The land of the heights

By: Hugo Rafael López Mazariegos

Legend has it that in remote times no more than one lagoon existed and with the passing of time it was believed that its location is the site where Quetzaltenango was established. One of the peculiarities is that this principality continues to be located in the same place it was founded one thousand years before the Spanish conquest. Until this day it has never changed location and, on the contrary, has grown more central to the valley of the Altiplano. In the Título Real of don Francisco Izquín Nehaíb, dated 1558, he makes mention of Culahá Ah Xelahuh, now called Quetzaltenango. The k'iche'es gave to this place the name Xelahuh and Xelahúh Queh (Place of the Ten Deer, derived from the Mayan calendar). The name Quetzaltenango was given by the indigenous tlaxcaltecas that came to this place with the Spanish conquistadors. In 1825 it became the title of the city by decree of the Asamblea Constituyente. On the 2nd of February 1838 the settlements of the West and East Altiplano, which included for the most part the present-day departments of Quetzaltenango, Totonicapán, Sololá, San Marcos, Quiché, Retalhuleu and Suchitepéquez, considered themselves injured by the central politics and decided to segregate themselves and form the Sixth State in the Central Republic. They elected a provisional government comprised of Marcelo Molina, José Antonio Aguilar and José María Gálvez, who sent a copy of their act to the Secretary of the Supremo Gobierno del Estado de Guatemala, which would not allow the separation and put down their intention to secede. The beginning of the 20th century brought a strong earthquake, which initiated a reconstruction of Quetzaltenango including the construction of a central park, in the style which ruled the times, the Municipal Palace and the neo-classic style Theater. The Edificio Rivera, the Pasaje Enríquez, the Banco de Occidente and the Casa de la Cultura were also built at this time. Following these was the construction, traveling to the south coast, of the first electric railroad and the first of the national railroads. Between 1950 and 1964 the city grew to be the second urban center of the country.

The quintessence of the highlands

By: Luis Villar Anleu

The northern half of the Department anchors the beginning of the axis that forms the volcanic cones in the zone of "high lands" or cold land. It is a grand plateau, of constant soaring wonder, raised at its start by a mountain chain and five of its six volcanoes. This valley is constrained between the mountain chains of Sija and Santa Rita to the north and west, the Chuatroj to the east, and various mountain chains to the south, including the Seven Orejas Volcanoes and Cerro Quemado, that are an impressive series of small volcanic domes. One of the most impressive characteristics is the Samalá River, that drains to the Pacific Ocean.

Owing to several centuries of human occupation, the forest setting has been gradually changing. Now, in addition to the conifer forests, oaks and alisos we find scrub, splashes of robust heather, chilca and wild thistle.

Quetzaltenango begins to change where the communities of mountains end. It is here, on the skirts of the volcanic axis that the luxurious sub-tropic vegetation dominates in the strong slope of the Volcanic Chain.

Among the natural attractions, we find the Costa Cuca Highway where one can readily see the volcanoes of Santa María (3,722 meters), Siete Orejas (3,370 meters), Cerro Quemado (3,197 meters), Chicabal (2,900 meters), Lacandón (2,770 meters), and Santiaguito (2,510 meters). El Zunil, (3,542 meters), is part of the territory of Sololá. We will mention, as well, Chicabal, Cerro El Baúl and other domes, the Urbina Plains, thermal springs and the Minerva Zoo.

Artisanry

By: Francisco Rodríquez Rouanet and Aracely Esquivel

Fabrics

They make cotton fabrics exclusively, elaborated by the women, producing güipiles, skirts, tablecloths, napkins, ribbons and Nativity theme fabrics. They use the backstrap loom or more traditional harness loom of pre-Hispanic origin, also called the "mecapal", in their creation. In Salcajá the principal products are fabrics of regional cloth knotted in animal, plant or geometric designs before being dyed.

They create these cotton fabrics in the municipalities of Cabricán, Huitán, Sibilia, Palestina, Cajolá, San Francisco La Unión, Olintepeque, San Juan Ostuncalco, Concepción Chiquirichapa, San Mateo, La Esperanza, Salcajá, Quetzaltenango, San Martín Sacatepéquez, Almolonga, Cantel, Zunil, El Palmar and Génova.

Ceramics

Of the 24 municipalities that comprise the Department of Quetzaltenango, only one in two elaborate traditional or glazed ceramics. Pottery of this type of clay needs two kiln firings and should be fired in large kilns that require huge amounts of wood fuel. They create the traditional ceramics in the municipalities of San Martín Sacatepéquez and Cantel. Glazed ceramics come solely from Cantel.

Carved Images

In the municipality of Coatepeque they practice the art of carving life-size images, generally of people of a spiritual nature such as the Saints of the Catholic Church.

In Quetzaltenango they make candles, wood products, palm and metal products, musical instruments, woven baskets, leather goods, pyrotechnics, and gourd utensils.

Traditions

By: Carlos René García Escobar

Cofradías and Hermandades

Quetzaltenango is one of the most complex in its profound religiousness. In this sense the cofradías of the Department, syncretized between ancestral beliefs and Catholicism, have maintained permanence over time in their own rites. These rites combine religious cult and Christian images, preexistent Mayan shrines of the Department and invaluable religious, historic and anthropologic colonial antiquities.

The hermandades are most often mestizas and have proliferated Protestant and evangelical cults in opposition to the traditional cults throughout the Department. The complexity of the phenomenon is concentrated in the reduction of traditional cults and the growth of the new ones.

Dances

The traditional dances of Quetzaltenango have also suffered a highly significant reduction in their practice, bringing them today to their minimum expression. However, one of the dances of major impact, in the colonial past and today, persists in the small communities. It is La Conquista and it was on these lands that its legend began. Other dances that persist, due to their roots in the old haciendas, are De Toritos as well as a variation of this dance called De Mexicanos.