ABSTRACT
The quotidianity of Indigenous people has been challenged by collective and individual dynamics of globalization through the various spaces in which they struggle to continue to be. At the same time there has been the formation of a group of “organized Indigenous peoples” who founded the Mayanism that has emerged. Navigating this seemingly double terrain, this chapter asks: How is time conceived, lived, and co-lived in the quotidianity of millions of Indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica? How do we explain chu wuch q’ij saq/the existence of time beyond the Mayanist discourse? Given that chi ma je’/like that is because it is like that, is foundational to Mayan quotidianity in the present, how do we explain the existence of time through the exercise of a narrative that says chi ma je’? How do we explain the existence of time through a narration that articulates various perspectives from the past, of the peoples of the past that warned us about the imminent future and the present? How do we explain the existence of time through the present, that immediate future of which the people of the past already warned us about in dreams, through nervous movements, by the movement of fire, a bird’s song, the unconventional movement of the wind, and other movements? The people of the past always know about the future. This chapter is based on the story of a girl who dreams of the future and other k’iche’ experiences of the chi ma je’/like that it is because it is like that.
