Last week I took a short trip to Zunil, a town a few miles outside of the city of Quetzaltenango. The population is entirely indigenous.
The first sight I visited was the church. The church is about 150 years old, though it has occasionally undergone major renovation following earthquakes. The façade incorporates agriculture-related design elements, such as vines winding up the columns, to demonstrate the importance of agriculture for the city of Zunil and the surrounding countryside. It's one of the greatest crop-producing regions in Guatemala. Also, the church is well known in the area because it still has its original bells. Three had been removed for maintenance the day I visited (see the scaffolding on the right), but one of the bells was still in place and visible.
The wooden altarpiece of the church is original. It is designed to hold statues in each of its niches, though some of the statues had been removed when I visited in preparation for Lenten/Holy Week processions. You can see one statue that had been removed, for example, in the bottom left corner of this photograph.
After the church, I visited a shrine for a local Mayan saint, San Simón. People come to pray to him, to light candles in front of him, and to bring him money and gifts, including cigars and liquor. The effigy is well cared for--every night he is carried to bed, and every morning he is returned to his seat in the shrine. The attendants occasionally change his clothes, too, though his is always in some sort of suit, hat, bandana, and sunglasses.
San Simón's location changes every year during Holy Week. So when I saw him, it was his last week in this location before being carted off in a large procession to a new home.
The first sight I visited was the church. The church is about 150 years old, though it has occasionally undergone major renovation following earthquakes. The façade incorporates agriculture-related design elements, such as vines winding up the columns, to demonstrate the importance of agriculture for the city of Zunil and the surrounding countryside. It's one of the greatest crop-producing regions in Guatemala. Also, the church is well known in the area because it still has its original bells. Three had been removed for maintenance the day I visited (see the scaffolding on the right), but one of the bells was still in place and visible.
The wooden altarpiece of the church is original. It is designed to hold statues in each of its niches, though some of the statues had been removed when I visited in preparation for Lenten/Holy Week processions. You can see one statue that had been removed, for example, in the bottom left corner of this photograph.
After the church, I visited a shrine for a local Mayan saint, San Simón. People come to pray to him, to light candles in front of him, and to bring him money and gifts, including cigars and liquor. The effigy is well cared for--every night he is carried to bed, and every morning he is returned to his seat in the shrine. The attendants occasionally change his clothes, too, though his is always in some sort of suit, hat, bandana, and sunglasses.
San Simón's location changes every year during Holy Week. So when I saw him, it was his last week in this location before being carted off in a large procession to a new home.
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