ABSTRACT
The proceedings were disrupted when a guacamaya (a large tropical bird), chained to its perch on the backdrop, fell in the middle of Vinicio's speech. Stage hands scrambled up the papier-mache volcanoes of the scenery to where it hung helplessly, squawking in counterpoint to Vinicio's thumps on the podium and cries of "Guatemalans! We are a people of two bloods!" The Indian queens' speeches were a sobering contrast to this nationalist comedy. One after another they shouted that the blood of the ancient and glorious Maya coursed through their veins and that they would no longer tolerate oppression by ladinos, non-Maya Guatemalans. I had never heard anyone in Guatemala make such a radical statement. Clearly, this event begged anthropological analysis: it offered nation and blood, ritual and power, conflict, and, most seductively, an opportunity to explore the powerful pleasures Guatemala grants those who claim her as their own.
