| OCR Text |
Show 87 Geographically, the aboriginal population, descendants in their majority of the creators of the Maya-Quiche culture, is concentrated principally in the Western highlands of the country-approximately one million Indians live in an area representing one-fourth of the Guatemalan territory, belonging to the linguistic groups Quiche-Cak chiquel (West Central and Mam (Far East). The remainder of the aboriginal population (some 300,000 belonging to the Pocoman linguistic group) are distributed in the Northern and central zones of the country. In addition to these main groups there are smaller ones, like the Chortis in the Northeast, the Caribs on the Carib Coast of the Republic, and a small number of Lacandons in the District of Peten. The article includes a comparative linguistic graph, based on the censuses of 1940 and 1950, of the 18 principal Indian groups which still preserve their native language, showing in a general way a decrease in inhabitants speaking Indian languages in this ten year period. Another graph showing Indian distribution by Districts (Departamentos) according to the 1940 and 1950 censuses, is also included. With respect to the governmental attitude toward the Indians, it is the same as that of the majority of the other American countries: there is no real Indian legislation, since the aborigines are considered to be subject to the same law which governs the rest of the citizens. Various institutions are working in the country in the benefit of the Indians, some private and others official, principally the Guatemalan Indian Institute, affiliated with the Inter-American Indian Institute, through schools, offering agricultural instruction, reading and writing etc. Also, the Summer Institute of Linguistics, the United Nations Organization, etc., are working with the Indian inhabitants of the country. This article is accompanied by a bibliography divided into various sections: demographic, linguistic, ethnographic, Indian economy, etc. Editorial, "Cuantos Indigenas Hay en America?", America Indigena, XIX, No. 3 (July, 1959), pp. 167-168. More than four and a half centuries ago the American Continent was discovered, and its inhabitants named "Indians"due to the erroneous belief that this new land was the India of the East. The Europeans who then emigrated to the new found Continent imposed their way of being and of living, but they also had to adopt customs and traditions that existed there,those of the highly developed cultures which were the Maya, the Inca, the Nahuatl and others: beautiful and original architecture, lavish decorative art in clothing, pottery and a thousand other objects, an important herbal pharmacology, wide commerce in distant regions, a varied agriculture in which corn was the principal product, etc. Little, very little, is preserved by the present day Indian of this which must have been a magnificent heritage, since the Conqueror forced him to abandon it, reducing him to ignorance and harsh servitude. What must be done is to favorably transform these backward characteristics toward the end of raising what is up to now the low standard |
