In this tightly researched examination of San Andrés Xecul, C. James MacKenzie demonstrates that the focus on Maya Guatemalan “community” remains a legitimate focal point of research and analysis in the current transnational and migration period. But this work is not ethnographic research on an “isolated community.” In addition to reviewing the internal and local forces that influence and define Xecul, MacKenzie describes and discusses the national, transnational, and global forces and influences, including the effects of both out-migration and sometimes the path of out-migrants back to Xecul.
As a community, Xecul experiences divisions and conflict that include matters of religion, culture, politics, justice, migration, jealousy, and individual competition. But MacKenzie demonstrates that the community, in spite of the internal and external complexities it faces, endures and maintains its structure and remains primary for the identity of the people. Thus, he takes us another step on the road of understanding and documenting the Maya as they navigate through their historical realities and the circumstances and aspirations of the twenty-first century.
Religion and spirituality as practiced in Xecul serve as the primary point of focus, from which MacKenzie make his extended analyses and conclusions. He identifies and analyzes four main religious expressions, two of which relate directly to traditional Maya civilization, and two that are Christian. Traditional “costumbre” relates to ancient ways of Maya believing, and to the spirituality of nature and forces such as the nawal. Many people in Xecul maintain some level of connection to costumbre. Maya Spirituality has developed an intellectual and progressive ideology and strategy that is opposed to colonialism and advocates for Maya human rights, political and ethnic advantages, and international recognition of Maya strength. MacKenzie considers costumbre to be non-modern and focused on “bodies,” and Maya Spirituality to be modern and based on logic.
“Enthusiastic Christians” are the fundamentalists, both Catholic and Protestant, who stress the role of the body in religious belief and practice. “Inculturation Theology” refers to the Catholic strategy that endeavors to bring elements of Maya identity and custom into the Church, thus lessening the appearance of religious colonialism. To MacKenzie, “inculturation” and “Maya Spirituality” share focus on mind, intellect, and logic, and therefore modernity, in promoting beliefs.
In exploring these four religious streams, MacKenzie avoids using “modern” vs. “primitive” as simple opposites, and apparently does not aim to place value or judgment on either. His aim is to observe and analyze developments and connections to religious strategies and logics. However, “modern” used as a distinction gave me some discomfort because the concept remains sensitive and carries baggage connected to the narrative of progress and overcoming the primitive. I have heard some Maya intellectuals compare the academic concept of modernization with being colonized or viewed with prejudice. This is certainly not the aim of the author; nonetheless, the term might not be welcomed or clearly understood by everyone.
MacKenzie extended his research by visiting Xecul communities in the United States and discovered that, in spite of immigration related difficulties, attachments to the Xecul community in Guatemala remains strong. In my personal observations, Maya immigrants in the United States often refer to their local populations as “the community,” especially when that community consists of people from the same hometown but also with mixed places of origin. In MacKenzie's book, there is much that collaborates with and adds understanding to my observations about Guatemalan Maya diaspora groups. He gives new perspective on the concept of community and the ties to Guatemala that persist in the United States. Indeed, Mackenzie's study of Xecul stands as an example of community in the contemporary period, and it will increase our ability to understand and work with Maya elsewhere in Guatemala and in the Maya Diaspora.
