Ixil people

Ixil
Total population
95,315[1]
Regions with significant populations
 Guatemala
El Quiché
Languages

Ixil, Spanish
Religion

Catholic, Evangelicalist, Maya religion

Ixil is the name of a Mayan people in Guatemala. The Ixil live in three municipalities in the Cuchumatanes mountains in the northern part of the department El Quiché. These municipalities -also known as the Ixil Triangle- are Santa Maria Nebaj, San Gaspar Chajul, and San Juan Cotzal.

In the early eighties the Ixil Community was one of the principal stages for insurgent and counter-insurgent operations in the Guatemalan civil war. As a consequence the Ixil and other indigenous groups in the altiplano region suffered the brunt of the conflict. The violence was particularly heightened during the period 1979–1985 as successive Guatemalan administrations and the military pursued an indiscriminate scorched-earth (in Spanish: tierra arrasada) policy.[2]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ "XI Censo Nacional de Población y VI de Habitación (Censo 2002) - Pertenencia de grupo étnico". Instituto Nacional de Estadística. 2002. http://www.ine.gob.gt/Nesstar/Censo2002/survey0/dataSet/dataFiles/dataFile1/var26.html. Retrieved 2008-05-27. 
  2. ^ See the section "Agudización de la violencia y militarización del Estado (1979-1985)" of CEH's report (CEH 1999, ch. 1). In particular, see para. 361, which records of the Guatemalan governments at the time that "...le dio continuidad a la estrategia de tierra arrasada, destruyendo cientos de aldeas, principalmente en el altiplano, y provocando un desplazamiento masivo de la población civil que habitaba las áreas de conflicto."

References

CEH [Comisión de Esclarecimiento Histórico] (1999) (online reproduction by the Science and Human Rights Program of the AAAS). Guatemala, Memoria del silencio = Tz'inil na'tab'al. Guatemala City: CEH. ISBN 99922-54-00-9. OCLC 47279275. http://shr.aaas.org/guatemala/ceh/mds/spanish/toc.html. Retrieved 2008-12-12.  (Spanish)
Colby, Benjamin N. (January 1976). "The Anomalous Ixil - Bypassed by the Postclassic?". American Antiquity (Menasha, WI: Society for American Archaeology) 41 (1): 74–80. doi:10.2307/279043. ISSN 0002-7316. JSTOR 279043. OCLC 1479302. 
Colby, Benjamin N.; and Lore M. Colby (1981). The Daykeeper: The Life and Discourse of an Ixil Diviner. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-19409-8. OCLC 7197630. 
Colby, Benjamin N.; and Pierre L. Van Den Berghe (1969). Ixil Country: A Plural Society in Highland Guatemala. Berkeley: University of California Press. OCLC 23254. http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&docId=72526862.