Main minority and indigenous communities: K’iche’ 11 per cent, Kaqchikel 7.8 per cent, Mam 5.2 per cent, Q’eqchi’ 8.3 per cent, other Mayan, indigenous non-Mayan, Garífuna and Xinca

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Main languages: Spanish (national language), 23 Mayan languages

Main religions: Christianity (Roman Catholic, Evangelical Protestants, Mayan religions (increasingly practiced as a result of the Mayan movement) Judaism

Guatemala is the most populous country in Central America. Most of the population is of indigenous or mixed Maya descent. The Maya are the only indigenous people in Central America to make up the majority of the population of a Central American republic. Mayans of different social classes can be found in all of Guatemala’s cities, although the majority live in poverty or extreme poverty and are most likely to suffer social economic political and cultural exclusion. Most of the rest of the population are ladino, a term referring to Europeans (mostly Spanish and German), mestizo or mixed race Guatemalans and Maya who have adopted a Euro-Hispanic culture.

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According to official statistics, approximately 39.8 per cent are indigenous; however, according to indigenous peoples’ representatives, the true figure is closer to 60 per cent. The indigenous community in Guatemala comprises 22 different peoples, including K’iche’, Kaqchikel, Mam, Q’eqchi’ and Matan.

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There are also persons of African ancestry in Guatemala who originate from three groups: Afro-mestizos, Garífuna and Afro-Caribbean Creole English-speakers.

Afro-mestizos are the largest, and most ethnically assimilated of the three communities. They are connected to Africans who were brought to Guatemala from the earliest days of the colony to provide forced labour in sugar, indigo and cochineal plantations, and the large cattle ranches of the Pacific lowlands (e.g. around the town of Amatitlan).

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With the seventeenth-century decline in slave importation, much of this original black population gradually assimilated into the Guatemalan Afro-indigenous mestizo mix and formed the so-called ‘zambo’ population of colonial Guatemala.

The Garífuna are an Afro-indigenous community located on the Atlantic Coast. They are descended mainly from the African and Carib peoples of the island of St Vincent in the Lesser Antilles who were exiled to Roatán Island in Honduras by the British in 1796 and subsequently spread to other countries (LINK see Honduras). The Garífuna arrived shortly after Guatemalan independence in 1823 and were joined on the coast by other free blacks.

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During the first half of the twentieth century a small English-speaking Afro-Caribbean community also developed in Guatemala, consisting of economic migrants from Jamaica and Belize who came in search of employment opportunities in the railroad and banana industries.

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The Guatemalan government of the time placed immigration restrictions on black newcomers, limiting their stay in the country to two-year intervals, nevertheless, over the decades they continued to migrate making the Caribbean ‘lowlands’ the most Afro-Guatemalan region in the country.

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The three most important Afro-Guatemalan settlements along the Caribbean coast are Livingston (a Garífuna settlement), Puerto Barrios and Santa Tomás. All three towns have important Garífuna and/or Afro-Caribbean communities and are notable eco-cultural tourist destinations.

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Garífuna in Guatemala have largely escaped the violence that has affected the Maya and have even provided sanctuary in the Livingston area for some Maya groups escaping the conflict. Historically, Garífuna have existed on farming and fishing, as well as working in the logging, banana and shipping industries.

There are also small communities of Chinese- and Arabic-speakers, as well as a Jewish community, in Guatemala. A small Jewish population exists in Guatemala City and is influential within the national business community.

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https://hiplatina.com/7-indigenous-mayan-cultures-of-guatemala/

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