I, Rigoberta Menchu

by Rigoberta Menchu

  The ceremony is very important. It is also when the child is considered a child of God, our one father. We don’t actually have the word God but that is what it is, because the one father is the only one we have. To reach this one father, the child must love beans, maize, the earth. The one father is the heart of the sky; that is, the sun. The sun is the father and our mother is the moon. She is a gentle mother. And she lights our way. Our people have many notions about the moon, and about the sun. They are the pillars of the universe.

  When children reach ten years old, that’s the moment when their parents and the village leaders talk to them again. They tell them that they will be young men and women and that one day they will be fathers and mothers. This is actually when they tell the child that he must never abuse his dignity, in the same way his ancestors never abused their dignity. It’s also when they remind them that our ancestors were dishonoured by the white man, by colonization. But they don’t tell them the way that it’s written down in books, because the majority of Indians can’t read or write, and don’t even know that they have their own texts. No, they learn it through oral recommendations, the way it has been handed down through the generations. They are told that the Spaniards dishonoured our ancestors’ finest sons, and the most humble of them. And it is to honour these humble people that we must keep our secrets. And no-one except we Indians must know. They talk a lot about our ancestors. And the ten-years ceremony is also when our children are reminded that they must respect their elders, even though this is something their parents have been telling them ever since they were little. For example, if an old person is walking along the street, children should cross over to allow him to pass by. If any of us sees an elderly person, we are obliged to bow and greet them. Everyone does this, even the very youngest. We also show respect to pregnant women. Whenever we make food, we always keep some for any of our neighbours who are pregnant.

  When little girls are born, the midwives pierce their ears at the same time as they tie their umbilical cords. The little bags round their necks and the thread used to tie their umbilical cord are both red. Red is very significant for us. It means heat, strength, all living things. It’s linked to the sun, which for us is the channel to the one God, the heart of everything, of the universe. So red gives off heat and fire and red things are supposed to give life to the child. At the same time, it asks him to respect living things too. There are no special clothes for the baby. We don’t buy anything special beforehand but just use pieces of corte to wrap him in.

  When a male child is born, there are special celebrations, not because he’s male but because of all the hard work and responsibility he’ll have as a man. It’s not that machismo doesn’t exist among our people, but it doesn’t present a problem for the community because it’s so much part of our way of life. The male child is given an extra day alone with his mother. The usual custom is to celebrate a male child by killing a sheep or some chickens. Boys are given more, they get more food because their work is harder and they have more responsibility. At the same time, he is head of the household, not in the bad sense of the word, but because he is responsible for so many things. This doesn’t mean girls aren’t valued. Their work is hard too and there are other things that are due to them as mothers. Girls are valued because they are part of the earth, which gives us maize, beans, plants and everything we live on. The earth is like a mother which multiplies life. So the girl child will multiply the life of our generation and of our ancestors whom we must respect. The girl and the boy are both integrated into the community in equally important ways, the two are inter-related and compatible. Nevertheless, the community is always happier when a male child is born and the men feel much prouder. The customs, like the tying of the hands and feet, apply to both boys and girls.

  Babies are breastfed. It’s much better than any other sort of food. But the important thing is the sense of community. It’s something we all share. From the very first day, the baby belongs to the community, not only to the parents, and the baby must learn from all of us…in fact, we behave just like bourgeois families in that, as soon as the baby is born, we’re thinking of his education, of his well-being. But our people feel that the baby’s school must be the community itself, that he must learn to live like all the rest of us. The tying of the hands at birth also symbolizes this; that no-one should accumulate things the rest of the community does not have and he must know how to share, to have open hands. The mother must teach the baby to be generous. This way of thinking comes from poverty and suffering. Each child is taught to live like the fellow members of his community.

  We never eat in front of pregnant women. You can only eat in front of a pregnant woman if you can offer something as well. The fear is that, otherwise, she might abort the baby or that the baby could suffer if she didn’t have enough to eat. It doesn’t matter whether you know her or not. The important thing is sharing. You have to treat a pregnant woman differently from other women because she is two people. You must treat her with respect so that she recognizes it and conveys this to the baby inside her. You instinctively think she’s the image of the baby about to be born. So you love her. Another reason why you must stop and talk to a pregnant woman is because she doesn’t have much chance to rest or enjoy herself. She’s always worried and depressed. So when she stops and chats a bit, she can relax and feel some relief.

  When the baby joins the community, with him in the circle of candles–together with his little red bag–he will have his hoe, his machete, his axe and all the tools he will need in life. These will be his playthings. A little girl will have her washing board and all the things she will need when she grows up. She must learn the things of the house; to clean, to wash and sew her brothers’ trousers, for example. The little boy must begin to live like a man, to be responsible and learn to love the work in the fields. The learning is done as a kind of game. When the parents do anything they always explain what it means. This includes learning prayers. This is very important to our people. The mother may say a prayer at any time. Before getting up in the morning, for instance, she thanks the day which is dawning because it might be a very important one for the family. Before lighting the fire, she blesses the wood because that fire is going to cook food for the whole family. Since it’s the little girl who is closest to her mother, she learns all of this. Before washing the nixtamal, the woman blows on her hands and puts them in the nixtamal. She takes everything out and washes it well. She blows on her hands so that her work will bear fruit. She does it before she does the wash as well. She explains all these little details to her daughter, who learns by copying her. With the men it’s the same. Before they start work every day, whatever hour of the morning it is, they greet the sun. They remove their hats and talk to the sun before starting work. Their sons learn to do it too, taking off their little hats to talk to the sun. Naturally, each ethnic group has its own forms of expression. Other groups have different customs from ours. The meaning of their weaving patterns, for example. We realize the others are different in some things, but the one thing we have in common is our culture. Our people are mainly peasants, but there are some people who buy and sell as well. They go into this after they’ve worked on the land. Sometimes when they come back from working in the finca, instead of tending a little plot of land, they’ll start a shop and look for a different sort of life. But if they’re used to greeting the sun every morning, they still go on doing it. And they keep all their old customs. Every part of our culture comes from the earth. Our religion comes from the maize and bean harvests which are so vital to our community. So even if a man goes to try and make some money, he never forgets his culture springs from the earth.

  As we grow up we have a series of obligations. Our parents teach us to be responsible; just as they have been responsible. The eldest son is responsible for the house. Whatever the father cannot correct is up to the eldest son to correct. He is like a second father to us all and is responsible for our upbringing. The mother is the one who is respo
nsible for keeping an account of what the family eats, and what she has to buy. When a child is ill, she has to get medicine. But the father has to solve a lot of problems too. And each one of us, as we grow up, has our own small area of responsibility. This comes from the promises made for the child when he is born, and from the continuity of our customs. The child can make the promise for himself when his parents have taught him to do it. The mother, who is closest to the children, does this, or sometimes the father. They talk to their children, explaining what they have to do and what our ancestors used to do. They don’t impose it as a law, but just give the example of what our ancestors have always done. This is how we all learn our own small responsibilities. For example, the little girl begins by carrying water, and the little boy begins by tying up the dogs when the animals are brought into the yard at night, or by fetching a horse which has wandered off. Both girls and boys have their tasks and are told the reasons for doing them. They learn responsibility because if they don’t do their little jobs, well, their father has the right to scold them, or even beat them. So, they are very careful about learning to do their jobs well, but the parents are also very careful to explain exactly why the jobs have to be done. The little girl understands the reasons for everything her mother does. For example, when she puts a new earthenware pot on the fire for the first time, she hits it five times with a branch, so that it knows its job is to cook and so that it lasts. When the little girl asks, ‘Why did you do that?’, her mother says, ‘So that it knows what its job is and does it well.’ When it’s her turn to cook, the little girl does as her mother does. Again this is all bound up with our commitment to maintain our customs and pass on the secrets of our ancestors. The elected fathers of the community explain to us that all these things come down to us from our grandfathers and we must conserve them. Nearly everything we do today is based on what our ancestors did. This is the main purpose of our elected leader–to embody all the values handed down from our ancestors. He is the leader of the community, a father to all our children, and he must lead an exemplary life. Above all, he has a commitment to the whole community. Everything that is done today, is done in memory of those who have passed on.

  III

  THE NAHUAL

  ‘That night he spent howling like a coyote while he slept as a person.

  To become animal, without ceasing to be a person.

  Animal and person coexist in them through the will of their progenitors at birth.’

  —Miguel Angel Asturias, Men of Maize.

  Every child is born with a nahual. The nahual is like a shadow, his protective spirit who will go through life with him. The nahual is the representative of the earth, the animal world, the sun and water, and in this way the child communicates with nature. The nahual is our double, something very important to us. We conjure up an image of what our nahual is like. It is usually an animal. The child is taught that if he kills an animal, that animal’s human double will be very angry with him because he is killing his nahual. Every animal has its human counterpart and if you hurt him, you hurt the animal too.

  Our days are divided into dogs, cats, bulls, birds, etc. There is a nahual for every day. If a child is born on a Wednesday, his nahual is a sheep. The day of his birth decides his nahual. So for a Wednesday child, every Wednesday is special. Parents know what a child’s behaviour will be from the day of the week he is born. Tuesday is a bad day to be born because the child will grow up bad-tempered. That is because Tuesday’s nahual is a bull and bulls are always angry. The child whose nahual is a cat will like fighting with his brothers and sisters.

  We have ten sacred days, as our ancestors have always had. These ten days have their nahual. They can be dogs, cats, horses, bulls, but they can also be wild animals, like lions. Trees can be nahual too: trees chosen by our ancestors many centuries ago. A nahual is not always only one animal. With dogs, for example, nine dogs represent a nahual. Or in the case of horses, three. It can vary a lot. You don’t know how many in fact, or rather, only the parents know the number of animals which go to make the nahuals of these ten special days. For us the meekest days are Wednesday, Monday, Saturday and Sunday. Their nahuals are sheep, or birds or animals which don’t harm other animals.

  All this is explained to young people before they get married so that when they have children they know which animal represents each day. One very important thing they have to remember is not to tell the child what his nahual is until he is grown up. We are only told what our nahual is when our personalities are formed and our parents see what our behaviour is normally. Otherwise a child might take advantage of his nahual. For example, if his nahual is a bull, he might like fighting and could say: ‘I behave like this because I’m such and such an animal and you must put up with me.’ If a child doesn’t know his nahual he cannot use it as an excuse. He may be compared to the animal, but that is not identifying him with his nahual. Younger children don’t know the nahual of their elder brothers and sisters. They are only told all this when they are mature enough and this could be at any age between ten and twelve. When this happens the animal which is his nahual is given to him as a present. If it is a lion, however, it is replaced by something else. Only our parents, or perhaps other members of the community who were there when we were born, know the day of our birth. People from other villages don’t know and they are only told if they become close friends.

  A day only has a special meaning if a child is born on it. If no baby is born on any one Tuesday, it is of no interest to anyone. That is, there is no celebration. We often come to love the animal which is our nahual even before we know what it is. Although we love all the natural world, we are often drawn to one particular animal more than to others. We grow to love it. Then one day we are told that it is our nahual. All the kingdoms which exist on this earth are related to man. Man is part of the natural world. There is not one world for man and one for animals, they are part of the same one and lead parallel lives. We can see this in our surnames. Many of us have surnames which are the names of animals. Quej, meaning horse, for example.

  We Indians have always hidden our identity and kept our secrets to ourselves. This is why we are discriminated against. We often find it hard to talk about ourselves because we know we must hide so much in order to preserve our Indian culture and prevent it being taken away from us. So I can only tell you very general things about the nahual. I can’t tell you what my nahual is because that is one of our secrets.

  IV

  FIRST VISIT TO THE FINCA. LIFE IN THE FINCA

  ‘This is why there is no hope of winning the hearts of our people.’

  —Rigoberta Menchú

  After forty days, when the child is fully integrated into the community, the routine of going down to the fincas begins.

  From when I was very tiny, my mother used to take me down to the finca, wrapped in a shawl on her back. She told me that when I was about two, I had to be carried screaming onto the lorry because I didn’t want to go. I was so frightened I didn’t stop crying until we were about half-way there. I remember the journey by lorry very well. I didn’t even know what it was, but I knew I hated it because I hate things that smell horrible. The lorry holds about forty people. But in with the people go the animals (dogs, cats, chickens) which the people from the Altiplano take with them while they are in the finca. We have to take our animals. It sometimes took two nights and a day from my village to the coast. During the trip the animals and the small children used to dirty the lorry and you’d get people vomiting and wetting themselves. By the end of the journey, the smell–the filth of people and animals–was unbearable.

  The lorry is covered with a tarpaulin so you can’t see the countryside you’re passing through. Most of the journey is spent sleeping because it’s so tedious. The stuffiness inside the lorry with the cover on, and the smell of urine and vomit, make you want to be sick yourself just from being in there. By the time we got to the finca, we were totally stupefied; we were like chickens coming out of
a pot. We were in such a state, we could hardly walk to the finca. I made many trips from the Altiplano to the coast, but I never saw the countryside we passed through. We heard other lorries and cars, but we didn’t ever see them. We never saw any other villages on the way. I saw the wonderful scenery and places for the first time when we were thrown out of the finca and had to pay our own way back on the bus.

  I remember that from when I was about eight to when I was about ten, we worked in the coffee crop. And after that I worked on the cotton plantations further down the coast where it was very, very hot. After my first day picking cotton, I woke up at midnight and lit a candle. I saw the faces of my brothers and sisters covered with mosquitos. I touched my own face, and I was covered too. They were everywhere; in people’s mouths and everywhere. Just looking at these insects and thinking about being bitten set me scratching. That was our world. I felt that it would always be the same, always the same. It hadn’t ever changed.