DANCING DAYS OF THE MAYA

In the mountains of Guatemala, murals depict elaborate performances combining Catholic and Indigenous traditions

- DANREEL WEISS

WHEN LUCAS ASICONA, a farmer and local historian living in the small city of Chajul in Guatemala's western highlands, decided to renovate his three-room adobe house in 2003, he could hardly have expected to make a major artistic discovery. In one of the rooms, which contained a kitchen and several beds, fragments of plaster had been falling off the walls, revealing patches of paintings underneath. As Asicona removed more plaster using a machete, he was stunned to find a tableau covering three walls. The artwork featured a range of people dressed in outfits that mixed elements associated with both the Spaniards, who colonized the territory in the early sixteenth century, and the area's Indigenous Ixil Maya. Researchers have come to recognize that the murals uncovered in Asicona's house, as well as in a number of other residences in Chajul, are the product of a complex cultural amalgamation that took place in the city after the Spaniards arrived.

On the room's western wall is a pair of seated musicians. One plays a short instrument, likely a flute or chirimía, an oboe-like woodwind introduced by the Spanish; the other beats a large rectangular drum. The musicians are trailed by a person who might be a dwarf carrying a long stick and they face a man who appears to be dancing while holding out a green bottle. The dwarf and the musicians wear typically Spanish attire-broadbrimmed hats, short mantles over one shoulder, caftans with puffed sleeves and ruffs, broad belts, slim trousers, and heeled shoes with pointed toes. By contrast, the dancer wears an outfit that blends Spanish trousers and heeled shoes with festive accoutrements associated with the Ixil Maya: a tasseled mantle made of feathers, a shirt with dangling strings, a long cloak sporting a representation of a white bird, and a decorative headdress.