Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
manfromPachalumwhoissaidtohavewornonlywhiteandtohaveriddenonly
white horses. He was seen every Friday evening, villagers say, carrying a black
chicken up the side of the mountain. Townsfolk also say black birds made of
smoke flew over his house 40 days after he was buried and that during Rosales's
burial, astonished funeral-goers realized he was no longer in his coffin.
Similar legends abound throughout Guatemala, a country with a long tradition
of supernatural mystery, magic, and folklore.
RigobertaMenchúcapturedworldattentionin1992(the500-year-anniversaryof
Columbus's landing in America) when she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
forherworkinbringingawarenesstotheplightofGuatemala'sindigenousMay-
an population. Her book
I, Rigoberta Menchú,
tells the story of her experien-
ces growing up in a Mayan family in Guatemala's Western Highlands and of
how several family members, including her father, mother, and brother, were
murdered during the civil war at the hands of the military. Menchú herself had
been persecuted by the military and eventually fled to exile in Mexico.
Much of her story was contested in author David Stoll's book
Rigoberta
Menchú and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans,
published in 1999. After
painstaking research and agonizing over whether or not to publish his findings,
Stoll questions the veracity of several items appearing in Menchú's account.
Among these are land conflicts with a neighboring ladino family, portrayed by
Menchú as the product of class struggle which, according to Stoll, was more like
a family feud between Rigoberta's father and his in-laws. The topic also casts
doubt on Menchú's claims that she personally witnessed the death of her broth-
er, burned alive at the hands of the military in the village of Chajul, claiming
she probably was not in fact there. Eyewitness testimony, meanwhile, contends
the victims were machine-gunned to death. Underlying the issues of supposed
embellishments and distortions was Stoll's contention that Menchú's autobio-
graphy served purposes aimed at gaining the support of the Mayan peasantry for
the guerrilla movement. Stoll concedes that Menchú's story is valuable in that
it is a compelling version of events that can be generally applied to the plight
of Guatemala's Mayan population during the civil war. Somehow, Menchú man-
aged to escape the controversy with her reputation largely unblemished. In any
case, Menchú's book is a fascinating read, at the very least for the insights it
provides into highland Mayan culture and the atrocities committed during the
civil war.
