A Glimpse at Guatemala. Anne Cary Maudslay
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BOYS IN SCHOOL.
The women of the town are very clean and tidy in their dress, and take especial care of their hair: we saw numbers of them almost standing on their heads in the shallow edge of the lake in their efforts to give their hair a good washing, after which they dried and combed and oiled it and braided it into long tails. It took much coaxing to induce the group of mayores and alguacils on the next page to stand to the camera; however, they at last consented. But when we tried to take a separate portrait of the young man who is standing lowest on the step, really a good-looking and graceful fellow, he blushed and wriggled and hid his face like a shy school-girl, so, after spoiling a plate or two, the attempt had to be abandoned.
AN INDIAN LOOM.
All the garments worn both by men and women are of native manufacture, and some, if not all, of them are woven in the town. The looms on which the handkerchiefs and shawls are made are primitive in their simplicity, and are just the same as those pictured in the aboriginal Mexican manuscripts. My husband managed, after much discussion and bargaining, to buy one with the still unfinished fabric on it, which is now in the Museum of Archæology at Cambridge. A sketch of it is given on this page as well as a copy of the drawing from the ancient Mexican Codex. One end of the loom is usually tied to the post of the house, and the other end steadied by a band round the woman’s body. Custom demands that the hollow reed or stick to which the warp is attached should contain several round seeds or beads, which rattle up and down as it is moved for the shuttle to pass. Whatever the origin of the custom may be, one result of it is that you can always tell by the noise when the women are busy at work.
A WOMAN WEAVING. (From the Codex Mendoza.)
About noon we left the village and followed the rough path along the border of the lake, sometimes scrambling over the steep headlands, at others passing along the margin of the little sheltered bays, where numberless coots and some few duck swam out at our approach from amongst the scanty reeds and sought refuge in deep water. We passed on our way the little village of Santa Catarina; but, to judge from the canoes we saw drawn up on beach, water must be an accident in the life of these Indians and not a natural element as it is with the red men of the North.
INDIANS AT SAN ANTONIO.
The canoes are roughly hollowed logs without shape or beauty, the sides raised in height by planks fastened to the gunwale. The sterns are cut off square, two solid projections from the original log being left as handles by which the amorphous craft may be pushed off the shore. There are two sorts of fish found in the lake—one a “mojarra” (Heros nigrofasciatus) about the size of a sardine, and the other the “triponcito” or “pepesca” (Fundulus pachycephalus), which is peculiar to this lake, and does not exceed two and a half inches in length. I was told that an attempt has been made to introduce a larger fish, but so far it has not met with any success. The conditions may be adverse to fish life, for the water is very cold and at only a short distance from the shore it is said to be profoundly deep.
WATER CARRIERS, SAN ANTONIO.
A ride of three leagues brought us to Panajachél, a little town standing on a rich alluvial plain formed by a swift stream which issues from a narrow cleft in the hills, and has spread out the earth in the shape of an open fan until it forms a mile of frontage to the lake.
The stream is now somewhat diverted from its bed and is led away through many channels to irrigate the vegetable gardens, orchards, and coffee-plantations which cover the delta. But even with so many outlets there are times during the wet season when the sudden increase in the volume of water threatens the safety of the town, and we were told that not many years ago an inundation caused great damage, washing away some of the houses, and cutting off the townspeople from all outside communication. There is nothing especially interesting in the town itself; but its surroundings of lake and mountain, garden and orchard, are charming, and the bright green of the trees seemed all the more brilliant in contrast with the bareness of the surrounding hills, on which so much of the timber has been ruthlessly destroyed.
As we found the Inn to be sufficiently comfortable we stayed for several days to develop the photographs taken near Godines, and to enjoy the fresh greenness of this sheltered nook, where the oranges were in blossom and in fruit, the coffee was in full bearing, and the branches of the jocote trees, although bare of leaves, were weighed down with fruit which glistened red and yellow in the sunlight.
Outside the orchards beautiful flowering creepers and long streamers of what looked to me like a feathery grey moss, called by the natives “barbas de viejo”—which, I am told, is a “bromelia” and not a moss at all—almost smothered the forest trees, which here and there reared their heads from the thickets; whilst orchids of many colours, and other epiphytes with clusters of green-red leaves and splendid red and purple flower-spikes, clung to every available branch.
The aguacates, or alligator-pears, grown here are celebrated throughout the Republic, but the creamy delicacy of the flesh is beyond my powers of description; and I can only say that I felt myself to be at last in the land of the Swiss family Robinson, when I found a most delicious salad with a perfect mayonnaise dressing slightly flavoured with pistachio-nut hanging ready mixed in the form of a pear-shaped fruit from the branches of a fair-sized tree. However, to the Indian the chief glory of Panajachél is not its aguacates, but its onions, which grow in luxuriant profusion, and which he carries in his cacaste to all the markets of the Altos.
I was constantly regretting my inability to speak with the Indians and learn more of their daily life. To an onlooker that of the women seems hopelessly monotonous and devoid of any recreation or pleasure, and one could only silently sympathize with them in the patient labour of grinding maize for tortillas, and the never-ending task of washing clothes at the fountain or at the river’s edge.
PANAJACHÉL AND THE LAKE OF ATITLAN.
Whilst we were at Panajachél a matter of especial interest presented itself to us in the curious ceremonies of the Indian pilgrims returning from Esquipulas. Our room looked out on the Plaza, which in the morning always afforded a few picturesque groups of market-women, but was almost deserted by noon; then, as evening approached, little companies of pilgrims, bending under their burdens, filed into the town, and as night fell the Plaza was lit up by numerous small fires, around which the pilgrims gathered for their supper. This important meal ended, they began their religious functions by laying down petates (mats) in front of the cacastes, which had already been arranged in a line across the Plaza. Then each man produced from his cargo a small wooden box, usually glazed on one side, containing the image of a saint, and these were arranged in a row against the cacastes, between lighted candles, the place of honour in the middle being assigned to a box containing a figure of the Black Christ. When these arrangements were completed, the Indians, who were dressed in long black woollen garments, with long white veils fastened to their black straw hats, prostrated themselves in turn before each shrine, and crawled along from one to the other on hands and knees, laying the forehead in the dust, offering up their prayers to each saint and kissing the box which contained its image. These acts of devotion were several times repeated, and then grouping themselves on their knees before the shrine of the Black Christ, and led by one of their number, who seemed to have some sort of authority over them, they all chanted the quaint hymn we had so often heard in the early watches of the morning. After singing for nearly half an hour they withdrew to their fires, rolled themselves in their blankets, and were soon fast asleep.
Luckily for us on one occasion