Q'eqchi' people

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Q´eqchi´
Total population

852,012[1]

Regions with significant populations
Flag of Guatemala Guatemala
Alta Verapaz
El Petén
Languages
Q'eqchi', Spanish
Religions
Catholic, Evangelicalist, Maya religion

Q'eqchi' ( or Kekchi in an older orthography) are one of the Maya peoples in Guatemala and Belize, whose indigenous language is also called Q'eqchi'.

Before the beginning in the 1520s of the Spanish conquest of Guatemala, Q'eqchi' settlements were concentrated in what are now the departments of Alta Verapaz and Baja Verapaz. Over the course of the succeeding centuries a series of land displacements, resettlements, persecutions and migrations resulted in a wider dispersal of Q'eqchi' communities, into other regions of Guatemala (Izabal, Petén, El Quiché), southern Belize (Toledo District), and smaller numbers in El Salvador and Honduras.[2] While most notably present in northern Alta Verapaz and southern Petén,[3] contemporary Q'eqchi' language-speakers are the most widely spread geographically of all Guatemalan Mayan groups.[4]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ XI Censo Nacional de Población y VI de Habitación (Censo 2002) - Pertenencia de grupo étnico. Instituto Nacional de Estadística (2002). Retrieved on 2008-05-27.
  2. ^ See Kahn (2006, pp.34–49) for an account of Q'eqchi' migrational history and the impetus behind these movements, and in particular pp.41–42.
  3. ^ Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.) (2005). Q'eqchi': a language of Guatemala. Ethnologue. SIL International. Retrieved on 2008-05-30.; as indicated by 1998 SIL data.
  4. ^ Kahn (2006, p.34)


[edit] References

Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.) (2005). Ethnologue: Languages of the World (online version), Fifteenth edition, Dallas, TX: SIL International. ISBN 1-55671-159-X. OCLC 60338097. Retrieved on 2008-05-30. 
Kahn, Hilary E. (2006). Seeing and Being Seen: The Q’eqchi’ Maya of Livingston, Guatemala, and Beyond. Austin: University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0-292-71348-2. OCLC 68965681. 
Wilson, Richard (1995). Maya Resurgence in Guatemala: Q’eqchi’ Experiences. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0-8061-2690-6. OCLC 31172908.