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1 



E. Michael Mendelson 



With a cigar planted in his mouth, Judas, left, departs with the figures 

 of the Virgin Mary and Our Lady of the Rosary for a procession 

 through Santiago Atitldn on Easter Sunday of 1953. Clothed in a hard 

 hat, sweatpants, and jogging shoes (opposite page, bottom), a more 

 contemporary Judas is paraded through Amatenango del Valle in 

 1993. In the same year, dressed as a Ladino rancher, Judas hangs 

 over the entrance of the church in Zinacantdn, below. 



Maya god of the underworld, and describe 

 him as "the changing power who main- 

 tains the world in movement while chang- 

 ing people's sexual partners." 



They point out that Judas-Maximon 

 represents negative, as well as positive, as- 

 pects of sexuality. Young men ask the 

 prayer makers to intercede for them with 

 Maximon, viewed as the patron of roman- 

 tic love. But the Maya of Santiago Atitlan 

 also regard romantic love itself as destabi- 

 lizing, posing a threat as it does to parental 

 control over the selection of mates. As the 

 deity of unbridled sexuality, according to 

 Tarn and Prechtel, Maximon stimulates 

 both desire and its aftermath, disorder 



Cantel, Amatenango del Valle, Santi- 

 ago Atitlan, and other Maya communities 

 have all placed their own peculiar stamp 

 on Judas, using the figure to embody dif- 

 ferent local concerns. (In the 1980s, one 



anthropologist even found a Judas figure 

 in a guerrilla camp in Guatemala, where 

 Maya were counterattacking the genocidal 

 forces of Gen. Efrain Rios Montt.) Judas 

 has also responded to change over time. 

 The Judas I saw in Amatenango in the 

 1960s had changed by 1992, as the com- 

 munity itself became more engaged in 

 commerce with the outside world. That 

 year I arrived on Holy Saturday, as the 

 new young priest directed the drama in the 

 church. The effigy of Judas was already 

 hanging over the entrance. Instead of his 

 predecessor's gloomy rancher's clothing, 

 he was dressed in a jogging suit with his 

 feet stuffed into Nike sneakers. 



On Sunday a boisterous and jocular 

 group of mayordomos bore the hanged 

 body of Judas on muleback, greeting the 

 householders and asking for offerings. 

 Now, all the people — not just the curers — 



offered money. Also carried in the proces- 

 sion by the women prayer makers was the 

 church's statue of Our Lady of the Rosary 

 weeping over the recumbent body of the 

 crucified Christ. When I lived in the vil- 

 lage in 1965, the priest had not permitted 

 the removal of saints' statues from the 

 church for fiestas, because of the conflicts 

 that often arose between villagers and vis- 

 iting Ladinos, and women did not play any 

 public role in ceremonies. 



The sporty Judas of 1992 was greeted 

 more peacefiiUy than in the past. While 

 before, Ladinos were perceived as domi- 

 nating the commercial world as marketers 

 and plantation bosses, more Indians now 

 had gained, or hoped to gain, a piece of the 

 action. Many of them owned trucks, and 

 dozens of television aerials poked up from 

 the cement block houses that had replaced 

 many of the old wattle-and-daub 



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