| Las Pacayas
Las Pacayas is a small, isolated Indian village located in the north-central highlands of Guatemala in the department of Quiché (key CHAY). It is a three-hour walk to the nearest bus route and a twelve-hour bus ride to Guatemala City, the capital. It is an hour-and-a-half drive to the nearest hospital or telephone.
There are approximately 850 people living in 150 homes in Las Pacayas. 80% of the people are Indians (descendants of the Mayans) and 20% are Ladinos (people of Spanish ancestry).
Historically, the Indian population in Guatemala has been very oppressed. This is especailly true of the people in Las Pacayas who are among the poorest and most detached groups in Guatemala. The people continue to rely on superstitions, witchcraft, and idolatry to control their daily lives. The poverty and living condidtions in Las Pacayas can be shocking. The people, with few exceptions, live in houses made of hand-sawn pine boards tied together with vines (nails are too expensive). The roofs are thatched with sugar cane leaves and the floors are dirt. There is no electricity in Las Pacayas. The people use home made kerosene lamps and their cooking fires for light.
The people of Las Pacayas depend on their crops of corn and beans to survive. The average annual income is less than $300.00. They earn this by selling any extra corn or beans they might grow; by raising livestock–mostly pigs and chickens and some cattle and sheep; by working for someone else locally; or by leaving Las Pacayas to to and work on the coastal plantations (coffee, cotton, rubber, etc.).
The Indian people of Las Pacayas maintain their culture by speaking their own language called Uspantec (oos-pahn-TEK). For this reason, the people of Las Pacayas are called the Uspantecos. Uspantec is one of the many Maya India languages that is still spoken in Guatemala. Although many of these languages are related, they are different enough so that Indians from different areas must use Spanish to understand one another. The Spanish they speak is limited especailly when speaking with the women or the children.
The women of Las Pacayas continue to wear tradition dress as do other Indian groups in Guatemala. Different areas have distinctive dress patterns and colors. It is usually easy to tell where a woman is from by the clothes she is wearing. This dress consists of a corte (KOR-tay), six yards of material wrapped like a skirt. It is tied around th waist with a woven belt that i snearly three yards long. They also always wear a decorated apron over their corte unlike most women from other areas. The typical blouse in Las Pacayas is sewn and includes much lace and decoration. Other Indian groups weave their own blouses and each area has its own colorful pattern.
The climate in Las Pacyas can accurately be descibed as rainy and cool. Even in the dry season, Las Pacayas sees some rain. It sits in a green valley of corn, sugar cane, and pine trees at an altitude of 5,000 feet. Therefore, the temperature is quite tolerable, between 70-75 degrees during the day and rarely below 50 degrees at night.
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