As I had observed in Cantel, however, 

 Judas was something more than the be- 

 trayer of Christ. In the 1960s, when men of 

 the town universally wore white cotton 

 shirts and large-waisted trousers tied with 

 a red sash, the effigy was costumed in the 

 canvas pants, black jacket, boots, and 

 cowboy hat of a Ladino rancher. And 

 Judas's ride around town on Saturday, 

 reminiscent of the one carried out in Can- 

 tel, further identified him as a Ladino, 

 since riding a horse was a prerogative of 

 Ladinos during colonial times. As I 

 watched his image, tied to the saddle and 

 with a cigarette in his mouth, I realized 

 that under cover of the role of Christians 

 outraged by the killing of Christ, the Indi- 

 ans were acting out their own hatred of 

 Ladinos. 



The priest did not acknowledge this 

 performance, calling it a "pagan" practice, 

 but as soon as his Volkswagen left the 



churchyard, the entourage set out. Al- 

 though in Cantel the merchants had show- 

 ered Judas with donations, in Amatenango 

 only the folk healers gave money. Perhaps 

 they felt an obligation toward Judas as one 

 source of their power over illnesses caused 

 by witchcraft (I could only speculate, 

 since none of them confirmed this). Fol- 

 lowing Judas's ride around town, the effigy 

 was dismembered and later burned, the 

 wooden mask being saved to be used the 

 following year. The money that had been 

 collected was used to buy liquor — associ- 

 ated with the water used to bathe the body 

 of Christ — that was served to the mayor- 

 domos and their assistants. 



Another variation on the theme of Judas 

 was described in a 1965 monograph, Los 

 Escdndalos de Maximon (The Scandals of 

 Maximon), by anthropologist E. Michael 

 Mendelson. Mendelson reported that 

 among the Atitec-speaking Maya of Santi- 



Jim Pieper 



As part of Holy Week in Santiago Atllldn, 

 left, Judas is hanged on a rack beside the 

 church. In that town he Is commonly 

 called Maximon and Incorporates the 

 role of a Maya fertility spirit. The Maya 

 area, below, where cults devoted to Judas 

 flourish, crosses the frontier between 

 Guatemala and Mexico. 



Joe LeMonnier 



ago Atitlan, one of Guatemala's beautiful 

 lake towns, the figure wore a shirt, pants, 

 and belt similar to those worn by the Indi- 

 ans, but along with them he wore a 

 Ladino-style blue jacket, boots, and a 

 broad-brimmed hat. He had a large cigar 

 placed firmly in his mouth. Despite his 

 role in the Christian Holy Week enact- 

 ment, everyone (except for the clerics) 

 called him Maximon. The Indians told 

 Mendelson that Maximon was the oldest 

 of the animal spirits; he was also called the 

 Black Magician, patron of those "prayer 

 makers" who, like the curers of Amate- 

 nango, divine the cause of illness. 

 - To Mendelson, Maximon seemed to be 

 the incarnation of a traditional fertility 

 spirit. This association was evident in the 

 fruit offerings displayed on his altar and 

 the corncobs hung on the image during the 

 cult celebrations of Holy Week. Christ 

 might have redeemed humanity from orig- 

 inal sin, but in the eyes of the Indians — 

 given the Catholic church's identification 

 of sexuality with sin and portrayal of Jesus 

 as an ascetic — he exposed the world to 

 sterility. In one of the myths they re- 

 counted to Mendelson, "God cooperated 

 with the ancient kings to sow the worid 

 with good things, but something happened 

 and the world has died." Through Max- 



49 



