Guatemala: Maximón and Other Holy Week Traditions · Global Voices
Renata Avila

This post is part of our special coverage Indigenous Rights.
When a very religious culture becomes dominated by yet another deeply religious people, often the religion of the conqueror is imposed on the conquered. However, cultures have always found ways to offer resistance; in Guatemala somehow the Catholic religion has been “hacked”  to incorporate indigenous peoples’ gods, goddesses, rites and ceremonies while integrating elements of Catholicism.
Maximón is the best example of such transmutation, as explained by the photoblog Mi Mundo:
Aq’ab’al Audelino Sajvín explains: “In oral tradition, Maximón represents Kaji’ Imox,  the last ruler of the Maya Kaqchikel people [during the Spanish  conquest], who was tied, tortured and murdered. This entire episode is  known as Xkiyüt Xkixïm/Ximon, which is surely why they call him Maximón: ma refers to a male person in the Maya Kaqchikel language, and ximón means he who is tied up.” According to Aq’ab’al Audelino Sajvín the syncretism between Maximón and  Saint Simon began when “the Christian [conquistadores] realized they  could not eradicate the image of the great protector of the people.  Hence, they began to promote the idea of Maximón as being the same as  Saint Simon, often related with Saint Jude, a treacherous figure.”
Picture under a Creative Commons attribution license by Gustavo Jerónimo.
The different and very special elements of religion in Guatemala make the Holy Week (in Spanish, ‘Semana Santa’) quite a unique experience, including characters like the “Cucuruchos“, communities gathering to create holy week carpets made of flowers, and devoted men and women carrying on their shoulders colonial images of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary while wearing traditional outfits under the sun, in spite of the hot summer.
Holy Week is a family celebration where everyone is invited to participate, as the photo blog AntiguaDailyPhoto.com describes:
As I’ve mentioned before, the making of carpets from sawdust,  pine-needles, flowers, vegetables is a community-forming tradition.  People get together by block or near-by neighbors to create the carpets  on which the processions will pass by. Sometimes the making of the  carpets is done at night, all night so they are ready for next day’s  procession. The colorful processional carpet elaboration process  involves the whole family, close friends, the neighborhood and the  entire community. It does not matter if it’s just grandma throwing some  corozo (corozo palms) and dried purple flowers to elaborate a humble  alfombra in front of her home or it is a team of members of the cuadra  (the block), or if a son lends a hand to a dad to put the final touches  on the brightly-colored sawdust carpet, the devotion and the do-good  spirit are present everywhere you look.
Holy week carpet making. Image by Rudy Girón www.Antiguadailyphoto.com (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Antologia del Desengaño [es] explains how Holy Week is celebrated in a very different way in Santiago Atitlán:
En  Santiago Atitlán, el  Viernes Santo por la tarde, al igual que en el  resto católico del país,  da inicio la representatividad de la muerte de  Jesucristo, pero a  diferencia del mundo ladino, la celebración no tiene  connotaciones  ominosas. Al interior de la iglesia hay un tumulto de  gente que  participa en la preparación del cortejo procesional, con  tambores y  chirimillas, no hay pesadumbre; hay respeto al ceremonial,  pero no hay  tristeza, ni acongojamiento en el rostro y actitud de la  gente .
Holy Week in Guatemala is rich with colors, scents and devotion. It is a cultural,  spiritual and gastronomic experience for locals and visitors in this  diverse country with more than twenty four languages and different  indigenous groups. The best of different worlds come together to enjoy and find beauty in mixing, rather than imposing, their culture.
This post is part of our special coverage Indigenous Rights.