OVERVIEW

Several morerias were founded in Los Altos during the second Liberal reforms (1871-1944) in Guatemala. These family-owned workshops made costumes for dance troupes performing traditional dances brought by the Spanish. They performed on a patron saint’s feast day as well on major Christian feast days. The Roman Catholic clergy used as a means of indoctrinating Christian beliefs in the indigenous population. The creation of the morerias in Los Altos was a regional indigenous response to the political-religious conflict between the Liberal government and the Roman Catholic Church. Whereas the majority of the population of Los Altos was indigenous and conservative, the nineteenth century urban Ladino had become agnostic and politically liberal.

Using an economics of religion approach, I examine the role organized religions and politics played in the development of the dance industry. Certainly, many of the dances were Mayan in origin, such as the Baile del Venado. Due to the syncretization of indigenous Maya religion with Roman Catholicism during the colonial period, many of the Mayan dances were transformed to conform to Roman Catholic beliefs. Other dances, based on morality plays introduced by clerics and known as drama-dances, originated after the Spanish conquest.

The morerías, where dance costumes are made and the masks are painted, are the locus of dance activity in Guatemala. Dance troupes often travel long distances to morerías to rent their costumes. The morería as a type of family enterprise was transplanted to Guatemala by Spaniards and its existence as a type of business in Guatemala dates to the late 1500s. The morerías are the socio-cultural hub of dance activity. Elaborate costumes and hats are created based on traditional patterns. Mask makers sell their carved, unfinished wood masks to these workshops where they are painted to the “form” of the dance character. Studying the morerías is an excellent way of measuring not only dance activity in Guatemala but extant Catholic cofradías and hermandades. Simply put, the owners of morerías are the perpetuators of the Catholic dance tradition in Guatemala. Without a supply of costumes and masks, the dancers could not perform the traditional dances.

By studying the supply and demand of the dance industry, we can determine on which religious holidays dances are performed and therefore being observed by the local community. We can determine how involved a community is in the religious festival (by the number of dance troupes and dances performed annually). Politically, we can find out if the local government subsidizes or regulates the traditional dances. We can also find out how state-led promotion of national and international tourism (through the Guatemalan National Tourism Institute-INGUAT) has impacted the performance of dances. And, we can identify nonprofit cultural groups that promote and preserve the dance industry in Guatemala.