Indigenous Peoples´ Day

October 12 is celebrated worldwide as Columbus Day or Indigenous Peoples´Day, depending on which historical narrative you embrace. At the Mayan ruins of Tikal in Guatemala, the day is definitely Indigenous Peoples´Day, or Dia de la Raza.


I awoke at 2:30 am and met the transport at 3 am in the city of Flores. After a drive through the dark jungle, we arrived at the entrance to the Tikal Park. From there it was a 30-minute hike with headlamps past the Great Plaza and on to Temple 4. You climb Temple 4 using a wooden staircase constructed by the archeological teams working on the site. At the top of Temple 4 at 5:30 in the morning, you hear the jungle waking up. The howler monkeys make their jaguar calls that can be heard for miles. The birds respond with their calls. The sun rises behind the mist and as the light increases you see Temple 3, and then Temples 1 and 2 emerge through the mist. It is at that point that you begin to understand the scope of Tikal - a city for hundreds of thousands of people with temples larger than skyscrapers in many US cities. It was constructed using no wheels or beasts of burden and the limestone was transported by hand from miles away. And now it is abandoned, slowly being excavated by international archeological teams.

Except that on indigenous peoples´day every year, hundreds of Maya come from all throughout Guatemala to celebrate their heritage at Tikal. Men and women dressed in traditional Mayan attire, they enter in single file to the Great Plaza and circle around an altar in the middle. Throughout the entire ceremony. musicians play the marimba. After all have gathered around the altar, a leader takes the megaphone and gives a speech telling the people how they have been abused - how their land has been taken, how their grandfathers were killed, and how they were once warriors and kings in this land. After the speeches, the people put their offerings in the circular altar on the ground: primarly candles, but also tortillas, sticks, and anything else they have with them. Then, one group remains at the altar, while four other groups depart single file. The leader of each group carries a flag and the color of the flag corresponds to the direction he leads his group. There is one flag for each of the cardinal points and a fifth flag remains at the altar - the center of the world and the middle of the Great Plaza in the historic center of the great city of Tikal. For at least one day the land is reclaimed and the Mayas have a great city to call their own and to be a source of pride.