Todo Santos is Spanish for 'all saints', the Cuchumatanes are the surrounding mountains. Throughout mesoamerica, villages named after saints celebrate the feast of their patron saint. The festival of the village is a big event. In Todo Santos they celebrate for the week of All Saints' Day which is the day after Halloween. The Roman Catholic holiday All Souls Day is celebrated the day after All Saints Day. All Souls Day is called El Dia de los Muertos which means the Day of the Dead. This holiday has a great deal of significance to many mesoamerican cultures. These photos were taken at the festival of the village more than ten years ago.
Todo Santos is a fairly remote village in northern Guatemala in the
province of Huehuetenango (pronounced Way Way Ten Ongo, Way Way for short).
The elevation is about 8,200 feet and the air is thin up there. The people
here speak a dialect called Mam and call themselves los naturales, the
natural people. This is one of the few areas where the traditional dress
of the men is more colorful than the traditional dress of the women. The
men wear red and white pants with vertical stripes, the collars of their shirts are heavily embroidered with colorful patterns.
More about Mayan weaving
How a Tapete is made Modern Zapotec Weaving
Because many of the people here seldom get further from home than they can walk in a few days and not all of them speak Spanish, they tend to be distrustful of strangers. There has been a great deal of political unrest both here and just across the nearby Mexican border in Chiapas.
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