CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF SOUTHWEST GUATEMALA—McBRYDE fal 
them being made on a fairly large scale was Pueblo 
Nuevo. 
Hand-dipped candles, white and yellow, hanging in 
graceful clusters around the vendor, are commonly 
seen near the entrances to market places. Probably 
because the small Ladino storekeepers sell candles, 
only a few Indian merchants sell them in the plaza, 
except at Chichicastenango, where the Maxenos use 
great numbers of them. Inside their main church, 
lines of candles along aisles carpeted with rose petals 
are kept burning continuously (pl. 35, b). Outside, 
on the large, circular stone steps and along each side 
of the street leading to it, 15 or 20 candle vendors 
do a thriving business on market days (Thursdays 
and Sundays). Candles are used in great quantity 
not only in churches, but also for all sorts of magical 
rites, conducted by medicine men at crude altars 
hidden back in the pine-covered hills. (These prac- 
tices are common throughout most of Indian Guate- 
mala.) 
CHARCOAL 
(Map 18) 
In the municipios of San José Chacaya (Solola 
area) and Cajola, in the Quezaltenango region, 
charcoal making is an important industry. Truck- 
loads of charcoal from Tecpan may be seen en route 
to Guatemala City, and there are probably other 
centers about which no information was obtained. 
At Cajola it was said that charcoal was made by 
Indians living back in the cantons of the mountain 
slopes behind the village. Oak trees are purchased, 
informants said, in the municipios of San Carlos 
Sija and Sibilia. Thin, straight sections of select 
wood are cut out, the remainder being used or sold 
for firewood or for construction material.14* The 
burning of charcoal at Cajola is done in pits, bunch- 
grass and twigs serving as fuel, and air is excluded 
by dirt piled up in a big mound above each pit. 
Holes, usually four, are driven through to carry off 
the smoke. Burning is continous for 3 days, at the 
end of which time the oak is charred and ready for 
the market. Some charcoal is made in the neighbor- 
ing municipios of San Juan Ostuncalco and San 
Miguel Siguila. 
INCENSE 
(Map 18) 
Incense (copal, incienso) usually appears in the 
market in three forms, the commonest and least 
112 Shingles are also a product of Cajola, 
expensive being granular estoraque, sold in several 
grades of quality and coarseness. Pom is the name 
of the disk form, consisting of wafers about 1% 
inches in diameter and usually put up in a cylindrical 
banana-fiber package 15 inches long containing about 
2 dozen pieces. The finest grade is the so-called 
Cuilco, packed in small, circular loaves, two to a 
package. The last was said to come, prior to about 
1930, only from Cuilco, and was regarded as the 
most fragrant of all incense, and of unique quality. 
More recently, however, it has come from Santa 
Maria Chiquimula, almost exclusively, according to 
several merchants. Men from that municipio sell 
most of the incense, in all forms, throughout the 
Quezaltenango-Totonicapan Valley area. Copal in 
the Solola-Chichicastenango region is brought 
mainly from Sacapulas. Chichicastenango is an 
especially good market for incense, because of the 
continual burning of it by Indians, who may be seen 
at almost any time swinging censers as they kneel on 
the circular stone steps of the church (pl. 29, a). 
Resin of trees (Icica spp., Elaphrium spp., and 
others) (Standley, 1920-26, p. 543) is used in mak- 
ing the various forms of incense, but no first-hand 
information was obtained regarding manufacture or 
identity of the tree. 
COMMERCE AND MARKETS 
(Map 19) 
ANCIENT TRADE 
The great significance of trade among the in- 
habitants of Central America, especially the Maya, 
dates from pre-Columbian time (Blom, 1932; Mc- 
Bryde, 1933, pp. 110-112). A well-developed com- 
merce, the channels of which extended for long dis- 
tances over the area and were even linked remotely 
with North and South America, is indicated by a 
wealth of archeological and historical evidence. Tur- 
quoise at Chichén Itza1* is thought to have come 
from Veracruz, the central Mexican highlands, or 
even New Mexico; beaten gold objects found in 
Guatemala (Rossbach collection, Chichicastenango) 
have been tentatively identified as Peruvian. It is 
probable that they reached the Maya area through 
a series of exchanges, involving several different 
Indian groups. 
Ceramic pieces from numerous archeological sites 
throughout the Central American region include 
113 See Morris, Charlot, and Morris, 1931, vol. 1, p. 196; Thompson, 
1945, p. 16. 
