Manufacturing Identities Masking in Postwar Highland Guatemala

At their patron saints' annual fiestas, the Maya and the Ladinos of western highland Guatemala perform dances in costumes that take their inspiration from film, television, music, and the Internet. The two groups adapt the costume dance to their own interests, and the tension between them is evident in the different types of costumes they rent and purchase. Ladino costumes distinguish their wearers as modern consumers, while K'iche' costumes stress communitas, adding to the borrowed images to connect with indigenous forms of subsistence and lifestyle and to allow comment on proper forms of behavior and on social ills. The costume makers act as cultural intermediaries, producing both the context and the meaning of the dances and enabling performers and spectators alike to construct different identities through them.