Download or read book Religious Mestizaje in Guatemala and Its Sociopolitical Impact written by Eliza Mull and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Maya Catholicism in Guatemala fuses elements of indigenous spirituality and Western Christianity and reflects the complex sociopolitical history of the region. Traditional Maya theology emphasizes the existence of many deities, who are venerated through the maintenance of effigies as part of a covenant between humans and the divine. Upon European contact in the sixteenth century, Spanish missionaries attempted to establish Catholicism as the dominant religion and eliminate all indigenous religious practices; therefore, religion served as a signal of power wielded by the Spaniards. However, the Maya maintained their religious and cultural traditions in secret, and they intentionally incorporated select elements of Catholicism into their preexisting cosmovisión, thus establishing a religious mestizaje. Cofradías exemplify this religious fusion because members of these confraternities venerated Catholic saints according to the Maya cosmovisión and covenant. In the civil unrest of the late twentieth century, brutal Guatemalan governments backed by the United States persecuted rural Maya communities in attempts to eliminate the insurgency. In response to the terrible conditions the Maya were facing, the Catholic Church adopted liberation theology, leading the government to label the Church as dangerous and to offer Pentecostalism as a spiritual alternative. Indigenous pride movements in the late twentieth century proved that Maya cultures had not been eradicated but also indicated that Maya spirituality had become irrevocably tied to Catholicism. In this paper, I argue that religion has symbolized power, identity, and resistance throughout Guatemalan history and therefore has often been leveraged as part of a political agenda. I also argue that the Maya developed a religious mestizaje by intentionally melding their own cosmovisión and traditions with compatible elements of foreign religion.