Upcoming Colloquium

Monday, September 15, at 2:30 in Macy 110

Eric Hoenes del Pinal will present on “The Lake Who Eats Girls and the  Mountain Who Stumbled: Notes on Relating to the Other-than-Human Beings in the Guatemalan Highlands”

Abstract: Guatemala’s Q’eqchi’-Maya people understand the world as being inhabited by a broad range of other-than-human beings whose lives and fates are variously interconnected to the natural and social geography of the country. This talk will examine stories collected in 2024 about two such beings—the powerful mountain spirits who govern the land, and bodies of water who occasionally feed on human flesh to sustain themselves. The figures in these stories illustrate some of the key cultural values that govern how Q’eqchi’-Maya people interact with the environment.