Para servir a dios y a la costumbre: Los maxtoles o maestros de coro entre los chuj de Huehuetenango, Guatemala

Abstract

Among the chuj people, the maxtoles or choir teachers are religious specialist whose activities are specially related to funerary rituals. This essay concerns the great syncretic-religious power that they had built through centuries. With this objective some conceptions about death and the consideration that deceased people deserved are reviewed in two historie chuj towns: San Mateo Ixtatán and San Sebastián Coatán