CHAPTER 13 THE INDIAN VOICE IN RECENT MESOAMERICAN LITERATURE 503intrigues and greater dangers. “I know nothing of you,” he said to me the first time, which
was fine with me. But some days later I learned he was carrying out a probe about me and
my associations in town and in the village.
When I next reported to the commander, he said to me: “You will have to report
here without fail. And don’t duck out on me because I’m not one to be fooled with, as
you did with my predecessor. I just came from el Quiché and I know how to clean up
towns infested by guerrillas.”
“Be assured, I will comply with the order.”
Around this time the school semester was coming to a close. I had written final eval-
uations for my pupils and prepared to fill out the end of term reports and lead the clos-
ing ceremonies. The last days of October resembled a sick burro reluctant to move a step.
More corpses kept appearing in the outskirts of town, and machine gun volleys shattered
the silence every night. The army infested the town with secret agents who sowed distrust
and fear among the neighbors. Once more I began to fear the prospect of a late-night kid-
napping; my sleep grew fitful and my dreams were stalked by nightly terrors.
With the rise to power of Efraín Ríos Montt, all remaining human rights were abol-
ished, and the army became the sole arbiter of the lives of Guatemalans. As the situation
deteriorated day by day, I became convinced that I had to protect my life somewhere else,
and so one dark night I fled with my wife and children in the firm expectation of re-
turning when peace and tranquility will have returned to the beloved land of the quet-
zal. (Montejo 1987:112)Rigoberta Menchú’s I, Rigoberta Menchú(1983)
It is fitting to conclude this chapter with the voice of Rigoberta Menchú, the K’iche’
Mayan woman of Guatemala who won the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize (for more on
Rigoberta, see Box 8.3 in Chapter 8). Chief among the credentials that won for her
this well-deserved honor was her autobiographical account I, Rigoberta Menchú.In
this work she recorded, via oral testimony in Spanish (her second language), her ex-
traordinary life as an Indian peasant woman who saw her own family (mother, fa-
ther, and brother) cruelly murdered by the Guatemalan army for their alleged
involvement in antigovernment activities under the military regime of President
Romeo Lucas García, who came to power in 1978. (The reader will note that Menchú
is responding to the same period and the same national tragedy as Montejo, whose
work is discussed and excerpted immediately before.)
The social context of Rigoberta Menchú’s testimony is considered elsewhere in
this volume (see Chapters 8 and 9). However, for the present context, it is useful to
recall that Guatemala in the late twentieth century retains many features of a caste so-
ciety. A minority population of Hispanic identity (“ladinos”) controls most of
Guatemala’s land and means of production, and behind the scenes it continues to sup-
press political expression and ethnic affirmation of the majority population of Mayan
Indian identity. Although she addresses her Guatemalan experience in particular, she
regards her testimony as a manifesto on behalf of all of Latin America’s marginalized
indigenous peoples (for an opposing ladino view, see Box 8.8 in Chapter 8).
In the following extract from I, Rigoberta Menchú,the author considers the po-
litical and ethnic power of Mayan views of the human soul. This discussion is directly
related to the concept of individual coessences (discussed in Chapter 14) as a key trait
of native Mesoamerican religious belief and practice. The author concurs with our