Song of Fire

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Song: “Rio Dulce” by Jon O’Bergh
Click on music player to listen

The van descended in darkness into the valley that is guarded by a trio of silent volcano sentries. At the entrance to the old city, white Christmas lights outlined wire reindeer and angels. A blockade of gasoline drums that had been set ablaze stretched across the street ahead of us. Plastered high against the adobe wall abutting the street was a red octagonal “Alto” sign. We turned left, the van rattling slowly over the old cobblestones. As we passed the central plaza, I could see the floodlit columns and arches of the governor’s palace. Strings of white lights twinkled in the trees below a sky flooded with constellations. Ahead, the pale glow of an illuminated ruin.

This is how I first saw Antigua, the colonial capitol of Guatemala.

The Spanish came and conquered Central America in 1523, establishing a capitol in the lush, mountainous highlands at Antigua. The Mayans, who had existed for centuries on the land, descendants of those who had built great cities and then mysteriously abandoned them, were enslaved by the Spaniards, their land stolen for the cultivation of tobacco and sugar cane. Three centuries later, Spain relinquished control, and the country struggled to overcome the lingering effects of its colonial past. In 1951, Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán was elected president with widespread popular support. His predecessor had six years earlier established a social security and health system, and Arbenz continued these liberal policies, also instituting land reforms to more equitably distribute wealth throughout the impoverished population. The United Fruit Company, however — an American-owned corporation (which “coincidentally” was partly owned by the United States secretary of state) — grew nervous over the land reforms that threatened their monopoly and financial interests, and the C.I.A. initiated a military coup to topple the democratically elected government of Arbenz, replacing him with a more malleable leader who would allow the United Fruit Company to continue to undervalue its land holdings on its tax returns to the Guatemalan government. As with most shortsighted, covert interference in the affairs of foreign countries by the United States, the C.I.A.-backed coup led to instability and oppression. A particularly violent and deadly civil war broke out, lasting three decades until a peace accord was negotiated with the guerrillas in 1996. If there is any lingering resentment against the United States for its implications in causing so much suffering, Guatemalans keep it well hidden from visitors and display a generous heart.

Antigua is suffused with spirits from the past. One- and two-story adobe buildings painted bright shades of ochre, turquoise, terra cotta, peach, and carmine line every cobblestone street. The beautiful ruins of convents and monasteries, victims of the valley’s frequent earthquakes, lie scattered throughout the city. The city is all vibrant color in the midst of crumbling decay — elegance and decrepitude stand side by side, a bent, wrinkled old woman holding hands with her dark-haired daughter whose skin is a deep-roasted coffee brown. Fragile yet exuberant, its ruins are an ever-present reminder of its vulnerability. In the ruined convent of Las Capuchinas, we entered a subterranean circular chamber supported by one large central pillar. Our intonations reverberated throughout the chamber and seemed to emanate from somewhere outside of physical space.

One of the most sublime churches is Antigua’s La Merced. Built in 1760, its façade is a counterpoint of white filigree, Baroque columns and arches against a buttery yellow surface. Inside, indirect light enters through celestory windows, illuminating the arched ceiling in a creamy glow. Deep burgundy drapes hang down the rectangular columns spaced along the length of the nave. Despite its Baroque origins, there is restraint and simplicity in the design that well befits a God of boundless mercy.

Our first outing was to the market town of Chichicastenango, the sacred village of the Quiché Maya. Along the roadside, rocks painted white to cover political slogans from previous elections marked the miles. We passed through villages with poor cinderblock houses, an Orange Crush sign hanging at the market in each town. An old turquoise bus, its roof piled high with suitcases, chugged ahead of us, spewing exhaust and impeding our progress on the mountain road. José, our archaeologist guide, swerved the van into oncoming traffic to pass. Each time he did so, we would hold our breath. I often wondered if I would end up in one of the brightly colored tombs that dotted the many cemeteries we passed.

In the narrow lanes of Chichicastenango, stalls overflowed with produce, spices, masks, shawls, clothes, chickens, jewelry. Whenever I stopped to examine something, merchants would surround me, all talking at once, and I would be chest high in a sea of dark-haired heads. A boy, perhaps eight or nine, doggedly pursued me through the market lanes, pleading “tres quetzales” for a shoeshine. I smiled and kept shaking my head, but every time I stopped he would reappear. Our group finally ended up at an inn for lunch. I passed beneath the columned arches and looked back to see him sit down on the steps at the inn’s entrance. As we were seated for lunch, I excused myself for a moment and walked back outside. He was still sitting there on the steps. He looked up at me, squinting in the sunlight.

“Que es tú nome?” I asked.

“Tomás,” he replied.

Digging into my pocket, I pulled out several quetzales. “Cuidados!” I said, “Take care!”

After lunch, we stopped at the Church of Santo Tomás. Colored streamers tied between the church steps and its white façade fluttered in the wind like streamers around a maypole, or like tethers keeping the church from floating aloft toward heaven. It was here in this church that the Popol Vuh — the sacred Mayan stories about the origin of the world — was preserved, first written down in the sixteenth century by one of the local indigenous Mayans in the Quiché language, then copied and translated into Spanish by Father Francisco Ximénez.

The making, the modeling of our first mother-father,
with yellow corn, white corn alone for the flesh.

Thus were the first humans created, as described in Dennis Tedlock’s translation of the Popol Vuh. For the Maya, life was intimately intertwined with the land, so much so that corn and human beings became synonymous. As in the Old Testament, when Jehovah, through the act of speaking “Let there be light,” causes light to emerge, so the Sovereign Plumed Serpent and Heart of Sky together speak the word “Earth,” and it suddenly is brought forth. In language, in the naming, lies the origin.

We hiked up a steep hill outside the village and emerged into a clearing where a Mayan shaman with a worn, gray beanie was performing an ancient rite. A circle of rocks and ash surrounded the slab of an altar, small fires burning at various points around the ring. The shaman wordlessly accepted five quetzales from each of us to say a prayer. He dropped yellow candles into one of the fires, then sprinkled alcohol from a flask onto the flames, which flared dramatically with a roar and died back.

That evening, back in Antigua, we came across a posada as worshipers recreated the wanderings of Mary and Joseph from inn to inn, a procession of votive torches, beating drums, singing and firecrackers. Further on, we passed the courtyard of an inn, and I caught a glimpse of votives flickering in candelabras, Christmas lights adorning an old wagon with a nativity scene, and Mayan statues perched between colonial columns along a flagstone walkway. When we returned to our bed and breakfast, we were treated to a home-made meal of fresh tortillas, chuchitos, sweet tamales with mole wrapped in plantain leaves, chile relleno, and an amazing tropical pie of papaya, apple, pineapple and raisins.

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