I, Rigoberta Menchu

by Rigoberta Menchu

  —Popul Vuh

  From very small children we receive an education which is very different from white children, ladinos. We Indians have more contact with nature. That’s why they call us polytheistic. But we’re not polytheistic…or if we are, it’s good, because it’s our culture, our customs. We worship–or rather not worship but respect–a lot of things to do with the natural world, the most important things for us. For instance, to us, water is sacred. Our parents tell us when we’re very small not to waste water, even when we have it. Water is pure, clean, and gives life to man. Without water we cannot survive, nor could our ancestors have survived. The idea that water is sacred is in us children, and we never stop thinking of it as something pure. The same goes for the earth. Our parents tell us: ‘Children, the earth is the mother of man, because she gives him food.’ This is especially true for us whose life is based on the crops we grow. Our people eat maize, beans and plants. We can’t eat ham, or cheese, or things made with equipment, with machines. So we think of the earth as the mother of man, and our parents teach us to respect the earth. We must only harm the earth when we are in need. This is why, before we sow our maize, we have to ask the earth’s permission.

  Pom, copal, is a sacred ingredient for our people. We use it to express our feelings for the earth, so that she will allow us to cultivate her. Copal is the resin of a tree. It has a smell like incense. We burn it and it gives off a very strong smell: a smoke with a very rich, delicious, aroma. We use the candle, water and lime a great deal in our ceremonies. We use candles to represent the earth, water and maize, which is the food of man. We believe (and this has been passed down to us by our ancestors) that our people are made of maize. We’re made of white maize and yellow maize. We must remember this. We put a candle out for man, as the son of the natural world, the universe, and the members of the family join together in prayer. The prayers usually ask the earth for permission to plant our crops at sowing time, to give us a good harvest, and then to give thanks with all our might, with all our being, for a good harvest.

  The prayers and ceremonies are for the whole community. We pray to our ancestors, reciting their prayers which have been known to us for a long time–a very, very long time. We evoke the representatives of the animal world; we say the names of dogs. We say the names of the earth, the god of the earth, and the god of water. Then we say the name of the heart of the sky–the sun. Our grandfathers say we must ask the sun to shine on all its children: the trees, animals, water, man. We ask it to shine on our enemies. To us an enemy is someone who steals or goes into prostitution. So, you see, it’s a different world. This is how we make our pleas and our promises. It doesn’t refer so much to the real world, but it includes part of our reality. A prayer is made up of all this. We make a definite plea to the earth. We say: ‘Mother Earth, you who give us food, whose children we are and on whom we depend, please make this produce you give us flourish and make our children and our animals grow…’, and other things as well. Or we say: ‘We make our vows for ten days so that you concede us permission, your permission, Mother Earth, who are sacred, to feed us and give our children what they need. We do not abuse you, we only beg your permission, you who are part of the natural world and part of the family of our parents and our grandparents.’ This means we believe, for instance, that the sun is our grandfather, that he is a member of our family. ‘We respect you and love you and ask that you love us as we love you’–those prayers are specially for the earth. For the sun, we say: ‘Heart of the sky, you are our father, we ask you to give your warmth and light to our animals, our maize, our beans, our plants, so that they may grow and our children may eat.’ We evoke the colour of the sun, and this has a special importance for us because this is how we want our children to live–like a light which shines, which shines with generosity. It means a warm heart and it means strength, life-giving strength. It’s something you never lose and you find it everywhere. So when we evoke the colour of the sun, it’s like evoking all the elements which go to make up our life. The sun, as the channel to the one God, receives the plea from his children that they should never violate the rights of all the other beings which surround them. This is how we renew our prayer which says that men, the children of the one God, must respect the life of the trees, the birds, the animals around us. We say the names of birds and animals–cows, horses, dogs, cats. All these. We mention them all. We must respect the life of every single one of them. We must respect the life, the purity, the sacredness, which is water. We must respect the one God, the heart of the sky, which is the sun. We must not do evil while the sun shines upon his children. This is a promise. Then we promise to respect the life of the one creature, which is man. This is very important. We say: ‘We cannot harm the life of one of your children, we are your children. We cannot kill any of your creatures, neither trees nor animals.’ Then we offer up a sheep or chickens, because we believe sheep to be sacred animals, quiet animals, saintly animals, animals which don’t harm other animals. They are the most tranquil animals that exist, like birds. So the community chooses certain small animals for the feast after the ceremonies.

  XI

  MARRIAGE CEREMONIES

  ‘Children, wherever you may be, do not abandon the crafts taught to you by lxpiyacoc, because they are crafts passed down to you from your forefathers. If you forget them, you will be betraying your lineage.’

  —Popol Vuh

  ‘The magic secrets of your forefathers were revealed to them by voices which came by the path of silence and the night.’

  —Popol Vuh

  I remember that, when we grew up our parents talked to us about having children. That’s the time parents dedicate themselves to the child. In my case, because I was a girl, my parents told me: ‘You’re a young woman and a woman has to be a mother.’ They said I was beginning my life as a woman and I would want many things that I couldn’t have. They tried to tell me that, whatever my ambitions, I’d no way of achieving them. That’s how life is. They explained what life is like among our people for a young person, and then they said I shouldn’t wait too long before getting married. I had to think for myself, learn to be independent, not rely on my parents, and learn many things which would be useful to me in my life. They gave me the freedom to do what I wanted with my life as long as, first and foremost, I obeyed the laws of our ancestors. That’s when they taught me not to abuse my own dignity–both as a woman and a member of our race. They always give the ladinos as an example. Most of them paint their faces and kiss in the street. To our parents this was scandalous. It was a show of disrespect to our ancestors and I was not to do it. If you have a home, your betrothed can come there, if he abides by various customs and the laws of our ancestors. These are all the things our parents tell us. A girl must listen to what her mother tells her; she’ll teach her things she will need one day. They explained all this to me so that I might open the doors of life; so I might learn many things. This is when I began spending more time with my mother and developing as a woman. My mother explained that when I started menstruating, I had begun developing as a woman and could have children. She told me how young women should behave, according to what is laid down in our traditions. For example, if a young man talks to us in the street, we have the right to insult him or ignore him, because our ancestors say it is scandalous for a woman to start courting in the street or do anything behind her parents’ back.

  Most children know when their parents are having relations but this doesn’t mean they have a clear idea of what that is. Our parents tell us that we should develop and know all about this aspect, but that’s as far as they go. We don’t even know about the parts of our own bodies, and we don’t know what having babies means. Now I’m critical of that in many ways because I don’t think it is a good thing, and it can be a problem being ignorant of so many things about life.

  It’s very rare for a couple not to have children. A lot depends on the medicines the midwife uses. They cure many people with their herbs. I have
a cousin who is married and hasn’t any children. The community gives her a lot of affection because they do need a child. Under these circumstances the man can often give in to vices and start drinking. If he hasn’t any children, he only thinks about himself. The woman can become quarrelsome too. If this happens the community slowly loses their sympathy for the couple. They provoke most of the quarrels themselves but sometimes there are women who just don’t like to see a woman without children and some men just don’t like men who’ve no children. This is not the same as rejecting the huecos, as we call homosexuals. Our people don’t differentiate between people who are homosexual and people who aren’t; that only happens when we go out of our community. We don’t have the rejection of homosexuality the ladinos do; they really cannot stand it. What’s good about our way of life is that everything is considered part of nature. So an animal which didn’t turn out right is part of nature, so is a harvest that didn’t give a good yield. We say you shouldn’t ask for more than you can receive. That’s what the ladinos brought with them. It’s a phenomenon that arrived with the foreigners.

  Having said that, when our women migrate (leave the village and then come back), they bring with them all the nastiness of the world outside. And they use those plants–medicinal plants found in the fields–to stop themselves having children. In our fields there are remedies which can make you have children at certain times, and at others stop you having children. The outside world–which we know is disgusting–has set a bad example and has started giving us pills and gadgets. There was a big scandal in Guatemala when the Guatemalan Social Security Institute began sterilizing women without telling them, in order to reduce the population. The thing is, to us, using medicine to stop having children is like killing your own children. It’s negating the laws of our ancestors which say we should love everything that exists. So what happens is, our children either die before they are born, or two or so years afterwards, from no fault of our own. It’s the fault of others. The real culprits are those who sow bad seeds on our land. It’s not the Indian’s fault if he gives life to a child and then sees it die of hunger anyway.

  The community is very suspicious of a woman like me who is twenty-three but they don’t know where I’ve been or where I’ve lived. She loses the confidence of the community and contact with her neighbours, who are supposed to be looking after her all the time. In this sense, it’s not such a problem when her parents are sure she’s a virgin.

  We have four marriage customs to respect. The first is the ‘open door’. It is flexible and there’s no commitment. The second is a commitment to the parents when the girl has accepted the boy. This is a very important custom. The third is the ceremony when the girl and boy make their vows to one another. The fourth is the wedding itself, the despedida. The formalities for getting married are usually carried out in the following way.

  The boy first tells his own parents that he likes a certain girl and they tell him what sort of commitment marriage is: ‘You must have children, you have to feed them, and you must never regret what you’ve done for a single day.’ They tell him about the responsibilities a father has. Then, when the young man has made up his mind and so have his parents, they go to the village representative and tell him the boy wants to get married and is going to ask the girl. Then comes the first custom, the ‘open door’, as we say. A door is opened by the village representative, the young man’s parents and then the young man. These requests for marriage usually take place at four in the morning because most Indians leave home before five, and when they come home from work at six in the evening they’re usually busy with other things. It’s done at four in the morning so as not to cause too much inconvenience and they leave when the dogs start barking.

  Fathers don’t usually agree to start with, because it’s the custom here to get married very early. Girls often get married at fourteen and are expecting babies by the age of fifteen. The parents object. They say: ‘No, our daughter is too young. She’s too little; she’s a very obedient daughter and we have faith in her.’ So the village representatives go and plead with them, and go back and plead again. The father resists and won’t open the door to ask them in. So they go away. If the young man and his parents are really interested, they have to go back at least three times. After the first time they’ve been, the father begins to talk to his daughter. He explains that a young man is interested in her and tells her all the formalities she will have to go through. The second time the representatives and parents come, they usually bring a little guaro or cigarettes. If the girl’s parents accept a cigarette, that means there is already some small commitment. The door starts to open for the young man. In my sister’s case, when the representatives came the first time, they were refused. My father wouldn’t receive them the second time either because he said; ‘My daughter is too young to be a mother, isn’t she?’ This is because when our people think of marriage, they think of becoming a mother or fulfilling their duty as the father of a family. They also think of gaining the respect of the community, because when a couple gets married in our community, they have to preserve our traditions, and act as an example for their brothers and sisters and for their neighbours’ children. It’s a very important commitment for us.

  Well, the young girl starts talking to her parents and she says she would like to know the young man. My father opened the door for my sister when they came for the third time. He was the elected leader of our village, so they had to come with another of the community’s representatives, and my parents finally received them. My father accepted a glass of guaro and some cigarettes. From then on the door was open.

  At this stage the parents tell the young man that their daughter is honest and hardworking. This is his parents’ main concern; that the girl is sturdy and works hard and has the energy to stand up to life’s challenges. My parents said my sister had worked like an adult since she was three, that she was an early riser and very diligent. She liked finishing her work quickly; when she worked tilling the land, she’d already finished her task by three in the afternoon. My parents said they never wanted to hear any complaints about her or her behaviour, because she was hardworking and knew how to observe all the traditions of our ancestors.

  The young man’s parents also tell them about their son’s bad and good points. They say: ‘Our son is not very good at such and such a thing, but, on the other hand, he knows how to do this and the other.’ It’s a dialogue. Then the representatives leave because the father has to go off to work. But if he’s going to open his door, he must show them hospitality even if he has to stay and chat with them for half a day or a day. The young man is then given permission to call on the daughter another day. But he knows he can’t go just any day because the father, the mother, everybody, are out working in the fields. So he only goes on Sundays. On Sundays, the mother is usually at home doing the washing, or the father is at home while the mother goes to market. One or other of the parents must be at home when the young man arrives…. He doesn’t come empty handed, but brings a little present for the parents–a few rolls of bread, a few cigarettes, or something to drink. He arrives and starts talking to the girl for the first time, since he’d never, never, get to know her in the street. This way the community will respect the girl: they will love her because they know she has begun her marriage with her hands clean. That’s what they say: ‘She’s not one of those girls who hang around the streets. She’s never been seen with a boy in the street.’ In our community, if a girl is seen in the street with a boy, she both loses her dignity and breaks the customs of our forefathers.

  Of course, if the girl doesn’t like the boy, she can say so. If she doesn’t like him, she carries on working even if her parents open the door. She finds things to do and has no time for him. She doesn’t talk to him. That’s a signal she doesn’t like him. Everyone waits for fifteen days to see if she’s going to talk to him. If she doesn’t, they tell him it isn’t the family, but the girl who isn’t interested. This often happens. But if sh
e accepts him, there will always be someone in the house when he calls; they’ll never be alone. This is to preserve the woman’s purity, which is something sacred, something special, something which will engender many lives. The woman has to be respected, so the parents are always around. In my sister’s case, she decided about seven months after she and the young man first talked together. He came to see her all the time without any commitment either on her part or his. Just the ‘open door’. Then my sister decided. The day the girl agrees, the young man gets down on his knees in front of her parents and says that on such and such a day he will come with his parents.

  Certain traditions are respected. For example, when the people come to ask for the door to be opened for the first time, they don’t stand up but go down on their knees in front of the door. My father didn’t open the door the first time, and the second time they kneeled at the door, he still didn’t open. On the third occasion the door was opened and they offered my father a drink; the young man remaining on his knees. It’s a form of great respect. As my parents say, a person who knows how to kneel is a humble person, so from the way the young man kneels the parents can tell whether he knows how to respect our ancestors.

  It is decided straight away who will take part in the ceremonies. There will be the couples’ eldest uncle and his wife, their brothers and sisters, or rather their elder brothers and sisters, the village representatives, and the grandparents of both the young man and the girl. So the second stage of the marriage ritual begins. There is a fiesta at home with all the family; grandmother, grandfather, uncles and aunts, elder brothers and sisters are all there. It’s like the fiesta for the birth of a baby, when a lamb is killed. Now the parents kill the biggest lamb in their flock and bring it to the house. The uncles arrive with dough for the tortillas. The whole family makes a contribution. The grandmother must bring her granddaughter a present. Grandmothers keep the silver jewellery passed down from our forefathers, and now the grandmother gives the young girl a necklace or something as a keepsake and to encourage her. In return, she makes a promise to be just like her grandmother and to keep our ancestors’ traditions in the same ways she did.