ABSTRACT
The majority spoke a bit of Spanish, but their own language was Ixil, one of the twenty forms of Maya spoken by Guatemalans descended from the pre-Columbian civilization. In the early 1980s, the Guatemalan army burned down all the surrounding villages in order to defeat a Marxist-led guerrilla movement. Quiche Department, where Chajul is located and Rigoberta Menchu was born, is inhabited by peasants with a seemingly unshakable dedication to growing maize. There is an epic quality to its mountains and valleys, and Quiche strikes many visitors as beautiful. The brief liberation it effected was followed by a crushing military occupation. The most widely read account of the Guatemalan violence came from a twenty-three-year-old woman who grew up in the nearby municipio of Uspantan. The guerrillas lost credibility with most Guatemalans; the army transferred power to civilians in a supposed return to democracy.
