San Simon : God Passing Boundaries : Ethnic Identities and Boundary Dynamics in "Contact Zone" of Post-colonial Guatemala

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Abstract

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There is a folk saint widely revered among the indigenous Mayan population(Indigenas) and the lower class Ladino population in the regions surrounding the southwestern highlands of Guatemala , that is the 'boundary' area of today's Guatemala. This article is an attempt to interpret the worship and rituals centering around the sacred effigy of this folk saint, called Maximon a.k.a. San Simon, in connection with the dynamics of ethnic boundaries that still remain deep in the post-colonial modern Guatemalan society. This article is the preface to consider an aspect of the "colonial experience" from which the Maximon/San Simon worship has developed in a "colonial situation/contact zone." In the course of the description, the author will re-examine the meanings that religious rituals can have in the religious creativity of peoples living in contact zones, and will reconsider the meanings of colonial-ness/modern-ness that continues to be reproduced in ongoing interactions in an age flooded with "post-colonial" or "post-modern" discourses. San Simon, depicted as a seated Ladino wearing European-style clothing and dark glasses, is considered as a ladinized Maximon .the rumgulping, cigar-puffing ancient folk deity revered among the Tzutuhil- Maya indigenas of Santiago Atitlan.. San Simon appears as the "God passing boundaries," who obscures all the conceptual categories, such as ethnicity , culture , religion, or God , constructed in modern European civilization and Christian culture.

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