Our Elders Teach Us

The Maya have always constituted the majority of Guatemala’s population. Nonetheless, until recently they have been notably absent from published national histories. On those occasions when they have appeared, they are typically cast as lazy and childlike “indios” incapable of meaningful actions. While this published material may tell readers much about the ethnic myths of the country’s nonindigenous elite, it is of minimal value for understanding the Maya. David Carey’s Our Elders Teach Us joins an emerging literature intended to put the Maya accurately into their own history. Carey’s contribution focuses on Mayan oral histories and in that regard is unique.At the heart of this study are 414 interviews that Carey, who is fluent in Kaqchikel, conducted in the late 1990s in various predominantly Kaqchikel-speaking towns. A strength of the book is his comparison of the oral histories with data gleaned from archival and published sources. Carey explains, “Only after learning what constituted Kaqchikel viewpoints did I go to the archives to search for information that would support, conflict with, and supplement the data I acquired during my fieldwork” (p. 2). As a result, the reader is exposed to indigenous perspectives but also comes away with a solid understanding of the previous historical literature on the topics considered, including its strengths and limitations.Nine focal topics constitute the book’s individual chapters: town origins, land and labor, epidemics, natural disasters, education, the military, President Ubico’s legacy, leaders, and ethnic relations. The time frame considered is heavily weighted toward the recent past, rarely extending back to the nineteenth century. For instance, the chapter on natural disasters considers the earthquakes of 1917 and 1976, while the chapter on epidemics concentrates on the Spanish influenza that ravaged the area in 1918–19. A common theme is the uneven relation between Maya and ladinos. Oral accounts underscore the severity of the problem: for example, during the aforementioned Spanish influenza epidemic, Kaqchikel Maya were forced to bury the infected along with the dead.These problematic interethnic relations are one of the few major problem areas in Guatemalan society that the book fully confronts. This is particularly evident in the chapter on the military, where Carey notes that few Kaqchikel have enlisted by choice and cites their complaints about living conditions once conscripted. It also acknowledges that “[m]any Kaqchikel observe that today when men return from military service, they have lost much of their respect for their culture and community; their character has changed” (p. 185). In contrast with these negatives, the author includes a section citing perceived positives of the military experience, such as a widespread appreciation of the military’s emphasis on discipline and formal education. The section subtitled “Violent Skills and Experiences” focuses almost exclusively on the 1944–54 revolutionary period; notably absent is discussion of the massive state-sponsored violence of recent decades. In fact, the book’s only substantive treatment of that violence is embedded in the chapter on natural disasters, where Carey’s Kaqchikel informants draw a link between the 1976 earthquake, relief organizations espousing Marxist ideology, and a military backlash.While I might have liked a deeper exploration of state violence and other topics, Our Elders Teach Us is a clearly written and nonpolemical contribution that should prove valuable to historians in general and to students interested in the Maya of today

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