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Transcription: [00:00:18]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
There are people who are working towards the good, who go and visit people to try to continue to help their health,
[00:00:26]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
and continue to keep them in, in a good, a good spirit. Not, not a bad one.
[00:00:32]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
[[Speaking in Spanish]]
[00:00:50]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
Now the people want to find someone else who can replace him, but everyone is afraid to take his place.
[00:00:55]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
and that's one way that the old traditions become-- begin to become lost, because the support system for such traditions are no longer there.
[00:01:06]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
I might add, one of the things that's wonderful about the community, in Indian Town, if it isn't- if it is able to gain permanent legal status,
[00:01:16]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
and they're not sent back by the INS to Guatemala, is that there, at least, they do feel safe to continue these traditions,
[00:01:24]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
which they don't really feel safe in their own country to do.
Are-- are there some-- Yeah. Question here?
[00:01:31]

{SPEAKER name="Unknown Speaker"}
I understand that-- I understand that Indians have-- Mayan Indians have been put in hamlets now by military [[??]].
[00:01:41]

{SPEAKER name="Unknown Speaker"}
Does that mean that in those hamlets, people are not allowed to continue their cultural traditions?
[00:01:47]

{SPEAKER name="Unknown Speaker"}
Even with the permission of the [[inaudible]].
[00:01:48]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
Ok, I'll repeat the question.
[00:01:51]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
She's tell- She's asking about the certain hamlets which people are put in where they're not where they're not allowed to continue these traditions.
[00:02:00]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
There are certain areas in Guatemala, I think there are now 14 hamlets finished, and another 40 planned,
[00:02:06]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
which have been characterized, some as more like concentration camps, where people are rounded up from the country side.
[00:02:13]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
Again because the countryside, in the countryside, they can become isolated and out of, outside of control,
[00:02:19]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
and they're brought into these hamlets, and there they live in a way that's not like they used to live,
[00:02:26]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
You might want to describe this, you've seen --
[00:02:28]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
Yes, we have municipalities, like counties, and all of the land in the municipalities are common lands;
[00:02:39]


{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
no private lands. So when the people-- They change, in order to have good lands for the next two years. They change the place where the alcalde
[00:02:51]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
allow them to plant the corn, beans and those things.
[00:02:57]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
And they are, when they are going to plant in land; they go together and work together and plant the lands.
[00:03:07]

@They are proud having lands where to work.
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{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
In other words, collective lands that they plant together.

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
Yes, and then in this model villages now,
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{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
they are taken away from this place where they were born and they were living for long time ago.
[00:03:24]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
And they went to the model villages, living with other people, that they don't understand, because they speak other languages and other customs.
[00:03:33]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
In other words, they put people together who are not from the same community.
[00:03:35]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
The question of land is very important, because living there, they are living like in very sad situation.
[00:03:44]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
They don't have lands. There are lands, but the land of rich land holders,
[00:03:50]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
and the only survival way they can be there, is to go and work for them.
[00:03:57]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
But, they feel like they were took from there; put on there, or something important; and that's a very sad situation.
[00:04:08]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
Let me elaborate a little bit.
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{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
One of the things about the Maya is that unlike people like ourselves,
[00:04:15]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
who would have a church, a temple, or some religious focus to go to. For the traditional Maya, the environment in which they live, is the church.
[00:04:24]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
The local sacred mountain, valley, springs, forest, small hills, every unusual piece of the topography, is part of the church;
[00:04:34]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
is another altar within their-- within their religious world.
[00:04:38]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
It's where their ancestors lived, and died and prayed. It's where they see themselves continuing the lives of those ancestors.
[00:04:47]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
When they're removed from those areas and put in what have been characterized as more civilized, more urbanized, more westernized, more developed areas,
[00:04:57]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
they're abruptly pulled out of this church, this living church, that they and their ancestors have lived on,
[00:05:06]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
and they're put in areas that are alien to them with people who are alien to them. Sometimes who don't speak the same language.
[00:05:12]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
And, they go through what a kind of cultural [[??] at times; a feeling of, there are my ancestors' altars out there where I came from,
[00:05:21]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
but I can't go out there and feed those alters, because they'll think I'm going and feeding the gorillas.
[00:05:26]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
Ya know, and we may think, well, you know, the ancestors are not really gonna be bothered if you don't put candles for them.
[00:05:34]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
But they do believe that they will be bothered if you don't put candles for them, because of the ancestors have to be taken care of.
[00:05:39]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
And when they're put in that situation, the pressure for them, is to convert to some religion which no longer believes these things;
[00:05:47]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
in order that they don't live in a situation where they believe in a church, but can't ever go to it. If you see what I mean?
[00:05:55]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
So while these model hamlets look, appear to be very civilized. They have streets, and they have electricity, and they have water, and they have nice name posts on the sides of every one,
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{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
with nice names like Brotherhood, and the Victorious Army, and various other, sort of patriotic names.
[00:06:13]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
In fact, what it is, is a terrible dislocation from what, for what these people, is their traditional way of life.
[00:06:20]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
And it tends to create an environment where outside missionaries; and there are a lot of out side missionaries, principally from the United States
[00:06:28]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
who go there to to missionize with foreign ways of particularly apocalyptic religions.
[00:06:36]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
They find that a sort of an emotional crutch that allows them to get out of the kind of suffering that they're in.
[00:06:45]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
All the more so, with the apocalyptic ones, because when there is further violence, the violence is only another confirmation of the coming judgement day in the future.
[00:06:55]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
In other words, its sort of self, a self confirming. So this is-- The model villages, as they're called, are one of the most tragic aspects of the recent violence. Yea.
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Transcription Notes:
Can anyone translate the SPANISH at the beginning. I checked the rest of the translation. alcalde - Spanish municipal magistrate