I, Rigoberta Menchu. Rigoberta Menchu

parents, in front of my brothers and sisters, I promised to do many things for the community. That’s when I started to take over some of my father’s duties: that is, praying in our neighbours’ houses like my father does. Whenever there’s a meeting, it’s always my father who speaks, and he coordinates a lot of things in the community. I felt responsible for many things and my mother let us into many secrets, telling us to try and do things the way she had. It was then, I remember, I became a catechist, and began working with the children both in the community and down in the finca, since, when some of the community go to the finca, others stay in the Altiplano looking after our animals, or whatever, so we don’t have to take them with us to the coast.

      IX

      CEREMONIES FOR SOWING TIME AND HARVEST. RELATIONSHIPS WITH THE EARTH

      ‘Sown to be eaten, it is the sacred sustenance of the men who were made of maize. Sown to make money, it means famine for the men who were made of maize.’

      —Miguel Angel Asturias, Men of Maize

      ‘The seed is something pure, something sacred. For our people the seed is very significant.’

      —Rigoberta Menchú

      There’s another custom for our twelfth birthday. We’re given a little pig, or a lamb, or one or two chickens. These little animals have to reproduce and that depends on each person, on the love we give our parents’ present. I remember when I was twelve, my father gave me a little pig. I was also given two little chickens and a lamb. I love sheep very much. These animals are not to be touched or sold without my permission. The idea is for a child to start looking after his own needs. I intended my animals to reproduce but I also intended to love the animals belonging to my brothers and sisters and my parents. I felt really happy. It’s one of the most wonderful things that can happen. I was very pleased with my little animals. They had a fiesta for me. We eat chicken whenever there is a fiesta. Years and years can go past without us eating beef. With us, eating a chicken is a big event.

      It wasn’t long before my little pig grew and had five little piglets. I had to feed them without neglecting my work for my parents. I had to find food for them myself. So what I used to do was, after work in the fields, I’d come back home at six or seven in the evening, do all my jobs in the house for the next morning, and then at about nine o’clock I’d start weaving. Sometimes I’d weave until ten. When we’d stop for our food out in the fields, I’d hang my weaving up on a branch and carry on weaving there. After about fifteen days, I’d have three or four pieces of cloth to sell, and I’d buy maize or other little things for my pigs to eat. That’s how I looked after my little pigs. I also started preparing some ground with a hoe to sow a bit of maize for them. When my pigs were seven months old, I sold them and was able to sow a bit of maize for the mother pig so she could go on having piglets. I could also buy myself a corte and other things to put on, and enough thread to make or weave a blouse, a huipil. That’s how you provide for your needs and, in the end, I had three grown-up pigs, ready for me to sell. At the beginning it’s difficult, I didn’t know what to give them to eat. I’d collect plants in the fields to give my piglets and when I made the dogs’ food, I used to take a bit for them too. By the time the first little animals are born, our parents can tell if our nahual gives us the qualities for getting on well with animals. I was one of those who loved animals, and they always turned out very well for me. Animals loved me too. Cows, for instance, were never awkward with me. My parents were very pleased with me.

      For us women, Sunday was the day we went to the river to wash clothes. Mother or father would go to market to buy things, but some Sundays they didn’t have to go because we don’t eat very much that comes from the market. We mostly eat maize and plants. We go there to sell, when we harvest our beans. We grow little beans but we don’t eat them. They all go to market so we can buy the few provisions we use from the market, like soap, salt, and some chile. Sometimes we can’t sell our beans because nobody buys them. Everyone is selling the beans they’ve grown, so the traders come and pay what they choose. If we ask a little more, they don’t buy. But for us it’s almost a day’s walk to the town and it’s difficult to get horses because only two or three people have horses. When we need one we ask a neighbour to lend us one, but many people want to borrow and some are left without horses. So we have to carry our beans on our backs. I used to carry forty or fifty pounds of beans or maize from our house to the town. We’d sell maize too when there was something we needed to buy.

      Most villagers hardly ever go down to the town. We only go when we’re needed to carry all our goods to town, and then two or three of my brothers and sisters would go. Otherwise, just my father, or my mother, or a neighbour would go. It’s the custom with us on Saturday nights to go from house to house asking if any neighbour is going to town next day and if they say, ‘Yes,’ we say: ‘Will you bring us this thing or that thing?’ And that neighbour buys what the whole community needs. So when my mother goes to town, she shouts very loud to all the neighbours: ‘I’m going to market,’ and they say: ‘Buy us soap, buy us salt, buy us chile,’ and tell her how much she should buy. Then another neighbour will come and offer a horse, if a horse is needed. So we all help one another. This is how we sell things as well. Most people in our village make straw plaits for hats, or they make mats, or weave cloth, so at the weekend they get it all together for one person to sell. This way we don’t all have to go to market.