![]() ![]() Contact has taken place along trade routes since the time the white man settled there. People from Tenosique, Campeche, Merida, Belize, Coban, Guatemala City, and lately Mexico City have migrated to Peten and their cities are places of reference for those San Josenos who have been there and for those who have heard about them. ![]() Although contacts with non-Peteneros have fluctuated with time they have been significant because of the variety of traditions they represent. Cash is obtained by the extraction from the zapote tree, of chicle which they sell to be made into chewing gum. Their livelihood continues to be derived from shifting agriculture, supplemented by hunting, fishing, and gathering. In appearance they are indistinguishable from the non-Maya people of the nearby settlements. Because of their indisputable Maya ancestry, they are known as the Mayeros of Peten, but their clothing and personal ornaments have much in common with their non-Mayan neighbors. The teaching of Spanish, on the other hand, has been severely enforced in school and the learning and adoption of it are surprisingly rapid. It is similar to the Yucatecan but sufficiently distant so that San Josenos find the Northern Yucatecan accent amusing. today, they continue to speak MAya in their homes. There is a relationship between this village and specific areas of Yucatan as can be shown ethnohistorically and by such family names as Pech, Moo, Batab, Couoh, Cahuiche, Cocoms, Colli, Tezucum and Zuntecum. Practically everyone in the village is Maya, many probably descendants of the early Itza. Five families, however, remember that their ancestors came from Yucatan early in the twentieth century. The community of San Jose, located on the shore of Lake Peten-Itza consists of ninety-five families, nearly all of whom have been there for several generations. So the spectrum of Yucatan’s population is well represented as a result of several different migrations. The Itza were later joined by people from Yucatan who had undergone two centuries of cultural and physical mixture. Though formal ties had been established, these frontier communities were left unattended for prolonged periods of time. But distance from Merida, the strenuous conditions of travel through the tropical rain forest, the feeling of isolation and destitution among the clergy, the poverty of most settlements, and the long years of political unrest caused many settlements to be only periodically served and indoctrinated. Unconquered until 1697 and subject to a delayed colonization program, this area came under Franciscan and Dominican fathers, who undertook its spiritual conquest. These people are descendants of the Maya of Yucatan more specifically descendants of the Itza who migrated to Peten traditionally in the early 13th century. The history of the Department of Peten in Guatemala has unique features when compared to the rest of Mesoamerica. On the night of November 1st, the one which is to be carried in procession through the village is placed on this especially prepared altar. During the year, three human skulls are kept on the main altar of the church at San Jose. ![]()
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