The Kaqchikel Maya inhabit the fractured and dissonant society of contemporary Guatemala: increasing religious plurality, economic and ethnic inequality, drug-related violence and the legacy of military violence and discrimination. The Mayas face ongoing lack of recognition and voicelessness in a society that values them only insofar as their culture can be appropriated for a growing tourism industry. The Kaqchikels respond to this environment by using their spirituality to generate legitimacy. Mayan spirituality with its pre-Columbian episteme, when viewed in this social context, becomes a means by which the Kaqchikels articulate their agency. Both Mayas and foreign tourists regard the knowledge communicated through spirituality as one of the great achievements of the ancient Mayas. The contemporary Mayan populations consider this knowledge to be inherited, as they expertly wield its tools in a manner that sometimes, in their assessment, even supersedes the abilities of Western knowledge. This indexical past and relevant present make spirituality a salient practice for the contemporary Kaqchikels to utilize as they seek to redefine the relationship between their group and the state, as well as vis-à-vis foreign influences brought about by increasing tourism.
This research posits that contemporary Kaqchikels utilize spirituality as a means to resist continued domination and the lingering effects of colonialism. For these reasons, although the revitalization of Kaqchikel spiritual practices is not generally discussed in the pan-Maya cultural movement, it should be understood as a parallel initiative to rearticulate constructions of Mayan culture. I analyze Kaqchikel ceremonial practices that seek to reclaim, rearticulate, and (re)traditionalize ancient Mayan episteme. Moreover, I examine how the trickster Rilaj Mam challenges models of religious syncretism, instead helping the Kaqchikels to process what is felt as hybrid in their social world. Finally, the Kaqchikels have responded to the tourism industry’s appropriation of Mayan spirituality and the 2012 “apocalypse” by asserting the accuracy of ancient Mayan wisdom and thereby valorizing their ways of life. Unable to achieve social and political representation and recognition in a highly stratified postcolonial society, the Kaqchikels negotiate meaning and achieve legitimacy by using the very tool which sets them apart: their culture.