Lake Atitlan

Aldous Huxley once described Lake Atitlán, encircled by steep hills and three volcanoes, as “the most beautiful lake in the world.” Some of the most beautiful landscapes in the country make the lake a popular tourist destination, but the surrounding villages have preserved their Maya traditions well: colorful dress and Maya languages vary from town to town.

Today’s landscape around the lake has its origins approximately 85,000 years ago when a massive eruption blew volcanic ash as far as Florida and Panama. The volcano was depleted of its magma, collapsed, and left a caldera (large crater) which eventually collected water – Lake Atitlán now fills part of the caldera.

The lake, at almost a mile above sea level, measures 18km by 12km (about 11 by 8 miles) at its widest point, and averages about 340 metres (1,120 feet) deep.

‘Atitlán’ means “place of the great waters” in Nahuatl, the language of the Mexican troops who first came with the conquistador Pedro de Alvarado through the region.

The volcanoes of San Pedro, Tolimán, and Atitlán provide the backdrop to one of the world’s most beautiful lakes, which is also rich in Maya culture. Both Kaqchikel and Tz’utujil are spoken in the villages around the lake, the former being the language of San Lucas Toliman. Towns like Santiago Atitlán and the departmental capital, Sololá, remain some of the few places in the country where men as well as women still wear traditional traje.

Women in San Antonio Palopó on the east shore, wear simple but unique blue weavings. The villages are predominantly quiet and small agricultural communities, although the town of Panajachel has, since the 60’s, become the largest tourist destination on the lake. Whatever the culture in each town, however, the lake remains central to life.

The lake provides essential water to the surrounding communities for drinking and cleaning. Men in small canoes can be seen fishing at the early hours of the morning, although the introduction of black bass for sport fishing has reduced biodiversity in the lake.

Women, likewise, make their way down to the lake in the morning to congregate and wash clothes; children swim in the lake for amusement and to cool off. In many ways and for many people, the lake is central to life and fundamental to the local culture.

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Local Culture

Maya culture and life in San Lucas are evident and vibrantly illustrated in a simple walk about the village. Religious life is evident in the centuries-old Catholic Church and at shrines and altars around the town, and the large weekly market is a beautiful illustration of the colors and diversity so typical of the country.

The home is a place where mothers and children spend the majority of the day, symbolically representing the comfort and security of a refuge from the wider world. Indeed, the Kaqchikel language refers to the home as a metaphorical extension of the human body: for example, ruchi’jay (‘mouth of the house’) is the door, ruwi’jay (‘hair of the house’) is the roof, and rupan is the inside (‘stomach of the house’).

In San Lucas, as in many Guatemalan towns, homes are pressed tightly together, lining the streets with a multi-colored, stucco façade. Inside the house is usually different than the outside appearance, commonly having dirt floors.

At the center of the home is the kitchen and cooking hearth. Years ago, hearths were made from three stones grouped around a small fire on the dirt floor, where families gathered for meals.

The majority of families still cook with wood fires, but in adobe or cinder block stoves. The tops of these new stoves are made with a metal plate that has severalremovable circular cooking tops. The fire is built underneath the cooking surface and accessible through a small side opening in the adobe construction. There are usually live coals in the stove, thus allowing a person to quickly stoke up active fires when something needs to be warmed or it’s time to cook.

The Food:

The corn crop that we eat today is a tradition entirely attributed to the Maya people, originating in the Mexican plateau and the highlands of Guatemala over 5,000 years ago. Yet more than simply a staple of the Maya diet, corn is intimately revered as the source of life for the Maya.

Attempting, unsuccessfully, to create men and women from soil, and then from wood, Grandmother God then ground corn and water with her hands, successfully creating and fashioning humankind – so follows the creation story of the Popol Vuh, the sacred history of today’s Maya-K’iche.

Maize and beans are the staples of the San Lucas diet, and a perfectly adequate meal might include little else. In fact, it is considered that, in any meal, the Tortilla is always the main dish – providing the spiritual sustenance that other foods cannot provide.

Likewise, there is an admiration and respect within the Maya culture attributed to the household work of the Maya woman. It is often said, for example, that a young girl does not become a woman until she can tortillar, or make corn tortillas. The esteem for this household work derives from the difficult conditions in which Maya women must prepare foods, often cooking over intense heat and smoke from the fire.

The Dress:

It is said that true, dignified womanhood is reached once a woman learns to weave. Understood to be the traditional keepers of the culture, women play an active role in promoting Maya ethnicity through weaving, an art dating to pre-Columbian life.

Weaving huipiles (long, sleeveless tunic) in the traditional red and white of San Lucas, embroidered with an assortment of brilliantly colored and detailed flora and fauna, the women of San Lucas are testament to the vibrant expression of Maya culture.

Using a backstrap loom, huipilies often take several months to complete, employing a technique intimate to Maya culture. The warp (long) threads are stretched between two horizontal bars, one of which is fixed to a post or tree, while the other is attached to a strap that goes a round the weaver’s lower back. The weft (cross) threads are then woven into the piece. The Yarn is also often handspun in the village.

Fischer, Edward F., and Carol Hendrickson; Tecpan, Guatemala. Boulder, Colorado. Westview Press, 2003.

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The History

History of San Lucas Toliman:

In comparison with other villages along the shores of Lake Atitlan, San Lucas Toliman is unique. Serving as a commercial, educational and medical center for thousands of people, San Lucas consist of mainly Kakchiquel Maya (85-90%), living in surrounding villages and fincas (coffee plantations).

Encompassing a town of approximately 20,000 people, with another 20,000 in twenty-two surrounding villages, San Lucas is located in south-central Guatemala on the shores of Lake Atitlan.

Pre-Columbian History:

Pre-Columbian history of San Lucas dates to the 15th century, following the southward emigration from areas in the Yucatan after the collapse of the Maya lowland civilization (circa AD. 900). In the 12th Century, according to Robert Carmack, the K’iche’ people had entered into the western highlands of Guatemala, with Maya kingdoms arising in today’s central highland/Lake Atitlan area.

The Kaqchikels, descendants of the K’iche’an people, emigrated further south in to what is now the San Lucas Toliman area, where they became renowned for their military prowess and, many say, were the ascendant power in the region as the Spanish arrived.

Perhaps one of the best sources on the pre-Columbian history of the Kaqchikel is the manuscript known as the Annals of the Kaqchikels, housed in the library of the University of Pennsylvania.

In 1524, Pedro de Alvarado, one of Cortes’ lieutenants in the conquest of Mexico, set forth to conquer the Maya peoples to the south. In May 1540, following several attempts at rebellion against Spanish dominion, and in an attempt to stem further rebellion, Alvarado ordered the last Kaqchikel king hanged.

Post-Columbian History:

Over the course of next 500 years, the descendants and followers of the original Spanish conquistadors acquired more and more of the lands occupied by the descendants of the great Kaqchikel kingdom. In the late nineteenth century, in efforts to develop a national agricultural export, state policies of indigenous communal land expropriation and forced labor laws created a landowning economic elite and provided them with a supply of cheap indigenous labor for the coffee harvest.

While forced labor was abolished by the mid-twentieth century, the legacy is enormous disparities in rural land ownership, below-subsistence wages for most plantation workers, and extreme income inequality.

The Kaqchikel of San Lucas Tolimán endured their losses with resolve, and in the last half of the 20th century there existed a tenuous equilibrium in which potential for growth in the community was stifled, bound by coffee fincas to the south and west, Lago Atitlán to the north and a steep 2000 ft. ridge to the east.

Taking advantage of the land distribution efforts of the San Lucas Mission, and the tremendous agricultural skills and terracing techniques of the Kaqchikel Maya, land which previously had been unusable became available.

Throughout the past 50 years, land ownership and wealth in the area has been dramatically altered, with many, many families receiving land from the San Lucas Mission.

San Lucas Mission:

The San Lucas Mission was originally founded as by the Franciscan order in the late 16th Century, with the building of the Mission Church around 1584.

In 1958, as the Catholic Church in Rome called for greater involvement of clergy and lay people in world missions, the Diocese of New Ulm responded by launching a diocesan partnership with the Diocese of Sololá, Guatemala. Fr. Greg Schaffer, a diocesan priest from New Ulm, began serving as pastor of the San Lucas Mission in 1962.

Perhaps one of the most well-known missions in Guatemala, its long-term devotion has been the enhancement and enrichment of the whole person – spiritually, intellectually, and physically – by addressing both the immediate effects of poverty and its underlying causes.

Efforts at the San Lucas Mission attempt to respond to the expressed felt need of the people, working to build the infrastructure necessary so that the people might grow out of the process of poverty. Socio-economic programming at the mission is based in Christian Social Doctrine and is designed to develop five basic human rights: food security, shelter, healthcare, education and work.

Fischer, Edward F., and Carol Hendrickson; Tecpan, Guatemala. Boulder, Colorado. Westview Press, 2003.

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