I remember the village of Huehuetenango very well, where I stayed in the house of a compañero who had ten children. I made a mistake there, it was something that I hadn’t realized, thinking that we’d all had the same experiences. The mistake was not to have brought a blanket with me for this journey. I only had a sheet with me for the night. I arrived at that village in the Altiplano, and it was so cold, so incredibly cold. You can’t believe how cold it was. So I hoped these people would lend me some clothes or a shawl to put over me. But at night I saw that they didn’t even have anything for themselves and it made me very sad. How were we going to sleep? It was so cold! The dogs came in and out of the little house all the time because it was open. I asked: ‘Tell me, are we going to stay here?’ I thought we could get leaves from the mountain to warm ourselves with. It was rather late to think of that but they collected quite a lot of leaves…And so they all lay down round the fire; they were all sleeping and I wondered, well, where should I go. And I lay down next to them. By midnight it was so cold that we were almost frozen! The cold woke the parents up. ‘How cold it is,’ they said. ‘Yes,’ I said, and my jaw was almost stiff with cold. I’d never felt so cold before. Although my home is in the Altiplano too, the cold there doesn’t compare with this. The parents got up for a while and then went to sleep again. I began to wonder how human beings can stand so much. We often say we can’t bear something but we do bear it. The children were all right, quiet on the floor. Since the parents were very fond of me and thought of me as a leader, they said: ‘Look, here is a mat. Sit on this.’ But for my part, I couldn’t use the mat because I was too ashamed, and also because I felt we were all equal and that they had as much right to the mat as I had. I told my host that I was ashamed by the special treatment they gave me because I was poor too, I was from the mountains too, from the same conditions, and that if we are fighting for equality for everyone, we must begin by sharing everything we have. I didn’t mind sharing the mat with the children but I didn’t deserve the mat for myself. It made me think a great deal, because I said: ‘In our house we have a mat each.’ This meant that I’d never suffered as they had here. And I began to discover many things that I hadn’t experienced but that many others had. And this made me really angry. I thought, so many rich people wasting even whole beds–one mattress isn’t enough for them, they have two or three on their beds. And here there isn’t even a mat to sleep on. This gave me a lot to think about. This happened with many people. I used to sleep one, two, three nights in one place, then I’d move on to another place for my work. I was happy.
Something I want to tell you, is that I had a friend. He was the man who taught me Spanish. He was a ladino, a teacher, who worked with the CUC. He taught me Spanish and helped me with many things. We used to meet secretly because we couldn’t meet openly where he lived. That compañero taught me many things, one of which was to love ladinos a lot. He taught me to think more clearly about some of my ideas which were wrong, like saying all ladinos are bad. He didn’t teach me through ideas, he showed me by his actions, by the way he behaved towards me. At that time, we used to talk through the night. It was when we began supporting the struggle of peasants in general, and carrying out coordinated actions. For instance, if we call a strike, it’s for all workers. If we call an assembly, we listen to the views of all the masses. It was my job to sound out the views of all the compañeros I was in contact with in the area I happened to be in, and send them to the regional coordinating body. Then they’d be sent to the national coordinating body to be discussed by the compañeros there. Anyway, the example of my compañero ladino made me really understand the barrier which has been put up between the Indian and the ladino, and that because of this same system which tries to divide us, we haven’t understood that ladinos also live in terrible conditions, the same as we do.
That’s when I became very attached to my compañeros ladinos and we began to talk a lot. Our organization includes Indians and poor ladinos, so we began putting this into practice. I remember having lengthy discussions with ladinos. I especially remember the times for criticism and the self-criticism which, I think, all revolutionary struggles go through to make the change more profound. The first time I pointed out an error by one of the ladinos, I felt terrible. Well, I’d never ever criticized a ladino before. I know deep inside what it is to feel humiliated, to have always been called ‘dirty Indian’. ‘She’s an Indian’, they’d say as an insult. So for me criticizing a ladino was like putting on a mask and doing something shamelessly. Nevertheless, my criticism was constructive. I criticized the compañero but accepted his criticism too. These were the first things I found difficult to accept in our struggle.
As I was saying, I’m an Indianist, not just an Indian. I’m an Indianist to my fingertips and I defend everything to do with my ancestors. But I didn’t understand this in the proper way, because we can only understand when we start talking to each other. And this is the only way we can correct our ideas. Little by little, I discovered many ways in which we had to be understanding towards our ladino friends and in which they had to show us understanding too. Because I also knew compañeros ladinos with whom we shared the worst conditions, but who still felt ladino, and as ladinos they didn’t see that our poverty united us. But little by little, both they and I began discussing many very important things and saw that the root of our problems lay in the ownership of the land. All our country’s riches are in the hands of the few.
My friend was a compañero who had taken the side of the poor, although I have to say that he was middle class. He was someone who’d been able to study, who had a profession and everything. But he also understood clearly that he had to share these things with the poor, especially his knowledge. He preferred to help the CUC rather than become a member because he said: ‘I don’t deserve to be called a peasant. I’m an intellectual.’ He recognized his inability to do or know many things that peasants know, or the things poor people know. He said: ‘I can’t talk about hunger the way a peasant can.’ I remember that when we said the root of our problems was the land, that we were exploited, I felt that being an Indian was an extra dimension because I suffered discrimination as well as suffering exploitation. It was an additional reason for fighting with such enthusiasm. I began thinking about my childhood, when we used to go to the market. They used to cheat us when they bought our things because we didn’t speak Spanish. Sometimes they’d say they’d paid for our beans or our plants in the market but when we got home and did our sums, the money didn’t add up. So in this sense, they exploited us but, at the same time, they discriminated against us because we were ignorant.
So I learned many things with the ladinos, but most of all to understand our problem and the fact that we had to solve it ourselves. Sometimes we’d have very heated discussions because the Indians and ladinos didn’t understand each other. In Guatemala the division between Indians and ladinos has contributed to our situation. And it’s certain that in our hearts this has affected us very badly. Ladinos are mestizos, the children of Spaniards and Indians who speak Spanish. But they are in the minority. There is a larger percentage of Indians. Some say it is sixty per cent, others that it’s eighty per cent. We don’t know the exact number for a very good reason–there are Indians who don’t wear Indian clothes and have forgotten their languages, so they are not considered Indians. And there are middle-class Indians who have abandoned their traditions. They aren’t considered Indians either. However this ladino minority thinks its blood is superior, a higher quality, and they think of Indians as a sort of animal. That’s the mark of discrimination. The ladinos try to tear off this shell which imprisons them–being the children of Indians and Spaniards. They want to be something different, they don’t want to be a mixture. They never mention this mixed blood now. At the same time, there are differences between ladinos too; between rich ladinos and poor ladinos. The poor are considered lazy, people who don’t work, who only sleep and who have no enjoyment in life. But between these poor l
adinos and Indians there is still that big barrier. No matter how bad their conditions are, they feel ladino, and being ladino is something important in itself: it’s not being an Indian. That’s how they have separated the way they act, the way they think. The ladinos want to improve their situation, they’re looking for a way out of their shell, because even though the ladino is poor, even though he’s exploited as we are, he tries to be something better than an Indian. In the market, for example, no ladino would steal from another ladino as he would from an Indian. A ladino would even insult a lady but an Indian could never do that. The ladino has many ways of making his voice heard–if he goes to a lawyer, he doesn’t need an intermediary. He has more channels of access. And so that’s why the poor ladino rejects the Indian. If a ladino gets on a bus, that’s normal. If an Indian gets on, everyone is disgusted. They think we are dirty, worse than an animal or a filthy cat. If an Indian goes near a ladino, the ladino will leave his seat rather than be with the Indian. We feel this rejection deeply. If you examine the conditions of poor ladinos and our conditions, you’ll see they are the same. There is no difference. When I was little I used to think about this a lot. What is it? What does the ladino have that we don’t? I compared myself with them. Is it that some parts of his body are different? And the system feeds this situation. It separates the Indian from the ladino. The radio, all the radio stations speak Spanish. Indians have no access to radio. So although we were all poor, we did not understand each other.
That’s when I started being more aware of the situation. I understood that my bitter experiences, my affection for my compañeros, for my people, had made it difficult for me to accept certain things. I identified certain of my attitudes–very rigid ones. Discrimination had made me isolate myself completely from the world of our compañeros ladinos. I didn’t express certain of my attitudes but they were nevertheless there, like a thorn in my heart, from having repeated so many times: ‘They are ladinos, they can’t understand because they are ladinos.’ But slowly, through our discussions, we understood each other. There came a time when the two of us had to carry out tasks together. A compañero ladino and me, an Indian. For me it was unbelievable to walk with a ladino. I’d been told that Indians were separate for so long. It was like a dream for me, and it made me very reserved with the compañero. But that was in the early days and, little by little, as we talked we learned more. To bring about change we had to unite, Indians and ladinos. What they valued most in me was my knowledge of self-defence, my knowledge of our traps and escape routes. I could teach other compañeros. And later on, through my involvement in the struggle–through my participation as a woman, as a Christian, and as an Indian–I was given responsibilities which recognized my abilities as well. So I had a lot of responsibility.
It was the same with my father. On the rare occasions we saw each other he used to tell me of his experiences and say: ‘Now I’m in charge of a whole town. I’m responsible for ladinos and Indians. I can’t read or write. And my Spanish isn’t very good. I’ve often felt inadequate. Nevertheless, I know my experience is valuable and that I must share it with others.’ And this confirmed my certainty that the justification for our struggle was to erase all the images imposed on us, all the cultural differences, and the ethnic barriers, so that we Indians might understand each other in spite of different ways of expressing our religion and beliefs. Our culture is still the same. I discovered that all Indians have a common culture in spite of the linguistic barriers, ethnic barriers and different modes of dress. The basis of our culture is maize. I was by now an educated woman. Not in the sense of any schooling and even less in the sense of being well read. But I knew the history of my people, and the history of my compañeros from other ethnic groups. I’d got to know many of the groups closely and they’d taught me a lot, including some things which I’d forgotten.
So we come to 1979. We carried out important tasks on the south coast and in the Altiplano, directing the people’s struggle. Our organization was no longer a tiny seed. It had won the hearts of the majority of Guatemalans: Indian peasants or poor ladino peasants. We travelled all over the Altiplano, we went down to the south coast, and we also began working in the east. The important thing to remember is that in the east there are no Indians now. The Indians there have forgotten their costumes, their languages. They no longer speak Indian languages. Just a few old folk speak a little Chorti. It made me very angry that they should forget their customs and culture. They were workers in the fincas too. Or else they were overseers, administrators, soldiers or police. I thought about this a lot. They didn’t want to do that but they’d been brutalized. I remember my father telling us: ‘My children, don’t aspire to go to school, because schools take our customs away from us.’ These people in the East had more access to lower schools but not to any further training. A few have money but the majority only reach second, third or sixth grade in primary school. But they already think differently: although they are still poor they think differently since we Indians have never even seen a teacher. So I thought: ‘Thank God our parents didn’t accept teachers or schools in our community to wipe out what is ours.’ Sometimes I’d hear how those teachers taught and what education was like in the villages. They said that the arrival of the Spaniards was a conquest, a victory, while we knew that in practice it was just the opposite. They said the Indians didn’t know how to fight and that many of them died because they killed the horses and not the people. So they said. This made me furious, but I reserved my anger to educate other people in other areas. This taught me that even though a person may learn to read and write, he should not accept the false education they give our people. Our people must not think as the authorities think. They must not let others think for them.
We can select what is truly relevant for our people. Our lives show us what this is. It has guaranteed our existence. Otherwise we would not have survived. We have rejected all the aims governments have tried to impose. It wasn’t only me who did this, of course. I’m saying we did it together. Those are the conclusions my whole community came to. It was the community who taught me to respect all the things which must remain secret as long as we exist, and which future generations will keep secret. That is our objective anyway. When we began to organize ourselves, we started using all the things we’d kept hidden. Our traps–nobody knew about them because they’d been kept secret. Our opinions–whenever a priest came to our village we all kept our mouths shut. We women covered ourselves with our shawls and the men kept their heads bowed. We pretend we’re not thinking of anything. But when we’re all together, amongst ourselves, we discuss, we think, we give our views. What happens is that, since we’ve never been given the opportunity to speak, express our opinions, or have our views considered, we haven’t bothered to make ourselves heard just for the fun of it. I think as far as this is concerned, we have selected what is relevant for us and have fought for this. As I said before, the life of any single animal means a lot to us. And so much more so the life of a human being. And so when we have to protect our lives, we are ready to defend them even if it means revealing our secrets.
This is why Indians are thought to be stupid. They can’t think, they don’t know anything, they say. But we have hidden our identity because we needed to resist, we wanted to protect what governments have wanted to take away from us. They have tried to take our things away and impose others on us, be it through religion, through dividing up the land, through schools, through books, through radio, through all things modern. This is why we maintain the rites for our ceremonies. And why we don’t accept Catholic Action as the only way to God, and why we don’t perform only Christian ceremonies. We don’t want to because we know that they are weapons they use to take away what is ours.
XXIV
THE TORTURE AND DEATH OF HER LITTLE BROTHER, BURNT ALIVE IN FRONT OF MEMBERS OF HIS FAMILY AND THE COMMUNITY
‘My mother said that when a woman sees her son tortured, burnt alive, she is incapable of forgiving, incapable of g
etting rid of her hate.’
—Rigoberta Menchú
‘…but next winter the requital will come [they thought], and they fed the blaze with branches of the great thorn trees, because in the fire of warriors, which is the fire of war, even the thorns weep.’
—Miguel Angel Asturias, Men of Maize
It was in 1979, I remember, that my younger brother died, the first person in my family to be tortured. He was sixteen years old. After the family’s farewell, each of us went their own way: he stayed in the community since, as I said, he was secretary of the community. He was the youngest of my brothers, though I have two little sisters who are younger. One of them went with my mother and the other stayed in the community, learning and training in self-defence. My mother, unable to find any other solution, had gone off somewhere else. My brothers too, because they were being hunted, and so as not to expose the community to danger…. The thing is that the government put about this image of us, of our family, as if we were monsters, as if we were some kind of foreigners, aliens. But my father was Quiché, he was no Cuban. The government called us communists and accused us of being a bad influence. So, in order not to expose the community to danger and to weed out this ‘bad influence’, we had to go away to different places. But my young brother had stayed there in the community.
I, Rigoberta Menchu Page 22