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History

Not much is know about the Q’eqchi’ people before the Spanish Conquest. They were a Maya group located in the central highlands and northern lowlands of Guatemala. The Q’eqchi’ people had a long history of political conflict and their land was formally known as Tezulutla or “the land of war.” When the Spanish Conquest began in 1529 the Q’eqchi’ were hard to control due to a dispersed population. Bartolomé de las Casas was given permission to try to convert the Q’eqchi’ people to Christianity. This resulted in only a small portion of Q’eqchi’ being converted and the church lost the ability to govern the Q’eqchi’. This led to others exploiting the Q’eqchi’ such as plantation agriculture and slavers.  . 

During the nineteenth century plantation agriculture was a big part of the Q’eqchi’ people’s lives. This led to the seizure of the Q’eqchi’’s communal land by plantations and the service of the Q’eqchi’ to farm the plantations. And by 1877, all communal landownership was abolished by the government which edged some of the Q’eqchi’ to move to Belize. This seizure of communal land along with the effects of the Spanish Conquest created a long lasting poverty in the Q’eqchi’ people.

Religion and Culture

Religion

Traditionally the Q’eqchi’ people believe in the Tzuultaq’a” which are the gods of the mountains and valleys. Though they have mixed those beliefs with the beliefs of the catholic church. The Q’eqchi’ believe in the Christian god and celebrate the saints. They also believe that Tzuultaq’a” presides over nature and dwells in the caves of the mountains. They also have three specific religious specialist that are from the Tzuultaq’a” side of their religion. There are the ilonel which are the curers who use different types of herbs and ceremonies. The aj ke who advise and predict things in the village. The last is the aj tul which are believed to be the sorcery who can cast spells. They also believe in similar rituals to those in other Latin American countries like the celebration of the Day of the Dead. They also prefer a ritual to the dead which consists of wrapping the body in a petite which is a straw mat. They are then buried with items the would need for the journey into the afterlife. 

Marriage

Marriage in the Q’eqchi’ culture is not so different from the culture of arranged marriages in the Hindu religion. Marriages are arranged by the parents of the children. The parents of both children meet over time and if all goes well the children are married. This happens at the ages of 12 to 15 for the women and 15 to 18 for the males. After that the family would look very similar to the normal family picture; a mother, a father, and  a couple of children. When it comes to inheritance parents usually give the property and assets to the child who offers to care for the parents during their life. 

Food and Agriculture

The agricultural production of the Q’eqchi’ people consists mostly of subsistence farming. This means they only farm for the needs of their families not external markets. At first the Q’eqchi’ were polycultural. The plants they farmed were edible weeds, banana plants, and other companion crops.  They also acquire some of their food from wild plants and some villages still hunt. However for most present day Q’eqchi’ people today their food comes from the corn fields. This comes mainly from a time where plantations dominated the Q’eqchi’ society. From the 1880s to around the 1940s the plantation owners forbid the growing of any crops other than corn and beans, so they could easily identify which crops belonged to them. This created a corn dependent diet of the Q’eqchi’ people.

 While corn doesn't prove every profitable for the Q’eqchi’ economy or their diet it does have other merits. The Q’eqchi’ use agriculture as a way to commune with God the creator in a very physical and spiritual way. It was a way to feel like a co-creator when planting new life into the soil. All the parts of planting, cultivating, and harvesting are all rituals and worship in their religion. 

Contemporary Issues

The QHA, which is the Q’eqchi’ Healers Association, are a association of indigenous healers that have come together to share their forms of conservation and botany.  The QHA along with the Belize Indigenous Training Institute funded a project which would develop a traditional healing garden and culture center. Here the Q’eqchi’ Healers shared their similar methods that had been passed down to them in the hopes of preserving rare plant life and educating their community. They are preserving the biodiversity of their region by coming up with different options other than wild harvesting as well as was to propagate and cultivate many rare plant species.