GUATEMALA

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 64, Issue 4536, 13 February 1942, Page 7

GUATEMALA

ITS INDIAN ANCESTRY SWITZERLAND OF THE AMERICAS (By R.R.) They say in Guatemala you can set your watch by the rain, but fortunately no one does. The idea, however, holds. From May to November Jupiter Pluvius has a definite schedule for “ punching the clock ; ” then he goes on a six months’ holiday. Guatemala has a hundred climates, but only two seasons. And since there is no reason why people living in the tropics should not name their own seasons, they call the dry one summer and the wet one winter. For unknown centuries when the Indians held full sway in Guatemala nomadic tribes roamed the mountains and valleys, hunting and fishing. Eventually each would disappear, leaving a few hardy descendants behind, and another tribe would rise to roam and disappear in a similar cycle. THE CENTRAL REPUBLICS Guatemala was the first and chief of the five central American republics, occupying the isthmus between Mexico and South America. Her principal exports since she became known to the world at large—have always been coffee, chicle, hardwoods, and bananas. “ Guatemala ” is a rather beautiful name for a tremendously beautiful country. The name comes from a Maya Indian word, Quanhitemallan, which means “ full trees.” But Guatemala is not literally full of trees, It is almost entirely full of “ colour ’’—literally and figuratively. Almost without doubt it is the most significantly Indian of all American nations, with considerable Indian populations. Widely labelled the Switzerland of the Americas, Guatemala transcends the scenic magnificence even of Switzerland. It is still the most populous State between Mexico and continental South America. Its average exports and imports are largest, and, in terms of United States investment, more North American capital is active within the republic than in any other country of central America. The history of the latter area is a chapter in the extraordinary expansion of Spanish control over the New World in the half century after the great discovery. Columbus himself had skirted a portion of the Atlantic coast on his fourth voyage in 1502. As new explorations were undertaken many of the leaders who were to be famous in the early Spanish activities in America found their way to this of the mainland. OLD SPAIN INTRUDES The city of Guatemala occupies a beautiful position in the middle of a broad plain, surrounded on all sides by mountains and volcanoes. Hill after hill rises to the north until the view is shut in by the distant Sierra Madre range. To the south-east is a volcanic group crowned by the peaks of Pacaya, and above the nearer hills to the north rise the giant cone of Agua and the triple craters of Fuego. The streets of the city are laid out at right angles, and they gain an appearance of breadth from the lowness of the houses. Two-storied houses are as scarce as earthquakes are frequent, and the long low lines of buildings are broken only by the stumpy bell-towers and squat cupolas of the churches.

The churches and houses alike are white-washed, and the general effect is cheerful and even dazzling in the bright sunlight of the tropics. Street tramways, telegraph and telephone wires, and electric lights are there to keep the visitor up to date; but, in spite of their intrusion, it is old Spain —Spain of the Moors—which comes uppermost in one’s mind when wandering about the city. The deep-set windows, barred with the heavy iron “ reja ” and the broad “ zaguan ’’ or porch, through which one catches a glimpse of the arches of a colonnade round a patio bright with flowers or chequered with the grateful shade of trees, take one back to the sunny plains of Andalusia.. Nothing in the whole city is so attractive to the tourist as the great market-place, and there the foreigner cannot help spending hours. Every morning the broad streets leading to it are thronged with gaily-dressed ladinos (half-castes) and Indians. COLOUR AND CHATTER The Indians are for the most part carriers of vegetables and other produce from the neighbouring villages, or merchants from a distance, who bring all their merchandise on their backs packed in light wooden crates called “cacastes.” The Indian women from the nearer hamlets also come burdened with large bundles of clean linen, which has been washed for the townsfolk, or support baskets full of cakes on their heads. From the shawl

over the back peeps out the quaint little face of an Indian baby. To judge from the expressions on their faces, one would say that the Indians are a dull ana solemn race. This impression vanishes when one hears their lively chatter as they trot along under their burdens, for none but the most heavily laden condescend to a mere walk. The ladino housekeepers and maidservants with their bright striped aprons and rebosos, add to the crowd, and give it a distinct charm when they poise their large ,flat baskets on their heads and show- their shapely bare arms and pretty hands to advantage. One is not long in the city before hearing the wails of the mistresses at the length of time spent by their servants in buying a few vegetables or a dozen eggs; for, indeed, these handmaidens dearly love the

loitering and chatter of the marketplace. The usual evening stroll of the Guatemaltecos is to the Cerro del Carmen, a small turf-covered hill rising to the north-east of the city, where stands an old church and the remains of a monastery, perhaps the oldest in the republic. The blood and spirit of Guatemala are Indian—almost as much to-day as four centuries ago. In a literal sense, the renowned Mayan civilisation is contemporary as well as pre-Colum-bian. Certainly it is neither accurate nor sufficient to gauge the culture of the great Mayan races in terms of the past, though it is true that Guatemala is also a land of heroic ruins and of shrines to great and enlightened Indian empires of bygone centuries.