Of Stoner Churches and Evil Saints

Today was my first day of school. My maestra, Karola, has insisted we do a review for the first week, which is sometimes helpful, sometimes painful. However, to my delight, she believes that I’m quite far ahead, and should be very fluent in seven weeks! I’m having no trouble making myself understood to anyone. I actually speak Spanish! So it’s the finer points of grammar, the obscure tenses, and vocabulary for me.

This afternoon a group of us went on an adventure to a small neighbouring pueblo, San Andres Xecul (Shay-cool). It’s known for its intensely painted church, with climbing vines, flowers, lions, tigers, monkeys and Saints all competing for space on the facade. It appears abruptly around a bend in the road, the veritable technicolor dreamcoat of churches. It´s hard to fathom that the it was built by serious Spanish priests, rather than acid stoners.

San Andres is a primarily Quiche town. (There are 23 indigenous groups in Guatemala, all descendants of the Mayans. The Quiche, Mam, Kakchiquel and Kekchi are the largest groups.) So we spent a bit of time asking around for a local idol, San Simon. Some of my traveling companions were primarily blue-eyed and blonde, which lead the Quiche children to believe they were witches with evil eyes. Their inability to speak Spanish and fake Mayan attire, peddled to that type of tourist, certainly didn’t help the situation. Eventually, we located San Simon in a home in the hills high above the city.

San Simon, or Maximon, and origianlly Alvarado, is part Mayan idol, part Catholic saint. In centuries past the Catholic Church tried to assimilate the Mayan population. The local people found the church highly compatable with thieran> own traditions, and decided it would be easier to accept it than to resist. Mayan religion was originally thought to be polytheistic, with practitioners worshipping the everything in the natural world. In reality, Mayan religion is montheistic, with practitioners worshipping the natural world with many names for one God. Catholic saints are simply seen as alternative manifestations.

As I understood the Quiche priest´s explaination, San Simon is the Mayan analouge of Judas. The creation story is unable to unfold without him. As a result, San Simon is often refered to as the evil saint. He´s supposedly very popular with prostitutes, and for black magic. People often offer him alchol or tobacco. The ashes of his cigar, which is kept constantly lit, are supposed to preform miracles. San Simon was situated in a small dark room, crowded with San Simon, pictures of Jesus and other Saints, people praying, and constantly burning candles. He was dressed in traditional traje, a cowboy hat and boots, as is in style here. As one other extrajanero explained it to me, San Simon is like the Van Morrison of saints; a little bad, but all for the best.

When we arrived, the Quiche priest was performing a ritual. He had built a fire, with all sorts of herbs and plants, in front of a cross and a small, carved idol. He said a prayer over the fire, and then gestured over it with fireworks called bombas, which are very common in Guatemala. According to Rigoberta Menchu´s book, fireworks have been a celebratory part of Quiche culture since gunpowder was introduced. Then he said a prayer, crossed a small Quiche girl and her mother with the fireworks, and lit them off in the courtyard. Each gesture and word seemed to have incredible weight, and it´s hard to describe it without trivializing it. Moreover, it´s generally inappropriate to take pictures of the people and their rituals. You´ll just have to believe me when I say that it´s incredibly beautiful and that I desperately want to share it with you.