The Chuj or Chuh are a
Maya people
The Maya peoples () are an ethnolinguistic group of indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica. The ancient Maya civilization was formed by members of this group, and today's Maya are generally descended from people who lived within that historical reg ...
, whose homeland is in
Guatemala
Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by H ...
and
Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
. Population estimates vary between 30,000 and over 60,000. Their indigenous language is also called
Chuj Chuj might refer to:
* A component of Russian and Polish profanity
* Chuj language, a Mayan language spoken in western Guatemala and southern Mexico
* Chuj people
The Chuj or Chuh are a Maya people, whose homeland is in Guatemala and Mexico. Popula ...
and belongs to the
Q'anjobalan branch of
Mayan languages
The Mayan languagesIn linguistics, it is conventional to use ''Mayan'' when referring to the languages, or an aspect of a language. In other academic fields, ''Maya'' is the preferred usage, serving as both a singular and plural noun, and as ...
. Most Chuj live in the Guatemalan department of
Huehuetenango
Huehuetenango () is a city and municipality in the highlands of western Guatemala. It is also the capital of the department of Huehuetenango. The city is situated from Guatemala City, and is the last departmental capital on the Pan-American High ...
, in the municipalities of
San Mateo Ixtatán
San Mateo Ixtatán is a municipality in the Guatemalan department of Huehuetenango. It is situated at above sea level in the Cuchumatanes mountain range and covers of terrain. It has a cold climate and is located in a cloud forest. The temper ...
and
San Sebastián Coatán
San Sebastián Coatán is a municipality in the Guatemalan department of Huehuetenango. Its territory extends , is above sea level and has a cooler climate. It has 18,022 inhabitants who speak Spanish and Chuj. It borders San Mateo Ixtatán and ...
, with small numbers also residing in the neighboring border areas of the Mexican state of
Chiapas
Chiapas (; Tzotzil language, Tzotzil and Tzeltal language, Tzeltal: ''Chyapas'' ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Chiapas ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Chiapas), is one of the states that make up the Political divisions of Mexico, ...
. Los Angeles is believed to have a relatively large population of undocumented Chuj immigrants.
The Chuj, and their ancestors, are believed to have lived in the same area for 4,000 years. They first came into contact with Spanish ''
conquistadores
Conquistadors (, ) or conquistadores (, ; meaning 'conquerors') were the explorer-soldiers of the Spanish Empire, Spanish and Portuguese Empires of the 15th and 16th centuries. During the Age of Discovery, conquistadors sailed beyond Europe to ...
'' in the 1530s; however, they were not finally subdued by the Spanish colonial authorities until the 1680s. In the post-Colonial era, the Chuj lost much of their communal land, reducing them to
extreme poverty
Extreme poverty, deep poverty, abject poverty, absolute poverty, destitution, or penury, is the most severe type of poverty, defined by the United Nations (UN) as "a condition characterized by severe deprivation of basic human needs, includi ...
. This resulted in a history of violent resistance to authority culminating in guerrilla activity against Guatemala's
military junta
A military junta () is a government led by a committee of military leaders. The term ''junta'' means "meeting" or "committee" and originated in the national and local junta organized by the Spanish resistance to Napoleon's invasion of Spain in ...
in the 1980s.
Ethnonym
The name ''Chuj'' is an
exonym
An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, ...
first used by the Spanish.
[ According to folk tradition, the term was coined by Tzeltal conscripts of the Spanish, for whom it meant the loose wool overgarment traditionally worn by Chuj men.][ The Chuj themselves use an ]autonym
Autonym may refer to:
* Autonym, the name used by a person to refer to themselves or their language; see Exonym and endonym
* Autonym (botany), an automatically created infrageneric or infraspecific name
See also
* Nominotypical subspecies, in zo ...
based on their town of origin, i.e. ''ajSan Matéyo'' (from San Mateo Ixtatán), ''ajSan Sabastyán'' (from San Sebastián Coatán), or ''ajNenton'' (from Nentón).[
]
Overview and demographics
The Chuj are a small grouping of Mayan people who live in Guatemala and Mexico. Following emigration to the United States in the 1980s, large numbers of the Chuj also live in Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
.[
Most of the Chuj live in Guatemala, in the highlands of the department of ]Huehuetenango
Huehuetenango () is a city and municipality in the highlands of western Guatemala. It is also the capital of the department of Huehuetenango. The city is situated from Guatemala City, and is the last departmental capital on the Pan-American High ...
.[ Their main centres of settlement in Huehuetenango are the towns of ]San Mateo Ixtatán
San Mateo Ixtatán is a municipality in the Guatemalan department of Huehuetenango. It is situated at above sea level in the Cuchumatanes mountain range and covers of terrain. It has a cold climate and is located in a cloud forest. The temper ...
and San Sebastián Coatán
San Sebastián Coatán is a municipality in the Guatemalan department of Huehuetenango. Its territory extends , is above sea level and has a cooler climate. It has 18,022 inhabitants who speak Spanish and Chuj. It borders San Mateo Ixtatán and ...
with some living in parts of the town of Nentón
Nentón is a town and municipality in the Guatemalan department of Huehuetenango. Its territory extends 717 km2 with a population of 45,679. It became a municipality on December 5, 1876 and was formerly known as San Benito Nentón. The po ...
.[ Additionally, small numbers also live in the Mexican state of ]Chiapas
Chiapas (; Tzotzil language, Tzotzil and Tzeltal language, Tzeltal: ''Chyapas'' ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Chiapas ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Chiapas), is one of the states that make up the Political divisions of Mexico, ...
.[
Estimates of total numbers vary from 30,000][ to over 60,000.] The populations of San Mateo Ixtatán and San Sebastián Coatán, both of which are almost wholly Chuj, are about 16,000 and 9,000 respectively.[ There are nearly 4,000 Chuj-speakers in Nentón constituting about a third of the town.][ Because of the irregular immigrant status of the Chuj in the U.S, it is not known how many Chuj live in Los Angeles, but one estimate is that it equals the population of San Sebastián Coatán.][
In Guatemala, the Chuj have a reputation for rebelliousness and antagonism to authority, the historic causes of which arise out of poverty and grievances over land distribution.
]
History
Pre-Columbian era
The Chuj live in an area believed to have been the Proto-Mayan language
Proto-Mayan is the hypothetical common ancestor of the 30 living Mayan languages, as well as the Classic Maya language documented in the Maya inscriptions. While there has been some controversy with Mayan subgrouping, there has been a general agr ...
homeland and they and their ancestors are thought to have lived there continuously since Proto-Maya began splitting into the modern Maya languages about 4,000 years ago.[Maxwell, Judith. "Chuj." Encyclopedia of World Cultures. 1996. Retrieved June 8, 2012, fro]
Encyclopedia.com
/ref> There is, on the outskirts of the modern town of San Mateo Ixtatán, archaeological evidence of a Chuj urban settlement, Wajxaklajun
Wajxaklajun (pronounced ) (also known as Ystapalapán, Yolk'u, El Calvario, Carvao and Curvao) is a ruin of the ancient Maya civilization situated adjacent to the modern town of San Mateo Ixtatán, in the Huehuetenango Department of Guatemala. Waj ...
, also known as Ystapalapán, which includes mounds and plazas and dates from between 600 and 900 A.D.[
Like other Maya, the Chuj were a settled farming people who cultivated maize and beans.][ As far as the Chuj's political history is concerned, it is known that they were subject to ]K'iche' K'iche', K'ichee', or Quiché may refer to:
* K'iche' people of Guatemala, a subgroup of the Maya
*K'iche' language, a Maya language spoken by the K'iche' people
**Classical K'iche' language, the 16th century form of the K'iche' language
*Kʼicheʼ ...
domination in the 15th century but freed themselves from K'iche' control in the early 16th century.[
]
Spanish conquest
The Spanish conquest of the Maya territories of the Guatemalan highlands began in 1524 when the ''conquistador
Conquistadors (, ) or conquistadores (, ; meaning 'conquerors') were the explorer-soldiers of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires of the 15th and 16th centuries. During the Age of Discovery, conquistadors sailed beyond Europe to the Americas, O ...
'' Pedro de Alvarado led his army into the region. In 1529 the Chuj city of San Mateo Ixtatán
San Mateo Ixtatán is a municipality in the Guatemalan department of Huehuetenango. It is situated at above sea level in the Cuchumatanes mountain range and covers of terrain. It has a cold climate and is located in a cloud forest. The temper ...
(that is, Wajxaklajun) was given in ''encomienda
The ''encomienda'' () was a Spanish labour system that rewarded conquerors with the labour of conquered non-Christian peoples. The labourers, in theory, were provided with benefits by the conquerors for whom they laboured, including military ...
'' to Gonzalo de Ovalle ( es), a companion of Pedro de Alvarado, together with Santa Eulalia and Jacaltenango
Jacaltenango is a town and municipality situated in the Western Highlands of Guatemala. It is located in a valley surrounded by the Sierra Madre Mountains.
Jacaltenango serves as the municipal seat for the surrounding municipality of the same na ...
. In the 1530s, the Chuj submitted to the Spanish conquest[ and, in 1549, the first Chuj '' reduccion'' was established at San Mateo Ixtatán, overseen by Dominican missionaries. The Chuj of San Mateo Ixtatán remained rebellious and resisted Spanish control for longer than their highland neighbours; their resistance was so determined that the Chuj remained pacified only while the immediate effects of the Spanish expeditions lasted. But the longer-term effect was that disease and warfare substantially reduced Chuj numbers in the 16th century.][
In the late 17th century, the Spanish missionary Alonso de León reported that about eighty families lived in San Mateo Ixtatán but that they did not pay tribute to the Spanish Crown or attend the ]Roman Catholic
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...
mass. He described the inhabitants as "quarrelsome" and complained that their religious practices were such that they were Christian in name only: they had built a pagan shrine in the hills among the ruins of pre-Columbian
In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, th ...
temples, where they burnt incense and offerings and sacrificed turkeys. Eventually, de León was driven out of San Mateo Ixtatán by the Chuj.[Lovell 2000, pp. 416–417.]
In 1684, Enrique Enriquez de Guzmán
Enrique () is the Spanish variant of the given name Heinrich of Germanic origin.
Equivalents in other languages are Henry (English), Enric (Catalan), Enrico (Italian), Henrik (Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian), Heinrich (German), Hendrik, Henk (Du ...
, the governor of Guatemala, decided on the final conquest of the region. In 1686, the Governor himself arrived in San Mateo Ixtatán, after sending in troops under Captain Melchor Rodríguez Mazariegos, and successfully took control of the town. After recruiting Chuj warriors from the nearby villages, including 61 from San Mateo itself,[Pons Sáez 1997, p. xxxiii.] he launched an invasion of the still unconquered Lacandon region from San Mateo Ixtatán and completed the conquest of the area.
Post-colonial era
Guatemala gained its independence from Spain in 1821. In the late 19th century the Guatemalan government sanctioned the transfer of Chuj tribal land to powerful agricultural land owners.[ The process began in 1876, when they were forced to cede land to create the new municipality of Nenton.] In the fighting that followed, the Chuj managed to maintain their communal lands in the high mountains, and this prompted their modern reputation for rebelliousness.[ With the loss of much of their land, and the resultant extreme poverty, many of the Chuj were forced to migrate to Guatemala's southern coast.][ As a people, they were reduced to becoming either peasants or migrant labourers.][
In the years that followed, the Chuj were involved in frequent uprisings and violent unrest][ caused by extreme poverty and a sense of grievance because of the loss of their lands. Political unrest and bloody reprisals against the Chuj increased after the Second World War.][ By the 1970s, violent confrontations with the Guatemalan police were common.] In the late 1970s and early 1980s the confrontation with Guatemalan authorities became focused on the Chuj campaign to preserve their forests in the region. By the 1980s, when Guatemala was ruled by a military junta
A military junta () is a government led by a committee of military leaders. The term ''junta'' means "meeting" or "committee" and originated in the national and local junta organized by the Spanish resistance to Napoleon's invasion of Spain in ...
, the Chuj were involved in full-scale guerrilla activity against the Army, who regarded them as "internal enemies".[ During the decade, about 25% of the Chuj emigrated to the United States.][
]
Culture
Language
The Chuj historically speak a language, also called Chuj, which is part of the Q'anjobalan branch of the Mayan languages
The Mayan languagesIn linguistics, it is conventional to use ''Mayan'' when referring to the languages, or an aspect of a language. In other academic fields, ''Maya'' is the preferred usage, serving as both a singular and plural noun, and as ...
. It is most closely related to Tojolab'al, spoken in Mexico.[ The Chuj now also speak Spanish and are bi-lingual.][
Although the Chuj language remains viable, as with other Mayan languages, children, particularly in urban centres, increasingly do not learn Chuj as a first language or, in some cases, at all.]
Marriage and family
The Chuj traditionally have arranged marriages
Arranged marriage is a type of marital union where the bride and groom are primarily selected by individuals other than the couple themselves, particularly by family members such as the parents. In some cultures a professional matchmaker may be us ...
, although Church weddings are relatively rare because of the cost of having a priest officiate. Chuj men also practise "bride kidnapping
Bride kidnapping, also known as marriage by abduction or marriage by capture, is a practice in which a man abducts the woman he wishes to marry.
Bride kidnapping (hence the portmanteau bridenapping) has been practiced around the world and ...
" where a woman is effectively abducted rather than her family formally petitioned for her hand.[
Descent is reckoned bilaterally and each side is of equal importance.][ Typically, the nuclear family shares a compound with the husband's brothers and parents and economic and child care activities are shared within the compound. The extended family will own several small parcels of land, at varying distances from the town center.][ In San Mateo and San Sebastián there is also access to communal land.][
]
Religion and beliefs
Traditional Chuj beliefs, where most natural features—hills, rock outcrops, streams, and caves—have spirits, remain strong.[ The spirits in caves, who are often ancestors of the townspeople, may be approached for aid and advice.][ Death is the transition to "ancestorhood."][ Deathbed instructions are binding obligations, and spirits enforce them with sanctions of illness and misfortune.][ These spirits can be approached for advice and aid at family altars, cave entrances, hilltops, or, in San Mateo, at cross-sites and accesses to the Maya structures underneath the modern city.][
Catholicism is prevalent as well: in San Mateo it is ]syncretic
Syncretism () is the practice of combining different beliefs and various schools of thought. Syncretism involves the merging or assimilation of several originally discrete traditions, especially in the theology and mythology of religion, thu ...
, combining with traditional beliefs, while in San Sebastián there is a sharp divide between those that hold traditional beliefs and those that follow the activist Catholicism of the ''Catholic Action
Catholic Action is the name of groups of lay Catholics who advocate for increased Catholic influence on society. They were especially active in the nineteenth century in historically Catholic countries under anti-clerical regimes such as Spain, Ita ...
'' group in the town.[
]
Dress
The Chuj wear distinctive "trade" garments which vary between each of the towns. Men usually wear a wool short-sleeved tunic, lightly embroidered at the neck and arms.[ Women wear a cotton broadcloth overblouse elaborately embroidered in red, yellow, green, and black.][
]
Notes
References
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{{authority control
Indigenous peoples in Guatemala
Maya peoples
Mesoamerican cultures
Huehuetenango Department