ABSTRACT
The violence and military occupation disrupted daily life in Tecpan in many ways. During la violencia, a dominant way in which the army, in concert with the state propaganda machine, portrayed rural Indians was as potential subversives and thus deserving targets of military action. In the 1970s, before the silencing effect of the violence, Tecpan was an important center of Indian organizing. Tecpan, like most Maya towns, is home to a number of saints' images, generally statues of the saints that are kept in the church and in various private houses. Maya cultural revitalization efforts began by working for the conservation and resurrection of elements of Maya culture. Indigenous culture itself can be used as an effective "weapon of the weak" in much more subtle ways than the Maxutio celebrations. The political scientist James Scott coined the phrase "weapons of the weak" to describe how putatively disempowered groups subtly exert political and economic power.
