Zinacatan and the women’s (un)importance

We took a guided tour to a village with indigenes people. Marina, the guide, is from this village.
The advertisement was they we would go into a typical Mayan household.
That was not the case. It was shop:-). It is a place where real Mayan embroidering is done.
The textile are died with plants which they grow themselves in greenhouses.
The art, color and craft is stunning.

But Marina had a lot of interesting stories to tell. In this community the laws are very strict. If you don’t follow by the dot, you’ll be kicked out of the community with no coming back.
It seems that the village has some independence as a Mayan village.

Girls get married between 12 and 18 years. The parents decide to whom they get married. It is of utter importance that the spouse gives birth to boys. If it is not the case the husband can marry again.... and again.... and again, basically as often he likes to. The wife’s live all together.
Wife’s have to be submissive, obedient, sweet - they have no say at anything. The husband has to be revered, honored and a command of him is godlike.

The Mayans here don’t go to school, don’t learn Spanish, reading or writing.
Women are not allowed to show feelings, so they put their feelings in the embroidery of fabrics. Clothing, shawls, art, etc. All the clothing is so colorful, that actually confuses me. Their lives must be difficult - and still so colorful? Actually I have never seen the color black? Have to inquire.

Marina did not want to get married and by 13 years old she left for San Cristóbal. No reading or writing skills, no formal education. Once she left she is inexistent for her family. She must be in her early 50ties. She never saw her family again. Nobody of her 20 brothers and 4 sisters. Neither cousins nor uncles.
She says that for a woman to leave the community she needs self-esteem, courage, a dream, a motivation, a strong will. Very few women do it, she is not aware of a man who did it.

She made a career, a life. She is unmarried and..... unkissed.

I tried to ask wether this particular village is being so strict if Mayan culture generally are like that?
Choosing to resist change and clinging to their customs and traditions?
I guess that there many different forms of Mayan culture, sub-Mayan cultures? Maybe change is being handled differently? Somehow i could not get an answer.

Later, writing this lines I ask a gentleman sitting beside me. He explains to me, that indigene Zinacanta are Mayan but they are separatist. At some point they were not in agreement with the Mayan politics so people and families left. Formed their own tribe and language.

That is what he says...Read more