simply shows statistically what we have always known about

Indians in the Western highlands of Guatemala : that they do

not receive many years of formal education, and that, on

average, boys get more education than girls.

Educational opportunities are better in Mexico than

they were in Guatemala, and the refugees are taking

advantage of these opportunities. The mean number of years

of formal education for refugees over 30 (N=85) was .4. The

mean number of years of education for refugees between 16

and 30 (N=106) was 1.8. A t-test on these means yielded a

t-score of -4.602, which with 189 degrees of freedom has a

0.000 probability of occurring by chance. This means that

the difference in the two populations (16 to 30 and over 30)

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is highly significant. The overall increase in education

levels for refugee children is certainly a positive trend.

There are both positive and negative trends with

regard to gender and formal education. It is true that

girls are now getting more education than they previously

had. The mean years of education for females over 30 years

of age (N=42) was .1. The average for females between 16

and 30 (N=53) was .9 years. Males have also experienced an

increase in the mean number of years of formal education.

For male refugees over 30 years of age (N=43), the mean was

.6 years of education; for those between 16 and 30 (N=53),

the mean was 2.6. Both sexes, therefore, have experienced

an increase in the average years of formal education. This

increase in education levels for both sexes since going into

refuge is cause for some celebration.

But the increase in education levels for both sexes

is tempered by an increase in the gap between males and

females in terms of formal education, which has increased in

refuge. A t-test on the average years of education for

males and females over 30 (.6 and .1, respectively) yielded

a t-score of 2.190 which, with 83 degrees of freedom, has a

probability of .031 of being caused by chance. Thus, the

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difference in education between females and males in the

older generation is only slightly significant. A t-test on

the means of education for males and females between 16 and

30 years of age (2.6 and .9, respectively) yielded a t-score

of 3.510 which, at 104 degrees of freedom, was highly

significant, at the .001 level. Thus, while boys have

always received more education than girls in this

population, the gap between them has widened over time.

In summary, it is clear from this description of

refugee camp life that, in several ways, the lives of the

Guatemalan refugees had not changed significantly since

coming to Mexico. The vast majority of the refugees

continued to make their living as campesinos and

supplementing their milpa production by working as

agricultural day laborers. In terms of social structure,

much of the traditional Kanjobal culture was still in place,

with people living in extended families, under the authority

of a male elder. Each group within the refugee camp had its

chosen leader. The Kanjobal Indians continued to practice

endogamy, marrying only within their language group. Many

of the alliances between families that had existed in

Guatemala continued to exist in the refugee camp.

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Perhaps the biggest changes were in the areas of

religion, education, and health care. The religious change

was seen in two ways. First, the Kanjobal Indians who

practiced costumbre were not able to do so satisfactorily

from Mexico. Much of costumbre is dependent on being able

to visit key geographical places to make offerings to the

local deities at proper time of the year. The refugees

clearly could not do that while living in Mexico. The

second change with regard to religion was in the

introduction of liberation theology to many Kanjobal Indians

in the refugee camps who had not been exposed to it in

Guatemala. This had the dual effect of radicalizing the

political perspective of the Kanjobal Indians and also

teaching them the importance of united with other Maya

Indians in Guatemala in their struggle for justice.

The refugees received considerable assistance from

the Mexican government and international sources with regard

to health care and education, especially in the training of

refugees as health and education promoters. Kanjobal

Indians in the more rural parts of northern Huehuetenango

Department had never received help of this kind while they

were living in Guatemala. These changes may lead to

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improvements in the quality of life the refugees in the

immediate future. But the assistance the refugees have

received while in Mexico also has the potential to lead to

greater dissatisfaction with the status quo once they return

to Guatemala.

A more intangible change in the refugees' lives had

to do with their perception that there was greater freedom

in Mexico. They all noted that, for the most part, they

could travel where and when they wanted. They had also the

opportunity to choose their own leaders and to gather and

hold meetings. But the most commonly mentioned difference

in their lives was the freedom from fear that the Guatemalan

army would attack them again. When asked about how life in

Mexico was different from life in Guatemala, one refugee

responded: "Well, people are not dying here."

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SOCIAL, POLITICAL, AND ECONOMIC VARIABLES

ASSOCIATED WITH ATTITUDES

TOWARD REPATRIATION

The data that were collected during my fieldwork allow

for the testing of hypotheses that establish the existence

of statistically significant associations between several

social, political, and economic variables and two variables

measuring the attitudes of refugees toward repatriating to

Guatemala. One of the first hypotheses formulated had to do

with the relationship between religion and repatriation.

Others that have been generated during the research process

have to do with the following variables: age; type of

family structure; education; ethnicity; gender; grupito

'political faction' within the refugee camp; place of origin

in Guatemala, and the number of years spent in exile. This

chapter discusses these hypotheses, the statistical tests

used to evaluate them, and the qualitative analysis used to

290

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make sense of why there may or may not be a statistically

significant association between two particular variables.

At the end of the household survey (Appendix 6), the

refugees were asked two questions that would indicate their

attitudes toward repatriation. The first question was

intended as a measure of the refugees' desire to repatriate:

"Do you want to go back to Guatemala?" The second question

on repatriation was intended to measure how soon the

refugees thought they might repatriate: "When do you think

you and your family will return to Guatemala?" The purpose

of asking this second question was to move beyond the simple

question of their desire to repatriate, to whether or not

they had concrete plans to return home in the near future.

Thus, there are two variables that are used as measures of

attitudes toward repatriation: desire to repatriate and

anticipation of the date of repatriation.

The refugees in La Huerta answered the first question

on repatriation in two ways. They all answered that they

wanted to repatriate, but with two different qualifiers.

The refugees used the qualifiers to identify which of two

groups they belonged to with regard to repatriation, the

Pro-Return group or the CCPP group. The first answer was:

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"Yes, I want to go back, but I do not plan to wait for a

signed agreement with the Guatemalan government concerning

the six conditions. My family is ready to repatriate soon."

The refugees that offered this answer were part of the Pro-

Return group. In La Huerta, there were only five heads of

household who were part of the Pro-Return group (5 of 84, or

6 percent). The refugees in the Pro-Return group felt that

they had a better chance of fighting for their human rights

from inside Guatemala. They also expressed impatience with

the CCPP leadership, saying that they were unnecessarily

delaying the repatriation process. The Pro-Return group

included about 500 refugee families from camps in Chiapas,

Campeche, and Quintana Roo. The Pro-Return refugees had

started to make plans to repatriate before the end of 1992,

but there had been several delays in the process, and, by

the time I left Chiapas in September 1992, they were still

in Mexico.

The other answer to the first question about

repatriation was: "Yes, but only after an agreement has

been signed with the Guatemalan government concerning the

six conditions." Those that said they wanted to go back to

Guatemala after an agreement was signed were part of the

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CCPP group. They were the majority in La Huerta (79 of 84,

or 94 percent). Most of the refugees in this group felt

that they could not trust the Guatemalan government,

particularly the military, to respect their human rights as

outlined in the six conditions unless government

representatives first signed a formal agreement recognizing

those rights. Generally, they were willing to wait as long

as it took for the CCPP representatives to negotiate a

signed agreement before repatriating.

I have noted that there were refugees in some camps

who expressed their desire to remain permanently in Mexico

and become Mexican citizens. In La Huerta, there were no

heads of household that said they wanted to stay in Mexico

permanently. However, I did know a Kanjobal teenager in La

Huerta who had asked his grandfather to buy him some land in

Mexico, so that he could remain in Mexico permanently. This

young man, while not considered a head of household by the

camp's representatives, was nearly old enough to marry

according to Kanjobal custom.

There were three distinct answers to the second

question on repatriation (see Appendix 9). First, there

were those who expected to return to Guatemala within three

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months (4 of 84 heads of household, or 4.8 percent). All of

the people who answered this way were in the Pro-Return

group which, as I stated above, already had concrete plans

to repatriate. Second, there were some refugees that

thought they would probably return within a year (3 of 84,

or 3.6 percent). Finally, there were those who said they

simply did not know when they might repatriate (77 of 84 or

91.6 percent). Their most common response in Spanish was,

"Saber . . . ." This is the standard response any time

someone is asked to ponder the imponderable. It is the

rough equivalent of "Who knows?" They were uncertain

because their decision to repatriate was dependent on the

CCPP's negotiation of a written agreement on their human

rights with the Guatemalan government. They felt they had

no way of predicting when that would happen. All of the

refugees that offered the third answer were in the CCPP

group (see Table 14).

The statistical analysis in this chapter follows the

method of testing null hypotheses. The null hypotheses

posit that there is no statistically significant association

between one of the two variables measuring attitudes toward

repatriation and some other variable. When a test statistic

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TABLE 14

HEADS OF HOUSEHOLD BY GROUP AND ANTICIPATION OF REPATRIATION

My family plans to repatriate in:

In Less than GROUP 1 Year Don't Know Total

Pro-Return 5 0 5

CCPP 2 77 79

Total 7 77 84 Fisher Exact Test p=0.000 phi=.834

reveals an association with a probability greater than .05

(p>.05), it is not considered significant. This will be

interpreted to mean that the null hypothesis is accepted;

that is, there is no significant association between the two

variables. An association that has a probability of .05 or

less is considered significant, and will be grounds for

rejecting the null hypothesis and accepting the alternative

hypothesis. This would mean that the association between

the two variables is statistically significant.

The two dependent variables on attitudes toward

repatriation were treated as nominal variables. Because the

population was so small, I have grouped the data into 2 x 2

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statistical tables, which allows for the calculation of a

Fisher Exact Test. The Fisher Exact Test, a variation of

chi-square, is a test statistic that is used in statistical

research on small populations because it provides results

that are not suspect due to sparseness of data (Bernard

1988, 389-390). All of the Fisher Exact Tests calculated

for this dissertation are two-tail.

The data in Appendix 9 can be used as an example. In

that table, the variable "anticipation of repatriation" has

three values: "less than three months," "less than one

year," and "don't know." When testing the null hypotheses

in this chapter, I grouped the data from the first two

columns into one column. Thus, the anticipation of

repatriation variable has only two values "less than one

year" and "don't know" (Table 14). Grouping the data into

two categories for variables that had more than two values

resulted in a loss of specificity. But, in my opinion, the

reliability of the significance results offered by the

Fisher Exact Test outweighs this drawback. For those

readers who are interested in seeing the ungrouped data,

they are supplied in the Appendices as referenced.

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I used the phi, a statistic based on chi-square, to

measure the strength of the association between nominal

variables. The phi values are interpreted as follows: less

than or equal to .3 indicates a low degree of association;

.31 to .5 indicates a moderate degree of association; .51 to

.7 indicates a marked association; .71 to .9 indicates a

high degree of association, and .9 indicates a very close

association and a high degree of dependence. For all

interval scale independent variables, the Pearson's r

statistical test was also calculated. These measures of

association indicate which of the independent variables are

most closely associated with the dependent variables.

RELIGION AND REPATRIATION

The hypothesis concerning religion was one of the

first advanced because early data from the literature on

Guatemalan refugees and repatriation (from 1984-1987)

suggested that Protestants were repatriating at a much

faster rate than Catholics or practitioners of costumbre

(WOLA 1988) . Null Hypothesis #1 is : There is no

association between religion and desire to repatriate.

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To test for a significant association between religion

and desire to repatriate, the data were grouped in such a

way as to allow the calculation of the Fisher Exact Test

(see Table 15; see Appendix 10). This was done by placing

all Costumbristas and Catholics in the same category "All

Others." The two heads of household who claimed to be non

religious were placed in the categories that indicated the

religious influence of their formative years. One of these

individuals had been raised Catholic in the Ixcan region,-

the other had been raised in a Protestant home.

The Fisher Exact Test shows that there is no

statistically significant relationship between religion and

desire to repatriate. The ethnographic interview data and

participant observation support the finding of a lack of

significant association between these variables among

refugees in La Huerta in 1992. Why were the Protestants of

La Huerta in the CCPP group instead of the Pro-Return group,

as was expected based on the literature? In fact, all of

the Protestant refugees I interviewed in Chiapas in 1991 and

1992 were in the CCPP group, not just the Protestants in La

Huerta.

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TABLE 15

HYPOTHESIS #1: DESIRE TO REPATRIATE BY RELIGION

My family wants to repatriate:

Immediately, Only After an Without Waiting Agreement on for an Agreement Six Conditions Religion on Six Conditions is Reached Total Protestants 0 3 3

All Others 5 76 81

Total 5 79 84 Fisher Exact Test p=1.0 (not significant)

Before 1987, there had been numerous Protestant

families in La Huerta. Most of the Protestant families left

La Huerta in 1987, after a dispute with the Mexican Tzeltal

Indian patrons. The maj ority of them relocated to the

Yucatan Peninsula camps, but some of them repatriated to

Guatemala. The Protestants objected to being pressured to

provide labor for the construction of La Huerta's Catholic

Church. By 1992, there were only three Protestant heads of

household. They were three Kanjobal Indian brothers, one of

whom no longer identified himself as a Protestant. Other

refugees in the community said that he was no longer in the

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Protestant church, not because he had disavowed

Protestantism, but because he was an alcoholic. In essence,

the church disavowed him. Even though he did not

participate in Protestant church activities any longer, it

might be assumed that he was still influenced by the

political perspective of the church in which he was raised.

In fact, all three brothers said that they would not

repatriate before there was an agreement with the Guatemalan

government on the six conditions. They talked about

repatriation in the same terms as others in the CCPP group,

whether Catholic or Costumbrista.

Why did they not fit the pattern that was expected

based on the literature review? The answer could be in the

relocation of many Protestant families to the Yucatan

Peninsula. By way of contrast to the Protestants in

Chiapas, I was told by some American refugee NGO workers

that many of the Protestant refugees in the camps in

Campeche and Quintana Roo were the leaders in the Pro-Return

group. I did not visit the Yucatan Peninsula camps, and I

have no data to confirm this independently. If it were

true, however, it could explain why the Protestants in La

Huerta were in the CCPP group. It is possible that the

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Protestants who had already relocated to the Yucatan

Peninsula refugee camps were in the Pro-Return group. The

one extended Protestant family in La Huerta in 1992, which

was affiliated with the CCPP group, might be an aberration

compared to the Protestants who left. The data I collected

for Protestants in La Huerta could have been very different

if the majority of the Protestant families had not relocated

in 1987. This is something that will never be known.

According to the data I collected, there is also no

significant difference between Catholics and Costumbristas

in terms of their desire to repatriate. The vast majority

of the heads of household in both of these religious groups

preferred to wait for an agreement with the government (93

percent of Catholics, and 97 percent of the Costumbristas).

This is consistent with what I know about these two

religious groups through ethnographic interviews.

The person listed as being non-religious and in the

Pro-Retum group in Appendix 10 was a Mam Indian woman. She

said that she had been raised Catholic, but had given up on

believing in God due to her experiences of horror during the

counter-insurgency campaign and in the CPRs. She said that

she was no longer "religious" because she did not go to

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church meetings held by the catechist. In spite of her

self-identification as non-religious, she was still

influenced by Catholic doctrine, since themes common in

liberation theology came up in most of my conversations with

h e r .

Another hypothesis was designed to test for an

association between religion and the expected date of

repatriation. Null Hypothesis #2 is : There is no

association between religion and anticipation of

repatriation. The data were grouped to allow for the

testing of this hypothesis. The disaggregated data can be

found in Appendix 11.

The Fisher Exact Test for the data in Table 16

indicates that there is no relationship between religion and

anticipation of repatriation in La Huerta refugee camp in

1992. Based on this result. Null Hypothesis #2 is accepted.

The lack of statistical significance fits with what I know

about the situation in La Huerta. That is, the qualitative

data also indicate there was no significant relationship

between religion and anticipation of repatriation. The

majority of the refugees were not willing to speculate about

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TABLE 16

HYPOTHESIS #2: RELIGION AND ANTICIPATION OF REPATRIATION

My family wants to repatriate:

In Less than l Religion Year Don't Know Total

Protestant 0 3 3

All Other 7 74 81

Total 7 77 84

Fisher Exact Test p=1.0 (not significant)

when they would be going home, and this did not vary with

religious affiliation.

AGE AND REPATRIATION

Another variable that my information suggested might

be related to attitudes toward repatriation is age. There

are a number of reasons why there might be an association.

There were many Guatemalan refugees who had grown up in

Mexico and did not know their own country first-hand. It is

plausible that the younger generation might not have the

same desire to return to Guatemala, if they were generally

satisfied with their lives in Mexico. This led to the

formulation of Null Hypothesis #3 : There is no association

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between age group and desire to repatriate.

For the testing of this hypothesis, the data on age

were grouped into two categories, 17 to 30 and 31 to 76 (17

was the youngest head of household in La Huerta, and 76 the

oldest). The data in Table 17 show that there is no

significant difference between those in the 17-30 age group

and those in the 31 to 76 age group in terms of desire to

repatriate.

TABLE 17

HYPOTHESIS #3: DESIRE TO REPATRIATE BY AGE GROUP

My family wants to repatriate:

Immediately, Only After an Without Waiting Agreement on for an Agreement Six Conditions Age Group on Six Conditions is Reached Total

17-30 2 37 39

31-76 3 42 45

Total 5 79 84 Fisher Exact Test p=1.0 (not significant)

In the case of the younger age group, 95 percent preferred

to wait for an agreement with the government. With regard

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to the older group, 93 percent preferred to wait. The

Fisher Exact Test shows that any difference between the two

age groups is probably due to chance. The lack of

association is supported by the Pearson's r on the data for

age and desire to repatriate (r=.040; p=.720).

A hypothesis was tested concerning the association

between age and anticipation of repatriation. Null

Hypothesis #4 is : There is no association between age group

and anticipation of repatriation. Table 18 summarizes the

TABLE 18

HYPOTHESIS #4: AGE GROUP AND ANTICIPATION OF REPATRIATION

My family plans to repatriate:

In Less than Age Group 1 Year Don't Know Total

17-30 3 36 39

31-76 4 41 45

Total 7 77 84 Fisher Exact Test p=1.0 (not significant)

data on anticipation of repatriation and age (Appendix 12).

The Fisher Exact Test for the data in Table 18 has a

probability of 1.0. This indicates that there is no

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significant difference in anticipation of repatriation by

age group. Null Hypothesis #4 is, therefore, accepted. The

lack of association between the variables of age and

anticipation of repatriation is supported by the Pearson's r

statistical test (r=.036; p=.742; not significant). There

is no evidence that age is significantly associated with

anticipation of repatriation.

FAMILY STRUCTURE AND REPATRIATION

In chapter 2, on Kanjobal society and culture, I

discussed two types of family structure found in Kanjobal

society: extended (or joint) families and nuclear families.

Among the Kanjobal Indians, the joint family is the most

basic unit of social structure. The ideal cultural pattern

is for the oldest male (usually the "grandfather") to live

jointly, as a single economic and social unit, with his

married sons, daughters-in-law, his sons' children, and his

own unmarried daughters and sons. Nearly half of the

families in La Huerta were living jointly. Of course, there

are also nuclear families, which are usually the result of

fissioning due to conflict or death of the family patriarch.

Among the refugees in La Huerta, there was also a

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third type of family, the single parent, matrifocal family.

None of the matrifocal families were headed by Kanjobal

Indians. Three were led by Mam Indians and two by ladinas.

In this section on family structure and attitudes toward

repatriation, I only distinguish two types of family,

extended and nuclear. There is a separate discussion of

gender and repatriation in this chapter, which will deal

with the significance of that variable.

One of the social factors that probably influences the

lack of significant association between age and attitudes

toward repatriation involves the nature of the Kanjobal

Indian joint family. The heads of household that lived

jointly always shared the same opinions regarding both

desire to repatriate and anticipation of repatriation.

Early in my field research, I noticed that most of the

families in the Pro-Return group were independent nuclear

families. As it turned out, 100 percent of those living in

joint families were in the CCPP group, and all of the

families in the Pro-Return group were nuclear families (see

Table 19). Based on this observation, I thought there might

be an association between type of family structure and

attitudes toward repatriation.

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To discover if there was a significant association

between these variables, I proposed Null Hypothesis #5:

There is no association between desire to repatriate and

type of family structure. The Fisher Exact Test on the

TABLE 19

HYPOTHESIS #5: DESIRE TO REPATRIATE AND FAMILY STRUCTURE

My family wants to repatriate:

Immediately, Only After an Without Waiting Agreement on Family for an Agreement Six Conditions Structure on Six Conditions is Reached Total

Nuclear 5 43 48

Joint 0 36 36

Total 5 79 84

Fisher Exact Test p=.068 (not significant)

data in Table 19 shows that there is no statistically

significant association between these two variables

(probability is .068). Therefore, Null Hypothesis #5 is

accepted. Refugees in nuclear families were not more likely

to belong to the Pro-Return group than the CCPP group.

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The data in Appendix 13 show that none of the heads of

household who were living in joint families were planning to

repatriate soon. At the same time, 7 of 48 (15 percent) of

the heads of household in nuclear families said they thought

they would repatriate within one year's time. Based on this

information, a null hypothesis was put forward with regard

to anticipation of repatriation and family structure. Null

Hypothesis #6 is : There is no association between type of

family structure and anticipation of repatriation.

TABLE 20

HYPOTHESIS #6: FAMILY STRUCTURE AND ANTICIPATION OF REPATRIATION

My family plans to repatriate:

Family In Less than Structure 1 Year Don't Know Total

Nuclear 7 41 48

Joint 0 36 36

Total 7 77 84

Fisher Exact Test p=.018 (slightly significant) phi=.261

The Fisher Exact Test for the data in Table 20 shows

that there is a significant relationship between family

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structure and anticipation of repatriation. Null Hypothesis

#6 is therefore rejected, and the alternative hypothesis is

accepted. The phi value (.261) shows that there low degree

of association between these variables. Thus, while the

association is statistically significant, the greater

tendency for heads of nuclear families to be planning to

repatriate within one year's time as compared to heads of

household in joint families is not very strong.

EDUCATION AND REPATRIATION

I have already discussed the fact that there was a

statistically significant difference between younger and

older refugees in terms of formal educational attainment.

Younger refugees were taking advantage of the educational

opportunities afforded them in Mexico. The formal education

process incorporated political consciousness raising

techniques. For example, the refugees' education promoters

designed their own curriculum and textbooks for social

studies, including their own version of recent Guatemalan

history. Initially, COMAR officials said the textbooks were

too "political," and refused to print them. But the

refugees successfully fought with COMAR to keep the

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textbooks. As one education promoter stated: "Education is

always a political act. In this case, we are teaching our

children our own history, based on our experiences. Neither

COMAR nor the Guatemalan government has the right to tell us

what to teach about what happened to our communities."

Based on this information, I suspected that years of formal

education might be a variable associated with attitudes

toward repatriation.

To test this hunch, I postulated Null Hypothesis #7 :

There is no statistically significant association between

education and desire to repatriate. As seen in Table 21,

the two categories for education are for people with zero to

three years of education, and those with more than three

years of education.

All five of the heads of household in the Pro-Return

group have three years or less of schooling. Thus, it looks

as though there might be a tendency for heads of household

with more education to prefer to wait for the signing of an

agreement with the Guatemalan government. This apparent

tendency is the opposite of what was expected based on the

information and assumptions above. Nevertheless, the Fisher

Exact Test shows that this patterning of the data is

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TABLE 21

HYPOTHESIS #7: DESIRE TO REPATRIATE AND FORMAL EDUCATION

My family wants to repatriate:

Immediately, Only After an Years of Without Waiting Agreement on Formal for an Agreement Six Conditions Education on Six Conditions is Reached Total

0-3 5 73 78

More than 3 0 6 6

Total 5 79 84

Fisher Exact Test p=1.0 (not significant)

probably due to chance (p=1.0). Therefore, Null Hypothesis

#7 is accepted. There is no statistically significant

association between years of formal education and the desire

to repatriate. The result of the Fisher Exact Test is

supported by the Pearson r statistic for education and

desire to repatriate (r=-.020; p=.857; not significant).

Statistical tests were also run to establish if there

were an association between years of formal education and

anticipation of repatriation. Null Hypothesis #8 is : There

is no association between education and anticipation of

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repatriation. The data were grouped as seen in Table 22

(see Appendix 14). A Fisher Exact Test for Table 22 showed

TABLE 22

HYPOTHESIS #8: EDUCATION AND ANTICIPATION OF REPATRIATION

My family plans to repatriate:

Years of Formal In Less than Education 1 Year Don't Know Total

0-3 7 71 78

More than 3 0 6 6

Total 7 77 84

Fisher Exact Test p=1.0 (not significant)

that there was no statistically significant association

between education and anticipation of repatriation (p=1.0).

Therefore, Null Hypothesis #8 is accepted. This conclusion

is also supported by the Pearson's r on education and

anticipation of repatriation (r=-.017; p=.877; not

significant).

The results of these statistical tests show that

formal education was not a factor influencing the refugees

attitudes toward repatriation. This could be because the

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refugees who were trained as education promoters were all

supporters of the CCPP. While they were aware of the social

and political circumstances in Guatemala that led to their

status as refugees, this did not necessarily lead them to

take a more confrontive approach with the Guatemalan

government, like the one recommended by the Pro-Retum

group. The education promoters were teaching CCPP ideology

in the classroom which was raising political consciousness.

At the same time, the CCPP had been stalling the Pro-Retum

group's call for radical action (for example, returning to

Guatemala and demanding land through illegal takeovers).

This was being done with the hope that the URNG would be

able to negotiate land reform in Guatemala during the peace

talks aimed at ending the civil war.

ETHNICITY AND REPATRIATION

The data that I gathered indicated that there might be

a significant relationship between ethnic group and desire

to repatriate (Appendix 15). Specifically, it is apparent

that Mam Indians are more likely than any other ethnic group

to belong to the Pro-Return group (57 percent of Mam Indians

heads of household). This is compared to l percent of

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Kanjobal families and no ladino or Kekchi families. But, is

the difference between ethnic groups statistically

significant? The data in Appendix 15 were grouped so that a

Fisher Exact Test could be calculated. The "Ethnic Group"

categories Kekchi, Ladino, and Mam were combined to form a

single category "Other," as seen in Table 23. Null

Hypothesis #9 is : There is no association between ethnicity

and desire to repatriate.

The Fisher Exact Test on the data in Table 23 shows

that there is a highly significant association between the

variables of ethnicity and desire to repatriate. This means

TABLE 23

HYPOTHESIS #9: DESIRE TO REPATRIATE AND ETHNICITY

My family wants to repatriate:

Immediately, Only After an Ethnic Without Waiting Agreement on Group for an Agreement Six Conditions Total on Six Conditions is Reached

Kanj obal 1 72 73 Other 4 7 11

Total 5 79 84 Fisher Exact Test p=.001 (highly significant) phi= -.499

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that Null Hypothesis #9 is rejected and the alternative

hypothesis is accepted. The result of the Fisher Exact Test

is even more significant when one considers that the four

heads of household in the "Other" category that are also in

the Pro-Return group are all Mam Indians. While the data

are probably not the result of chance, the phi value (-.499)

indicates that there is only a moderate degree of

association between ethnicity and the desire to repatriate.

The data from the household survey indicate that the

Mam Indians were much more likely to predict they would

return within one year than any other ethnic group (Appendix

16). Null Hypothesis #10 was used to discover if this

tendency were statistically significant: There is no

association between ethnicity and anticipation of

repatriation. The data were grouped so that a Fisher Exact

Test could be calculated (Table 24).

The Fisher Exact Test for the data in Table 24 shows

that there is a probability of .005 that the pattern is due

to chance. This means that the association between the two

variables is statistically significant, and Null Hypothesis

#10 is rejected. The phi value for Table 24 (-.394), shows

that there is only a moderate degree of association between

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TABLE 24

HYPOTHESIS #10: ETHNICITY AND ANTICIPATION OF REPATRIATION

My family plans to repatriate:

In Less than Ethnic Group 1 Year Don't Know Total

Kanj obal 3 70 73

Other 4 7 11

Total 7 77 84

Fisher Exact Test p=.005 (significant) phi= -.394

ethnicity and anticipation of repatriation.

It is important to note that the four heads of

household in the "Other" category that planned to return

within one year were all Mam Indians (4 of 7 Mam heads of

household, or 57 percent). In comparison, only 3 of 73

Kanjobal Indians (4 percent) said they anticipated

repatriating within one year. None of the ladino or Kekchi

families were making plans to repatriate in less than one

year.

GENDER AND REPATRIATION

After conducting the household survey, I realized that

there were five female heads of household in La Huerta, and

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three of them were in the Pro-Retum group (3 of 5, or 60

percent). A much smaller percentage of the male heads of

household were in the Pro-Retum group (3 of 79, or 3

percent). This led to the formation of Null Hypothesis #11:

There is no association between gender and desire to

repatriate. Table 25 summarizes the data used to evaluate

this hypothesis.

The Fisher Exact Test for the data in Table 25 shows

that there is a highly significant association between these

two variables. This means that Null Hypothesis #11 is

rejected and the alternative hypothesis is accepted. The

value of phi for Table 25 (-.575) indicates a marked

association between these variables. Ethnicity is also a

factor here, since all three female heads of household that

were in the Pro-Return group were Mam Indians and the two

females in the CCPP group were ladinas.

The data suggested a possible association between

gender and anticipation of repatriation as well (Appendix

17) . Null Hypothesis #12 is : There is no association

between gender and anticipation of repatriation. To

overcome the problem of sparseness, the data for

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TABLE 25

HYPOTHESIS #11: DESIRE TO REPATRIATE AND GENDER

My family wants to repatriate:

Immediately, Only After an Without Waiting Agreement on for an Agreement Six Conditions Gender on Six Conditions is Reached Total

Male 2 77 79

Female 3 2 5

Total 5 79 84

Fisher Exact Test p=.001 (highly significant) phi= -.575

TABLE 26

HYPOTHESIS #12: GENDER AND ANTICIPATION OF REPATRIATION

My family plans to repatriate :

In Less than Gender 1 Year Don't Know Total Male 4 75 79

Female 3 2 5

TOTAL 7 77 84

Fisher Exact Test p=.003 (significant) phi= -.470

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anticipation of repatriation were grouped as reflected in

Table 26.

The Fisher Exact Test for the data in Table 26 shows

that there is a significant association between the two

variables. Therefore, Null Hypothesis #12 is rejected and

the alternative hypothesis is accepted. The phi value for

Table 26 (-.470) indicates that the association is only

moderate, and therefore is not as strong as the association

between gender and desire to repatriate.

For both of the measures of the refugees' attitudes

toward repatriation, then, there is a significant

association with gender. Female heads of household were

more likely than male heads of household to belong to the

Pro-Retum refugee group, and to be making plans to

repatriate within one year.

POLITICAL FACTIONS AND REPATRIATION

As discussed in chapter 5, the refugees had six named

grupitos 'political factions' in La Huerta, each with its

chosen représentante 'political leader.' To conceal the

identity of my informants, I numbered the six factions 1 to

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6. All six representatives were in the CCPP group with

regard to the desire to repatriate.

However, the factions varied some when all of the

heads of household were considered. Specifically, the data

in Appendix 18 shows that 60 percent of the Pro-Retum heads

of household (3 of 5) belonged to Faction 3. This might

indicate a tendency for people who were prepared to

repatriate immediately to belong to Faction 3 because the

representative of that faction was somewhat more open than

the other five faction representatives to returning soon. I

have already mentioned the female Mam Indian head of

household who was punished by her representative (Faction 1)

for being part of the Pro-Retum group. She was refused her

customary portion of the commodities distribution.

There was some difference of opinion among the

representatives on this issue. During the household survey,

the representative for Faction 3 said that he and his family

were in the CCPP group and were going to wait for an

agreement with the Guatemalan government before

repatriating. In an ethnographic interview, however, he

said that he and his family were willing and able to

repatriate within one year, if it were not for the

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obligatory participation in the Civil Defense Patrols

(PACs). This suggests that he was somewhat more open to an

early repatriation. None of the other representatives

expressed a similar openness to this possibility.

To determine if there were a statistically significant

association between political faction and desire to

repatriate, I formulated Null Hypothesis #13: There is no

association between political faction and desire to

repatriate. The six values for the variable "political

faction" (see Appendix 18) were reduced to two values by

grouping Factions l, 2, 4, 5, and 6 into a single category,

"All Others." If there were an association between these

two variables, this liberal method of grouping the data used

for Table 27 would have found it. Instead, the Fisher Exact

Test shows that there is no significant association between

political factions in La Huerta and desire to repatriate,

and Null Hypothesis #13 is accepted.

The data indicate that there might be a slight

tendency for those in Faction 3 to be planning to repatriate

within one year (3 of 16, or 16 percent) when compared to

all of the other factions combined (4 of 65, or 6 percent).

To determine if the differences were statistically

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TABLE 27

HYPOTHESIS #13: DESIRE TO REPATRIATE AND POLITICAL FACTIONS

My family wants to repatriate:

Immediately, Only After an Political Without Waiting Agreement on Factions for an Agreement Six Conditions Total on Six Conditions is Reached

Faction 3 3 16 19

All Others 2 63 65

Total 5 79 84

Fisher Exact Test p=.074 (not significant)

TABLE 28

HYPOTHESIS #14: POLITICAL FACTIONS AND ANTICIPATION OF REPATRIATION

My family plans to repatriate:

Political In Less than Faction 1 Year Don ' t Know Total

Faction 3 3 16 19

All Others 4 61 65

Total 7 77 84 Fisher Exact Test p=.188 (not significant)

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significant, Null Hypothesis #14 was proposed: There is no

association between political faction and anticipation of

repatriation. The Fisher Exact Test was run on the data in

Table 28, and the result shows that there is no significant

association between these variables. Therefore, Null

Hypothesis #14 is accepted. Political faction and

anticipation of repatriation are not significantly related.

PLACE OF ORIGIN IN GUATEMALA AND REPATRIATION

Based on the interviews I conducted, it seemed

possible that the refugees from the Ixcan cooperatives area

might be more likely to be members of the Pro-Retum group.

Based on this suspicion, I proposed Null Hypothesis #15:

There is no association between place of origin in Guatemala

and desire to repatriate.

To test this hypothesis, I used the data on the 23

heads of household, with whom I had more extensive

interviews which had yielded information on place of origin

(Appendix 19). Because these 23 heads of household were a

random sample, they can be viewed as representative of the

84 heads of household in La Huerta. The data on place of

origin were grouped to allow for a Fisher Exact Test. To do

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this, the following values for "places of origin" were

lumped together as "Other": Alta Verapaz, Border Area,

Chancolin, and Xoxlac. The results are shown in Table 29.

The Fisher Exact Test on the data in Table 29 shows

that there is a .000 probability that these data occurred by

chance. The association between the variables is highly

significant, therefore. Null Hypothesis #15 is rejected,

and the alternative hypothesis accepted. The value for phi

(.887) shows that there is a high degree of association

between desire to repatriate and place of origin.

TABLE 29

HYPOTHESIS #15; DESIRE TO REPATRIATE AND PLACE OF ORIGIN IN GUATEMALA

My family wants to repatriate:

Immediately, Only After an Without Waiting Agreement on Place of for an Agreement Six Conditions Origin on Six Conditions is Reached Total

Ixcan 5 1 6 Other 0 17 17

Total 5 18 23

Fisher Exact Test p=.000 (highly significant) phi=.887

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Null Hypothesis #16 is: There is no association

between place of origin in Guatemala and anticipation of

repatriation. Table 30 contains the data used to test this

null hypothesis. The Fisher Exact Test for the data in

Table 30 shows that there is a .001 probability that these

data are the result of chance. Null Hypothesis #16 is

rejected, and the alternative hypothesis is accepted. The

refugees from the Ixcan cooperative area

TABLE 30

HYPOTHESIS #16: PLACE OF ORIGIN IN GUATEMALA AND ANTICIPATION OF REPATRIATION

My family plans to repatriate:

Place of In Less than Origin 1 Year Don't Know Total

Ixcan 5 1 6

Other 1 16 17

Total 6 17 23

Fisher Exact Test p=.001 (highly significant) phi=.775

were statistically more likely to be in the Pro-Return group

and to be making plans to return within one year than all of

the other ethnic groups combined. The value of phi (.775)

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indicates that there is a high degree of association between

these variables.

YEARS IN EXILE AND REPATRIATION

Many of the refugees mentioned that they were weary of

life in Mexico. They were tired of not having their own

land and tired of putting up with what they thought were

unfair wages and labor expectations. Some refugees said

that they would repatriate, except that they still did not

feel that it was safe to do so. Based on this line of

thinking, I decided to test the association between

"weariness" with exile (measured in the number of years in

exile) and attitudes toward repatriation. Null Hypothesis

#17 is : There is no association between years in exile and

attitudes toward repatriation. The data were grouped, as

shown in Table 31, with those having 10 or more years of

exile in one category, and those with less than 10 years in

exile in the other.

The Fisher Exact Test indicates that the association

between the variables in Table 31 is statistically

significant. Based on this test, the null hypothesis is

rejected and the alternative hypothesis is accepted. The

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phi value (-.575) indicates there is a marked association

between these variables.

TABLE 31

HYPOTHESIS #17: DESIRE TO REPATRIATE AND LENGTH OF EXILE

My family wants to repatriate:

Immediately, Only After an Without Waiting Agreement on Length of for an Agreement Six Conditions Exile on Six Conditions is Reached Total 10 Years or More 2 77 79

9 Years or Less 3 2 5

Total 5 79 84

Fisher Exact Test p=.001 (highly significant) phi= -.575

Null Hypothesis #18 states : There is no association

between the number of years in exile and the anticipation of

repatriation. To test this hypothesis, the data were

grouped so that the Fisher Exact Test could be calculated

(Table 32). It indicates that the association is

statistically significant. Null Hypothesis #18 is,

therefore, rejected, and the alternative hypothesis is

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accepted. Phi (-.470) indicates that there is only a

moderate association between the variables, however.

TABLE 32

HYPOTHESIS #18: LENGTH OF EXILE AND ANTICIPATION OF REPATRIATION

My family plans to repatriate:

Length of In Less than Exile 1 Year D o n 't Know Total

10 Years 4 75 79 or More

9 Years 3 2 5 or Less

Total 7 77 84

Fisher Exact Test p=.003 (significant) phi= -.470

Since the number of years in exile was an interval

scale variable, the Pearson's r test statistic was also

calculated to test this hypothesis. As an alternative

measure of association, the Pearson's r generally supported

the conclusion based on the Fisher Exact Test. "Years in

exile" showed a moderate correlation with both of the

measures of attitudes toward repatriation (desire to

repatriate r=.446; anticipation of repatriation r=.445; for

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both values of r, p=.000).

It is interesting that the association length of time

in exile and attitudes toward repatriation is not the one

that was expected. I assumed that the longer a refugee was

in exile, the more likely he or she would be planning to

return to Guatemala soon. The association, however, is

exactly the opposite. Refugees who had been in exile longer

were more likely to be in the CCPP group. They were also

less likely to be making concrete plans to repatriate. On

the other hand, the refugees from the Ixcan cooperative

area, who averaged fewer years in exile, were more likely to

be in the Pro-Return group. They were more likely to say

they were making plans to repatriate within one year's time.

The refugees from the Ixcan cooperative area averaged 7.8

years in exile, while those from all other areas combined

averaged 10.1 years in exile.

In addition to the Pearson's r, an independent samples

t-test was calculated to compare the years in exile for

those who originated in the Ixcan cooperative area and the

average years for all other refugees in La Huerta. The t-

test showed that the difference between the two groups in

the random sample was not statistically significant

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(t=l-573; at 5.1 degrees of freedom, p=.176). This result

is possibly skewed by the one Kanjobal Indian from the Ixcan

cooperative area who left the Ixcan in 1978. In fact, he

had been in exile longer than any other refugee in La

Huerta.

OTHER IMPORTANT FACTORS WITH

REGARD TO REPATRIATION

In addition to the statistical data that were

collected through the household survey and ethnographic

interviews, there are qualitative data that should also be

included in the analysis of variables that are associated

with attitudes toward repatriation. Some of the themes that

were mentioned repeatedly in the ethnographic interviews

include: personal safety, availability of and access to

social services; ownership of land; work conditions in

Mexico; and perceptions of social and political conditions

in Guatemala. They are all significant since they were

mentioned by numerous informants, not only in La Huerta, but

in all the refugee camps I visited. These informants varied

by age, gender, ethnic group, religious perspective, level

of education, st. cetera.

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The issue of personal safety was often raised during

the interviews that I held in November and December 1591,

and from late May through June 1992. In part, this was

because it was possible to hear the bombing raids the

Guatemalan military was conducting in the Ixcan from the

refugee camps. Sometimes the bombing was actually heard

during the interviews. In some ways, it was difficult to

gauge the significance of hearing the noise on a daily

basis. Outwardly, the women seemed to be the most affected

by it. When they heard it, they would usually stop whatever

they were doing and look up, their eyes taking on a hollow

look of horror. The men in the camps tended to go on with

life as usual. But, when asked to talk about the

differences between life in Mexico and Guatemala, few of my

male informants failed to mention the fact that they felt

safer in Mexico. A number of informants said that one big

difference was, "There are no deaths in Mexico." By this

they meant that there were no mass killings like those they

had experienced in Guatemala. One head of household said:

"Sometimes the [Mexican] army comes here [to the refugee

camps], but it is different from Guatemala. When the army

arrived in our villages there, people would die. Here there

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is more respect for our rights and it is a little more

peaceful."

Aside from the personal experience of hearing the

daily bombings, the refugees received news about

fluctuations of violence in Guatemala. In June, 1992, a

representative of the Mexican army visited La Huerta to tell

the refugees that the war between the Guatemalan army and

the guerrillas was heating up in the Ixcan. He told the

refugees that they would be welcome to stay a little longer

in Mexico as long as they did not offer help to the

guerrillas. One refugee had a brother-in-law who was in the

habit of crossing the border each week to sell his wares in

the market in La Huerta. His village in Guatemala was in

the border area. On one of his trips to La Huerta, he

reported that his village had been bombed just that week.

His eyewitness account of the recent bombing, and the

resulting destruction of houses and animals, had a chilling

effect on his brother-in-law. Also during my fieldwork, the

execution of the mayor of the town of Quetzal (along with

the rest of his family) was announced on short wave radio.

Based on such news of continuing violence, most of the

refugees concluded that it was better to stay in Mexico

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longer, rather than repatriate.

Another commonly mentioned difference between life in

Mexico and Guatemala was the improved availability and

access to social services in Mexico. There was no

statistical significance between the amount of formal

education a head of household had received and their

attitudes toward repatriation. However, when heads of

household were asked about going back to Guatemala, most of

them noted that they liked the fact that their children

could attend school in Mexico. Availability and access to

health services also were improved in Mexico. There were

regular complaints that the Guatemalan government had never

provided these kinds of services for them, and they felt

that they were not likely to receive any such services if

they repatriated.

The issue of land ownership in Guatemala emerged as an

important issue during the ethnographic interviews. Because

I was asked not to inquire about issues related to land

ownership in the household survey, there are no statistical

data for the entire La Huerta refugee community on this

issue. There are, nevertheless, some indications of

differences in anticipation of repatriation along the lines

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of refugees who held title to their land and those who did

not.

Three of the heads of household that I interviewed

held clear title to their land. They knew that no one had

taken their land over and that they had a place to live when

they returned. All three of these men indicated in the

ethnographic interviews that they thought they might

repatriate within a year. This was at odds with the answer

that they each gave during the household survey. At that

time, they all said they did not know when they would

repatriate because they were waiting for the signing of an

agreement with the Guatemalan government. One of these

three heads of household said that he would probably be

repatriating with the Pro-Return group (within three

months), except that his wife's health was fragile. She had

just had an operation in the Comitan hospital. A second one

said: "We would go back immediately except for the

Guatemalan army. They still make our people go out on

sweeps looking for the guerrilla army. We don't want to go

back for that reason. When we think about repatriating, we

always have to think about life" (regarding the PACs, see

Americas Watch 1986) . The third head of household who was a

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land owner said that he had been waiting for an organized,

collective return, based on a signed agreement with the

Guatemalan government. "But," he said, "There are

alternatives to going back collectively." He indicated

that, if the agreement was not signed within one year, he

would probably repatriate anyway. He noted that his son had

already repatriated and wanted him to repatriate too. Thus,

the pull of the extended family seems to have been a factor

here. This is consistent with what is known about Kanjobal

Indians and the extended family ethnographically. It is

also consistent with my interpretation of the rejection of

Null Hypothesis #6, which established a significant

association between living in an extended family and

anticipation of repatriation.

Several of the refugees I interviewed who were not

land owners said that one of the reasons they were waiting

for a collective, negotiated return was that they hoped they

might get some land in the deal. One head of household

said, "We were landless in Guatemala. We are hoping that

the Guatemalan government will agree to give us some land

where we can live and sow our crops when we repatriate."

Most of the refugees who were landless, then, seemed to

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believe that they should wait for the agreement as their

best hope for becoming land owners rather than continuing

as renters or landless peasants.

Some of the refugees who had been in the process of

buying their land were in a particular predicament. They

did not have title to their land when they fled, and many of

their parcels had been sold to new settlers, usually

landless Indians from other language groups. At the time

that I was in the field, the Guatemalan government had still

not responded positively to the condition that said the

refugees had a right to return to the parcels of land they

had fled. Thus, these refugees did not know if they had

land to return to or not. They were putting their hopes in

waiting for a signed agreement, one that would guarantee

their right to get their land back.

It is important that none of the five heads of

household in the Pro-Return group had clear title to their

land. One of them. Head of Household #41, went back to

Guatemala on a land delegation arranged by the CCPP in May

1992, only to find out that a group of Chuj Indians were now

buying the land that he had been buying through his

cooperative. When he fled in 1982, he was very close to

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getting the title for the land. In his absence, the ladino

who owned the land had decided to sell the land to some

other peasants, a group of Chuj Indians. The Chuj Indians,

of course, were not happy to see the refugee owner return to

reclaim his land. Finally, the refugee travelled to

Guatemala City to confront the ladino. who agreed that the

refugee was the proper owner of the land. The ladino said

that he would have the Chuj Indians removed, since they were

only supposed to be living there "temporarily." This, of

course, was not the understanding of the Chuj Indians, who

thought they were buying the land. The ladino told the

refugee he was welcome to return to the parcel, with the

understanding that he would have to start buying the land

all over again. In this way, the ladino was effectively

selling the same piece of real estate three times. My sense

is that many refugees will face this kind of deceitfulness

when they repatriate, and that conflict over land that the

government declared "abandoned" will be frequent and

intense.

As concerns the other four heads of household in the

Pro-Return group, none of them had title to their land, and

none of them was sure that they had a place to live after

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they repatriated. But they all felt like they had a better

chance of obtaining land by going back to Guatemala

immediately and demanding it. They felt that they could not

trust the Guatemalan government, even if it signed an

agreement guaranteeing their right to return to their land.

They planned to hold protests once they were back inside

Guatemala, and to stage take overs of unoccupied lands, to

force the government to give them land.

In the ethnographic interviews, the refugees often

mentioned work conditions in Mexico as a source of

irritation. One elderly refugee said that his son had

repatriated because of conflict over labor conditions. But

the usual response to conflict over non-payment of wages, or

donation of labor for community work, was migration to

another refugee camp, not repatriation. Discontent with

patrons did not seem to have been a big enough problem by

itself to cause refugees to repatriate. The same holds true

for complaints about the lack of available land in the

refugee camps. Though many refugees complained of not

having enough land to sow milpa for their families, land

shortage was not sufficient to induce the refugees to

repatriate.

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The refugees were also very interested in, and

knowledgeable about, current social and political conditions

in Guatemala. They received news from a variety of sources

including: short wave radio reports, Guatemalan and Mexican

newspapers, former neighbors who had repatriated, solidarity

workers, representatives of the CCPP, and trips back to

Guatemala. They knew about the rising costs of food and

other basic necessities. They knew that the army was still

present in the villages where they had lived, and that it

was still forcing peasants to serve in the PACs. They knew

that some of the repatriates who lived along the border

regretted their decision to repatriate, and wanted to come

back to Mexico, but they were afraid they would not be well-

received by COMAR and the Mexican government the second time

around. The refugees knew that the oppression had really

not changed since they left, because the peasants were not

free to form their own political organizations.

The factors discussed in this section were important

considerations for the refugees as they decided whether or

not to repatriate. For the vast majority of them, the

information added up to a decision to wait for a while

longer. Most of the refugees preferred to hold on to the

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hope that, if the Guatemalan government signed an agreement

that included the six conditions they had demanded, they

might be able to return in more safety, and with dignity.

SUMMARY

The Fisher Exact Test was used in this chapter to

determine the probability that the association between the

dependent and independent variables was due to chance. Phi

was used as a measure of the strength of the association

between the dependent and independent variables which were

determined to be statistically significant. As standardized

scores for the Fisher Exact Test, they can be compared to

each other, revealing which of the independent variables

have the strongest associations with the two dependent

variables, and which have the weakest associations (Table

33). The strongest associations between the variables

indicate which independent variables are the best predictors

of attitudes toward repatriation. They might also provide

clues as to the actual behavior of the refugees with regard

to repatriation.

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TABLE 33

PHI VALUES FOR INDEPENDENT VARIABLES SIGNIFICANTLY ASSOCIATED WITH ATTITUDES TOWARD REPATRIATION

Dependent Variables

Independent Desire to Anticipation of Variables Repatriate Repatriation

Family Type not significant .261

Ethnic Group - .499 - .394 Gender - .575 - .470

Years in Exile - .575 - .470

Place of Origin .887 .775

Land Tenure .887 .775

The strongest statistical association established by

my analysis of the data is between the desire to repatriate

immediately, without waiting for an agreement on the six

conditions, and the refugee's place of origin (the Ixcan).

That the value of phi is exactly the same for place of

origin and type of land tenure is most likely a consequence

of the fact that the former determines the latter. Years of

exile and gender have the next strongest associations with a

refugee's desire to repatriate immediately. Refugees who

were relatively recent arrivals and female heads of

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household were equally likely to express their desire to

repatriate immediately. Ethnic group has only a moderate

degree of association with the desire to repatriate

immediately; that is, Mam Indians were somewhat more likely

than members of other ethnic groups to express the desire to

repatriate immediately, without waiting for an accord with

the Guatemalan government. Family type has no statistically

significant association with the desire to repatriate

immediately.

In regard to anticipation of repatriating, place of

origin and land tenure are again the most strongly

associated independent variables. Gender and years in exile

were equally associated with this dependent variable.

Ethnic group also has a moderate degree of association with

the anticipation of repatriation. Finally, family type has

only a low degree association with a refugee's anticipation

of repatriation.

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CONCLUSIONS

In the previous chapters, I have discussed Kanjobal

Indian society and culture and my findings based on my brief

research trip in Guatemala's Ixcan region. The lengthy

ethnographic description and my own research in Guatemala

provide the basis for comparing the quality of life that the

refugees had before the years of the repression with the

lives they were leading in refuge in Mexico. I have written

about the living conditions that the Guatemalan refugees in

Chiapas have endured for over ten years and how they feel

about repatriating to Guatemala. I described in depth the

daily life and general living conditions in one particular

refugee camp. La Huerta. There were a number of strong

associations between several social, political, and economic

variables on the one hand, and variables that measured the

refugees' attitudes toward repatriation on the other. This

chapter contains a summary of the most important findings of

my research on the Guatemalan refugees. It also discusses

344

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the implications of the research findings and the need for

further research.

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS

Chapter 1 provided a very broad description of the

Guatemalan refugees' place of origin in northern

Huehuetenango Department, including the relations between

the various ethnic groups that now live there (Mam,

Jacaltec, Chuj, Kanjobal, and Ladino). The Kanjobal Indians

refer to their homeland in the Western Highlands of

Guatemala as /txotx mamej/ 'land of our ancestors.'

This is more than just a quaint label for the land

they have inhabited for over five centuries. The Indians

from the Western Highlands have a strong and abiding sense

of historical continuity in this region. This is an

affinity that is difficult to measure scientifically, but

one that is demonstrated repeatedly in their economic,

social, religious, and other patterned activities, as

indicated in chapter 2. Most importantly, the Indians'

identity is still grounded in their village of origin. For

example, even after several generations of living away from

San Miguel Acatan, in Nenton municipio and the Ixcan region.

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I met several Kanjobal Indian families that still identified

themselves as "Miguelefios. "

The purpose for such detail in chapters 1 and 2 was

to search for continuity and discontinuity in the lives of

the refugees. I believed that the detailed ethnographic

description was important, not only as background material,

but also as an aid in understanding the refugees' attitudes

toward repatriation. This was based on my assumption that,

if the refugees had continued to live more or less as they

had in the recent past, they would not be necessarily

overeager to return home, especially as long as the

conditions that they fled continued to exist.

In chapter 4, I discussed the results of the first

two phases of my research. By the time I finished Phase

One, I knew that there were at least three distinct stances

on the issue of repatriation among the Guatemalan refugees.

The first stance was characteristic of the majority of

refugees. These refugees were in the majority CCPP faction.

These refugees wanted to return to Guatemala, but only after

the CCPP had negotiated a signed agreement with the

Guatemalan government that would guarantee their rights as

outlined in the "six conditions." The second stance was

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adhered to by a minority of refugees who never wanted to

return to Guatemala. They felt that they would never be

allowed to live in peace in Guatemala, and they never wanted

to relive the horrors of the repression characteristic of

the brutal counter-insurgency campaign from 1981 to 1983.

For these reasons, they had decided to remain in Mexico

permanently. The third stance on repatriation, also a

minority opinion, was characteristic of a newly developed

political faction among the refugees, the Pro-Return

faction. These refugees were demanding immediate

repatriation. They felt that the CCPP leaders were

needlessly delaying the negotiations over the six conditions

to further their own political goals, without concern for

the refugees' living conditions in Mexico.

By the end of Phase One, I had decided to do some

fieldwork of my own in Guatemala. I visited villages around

the Ixil Triangle in Quiché Department and several of the

villages that the refugees had fled in northern

Huehuetenango. This research had several purposes : to

deepen my understanding of the culture area; to look for

continuity and discontinuity between the way of life of the

refugees and that of the Guatemalans who had stayed behind;

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to talk with refugees who had already repatriated to see how

they were being treated; and to talk with some of the

refugees' former neighbors to see how they felt about the

repatriation of the refugees.

I found that, while tension was still high between

the villagers in Guatemala and the military, most of the

people I talked to felt that conditions had improved since

the worst of the repression between 1981 and 1983.

Nevertheless, the military was still very present in Ixcan

region, especially in the Ixil Triangle villages.

Nowhere were the conditions conducive to an easy,

peaceful repatriation process. This conclusion is based on

several findings. First, the conflict between the guerrilla

army and the government army was continuing. As long as

this conflict continues, the peasants will be used as pawns

by both sides. Second, military spokesmen were actively

creating a climate of distrust and hostility toward the

refugees, labeling them communists and guerrilla

sympathizers. The newspapers in Guatemala often quoted

military officers who were opposed to the repatriation of

the refugees because they believed all of the refugees were

communists. In addition to this, there was the case of the

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elderly refugee whom I encountered en route to the villages

north of Barillas. He had returned to Guatemala for a brief

visit to his village to check out the prospects for

repatriating. The elder had been turned away by the

commander of the village's civil patrol because he had not

obtained permission from the military to visit the village.

Third, the land of some of the refugees had been confiscated

by high-ranking military officers, sold to new owners, or

resettled by landless Indians from other parts of Guatemala.

Fourth, the Civil Patrols were still active, and in some

cases participation in the patrols continued to be

involuntary. Fifth, apart from the tensions created by the

military, the repatriates would be returning to a situation

which was already tense due to land scarcity before they

went into refuge. The need to share scarce natural

resources such as land, firewood, and water, would probably

have created conflict between the peasants in the region

even if there had been no counter-insurgency campaign from

1981 to 1983. As one repatriate told me, the people in his

village, who had remained in Guatemala throughout the

repression, were not willing to share these resources with

him and his family after he returned from exile.

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The issue of continuity of life for the refugees is

evaluated in chapter 5, the chapter that discussed life in

La Huerta refugee camp in detail. There is some support for

the assumption that refugees who were able to maintain

continuity were less eager to repatriate quickly. The Pro-

Re turn faction started in the refugee camps in Campeche and

Quintana Roo, and was slower to catch on in Chiapas. The

refugees in Campeche and Quintana Roo had to face a new

climate, with new agricultural seasons and crops, an

unfamiliar landscape, and new diseases. In spite of these

challenges, refugee workers that I interviewed, who were

familiar with the refugee camps in the Yucatan Peninsula,

joked that the refugees had adapted so well there, and had

become so economically productive, that the Mexican

government might not allow the refugees to repatriate. It

is curious then, that agitation to speed up the repatriation

process began in the Yucatan refugee camps, especially when

one considers that the Mexican government owned the land on

which the camps in the Yucatan were built (thus, there was

no conflict with local landlords over land in the Yucatan,

as there was in many Chiapas refugee camps). Perhaps the

refugees who had been removed to the Yucatan beginning in

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1984 were more eager to repatriate because they had not

adapted as well as it had appeared. It is possible that the

refugees felt that, even with their success, they still were

not "home," in the land of their ancestors.

In contrast to the refugees in the Yucatan Peninsula

camps, the refugees in La Huerta (and most of the refugees

in Chiapas) had been able to continue living in the same

climatic zone that they had lived in in Guatemala. This

meant that they were already familiar with the agricultural

seasons, the crops and soils, and the diseases associated

with the climatic zone in which they had found refuge. In

many ways, their daily lives had continued as they had in

the recent past. The men planted milpa for their family's

subsistence, found work as agricultural day-laborers, and

built houses in the way they had done for centuries. Their

social life continued as before, with many of the refugees

continuing to live in joint families, or at least with

kinsmen and former neighbors nearby. Marriage patterns and

customs were still very similar to those described by Oliver

La Farge based on his 1932 ethnographic research (La Farge

1947). And, as for the Indians that identified themselves

as Costumbristas, their religious beliefs continued intact.

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While there was continuity in many areas of life for

the refugees living in Chiapas, the refugees had experienced

many changes in Mexico as well. First, in terms of

economics, nearly all of the refugees complained that they

did not have access to land to plant milpa for their

families' subsistence. Thus, they were dependent on food

supplies from COMAR, the UNHCR, and other international

sources, a fact that was very disconcerting to the refugees.

By contrast, in Guatemala the refugees said they either

owned sufficient land or were able to rent enough

supplemental land to feed their families adequately. This

could be an idealization of the past on the part of the

refugees, since many of them also probably sought work on

the coastal fincas from time to time. There was frequent

tension between the Mexican landlords (ladino and Indian)

and the Guatemalan refugees. Particularly sensitive were

the issues of forced, uncompensated labor, the unilateral

reduction of wages after a labor agreement had supposedly

been reached, non-payment of wages, and the sharing of

natural resources such as water and firewood.

In terms of social services, the refugees in Mexico

learned that the Mexican government supplied its Indian

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peasant population with educational resources and medical

attention. Once they were in exile, the Guatemalan Indians

gained access to these same services. For the first time,

the Guatemalans had schools in each of their villages. The

Indians had started sending their children to school in

greater numbers, both boys and girls, and for longer periods

of time. The refugees had trained education promoters whom

they chose from within their own community. The education

promoters were trained by the Mexican government's refugee

agency, COMAR, and by NGO employees to prepare lesson plans

and write their own text books. In La Huerta, the education

promoters, who were all from the Kanjobal Indian community,

were able to establish successful bilingual programs. In

Guatemala, the few schools that existed had been in Spanish

only. In addition to education, the refugees had their own

health promoters, who were also trained by the Mexican

government and by NGO employees. Although the refugee

communities did not have an abundance of medical supplies,

the training that the health promoters received will be

taken back to Guatemala when they repatriate. In regard to

both education and health, it is likely that the refugees

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will be more demanding of the Guatemalan government than

they were before they went into exile.

In terms of political structure, process, and

awareness, there were a number of changes for the refugees

also. First, the refugees have learned to organize across

language and religious group boundaries. Whereas there may

have been animosity between ethnic and religious groups in

the past, the refugees have learned the value of banding

together for concerted political action. For the refugees

who had been living in the Ixcan cooperatives zone, this

process had already begun. But for many of the refugees who

had lived west of the Ixcan River, this reflects a new way

of thinking. Second, Mexican and international NGOs have

exposed the refugees to their human rights under the

Guatemalan constitution and according to international

agreements such as the United Nations charter and the

Declaration of Rights for Ethnic Minorities. They have also

become more knowledgeable about the international political

and economic structures and processes that have contributed

to their oppression. It is one of the ironies of the

counter-insurgency campaign that the refugees, especially

those who had lived west of the Ixcan River, are more

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politically sophisticated and radical now than they were

before the repression.

Up to the completion of my field research, in

September 1992, the vast majority of the refugees had either

decided to stay in Mexico permanently or to wait for the

CCPP to negotiate a signed agreement with the Guatemalan

government affirming their human rights. The refugee heads

of household carefully weighed the improvements and problems

in their lives as refugees. They also evaluated information

they received about life in Guatemala from newspaper and

radio reports, former neighbors, their own visits to

Guatemala, reports from the CCPP and solidarity workers, and

what they saw and heard for themselves from within the

refugee camp (for example, the daily bombing raids of

communities in the Ixcan that lasted for several months in

succession).

But not all of the refugees supported the CCPP's

official position. The origin and subsequent growth of the

Pro-Return political faction, which demanded immediate

repatriation, required some explanation. In chapter 6, I

evaluated a number of null hypotheses that were designed to

test for statistically significant associations between

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several independent economic, social, and political

variables on the one hand, and two dependent variables that

measured the refugees' attitudes toward repatriation (desire

to repatriate and anticipation of repatriation). My

analysis of the data I collected through the household

survey, suggested that there were no statistically

significant associations between attitudes toward

repatriation and religion, age, education, or the refugee

camp political group to which one belonged. This means that

the attitudes of the refugees in La Huerta in 1992 did not

vary significantly by these variables. With regard to

religion, however, I discussed the reasons why there may

have been no association with attitudes toward repatriation.

This is most likely a result of the fact that most of the

Protestant families in La Huerta had left the community

after a dispute in 1987. I continue to suspect that

religion is an important factor determining the refugees'

behavior.

On the other hand, there were significant

associations between attitudes toward repatriation and

family structure, ethnicity, gender, place of origin in

Guatemala, and years in exile. These associations suggest

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the following conclusions. First, heads of household living

in extended, joint families were less willing (or able) to

predict when they would repatriate than those living in

nuclear families. Those living in nuclear families were

more likely to predict that they would repatriate within one

year. Second, the Mam Indian refugees were more likely to

belong to the Pro-Return faction and to be planning for

repatriation within a year than were the Kanjobal Indians

and the ladinos. The one Kanjobal Indian who was in the

Pro-Return faction was a marginal individual who was not

sure if he had land waiting for him in Guatemala or not. He

was also frustrated that he had not been recognized as a

leader in the refugee community. He thought that he might

become a leader if he went back with the first group of

refugees, where there might be a vacuum with regard to

leadership. Third, female heads of household were more

likely to belong to the Pro-Return faction than were male

heads of household, and were more likely to be planning to

repatriate within one year. One point that should be

emphasized is that 100 percent of the female. Mam Indian

heads of household were in the Pro-Return group. As viudas

'widows,' these Mam women were perhaps the most marginal of

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all the refugees in La Huerta. They had no husbands to work

milpa for them or to provide cash income. They also knew

that they had no land waiting for them in Guatemala, and

believed their best chance for obtaining land was to go back

to Guatemala with the Pro-Return faction and demand it.

Fourth, the refugees who originated in the Ixcan

cooperatives zone were more likely to be in the Pro-Return

faction than the refugees who originated from west of the

Ixcan River. In fact, this was the one variable that

accounted for all five of the refugees in La Huerta who were

in the Pro-Return faction. All of them had lived in the

Ixcan cooperatives zone prior to fleeing to Mexico, though

not every single refugee who had lived in the cooperative

zone was in the Pro-Return faction. The finding with regard

to the place of origin variable is consistent with the

findings for gender and ethnicity, since the Mam Indians had

more readily volunteered for the cooperatives experiment in

the 1960s and 1970s than the Kanjobal Indians.

ADDITIONAL IMPLICATIONS OF RESEARCH FINDINGS

There are a number of observations that can be made

in connection with the theoretical debate between those who

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support official repatriation and those who believe in

spontaneous repatriation. First, the Guatemalan refugees

were not passive in the repatriation process. While they

worked hard to provide their families with the basic

necessities of life, they were busy preparing the conditions

for their own repatriation. They did so by supporting the

CCPP's efforts to negotiate an agreement with the Guatemalan

government. And, when their elected commissioners did not

negotiate fast enough, a small group of refugees splintered

off and formed a new political faction that was dedicated to

speeding up the repatriation process. By the time the CCPP

tried to bring the Pro-Retum faction members back under

their control, the damage was done. The new faction grew

rapidly in numbers and gained political momentum.

Second, the refugees did not wait for incentives from

the Mexican government, the UNHCR, or the Guatemalan

government to repatriate. It is true that many of the

refugees chose to repatriate through official channels, that

is, with the help of COMAR, the UNHCR and the Guatemalan

government. In this particular situation, it would have

been much easier for the refugees to take their belongings

and walk back to their villages, returning by the same paths

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they had walked to arrive. They chose official repatriation

because they wanted the Guatemalan government to recognize

their status as refugees, and because they thought

repatriation through official channels would offer them

somewhat greater security. They did not wait passively for

official agencies to encourage or force them to return. Nor

were they planning to stay in Mexico forever until

international support dwindled. These refugees knew all

along that they wanted to repatriate, but they wanted to do

so on their own terms.

The Pro-Retum splinter faction demonstrates, I

think, the fact that the refugees were attentively

monitoring the human rights situation in Guatemala from

inside Mexico. When they perceived that their lives and

communities were no longer in immediate danger they became

more willing to risk repatriation. Thus, the refugees in

this faction provide a case study of refugees that supports

the spontaneous repatriation theory. That is, when refugees

perceive that the conditions they fled have sufficiently

improved, they will repatriate on their own. The Pro-Return

refugees were not only willing to repatriate without

assistance from the Guatemalan government, but they were

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willing to do so in a politically hostile climate. And if,

as has been suggested, half of the Guatemalan refugees in

Mexico have already repatriated, following the lead of the

Pro-Retum faction, it could be that the Guatemalan refugees

in general could represent a case study that supports the

spontaneous repatriation theory. This will only be known

for certainty with further research.

There are several implications for general research

methodology and techniques that are best suited to theory

building in refugee studies. In terms of methodology, the

approach adopted in this study was inductive. That is, it

uses a specific case study of the attitudes of Guatemalan

refugees toward repatriation as the basis for making broader

generalizations about refugees and repatriation behavior.

These generalizations can be tested for validity in other

refugee settings around the world. Depending on the

results, the generalizations can be confirmed, falsified, or

modified. By testing the generalizations it will be

possible to discover broader patterns of refugee

repatriation behavior.

The combination of research techniques used in

carrying out this research project also has implications for

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future research on refugees. One of the conclusions

concerns the use of group interviews instead of individual

interviews. The group interviews yielded information that

conformed closely to the perspective of the dominant CCPP

refugees faction, while individual interviews revealed more

diversity of answers. This means that individuals who held

opinions that were at variance with the CCPP position were

likely not to share their opinions in group interviews.

Group interviews may provide a quick means for gauging the

dominant political point of view, but may obscure individual

variation. Researchers with limited time in the field may

need to be aware of this tendency toward conformity in group

interviews, and be prepared to change interviewing

techniques depending on the goals of their research.

The use of open-ended, semi-structured interviews in

the first phase of research was helpful in constructing a

reliable survey research instrument for use in the final

research phase. Even though the survey instrument was

reliable, I discovered that some of the refugees gave

answers at the time of the survey that differed from their

answers during more in-depth ethnographic interviews. I do

not believe this was a matter of dishonesty or lack of

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candor on the part of my informants, but a result of the

research technique. For example, during the household

survey, when the refugees in La Huerta were asked whether or

not they wanted to repatriate, the answers were typically

unqualified and fell into two mutually exclusive categories,

with the majority adhering to the CCPP faction's point of

view. Later, when some of these same heads of household

were asked open-ended questions that allowed them to

elaborate on their feelings about repatriation to Guatemala

in their own words, some of the refugees who originally gave

the standard CCPP response gave different answers. Their

responses during the semi-structured ethnographic interviews

tended to be more personalized, usually citing the specific

minimum conditions they would accept before repatriating.

This has obvious implications for the accuracy of data

collected by means of survey in a situation like this.

Using a survey might allow the researcher to interview more

people, but also might result in a loss of insight into

important individual variations. The use of ethnographic

interviews was crucial to obtaining more complete and

accurate information regarding repatriation.

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Another implication for the research techniques used

in this study concerns the benefits of participant

observation. Most refugee policy makers do not spend

extended periods of time in the field gathering data, but

rather are limited to their offices conducting bureaucratic

chores. The impressions that are formed during quick visits

to refugee camps that are more easily accessible, and

talking only to a few key leaders in the community, can be

misleading. For example, I was disappointed, though not

terribly surprised, when Mrs. Ogata, the United Nations High

Commissioner for Refugees, came to visit in Nuevo Libertad,

a "model" refugee camp established by the Mexican

government. She flew in by helicopter and left after about

45 minutes, even though she was scheduled to stay there for

four hours. I do not know what she expected to leam during

that "visit," but I know that she did not formulate any

accurate impressions regarding the overall situation of the

refugees in Chiapas.

While participant observation is a time-consuming and

pain-staking process, I believe that it was essential to

obtaining a more complete understanding of the refugees' way

of thinking. Sharing the refugees' daily life for an

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extended period of time allowed me to gain their confidence.

Refugees who would barely speak to me when I started

conducting research in La Huerta were inviting me to their

homes for meals by the time I finished. This meant that I

did not just get information from the "stranger handlers"

that often serve as the anthropologist's cultural brokers.

I also think that taking a trip home to Washington, DC for

three weeks helped establish the fact that I was a person

who might go away for an extended period of time, but who

would also return, unlike many of the researchers who passed

through the camps. After my vacation from the field,some

of the refugees provided me with more accurate information

about their lives in Guatemala before seeking refuge in

Mexico. Also, working side by side with the refugees in the

fields, sharing meals with them, offering them

transportation to the doctor or hospital, picking up

medicines, and teaching them to write grant proposals helped

to establish rapport and confidence.

SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH

Since the time of my field research, there are

indications that about half of the official refugees in

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Mexico have repatriated, since January 1993. I do not know

the fate of the refugees in Chiapas, or La Huerta more

specifically. I do not know if they have repatriated or if

they are still in refuge. It will be very important to

conduct follow-up research to see if the findings of this

dissertation on the association (or lack of association)

among the specified economic, social, and political

variables and the refugees' attitudes toward repatriation

adequately predicted the actual repatriation behavior of the

refugees. There is also a need for social scientists to

study the repatriation process, from the departure from the

refugee camps in Mexico through resettlement in Guatemala.

Particularly important for future studies with the

Guatemalan refugees would be a study of the Kanjobal women's

attitudes toward repatriation, since they were generally not

included in this study. Such research would likely need to

be done by a female anthropologist, because of the informal

cultural restrictions against foreign males spending time

with Kanjobal women.

In general, more anthropological research needs to be

conducted in refugee settings. Refugees have become a more

important focus of research for anthropologists and other

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social scientists in the last twenty years. This increased

interest parallels the enormous growth in the refugee

population around the world. Anthropologists have a unique

set of research tools, including extended participant

observation and ethnographic interviewing, that can be used

to record detailed information about the refugees' lives and

their thoughts about repatriation. Through the comparison

of detailed case studies, policy makers can formulate a

broader picture of the reality of refugees, which can lead

to better informed theories about refugee behavior. This

information can be used to formulate refugee policies that

are rational, effective, and humane.

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A LIST OF MAM INDIAN TOWNS IN HUEHUETENANGO DEPARTMENT

1. La Libertad 2. San Pedro Nexta 3. Santiago Chimaltenango 4. Todos Santos Cuchumatan 5. San Juan Atitân 6. Cuilco 7. San Gaspar Ixchil 8. Colotenango 9. San Rafael Pétzal 10. San Sebastian Huehuetenango 11. Chiantla 12. Santa Barbara 13. Malacatancito 14. Tectitan 15. San Ildefonso Ixtahuacan

This information is based on a list of villages composed by- Nora England (England 1983). There are other Mam villages in other Departments.

368

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ALTITUDE OF SELECTED KANJOBAL VILLAGES

Village : Altitude (in feet): San Miguel Acatan 4,921 San Rafael Independcia 7,546 San Juan Ixcoy 6,561 Soloma 6,561 Santa Eulalia 8,300 Barillas 5,249 Quetzal 6,561

369

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COMPARISON OF THREE CALENDARS USED CONCURRENTLY

BY THE KANJOBAL INDIANS

/7aab'il/ tonalamatl Gregorian calendar calendar calendar

1 1 /watan/ January 1 2 2 /kana7/ January 2 3 3 /7ab'ak/ January 3 4 4 /tox/ January 4 5 5 /chej/ January 5 6 6 /lamb'at/ January 6 7 7 /mulu/ January 7 8 8 /7elab'/ January 8 9 9 /b'atz'/ January 9 10 10 /7eyup/ January 10 11 11 /b'en/ January 11 12 12 /7ix/ January 12 13 13 /tz'ikin/ January 13 14 1 /txab'in/ January 14 15 2 /kixk'ap/ January 15 16 3 /txinax/ January 16 17 4 /k'aq/ January 17 18 5 /7ajau/ January 18 19 6 /7imuj/ January 19 20 7 /7i"q/ January 20

uinal two 1 8 /watan/ January 21 2 9 /kana7/ January 22 3 10 /7ab'ak/ January 23 4 11 /tox/ January 24 5 12 /chej/ January 25

370

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6 13 /lamb'at/ January 26 7 1 /mulu/ January 27 8 2 /7elab'/ January 28 9 3 /b'atz'/ January 29 10 4 /7eyup/ January 30 11 5 / b 'en/ January 31 12 6 /7ix/ February 1 13 7 /tz'ikin/ February 2 14 8 /txab'in/ February 3 15 9 /kixk'ap/ February 4 16 10 /txinax/ February 5 17 11 / k 'aq/ February 6 18 12 /7ajau/ February 7 19 13 /7imux/ February 8 20 1 /7irq/ February 9

For the year represented in this Appendix, 1 /watan/ is the 'year-bearer.' 1 /watan/ will be the year-bearer for the entire /7aab'il/ '365-day year. Note that /watan/ reappears as the day name for the first day of each of the 18 twenty- day periods of the current /7aab'il/. After the passing of that /7aab'il/, 1 /watan/ will not become year-bearer again for 52 years. The /7aab'il/ and tonalamtl calendars are used together for divination purposes, each unique combination of day name and numbers has a meaning that can be interpreted for individual, family, or village events.

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DISSERTATION RESEARCH SCHEDULE

Phase Time Spent Research Activity October 15, 1991 to Overview of Mexican refugee December 31, 1991 camps : semi-structured interviews with refugee leaders and refugee workers

II January 1, 1992 to Research visits to February 15, 1992 communities in Guatemala, especially the northern regions of the Departments of Quiché and Huehuetenango; informal interviews with people who had returned from refuge in Mexico and internal displacement, non government organization employees assisting the repatriates and returnees, and with people who had refused to flee into internal or external exile.

Ill February 16, 1992 to Focus on refugee life in La May 2, 1992 Huerta refugee camp; participant observation,- household census and structured interviews with all heads of household; Kanjobal language study

Break May 2, 1992 to Return to Washington, DC for May 21, 1992 brief vacation

372

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Phase Time Spent Research Activity

III, May 22, 1992 to Continued focus on La cont'd September 18, 1992 Huerta; participant observation; informal visiting and interviews,- semi-structured interviews with 30 randomly selected heads of household; more Kanjobal language study

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. A P P E N D IX 5

1991 LIST OF UNHCR/COMAR SPONSORED REFUGEE CAMPS

IN CHIAPAS, MEXICO, BY ZONE AND MUNICIPIQ

Xo. Zona Maravilla Tenejapa Municipio 1. Maravilla Tenejapa* Margaritas 2. San Mateo Zapotal " 3. Bella Illusion " 4. Guadalupe Miramar I* " 5. Guadalupe Miramar II " 6. Santo Domingo las Palmas* " 7. El Paraiso* " 8. Macaltan Zacualtipan " 9. Sacchen Zacualtipan " 10. Zaculeu Zacualtipan " 11. Quetzal Zacualtipan " 12. San Francisco Zacualtipan* " 13. La Huerta* "

II. Zona Nuevo Jerusalén Municipio 14. Nuevo Jerusalén* Margaritas 15. Amatitlan " 16. Ninos Heroes I " 17. Ninos Heroes II " 18. Gallo Giro* " 19. Nuevo Jardin* " 20. La Caoba " 21. El Jabali

III. Zona Nuevo Huixtan Municipio 22. Nuevo Huixtan* Margaritas 23. San Antonio Los Montes " 24. Rancho Alegre " 25. San Carlos del Rio " 26. Rizo de Oro* " 27. Nuevo Santo Thomas* "

374

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28. José Castillo Tielemans* 29. Poza Rica* 30. Poza Rica Sacchen 31. Nuevo San Juan Chamula Pacayal* 32. Nuevo San Juan Chamula Xoxlâc 33. Nuevo San Juan Chamula Concepcion

I2L. Zona Amparo Agua linta Municipio. 34. Amparo Agua Tinta* Margaritas 35. San José Zapotâl 36. Rancho Saltillo 37 . Santa Martha Independencia 38 . Rancho Guanajuato " 39 . San Pedro I " 40 . San Pedro II " 41. Santa Martha Rancho Los Laureles " 42 . Santa Rosa El Coban Margaritas 43 . Amparo Agua Tinta Buenavista* " 44 . Amparo Agua Tinta Poblado " 45 . Ojo de Agua* "

Zona JEinai del Eio Municipio 46. Pinal del Rio Independencia 47. Santa Maria 48. Rancho El Mirador 49. Rancho Buena Vista 50. Rancho Flor de Café 51. San José Belén 52. Rancho La Dorada 53. La Esperanza 54. Rancho San Caralampio 55. Rancho Argobia 56. Francisco Madero I 57. Francisco Madero Egipto* 58. Francisco Madero Isla

ZL Zona Cuauhtemoc Municipio 59 Cuauhtémoc Colonia Trinitaria 60 Cocal Campo 61 Cuauhtémoc Yalambojox I 62 Cuauhtémoc Cienega 63 Cuauhtémoc Barrillas 64 Benito Juarez (Km 19)*

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65. El Porvenir* 66. El Porvenir Yalam Bojox II 67. Antela Tierra Blanca 68. Antela Aguacate 69. Antela Quetzal 70. Santiago El Vértice 71. Rancho San Lorenzo* 72. Ocotal I 73. Rancho Tepancuâpan* 74. Rancho San José

V II. Zona La Gloria Muni.cipio 75. La Gloria* Trinitaria

VIII. Lana Gi.enaguit.as. Municipio 76. Cienaguitas Trinitaria 77. Vicente Guerrero 78. José Maria Morelos

IX. Zona Tierra Blanca Municipio 79. Tierra Blanca Comalapa 80. La Flor 81. Benito Juarez 82. Nicolas Bravo 83. Sinaloa Zapotâl 84. Sinaloa Colonia 85. San Caralampio I 86. San Caralampio II

2L. Zona Paso Hondo Municipio. 87. Paso Hondo ElAnonal Comalapa 88. Santa Elena ElLagartero Trinitaria 89. Sunzapote Comalapa 90. Jaboncillo " 91. El Mango " 92. San Antonio Buena Vista Jaboncillo " 93. El Bosque " 94. El Cuadro " 95. Santa Apolonia " 96. Sabinalito " 97. Guadalupe Amatenango de la Frontera 98. Chicharras Santo Domingo "

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XI ■■ Zona Santa Rosa Municipio 99. Santa Rosa Comalapa 100. 9 de Septiembre I " 101. 9 de Septiembre II " 102. Santa Cruz " 103. El Chilar I " 104. El Chilar II " 105. Cocalito I " 106. Cocalito II " 107. Santa Rosa Costa Rica " 108. Rancho Obispo " 109. La Novia " 110. La Sabinada " 111. Rancho El Sabinada Huaracha "

XII. Zona Chicharras Municipio 112. Chicharras Lajas San Pedro Bellovista 113. Chicharras Cueva del Arco " 114. Loma de Ocote " 115. Frontera Pacayal Loma " 116. Laguna Larga Amatenango de la Frontera 117. Pacayalito I " 118. Pacayalito II " 119. Barrio Cuernavaca Comalapa 120. Chicharras El Carmélite " 121. Barrio Delicias " 122. Rancho Villa Ley " 123. Bella Vista del Norte "

XIII. Lona Nueva Libertad Municipio 124. Nueva Libertad* Comalapa (aka El Colorado)

* = a camp that was visited by the researcher

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HOUSEHOLD SURVEY USED DURING PHASE THREE

378

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CODEBOOK

1-9 FECHA Fecha de intrevista (dia/mes/ano)

10-11 INVESTIG Numéro de investigador (l=Steven 2=Diego 3=other)

12-16 CMPTO Nombre del Campamento (l=La Huerta 2= 3= _

17-18 GRUPO (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

19-23 NOCASA Numéro de casa. (001-999)

24-28 NODEPADRE Numéro de padre de familia. (001-999)

29 TECHOTYP Typo de techo (l=paja; 2=lâmina de carton; 3=lamina galvanizada; 4=otro)

30 FAMTYP Typo de estructura familiar (l=nuclear 2=multiple 3=otro)

31-34 NOPERSONA Numéro del individuo.

35 PADRE? C.ES la persona denominado un padre de familia? (l=si 2=no)

36 SEXO Sexo de cada persona (l=barrôn 2=embera)

382

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37-39 EDAD ^Cuantos anos tiene cada quien? (<1 -120) 40 SÎTRABAJA c,Trabaj a para ganar ingreso cada persona? (l=sl 2=no)

41-42 TRABAJOUNO £Cual es el trabajo principal de cada quien? (l=campo; 2=artesania; 3=promotôr de education; 4=alma de casa; 5=sastrerxa; 6=promotôr de salûd; 7=escuela; 8=sCore owner; 9=carpintero; 10=otro )

43-44 TRABAJODOS Si hay otro trabajo, &Cual es el otro trabajo de cada quien? (l=campo; 2=artesania; 3=promotôr de education; 4=alma de casa; 5=sastrerxa; 6=protnotôr de salûd; 7=escuela; 8=store owner; 9=carpintero; 10 =ot ro______)

45-47 RELIGION &Cual es la religion de cada quien? (l=no es religiose ; 2=Acciôn Catolico; 3=Costumbrista; 4=Catôlico Carismâtico; 5=Iglesia Centro Americana; 6=Pentecostes; 7=Testigos de Jehovâ; 8=Iglesia de Dios; 9=Presbyteriano; 10=Metodista; ll=Bautista; 12=Iglesia de Verbo; 13=otro ______)

48-49 ESCUELA iCuântos anos de escuela ha cumplido cada quien? (0-16)

50-51 IDIOMA iCuâl es la idioma materna de cada quien? (l=Espahol; 2=Kanjobal; 3=Mam; 4=Chuj; 5=Jacalteco; 6=Quiché; 7=Ixil; 8=Kekchx; 9=otro______)

52-60 HUIDA ^Cuando saliô de de Guatemala para buscar réfugie en Mexico (la fecha, dia, mes, ano) ? (_/_/_)

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61 PRIMERA cEra la primera vez que fuiste a Mexico? (l=si 2=no)

62-64 DURACION cCuântos anos llevas en esta campamento? (<1-13)

65 RELOCACION ôCuântas veces han cambiado campamentos? (0-9)

66 RETORNO cQuiere retomar a Guatemala? (l=Estoy liste para retornar inmediatamente; 2=Nunca quiero r e tomar; 3=Si, quiero retomar, sino solo despues de firmar un acuerdo sobre las seis condiciones; 4=otro______)

67 CUANDO cCuândo crees que tu vas a repatriar con tu familia? (l=en très meses; 2=en seis meses; 3=en un ano; 4=en dos anos; 5=mâs de dos anos; 6=saber....)

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HEADS OF HOUSEHOLD BY GROUP AND ANTICIPATION OF REPATRIATION

My family plans to repatriate in:

Less than Less than Faction 3 Months 1 Year Don't Know Total Pro-Return 4 1 0 5 CCPP 0 2 77 79

Total 4 3 77 84

APPENDIX 10

DESIRE TO REPATRIATE BY RELIGION

My family wants to repatriate:

Prior to After Agreement Agreement on Six on Six Religion Conditions Conditions Total

Non-religious 1 1 2

Catholic 3 41 44 Costumbre 1 35 36 Protestant 0 2 2

Total 5 79 84

388

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RELIGION AND ANTICIPATION OF REPATRIATION

My family plans to repatriate:

Within 3 Within 1 Don't Religion Months Year Know Total

Non-religious 1 0 1 2

Catholic 2 2 40 44

Costumbre 1 1 34 36

Protestant 0 0 2 2

Total 4 3 77 84

APPENDIX 12

AGE GROUP AND ANTICIPATION OF REPATRIATION

My family plans to repatriate:

Within 3 Within 1 Age Group Month Year D o n 't Know Total

17-30 2 1 36 39

31-76 2 2 41 45

Total 4 3 77 84

389

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FAMILY STRUCTURE AND ANTICIPATION OF REPATRIATION

My family plans to repatriate:

Family Within 3 Within 1 Structure Months Year Don't Know Total

Nuclear 4 3 41 48

Joint 0 0 36 36

Total 4 3 77 84

APPENDIX 14

EDUCATION AND ANTICIPATION OF REPATRIATION

My family plans to repatriate:

Years of Formal Within 3 Within 1 Education Months Year Don't Know Total

0-3 4 3 71 78

More than 0 0 6 6 3 Total 4 3 77 84

390

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DESIRE TO REPATRIATE AND ETHNICITY

My family wants to repatriate:

Prior to After Agreement Ethnic Agreement on Six on Six Group Conditions Conditions Total

Ladino 0 3 3 Kanj obal 1 72 73

Mam 4 3 7

Kekchx 0 1 1

Total 5 79 84

APPENDIX 16

ETHNICITY AND ANTICIPATION OF REPATRIATION

My family plans to repatriate :

Within 3 Within 1 Ethnic Group Months Year Don't Know Total

Ladino 0 0 3 3

Kanj obal 1 2 70 73

Mam 3 1 3 7

Kekchi 0 0 1 1

Total 4 3 77 84

391

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GENDER AND ANTICIPATION OF REPATRIATION

My family plans to repatriate:

Within 3 Within 1 Gender Months Year Don't Know Total

Male 1 3 75 79

Female 3 0 2 5 Total 4 3 77 84

APPENDIX 18

DESIRE TO REPATRIATE AND POLITICAL FACTIONS

My family wants to repatriate:

Prior to After Political Agreement on Six Agreement on Factions Conditions Six Conditions Total

1 1 23 24

2 1 4 5

3 3 16 19

4 0 11 11

5 0 12 12

6 0 13 13

Total 5 79 84

392

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DESIRE TO REPATRIATE AND PLACE OF ORIGIN IN GUATEMALA

My family wants to repatriate:

Prior to After Place of Agreement on Agreement on Origin Six Conditions Six Conditions Total

Alta Verapaz 0 1 1

Chancolin 0 4 4

Ixcan 5 1 6

Xoxlac 0 5 5

Border Area 0 8 7

Total 5 18 23

393

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. REFERENCES CITED

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394

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Bermudez, Fernando 1986 Death and Resurrectionin Guatemala. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Press.

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1989 Internal and External Identity Among Kanjobal Refugees in Florida. IN Conflict, Migration, and the Expression of Ethnicity. Nancie Gonzalez and C. McCommon, eds. Pp. 46-59. Boulder: Westview Press.

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Davis, Shelton H. 1970 Land of Our Ancestors : A Study of Land Tenure and Inheritance in the Highlands of Guatemala. Ph.D. dissertation. Harvard University.

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1973b The Semantics of Social Categories in a Transformational Grammar of Jacaltec. IN Meaning in Mayan Languages. M.S. Edmonson, ed. Pp. 85- 105. The Hague : Mouton.

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Edmonson, Munro S. 1960 Nativism and Syncretism. New Orleans : Tulane University.

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England, Nora C. 1983 A Grammar of Mam, a Mayan Language. Austin: University of Texas Press.

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1988 Struggle for Survival in the Mountains: Hunger and Other Privations Inflicted on Internal Refugees from the Central Highlands. IN Harvest of Violence: The Maya Indians and the Guatemalan Crisis. Robert M. Carmack, ed. Pp. 235-255. Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press.

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Glaser, Barney G. and Anselm L. Strauss 1967 The Discovery of Grounded Theory : Strategies for Qualitative Research. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.

Gleijeses, Piero 1991 Shattered Hopes: The Guatemalan Revolution and the United States, 1944-1954. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Gonzalez, Gaspar Pedro 1995 A Mayan Life. Rancho Palos Verdes, CA: Yax Te' Press.

Grollig, Francis Xavier 1959 San Miguel Acatan, Huehuetenango, Guatemala. A Modern Mayan Village. Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University, Indiana.

Guiteras Holmes, Calixta 1992 Cancuc: Etnografia de un Pueblo Tzeltal de los Altos de Chiapas, 1944. Chiapas, México: Gobierno del Estado de Chiapas.

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Harbury, Jennifer 1994 Bridge of Courage: Life Stories of the Guatemalan Companeros and Compareras. Monroe, Maine : Common Courage Press.

Harrell-Bond, Barbara 1989 Repatriation: Under What Conditions is it the Most Desirable Solution for Refugees? An Agenda for Research. African Studies Review 32:31-39.

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Hill, Robert M. 1992 Colonial Cakchiquels: Highland Maya Adaptations to Spanish Rule. 1600-1700. Fort Worth: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich.

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