ABSTRACT
K’iche’ cultural constructions of danger resonated with the new perils which arose with la violencia; these reverberations coloured ways of perceiving where danger lay and, in turn, changed the reality of threat in K’iche’ existence. Among the K’iche’, the preparation for scenarios of danger begins with parents’ fears of their child’s vulnerability to spirit attack. K’iche’ people fear socially empty space, which they associate with night. Ladinos(mo’s) frighten the K’iche’, who shoulder the brunt of their racist attitudes and actions. Spirits personify danger; they replace the image of other dangers which are intangible or too dangerous to acknowledge openly; they can be seen as the targets of K’iche’ anguish caused by their helplessness after being subjected to one source of aggression or manipulation after another. The K’iche’ have no concrete evidence with which to refute the army’s linkage of the spirits with the guerrilla, yet the combination of invisibility, ambiguity, and danger is all the more fear provoking.
