«Dar comida obligando a repartirla». Un modelo de don maya-ch'orti' en proceso de transformación

Abstract

The author discusses the importance of food giving among the Ch'orti' of eastern Guatemala. For this Maya people, food giving is a way of facilitating community cohesion, a purpose than can be seen in the daily gifts of food and especially in important rituals such as the recubal In a recubal, a father gives food to his godfather following an offering model which the author calls «giving so as to cause to redistribute.» The amount of the food is so large, and its kind so special, that the receiver finds himself compelled to redistribute the offering among a large number of villagers. Nowadays, the importance that these gifts have for community integration is being undermined by two types of discourses coming from the Mestizo world: a discourse on poverty and another on superstition. These discourses portend other social effects for Ch'orti' communities.