Fear as a Way of Life Linda Green Cultural Anihropology, Vol. 9, No. 2 (May, 1994), 227-256. Stable URL: fip:flinks jstor-org/sici sici=0886-7356% 28 199405%209%3.A2%3C227%3AFAAWOL®3E2.0.CO%SB2-C Cultural Anthropology is currently published by American Anthropological Association. Your use of the ISTOR archive indicates your acceptance of ISTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at flip: feworwjtor org/aboutterms.htmal. ISTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in par, that unless you fave obtained pcior permission, you may not dowaload an cnt isus of @ journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content inthe ISTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial uss. Please contact the publisher cegarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at bhupsferwer.jstor.org/joumals/anthro.html. 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To make anything terrible, obscurity seems to be necessary. —William Burke People want te right ro survive, 1 live without fear. ~-Pofa Petrona Fear is response to danger, but in Guatemala, rather than being solely a subjective personal experience, it has also penetrated the sacial memary.' And rather than an acute reaction itis a chronic condition. The effects of fear are pervasive and insidious in Guaternala. Fear destabilizes social relations by diving a wedge of distrust within families, between neighbors, armiong friends. Fear divides communities through suspicion and apprehension not only of strangers but of each other.” Fear thrives on ambiguities, Denunciations, gossip, innuendos, and rumors of death lists create a climate of suspicion. No ane can be sure wha is who, The spectacle of torture ard death and of massacres and disappearances in the recent past have become more deeply inscribed in indi- lual bodies and the collective imagination through a constant sense of theeat. In the altiplana fear has become a way of life. Fear, the arbiter of power—in- visible, indeterminate, and silent. ‘What is the nature of fear and terror that pervades Guatematan Society? How do people understand it and experience it? And what is at stake for people ‘who live in a chronic state of fear? Might survival itself depend on a panoply of responses to a seemingly intractable situation? In this article, I examine the invisible violence of fear and intimidation through the quotidian experiences of the people of Xe’caj. In doing so, [try to tara Andrology (2:227-25,Coptiahe © 93, Amatian Aneel! ANC an224 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY ‘capture a sense of the insecurity that permeates individual women’s lives ‘wracked by worries of physical and emotional survival, of gratesque memories, of ongoing militarization, of chronic fear. The stories [ relate below are the in- idual experiences of the women with whora | worked: yet they are also social and collective accounts by vitue of their omnipresence (Lira and Castillo 1991; ‘Marcin-Baro 1990), Although the focus of my work with Mayan women was not explicitly on the copie of violence, an understanding of ics usages, its manifes- (ations, and its effects is essential to comprehending the context in which the women of Xe'caj are struggling to survive. Fear became the metanarrative of my research and experiences among the people of Xe’caj. Fear is the reality in which people live, the hidden state of (in- dividual and social) emergency that is factored into the choices women and rien make, Although this “state of emergency” in which Guatemalans have been liv ing for over a decade may be the norm, itis an abnormal state of affairs indeed. ‘Albert Camus wrote that, from an examination of the shifts between the norraal and the emergency, herween the tragic and the everyday emerges the paradoxes ‘and contradictions that bring into sharp celief how the absurd (in this case, ver: rar) works (1955). Violence and Anthropology Giveo aptheopology’s empirical bent and the fact that anthropologists are woll positioned to speak out on behalf of the “people who provide us with our livelihood’ (Taussig 1978:105), it seems curious that so few have chosen to do 50, Jeffrey Sluka has suggested thatthe practice of sociocultural anthropology with ies emphasis oa a "eross-cultural and comparative perspective, holistic ap- proach, reliance on participant observation, concentration on lacat level analy- sis and “emic’ point of view" is particularly well suited to understanding the subjective, experiential, meaningful dimension of social conflict(1992:20). An- thropotogisss, however, have craditionally approached the study of conflict, ‘wat, and human aggression from a distance, ignoring the harsh realities of peo- ple’s lives. Although some ofthe dominant theoretical paradigms utilized in an- thropological inquiry over the last century—evolutionism, structural function- lism, acculturation studies, and marxism—have examined sacietal ‘manifestations of violence, the lived experiences of their research subjects have offen been muted. When social conflict and warfare have been problematized it thas been often in abstract cerms, divorced from the historical realities ofthe co- lonial or capitalist encounter. Throughout the 20th century, rvost studies by po litica! anthropologists have emphasized taxonomy aver process: for example, the classification of simple or indigenous political systems, ptitical leadership, Jay, domination, and intertibal relations. After World War L fonding from p vate sources, such as the Rockefeller Foundation, influenced the research agenda of North American and British anthropologists, which was characterized by stodies of order and disorder within a functionalist paradigm (Vincent 1990). In Mesoamerica, Robert Redield’s 1927 investigation of Tepoztlanis ex- ‘emplaty ofthe ahistorical nature of acculturation studies (Redield 1930), Red-FEAR AS A WAY OF LIFE 229 field stressed harmony and consensus among the Teportecos, describing in de- tail their cultura} traits and “Life ways" without mention of recent historical events (the Mexican Revolution} or political realities (ongoing Socal turmoil in “Tepaztlan during his own fieldwork). There were exceptions, of course. Alex- ander Lesser (1933), Monica Hunter (1936), and Hilda Kuper (1947), for exar- ple, were producing politically and socially relevant ethnogcaphy during the same period. These studies concerned with the impact of colonialization on mar- inalized people were marginalized, however (Vincent 1990). ‘With the upsurge of internecine warfare worldwide since World War I, the number of anthropological studies focusing on the subject of conflict and change increased exponentially. With the advent of the cold war in the 1950s, counterinsurgency warfare became a common response to the dramatic rise in revolutionary movements in many third-world countres.* While repression it self was not new, what was distinet were new patterns of repression and new or- ganizational forms for its implementation which emerged in close association with United States security programs, Some anthropologists became involved in sudies that were a result of a U.S. military presence (for example, the contr: versial Comell University Studies in Cultare and Applied Science), while other antheopologists participated in intelligence activities during the Vietnam War. ‘The emergence of two analytical frameworks within anthropology—neaevolu- tionary theary (Fried 1967; Sablins and Service 1960, Service 1962) and marx ism (Gough 1968; Hymes 1969)—mirrored the increasing polarization taking place in the United States in the 1960s. Yet, systematic inquiry on the subject of hhurnan rights violations remained elusive. Despite an alarming rise in the most blatant forms of transgressions—tepression and state terrorism—the topic has not captured the anthropological imagination (Downing and Kushner 1988). Overwheiming empirical evidence demonstrates that state violence has been standard operating procedure in numerous contemporary societies in which an- thropologists have conducted fieldwork for the past three decades.* avi Doughty, in a stinging commentary of anthropology's claim co author- ity on the subject of Native Americans, has questioned why monographs have not addressed systematically “the most vital issues that deeply affected all Na- ive Americans since European conquest”: death, diserimination, displacement, dispossession, racism, rampant disease, hunger, impoverishment, and physical and psychological abuse (1988:43). Nancy Scheper-Hughes is insightful in this regard. She writes in her eloquent ethnography of everyday violence jn North- east Brazil that “a critical practice (of saciai science research) impties not so such a practical as an epistemotogical struggle" (Scheper-Hughes 1992:172). Perhaps this is what les atthe heart of anthropology’s diverted gaze. What is at stake, it seems, are the struggles between the powerful and the powerless, and ‘what is at issue for anthropologists is with whom to cast their lot ‘A tumier of practitioners today who work in “dangerous field situations” have begun to deconstruct the insidious and pervasive effects and mechanisms of violence and terror, underscoring how it operates on the leve! of lived expe- rience (Feldman 1991; Lancaster 1982; Nordstrom and Martin 1992; Scheper-290 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY Hughes 1992; Peteet 1991; Suérer-Orozco 1990, 1992; Taussig 1987, 19926). Andrew Turton has pointed out that an examination of power must “include the techniques and modalities of both more physically coercive forms of domina- tion and more ideological and discursive forms and relations berween the two, in which fear may be a crucial factor” (1986:39-40). Among anthropologists i is Michael Taussig wha has so well captured the complexities and quances of terror, piving teror sentience (1987). What is consistently compelling about “Taussig’s work, despite its sometimes recondite tendencies, is his ability to por- laay terror viscerally, in effect to take a moral stance against power played out in its more grotesque forms. In Guatemala recent works by Carmack (1988), Manz (1988), AVANCSO (1992), Falla (1992), and Wilson (1991) have begun to document and analyze the testimonies of individual and collective experi- ences during the most recent reign of teror. Ricardo Falla his haunting 1992 account ofthe massactes ofthe ican, Guatemala, between 1975 and 1982, asks the chilling question of why one ought to write about massacres (and testo). His answers simple yet provocative: intellectuals can act as intermediaries, to lend their voices on behalf of those who have witnessed and lived through the maca- bre, Ths isthe anthropolagist as sribe, faithfully documenting what the people themselves narrate as their own histories, that which they have seen, smelled, touched, felt, interpreted, and thought. Not to da so, as Scheper-Hughnes con: tends, is an “act of indifference,” a hostile act. Monographs can become “sites of resistance,” “acts af solidarity,” or a way to “write against terror,” and anthro- pology itselfempioyed as an agent of social change (Scheper Hughes 1992:28) ‘The Nature of Fear Writing this article has been problematic, And it has to da withthe natuce ofthe topic itself, te difficulty of fixing feac and terror in words." have chosen ta include some of my awn experiences of fear during my fieid research rather than stand apart as an outsider, an observer, fortwo reasons. Fits of all cas ands impossible to stand apart. tsoon became apparent that any understanding ‘of the women’s lives would include a journey into the tate of fear in which ter- rorreigned and that would shape the ery nature of my interactions and relation ships in Xe'eaj. Second, it was from these shared experiences that we forged common grounds of understanding and respect. Fear is elusive as a concept; yet you know it when it has you in its grips Fear, like pain, is overwhelmingly present 10 the person experiencing it, but it may be barely perceptible to anyone else and almost defies objectification * Subjectively, the mundane experience of chronic fear wears down one’s seas bility tit. The routinizationof fear undermines one's confidence in interpreting the World. My own experiences of fear and those of the women Tknaw are much like what Taussig aptly describes asa state of “stringing our the nervous syste ‘one way toward hysteria, the other way aumbing and apparent acceptanc (1992b° 1. ‘While thinking and writing about fear and terror, I was inclined to discuss swhat [was doing with colleagues knowledgeable about fa sitwacion in CentralFEAR AS A WAY OF LIFE 281 “America. I would deseribe to them the erie calm! felt mast days, an unease that Ties just below the surface of everyday life, Most ofthe time it was more avis ceral rather than a visual experience, and I tried, with difficulty, to suppress it. ‘One day I was relating toa friend whatitfett like to pretend not be disturbed by the intermittent threats that were commonplace throughout 1989 and 1990 in ‘Xe'ea}. Some weeks the market plaza would be surrounded by five or six tanks white painted-faced soldiers with M-16s in hand perched above us, watching My friend’s response made me nervous all over again. He said that he had in- ly been upset by the ubiquitous military presence in Central Americ®. He too, he assured me, had assumed that the local people felt the samme. But lately he had been rethinking his position since he had witnessed a number of young ‘women firing with soldiers, ar small groups of local men leaning casually on tanks, Perhaps, we North Americans, he continued, were misrepresenting what ‘was going on, reading our own fears into the meaning ithad for Central Ameri- cans, I went home wondering if perhaps I was being “hystericat.” stringing out the nervous (social) system, Had T been too caught up in terror’s talk?” Gead- ally Tcame to realize that teror’s power, its matter-of-faciness, is exactly about doubting one's own perceptions of reality. The routinization of terrors what fu- ls its power. Such routinization allows people to live ina chronic state of fear with a facade of normatcy, white that terror, at the same time, permeates and stireds the sociai fabric, A sensitive and experienced Guatemalan economist noted that a major problem for social scientists working in Guatemala is that to survive they have to become inured to the violence, training themselves a first not to react, then later not to feel (see) it. They miss the cantext in which people live, including themselves. Self-censorship becomes second nature—Ben- tham’s panopticon intern: How does one become socialized to terror? Does it imply conform ‘quiescence to the status quo. as my friend suggested” While it is true that, with Tepetitiveness and familiarity, people learn to accommodate themselves to ter- ror and fear, low-intensity panic remains in the shadow of waking conscious ness, One cannot live. in a constant state of alertness, and so the chaos one feels becomes infused throughout the body. It surfaces frequently in dreams and chronic iliness. In the mornings, sometimes my neighbors and friends would speak of their fears during the night, of being unable to sleep, or of being awak- ‘ened by footsteps or voices. of nightmares of recurring death and violence. After six months of living in Xe'caj [too started having my own nighttime hysteria, reams of death, disappearances, and torture. Whisperings, inouendas, and cu ‘mors of death lists circulating would put everyone on edge. One day a friend, Nacho, from Xe'caj came to my house, very anxious. He explained, holding back his tears, that he had heard his name was on the newest death lista the mili- tary encampment. As Scheper-Hughes has noted “the intolerableness of thel se] situation{s} is increased by [their] ambiguity” (1992:233). A month later two soldiers were killed ane Sunday afternoon in a surprise guerrilla attack akilome- tet from my house. That evening several women from the village came to visi ‘emotionally distraught, they worried that fa violencia, which had been stalking,222 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY them, had aclastretarged. Dofia Maria noted that violence is like fire; itean flare up suddenly and burn you. ‘The people in Xe’caj live under constant surveillance. The destacamento {military encamprvent) looms large, situated on a nearby hillside above town; from there everyone's movements come under close scrutiny. The town is laid ‘out spatially in the colonial quadrangle pattern common throughout the alti plana. The town square, as well as all of the roads leading to the surrounding, ‘countryside, are visible from above, To an untrained eye, the encampment is not ‘obvious from below. The camouflaged buildings fade into the hillside, but once ‘one has looked down fram there, is impossible to forget that those who live be- low do so inafishbow!, Orejas (spies, literally “ears”), military commissioners, and eivil patroliers provide the backbone of military scrutiny * These local men are often former soldiers who witlingly report to the army the “suspicious” ace tivities of their neighbors.* ‘The impact of the civil patcots (or PACs) at the local level has been pro- Found. One of the structural effects ofthe PACs in Xe"caj has been the subordi- nation of traditional village political authority ¢o the lacal army commander. When | arrived in Xe'eaj, I first went to the mayor ta introduce myself, [asked for his permission to wark in ehe township and surrounding vitlages, but mid- way thraugh my explanation, he cat me off abruptly, If Thaped ta work here, he. explained impatiently, then what I really needed was the explicit permission of the commandante atthe army garrison. The civil patrals guard the entrances and exits to the villages in Xe'caj, he said. Without permission from the army the civil patrols would not allow me to enter the villages. My presence asa stranger, and foreigner produced suspicions. “Why do you want to live and work here. ‘with us?" “Why do you want ea talk to the widows?" “Far whom da you work?” the alcaide asked. It was the local army officers who told me it was a free coun- ‘xy and that I could do as I pleased, provided Thad their permission. ‘One of the ways tercor becomes diffused is through subtle messages. Much as Carol Cohn describes in her unsettling 1987 account of theuse of language by nuclear scientists o sanitize their involvement in nuctear weaponry, in Guate- ‘mala language and symbols are utilized to normalize a continual army presence, From time ta time army troops would arrive in aldeas (villages) obliging the vil- lagers to assemble for a community meeting. The message was more ar less the ‘same each time I witnessed these gatherings. The commmandante would begin by telling the people that the army is thee friend, that the soldiers are hereto procect ‘chem against subversion, against the communists hiding out in the mountains. At the same time he woukd admonish them that if they did not cooperate Guate- mala could become like Nicaragua, El Salvador, ot Cuba. Subtienente Rodti- {quez explained to me during one such meeting that the army is fulfilling its role of preserving peace and democracy in Guatemala through military control of the ‘entire country. Ignacio Martin-Baro has characterized social perceptions re- duced to rigid and simplistic schemes such as these as “offical Hes,” in which social knowledge is cast in dichotomous terms, black or white, good or bad,FEAR AS A WAY OF LIFE 238 friend or enemy, without the nuances and complexities of lived experience (1989), Guatemalan soldiers at times arrive in the villages accompanied by U.S. National Guard doctors or dentists who hold cfinic hours for a few days. This is part ofa larger strategy developed under the Kennedy doctrine of Alliance for Progress, in which civic actions ate part of counterinsurgency strategies.” Yet the mixing of the two, “benevolent help” with military actions, does not negate the essential fact chat “violence is intrinsic to its [the military's] nature and logic” (Scheper-Hughes 1992:224). Coercion through its subtle expressions of official lies and routinization of fear and terror are apt mechanisras that the mil tary uses to contol citizens, even in the absence of war. I was with a groups of widows and young orphan girls one afternoon watch- inga TV soap opera. I¢ was in mid-June, a week or so before Army Day. During ‘onte of the commercial breaks, a series of images of Kaibiles appeared on the screen dressed for combat with painted faces, clenching theie rifles running hcough the mountains." Bach time a new frame appeared, there was an audible gasp in che room. The last image was of soldiers emerging from behind corn stalks while the narrator said, “The army is ready to do whatever is necessary (0 defend the country.” One young girl turned to me and said, "Si pues, siempre ‘stan fista que se matan la gente” {sic (they are always ready to Kill the people. ‘The use of camouflage cloth for clothing and small items sold at the market is a subtle, insidious form of daily life's militarization. Wallets, key chains, belts, caps, and tay helicopters male in Taivran are disconcerting in this eontext As these seemingly mundane objects circulate, they normalize the extent ‘which civilian and military life have commingled in the altiplano. Young men, ‘who have returned to villages from military service often wear army boots, T- shirts that denote the military zone in which they had been stationed, and their dog tags, The boots themsebves are significant. The women would say they ‘knew who itwas that kidnapped or killed their family members, even if dressed incivitian clothes, because the men were weacing army boots. When my neigh- bors cousin om leave from the army came for a visit, the young hoys brought bim over to my house so they could show his photo album to me with pride. As the young soldier stood shyly inthe background, Juanito and Reginaldo pointed ‘enthusiastically to photographs oftheir cousin. In one, ke was leaning on a tank. with bis automatic rifle in rand, a bandolier of bullets slung over his shoulder, while in another he was throwing a hand grenade. Yet, these same boys (old me, ‘many months after Thad moved into my house and we had become friends, that when Ifitst arrived they were afraid might kill them. And Dota Sofia, Regi- ‘naldo's mother, was shocked to learn that I did not carry a gui In El Salvador, Martin-Baro analyzed the subjective internalization of war and miticarization among a group of 203 children in an effort co understand to ‘what extent they have assimilated the efficacy of violence in solving personal and social problems (1989). While generalizations cannot be drawn feom such a Fimited study, what Martin-Baro found to be significant was that the majority of the children interviewed stated thatthe best way to end the wat and actain234 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY peace was to eliminate the enemy (whether understood as the Salvadoran army or the FMLN (Farabundo Manti National Liberation Fcont)) through violent means. This tendency to internalize violence is what Martin-Bara has refetred (0 as the “militarization of the mind” (1990) ‘The presence of sotdiers and ex-soldiers in communities is ilbusteative of lived conttadictions inthe altiplano and provices another example of how the routinization of teror functions. Tae foot soldiers of the army are almost exelu- sively young rural Mayas, many still boys of 14 and 15 years, rounded up on armty “sweeps” through rural towns. The “recruiters” arrive in two-ton trucks grabbing all young men in sight, usually on festival or market days when large numbers of people have gathered together in the center ofthe pueblo. One morn- ing at dawn, I witnessed four such loaded trucks driving out from one of the, towns of Xe'eaj, soldiers standing in each comer of the ruck with rifles pointed ‘outward, the soon-to-he foot soldiers packed in like cattle, Little is known about the training these young soldiers receive, but anecdotal data fram some who are willing co tak suggests tha the “training” is designed ta break down a sense of personal dignity and respect for other human beings. As one young man de- scribed ito me, “Soldiers are trained to kill and nothing more” (see also For- ‘ester 1992), Another said he learned (in the army) to hate everyone, including himself. The soldiers who pass through the villages on recognizance and take up sentry duty in the pueblos are Mayas, while the vast majority of officers are lad inos, from other regions of the county, and cannot speak the local language. As a second lieutenant explained, army policy direets thatthe foot soldiers and the ‘cornmanders of the local garrisons change every thee months, to prevent sol- diets from getting to know the people, A stall but significant mumber of rien in Xe'caj have been in the army. Many young men return homme to their nal vil- lages after they are released from military duty. Yer, their reintegration inta the community is often difficutt and problematic. As one villager noted, “They [the menvboys] leave as Indians, but they don’t come back Indian.” During theie time of service in the army, some ofthe soldiers are forced to kill and maim. These young men often go on to become the local military com- missioners, heads of the civil patrol, or paid informers for the army. Many are demoralized, frequently drinking and turning violent. Others marry and settle in their vitkages to resume their lives as best they ean. T inet several women whose sons had been in the military when thei hus- bands had been killed by the army. In one disturbing situation, I interviewed a widow who described the particularly gruesome death of her husband ac the hands of the army, while behind her an the wall prominently displayed was a photogeaph of her son in his Kaibit uniform, When {asked about him, she ac- knowledged his occasional presence in the household and said nothing more, | was at fits ata loss to explain che situation and her silence; Jater I came to un- derstand it as part of the rational inconsistencies that are built into the logie of her fractured life. On a purely objective level, itis dangerous to talk about such things with strangers. Perhaps she felt her son's photograph might provide pro- tection inthe futore, Although I can into this situation several tirtes, [never feltFEAR AS A WAY OF LIFE 235 free to ask more about it. T would give the women the opportunity to say some- thing, but I felt morally unable to pursue this topic. The women would talk freely, although at great pains, about the brutal past but maintained a stoic si- lence about the present. Perhaps the women's inability to talk about the frag- ‘ments of their tragic experiences within the context of lacger processes is in it self a survival strategy, How is that a mother might be able (o imagine that her son (he soldier) would perform the same brutish acts as those used against her and her family? To maintain a fragile integrity, must she block the association jn much the same way women speak of the past atrocities 2s individual acts but remain Silent about the ongoing process of repression in which they live? The vision of families* loyalties becomes instrumental in perpetuating fear and ter- ror. In commenting on local violence in San Pedro de la Laguna during the 1980s, Benjamin Panl’s analysis is cevealing of the relationship between disor der and contrat and how local factionalism has been manipulated and exploited in rural cornmuniies contributing (o a breakdown in social structure (Paul and Demarest 1988). It should be noted that San Pedica was less affected by ditect army repression and guerilla activity in the 1980s than many other towns, yet local deach squads terrorized the population for over four years, Paul notes that: i may be cempring to blame the outbreak of violence in San Pedra on sac divisiveness and secling old scores, but the tempration should be resisted. Rel {slows competition ane vigarovs poltucal infighting were features of San Pedro Ife for decades before 1980 without producing violence, The same can be said {or interpersonal ancagorisms. They arose in the past ard were setied by means. short of murder, What disrupted the peace In San Pedra was not the presence af differences and divisions but the army's reeruitment of agents and spies that had the effect of exploiting these cleavages, [Paul and Demarest |988:133-154] ‘The Structure of Fear ‘The “culture of fear” that pervades Guatemalan society has roots in the teauma of the Spanish invasion five centuries earlier. Fear and oppression have been the dual and constant features of Guatemalan history since the arrival of Pedco Alvarado and his conquistadores in the early L6th century. The words written in the Annals of the Cakchiquels almost five hundred years ago are as ‘meaningful today as then: Litle by title, heavy shadows and black night enveloped Our faciers and granafathers ‘And us also, oh, my sons All of us were thus ‘We were born to die. [Recinas and Goew 1953] Terror is the taproot of Guatemala’s past and stalks its present. When speaking of la violencia of the 1980s, I was struck by how frequently people used the metaphor of conquest to describe it. Lo mismo cuando se mato 2 Te- ‘cum Uman” (Iti the same as when they killed Tecum Uma), Doha Marta sai236 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY alluding tothe K’iche-Mayan hero who died valiantly in battle against the Span- ish, when describing the recent “whirlwind of death." Although references to the Spanish conquest have become mare commonplace on the cusp ofits quiae centenary, in 1988 and early 1989 rucal constructions of local experiences in terms ofthe invasion were striking, haunting, as if a collective memory had been passed generation to generation, Citing Benjamin, Tanssig asserts that ‘where history figures in memory, in an image thac flashes forth unexpectedly marten of esis, that contending political forces engage in battle” (198488). Tin this way history engaged through memory becomes a social force comprised of "the power of social experience, imagecy and rod, in constructing and de- constructing political consciousness and the will to act politically” (198488). Franciscan documents from the |6th century describe the disorder result {ng from local judge's order to bura dawn towns whea Indians eefused ta com ply with official decrees. Lovell writes, “Chaos ensued. Raads and cails were strewn with poor Indian women, ted as prisoners, carrying children on their backs, left to fend for themselves” (1992:epilogue, 34). Five hundred years later publications by anthropologists (Carmack 1988; Falla 1983, 1992; Manz 1988) and numerous international human rights groups recount vielations of a similar magnitude (America’s Watch 1986, {990 Amnesty International 1981, 1982, 1987), Fear has been the motor af oppression in Guatemala. As Brecht noted, ear nules not only those who are ruled, but the cules too” (1976:29-297}. The elite, dominant classes are driven by racist fears of “indios" and in more recent decates hy the “red menace” of communists to perform the most brutish acts to protect the status quo. There are upper-class ladinos in Guatemala City Who dleny thatthe massacres in rural areas ever really happened. In. one interview, a ladina journalist noted that is ‘one of the reasons why repression did not eause ta0 big a commotion among Guateralans inthe capital was because t was mainly Indians that were affected. Al dhe suffering that took place was nat really suffering because It happened to Indians. The Guatemalan upper class believes that Indians eznnot really feel, that an Indian woman will not truly suffer ither husband or children are killed because she isnot "the same asus." (Hooks 1991:48] Although Susre2-Oro2ca has described the process of denial in Argentina ducing the years of che “dicty war” as a psychological coping mechanism for the terror (1992), what stands apart in Guatemala is not the denial of the unthinkable, but a dismissiveness of suitering, rooted intacism. For the women and men of Xe’caj, however, fear is a way of life, and injustice the rule. Like most fledgling anthropologists, Ihatt been nervous about getting my research underway and was well aware, or so thought, of the “special” citcum- stances in which T had chosen to work. By the time [began fieldwork in Guate- mala in 1988, it was permissible to discuss openty and publicly “la situacton”” and “la violencia” of te past eight oso years, and the plight of widows and or- hans was becoming a matter of public record."* Yet, the fraFEAR AS A WAY OF LIFE 237 “opening.” which had been welcomed by the majority ofthe population in 1985, buoyed by a sense of hope when Vinicio Cerezo took office (the first elected ci- Villan president in 16 years), was in grave danger by 1988. An attempted coup erat in the spring of 1988 (Followed by another in May 1989) dashed any hopes for significant social reform. The military cemeaned firmly in charge. although backstage. In shot, the military recognized the need for international ant na- tional legitimacy through a reurn to civilian rule in order to address its severe economic and political crises. Tn cetrospect, political anelysts now define the May 1988 and May 1989 coup attempts as “successful” in all but yielding the presidential seat. What tle power the military had relinquished during the electoral process in 1985 had ve- verted hack into the hands of the generals. Although, as these coups demon- steated, the army was far from a monolithic institution (Anderson and Simon 1987; Jonas 1991; Mersky 1989},"* what was becoming clearer was that Corezo’s role was 0 he directed toward an international audience. He haé, in ef- fect, yielded power to the military without vacating the presidential palace. Hu- rman rights violations in the capital and in rural areas continued unabated International human rights organizations documented the continuation of systematic human rights violations (see America’s Watch 1990 and Amnesty International 1987). Once again, the U-S.-based Council on Hemispheric Af- fairs named Guatemala asthe worst human-rights violator in Latin America for 1989, 1990, 1991, and 1992. The massacre of 21 campesinos in El Aguacate, San Andees Itzapa, Chimaltenango, in 1988; the political assassinations of Hec- ‘ot Oqueli from El Salvador, Gilda Flores, a prominent Guatemalan atorney, and the political leader Danilo Barilas; the kilings and disappearances of usic versity students and human-rights workers; the 1990 murder ofthe anthropolo- gist Myrna Mack; systematic torture, treats, and intimidation against countless thers theoughout the period—all these point to the persistent violence and ce- pression used by the state against its citizenry. While the state has denounced the atrocities, iChas (ried to explain them away as crimes by delinquents. Ichas vowed to investigate and prosecute fully thase responsible, but few have ever teen convicted or have served a prison term for human-rights violations—de- spite the fact that frequently there has been substantial evidence indicating the complicity of state security forces. Thus, with a wink and a nad to its etizens, 4 policy of impunity makes it clear ta everyone who retains power and under what conditions. As Martin-Barro noted, “The usefulness of violence is its ef- fectiveness and the crucial point concerning the proliferation of violence in Cen- tral America is its impunity under the law” (1990:344), Despite a hideous record of documented human-rights abuses, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights decided in 1992 fr the fifth consecutive year to downplay Guatemala’s record by placing it in the advisory cather than violations category. Yet inside the country, repression continued unchecked, Repression is used selectively: to threaten, intimidate, disappear, or kill one ar two labor leaders, students, or campesinos is o paralyze everyone else with fee, ‘Terror is widespread and generalized. If one crosses the arbiteary line, the con:238 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY sequences ate well known; the problems that one cannot be sure where the line is nor when one has crossed iC umtil i is (00 late After several months of searching for a field site, I settled upon Xe’cai. Al- though ichad been the site of rauch bloodshed and repression during the early 1980s, la situacion was reportedty tanguita (calm) in 1988, The terror and feat that pervaded daly life were not immediately percentile to me, Military check- points, the army garrison, and civil patcols were clearly visible; yet daily life ap- peared “normal.” The guerrilla war, which reached an apex in the early 1980s, had ended at Jeast in theory if oot in practice. Although guerrilla troops rmoved ‘throughout the area, clashes between ther and the army were limited. The war hhad reached a stalemate. While the army claimed victory, the guerrillas refused to admit defeat. The battlefield was quiescent, yet political repression conti ued, Scorched-eatth tactics, massacres, and large population displacements had halted, but they were replaced by selective repression and the militarization of daily life. Army General Alejandro Grarnajo"s now infamous inversion of Karl Marie von Clausewit2's “politics as a continuation of war" was clearly accurate. ‘The counterinsurgeney war had transformed everyday life in the altiplano into ‘permanent state of repression. Economic conditions inchis climate were unsta- ble, and the majority of people found themselves more deeply entrenched in poverty, hunger, and misery (Smith 1990). By the mid-1980s, violence in Chi- maltenango Department was mostly veiled, and a few development projects be- {gan to return cautiously after the elections in 1985. According to Smith 1990, in the 1980s Chimaltenango probably received more development aid per capit than anywhere else in the altiplano, yet rather than alleviating the precarious economic situation in which most people live, conditions continued to worsen. ‘The structure of fear operated on several levels on which military and economic acrangements worked synergistically. Silence and Secrecy Tewas the dual lessons of silence and secrecy dhat were for me the most en- lightening and disturbing. Silence about the present situation when talking wit strangers is a survival strategy that Mayas have long utilized. Their overstated politeness toward ladino society and seeming abliviousness Co the jeers and in- ‘sults hurled at them—their servility in the face of overt cacism—make it seem as though Mayas have accepted their subservient role in Guatemalan society. Mayan apparent obsequiousness has served as a shield to provide distance and has also been a powerful shaper of Mayan practice. When Elena disclosed to a journalist friend of mine from E) Salvador her thoughts about guerrilla incur- sions today, her family castigated her roundly far speaking, warning her that ‘what she said could be twisted and used against her and the family. Ths is rem niscent of what Alan Feldman, in writing about Norther Ireland, says about se~ ‘recy as “an assertion of identity and symbolic capital pushed to the margins. ‘Subaltern groups construct their own margins as agile insulators from the cen- ter" (199111),FEAR AS A WAY OF LIFE 239 When asked about the present situation, the usual response from most peo- ple was “pues, teanquia"—but it was a fragile calm, Later as [ got to knaw peo- ple, when something visible would break through the facade of order and the forced propaganda speeches, or in my own town when a soldier was killed and another seriously injured in an ambush, peopte would whisper fears of a return to la Violencia. [a fac, the unspoken Dut implied second part ofthe “Pues, tcan- quila” is“ Ahorita, pera mafiana saber" ("It's calm now, but who knows about tomorrow?”), When I asked a local fellow, wino is the head of a small (setf-suf- ficient) development project thar is organizing locally, if he were bothered by the atmy, he said he was not. The army comes by every couple of months and searches houses of looks at his records, but he considered this tranquila, Silence can operate as a survival strategy; yet silencing is a powerful mechanism of control enforced through fear. At times when I was talking with 4 group of women, our attention would be distracted momentarily by a military plane or helicopter flying close and low. Each of us would lift our heads, watch- ‘ng until itpassed our of sight yet withholding comment. Sometimes, if we were inside a house, we might all step out onto the patio to look skyward. Silence, Only once was the silence broken. On that day Dofa Tomasa asked therorically, after the helicopters had passed overhead, why my government sent bombs to kill people, At Christmas Eve mass in 1989, 25 soliders entered the church sud~ denly, soom after the service iad begun. They occupied three middle pews an the ‘mens’ side, never taking their hands off their rifles, only ¢o leave abruptly after the sermon. Silence. The silences in these cases do not erase individual memo- ries of terror; they create instead more fear and uncertainty by driving the wedge ‘of paranoia between people. Terror's effects are not only psychological and in- dividual, but social and collective as well. Silence imposed through terror has, become the idiom of social consensus in the altiplano, as Suirez-Orozco has noted in the Argentine context (1990). ‘The complicity of silence is yet another matter. During the worst ofthe vio lcace in theearly 1980s, when several priests were killed and hundreds, perhaps, ‘thousands, of lay catechists were murdered, the Catholic Church hierarchy, with the exception of several Guatemalan bishops, remained rigidly sient, Evangeli- cal churches, like che Central American Mission, which lost large nurnbers of congregants, also remained silent. ‘Today a number of development projects work in Xe'caj with women and. children who have been severely affected by the violence. They do not, how= ever, address the reality in which people live. These projects provide a modicum of economic aid without acknowledging the context of fear and terror that pet- vades Xe'caj. When a Vision Mundial (World Vision) administrator explained the project's multi-tiered approach to development, he spoke proudly of the. _Ecoup’s emphasis on assisting the “whole” person, materially, emotionally, and spiritually. When I asked him how the project was confronting the emotional trauma of war and repression in which the widaws live, he admitted obliquely that they were not. To do so, of course, would put the project workers and the240 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY ‘women in jeopardy. Yet to nat address the situ lies." ‘Thus the contradictory natu of development itself becomes unraveled in this situation of violence and silence. Development programs serve the state by providing stopgap measures to deep-seated economic, sacial, and cultural prob Jems, rather than addcessing fundamental structural causes of poverty and re pression, Development programs also perpetuate the hegemonic discourse of a dominant power structure that does nat question the goals of capitalist develop ment. Atthe same time, a the local level these same projects provide some ia dividual relief for peopte struggling to survive economically. ion perpetuates the “official On Breaking the Silence Despite the fear and terror engendered by relentless human-rights viola- tions and deeply entrenched impunity, hope exists. Since the appointment ia 1983 of Archbishop Peospero Penados de] Barrio, the Guatemalan Catholic Chugci has become increasingly outspoken ia its advocacy for peace and social justice, The Guatemalan Bishops’ Conference, for example, has issued a num- ber of pastoral leters, beginning with the 1988 Cry for Land, that have become. mportane sources of social criticism in the country. In 1990 the Archdiocese of Guatemala opened a human rights office to provide legal assistance to victims. of human rights abuses and to report violations to national and intemational in stitutions One ofthe collective responses tothe silence imposed through terrar began {in 1984, when two dozen people, mostly women, formed the human rights or- ganization called GAM (Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo). Its members are relatives of some of the estimated 42 thousand people who “disappeared” in Guatemala over the past three decades. Modeling themselves after the Mothers of Plazade Mayo in Argentina, a small group of courageous wornen and men decided (0 break the silence, They went (0 government offices to demand thatthe authorities inves- tigace the crimes against their families. They also turned their bodies into “weapons” to speak out against the violence. As they marched in silence every Friday in front ofthe national palace with placards bearing the photos of those ‘who had disappeared, they ruptured the official silence, bearing testimony with their own bodies about those who have vanished. In 1990, Roberto Lemus, a judge in the district court of Santa Cruz del ‘Quiche, began accepting petitions feom local people to exhume sites in the v ages in which people claimed there were clandestine graves, Family members, said they knew where their loved ones had been buried after being killed by se- curity forces. While other judges in the area had previously allowed the exhurna- tions, this was the first time that a scientific team had been assembled, i this, «ase under the auspices of the eminent forensic anthropologist, Clyde Snow. ‘The intent of the exhumations was to gather evidence to corroborate verbal tes- ‘monies of survivors in order to arrest those responsible. Because of repeated death threats Judge Lemus was forced into political exile in July 1991. Snow has, assembled another team. sponsored by the American Association for the Ad-FEAR AS A WAY OF LIFE 241 vancement of Science, that continues the work in Guatemala at the behest of ‘human rights groups. There arc estimated to be hundreds, perhaps thousands, of such sites throughout the altiplano, The clandestine cemeteries and miass, raves are the secretoa vaces, or what Taussig has referced to in another con: text as the “public secrets" (1992¢}—what everyone knaws about but does not dare ta speak of publicly In Xe‘caj, people would point out such sites to me. On several occasions when I was walking with them in the mountains, women Cook me to the places where they knew theic husbands were buried and said, “Mira, el esta alli® (“Look, he is aver there”), Others claimed that there are atleast three mass graves in Xe"caj itself. The act of unearthing the bones of family mem- bers allows individuals to acknowledge and reconcile the past openly, to ac~ knowledge at last the culpability forthe death of their loves and to lay them to rest. Such unearthing is, at the same time, a most powerful statement against impunity because it reveals the magnitude of the political repression that has taken place, These were not solely individual acts with individual consequences, but are public crimes that have deeply penetrated the social body and contest the legitimacy of the body politic. ‘Thus, as has been the case in Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, and Bl Salva: dor (Weschler 1990), itis the dual issues of impunity and accountability that stand between peace and social justice in Guatemala. As such, amnesty be comes both a political and an ethical problem, with not only individual but also social dimensions. The Guatemalan human-rights ombudsman (and as ‘of June 1993, president) has suggested that “to forgive and forget” is the only way democracy will be achieved in Guatemala, Ramiro de Leon Carpio, ina newspaper interview in 1991, said, “The ideal would be that we uncover the tcuth, fo make it public and to punish those responsible, but [believe that is impossible, ... we have to be realistic” (La Hora 1991). Certainly the idea of political expediency has a measure of validity ta it. The problem, how- ever, turns on “whether that pardon and renunciation are going (0 be estab- lished on a foundation of truth and justice or om lies and continued injustice” (Martin-Baro 1990:7), Hannah Arendt has argued agains¢ forgiveness with ‘out accountability, because it undermines the formation af democracy by ob viating any hope of justice and makes its pursuit pointless (1973). Secondly, while recognizing that forgiveness is an essential element for freedom, ‘Arendt contends that “the alternative to forgiveness, but by no means its op- posite, [which she argues, rather, is vengeance] is punishment, and both have {in common that they attempt to pucan end to something thac without interfer ‘ence could go an endlessly” (Arendt 1958:241). The milicary’s self-imposed amnesty, which has become vogue throughaur Latin America in recent years, forecloses the very possibility af forgiveness. Without a settling of accounts democratic rule will ermain elusive in Guatemala, as has been the case else- where in Latin America, Social reparation is a necessary requisite to healing the body politic in Latin America202 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY Living in a State of Fear During the first weeks we lived in Xe’caj, Elena (my capable field assis- tant) and I drove to several villages in the region talking with women, widows, in small groups, asking them if they might be willing to meet with us weekly ‘over the next year or 0. At first many people thought we might be representing, ‘a development project and therefore distributing material aid, When this proved not to be the case, some womer lost interest while others agreed to participate. During the second week we drove ou to Ri Bey, a small village that sits in a wide U-shaped valley several chausand meters lower in altitude than Xe'caj and most of the surrounding harnlets. The one-lane dirt road is a series of switch- backs that cut acrass several ridges, before beginning the long, slow descent inta the valley. Fortunately for me, there was little traffic on these back coads. Bus service had heen suspended during the height of the violence in the early 1980s. and in the early 1990s is virtually nonexistent, although a few buses do provide transport to villagers on market day. The biggest obstacle to driving is meeting, head-on, logging trucks carrying rounds of oak and cedar for export. With their heavy loads, its impossible for them to maneuver, and so I would invariably hhave fo back up- or downhill until I found a turnout wide enough for the truck to pass. Yet, the most frightening experience was rounding a curve and suddenly encountering a military patrol. Onsthis day ie February 1989 i¢ was fogey and misty, and a cold wind was blowing. Although the air temperature. was in the 50s (degrees Fahrenheit), the chill penetrated ta the hone—"el expresso de Alaska,” Elena laughed. Heading, north we caught glimpses af the dark ridges of the Sierra de Cuchumatanes brooding in the distance, The scenery was breathtaking; every conceivable hue of green was present: pine, cedar, ash, oak, the wide lush leaves of banana trees, and bromeliades, mingled with the brillianc purple bougainvillea in bloom, and, the ivory calla lilies ining the cadway. The milpas lay Fallow after the harvest in late January. only the dried stalks were left half-standing leaning this way and that. On each side of the road houses were perched on the slopes surrounded by the milpas. In the altiplano several houses made feom a mix of cane or corn stalks, adobe, and wood are usually clustered together. The red tile roofs seen Further west have all but disappeared from Xe’caj. Most people now use tin 100fs (lamina), even though they retain mote heatin the hot dry season and more cold when it is damp and raining. Chimaltenango Department was one of the hardest hit by the 1976 earthquake in which move than 75 thousand people died and one million were leftliomeless. Many people were crushed under the weight of the tiles, as raafs caved in upon them, Today, half-bumed houses stand as tes- timony to the scorched-earth campaign, while civil pateollers take up their posts nearby with rifles ia hand. Alehaugh we frequently saw a number of people on faat, most women and children ran to hide when they saw us coming. Months ‘passed before women and children walking on the road wauld accept a ride with ‘me, And even then, many did so reluctantly, and most would ask Elena in Kagehikel if it were true that { wanted ta steal their children and whether gringos ate children.!*FEAR AS A WAY OF LIFE 245 (a this particular day Elena and I drove as far as we could and then left my pickup atthe top of th hill atthe point at which theroad became impassable. We ‘walked the last four miles down to the village. Along the way we met local mien, repairing the large ruts inthe road, where soil had washed away with heavy Sep ember rains. Soil in this area is sandy and unstable, Most of the tees on the ridge above the road have been clear-cut and the erosion is quite pronounced. ‘Theimen were putting inculverts and filling in che deep crevasses thatdissect the road; their only tools are shovels and pickaxes. The men are paid US.$1.50 per day. This is desirable work, however, because itis one of the few opportunities ta eam cash close-to home rather than going, to he coastal plantations ‘As we descended into lower elevations, Elena and [ mused over thefactthat there are only seven widows in Ri Bey, a village of 300 people, In the several other villages where we had visited women, there were 20 t0 40 widows or about 15 1020 percentof the current population. Pechaps there had not been much vio lence in Ri Bey, I suggested. Tt was ane of the notable features of the military campaign known as “searched-earth" that neighboring villages fared quite dif ferently—one was destroyed and enather left umtouched, depending on the army's perceived understanding of guerrilla support. The military’s campaign ‘of tercor inthe altiplano had happened in two phases. Acmy strategy began with selective repression against community leaders not anly to gamer information but also to spread fear. The second phase of the councerinsurgency plan con- sisted of cutting off rural areas fram the city. This began with “sweeping opera- tions" that fanned out from the city first westward to Chimaltenango Depart- ment, then southward o Quiche, and late further northward and westward. The massacres and brutality seemed ta have an internal logic despite the disorder and panic that they provoked. While some villages were left unscathed, othecs were completely razed. For example, according to an eyewitness ofthe massacre in the aldea of Los Angelas, Ixcan, on March 23, 1982, the soldiers had a list of ‘pueblos and aldeas thar were tobe targeted (Falla 1992), Moreover, in namerous. testimonies of survivors, the army more often than not launched its “reprisals” against the guerrillas by brutally killing the population at lage. Elena and I found Petrona, Tomasa, and a third woman, sitting in front of the school at which we had agreed co meet, We greeted the women and sat down in the sun that was just breaking through the clouds, They had brought several bottles af Pepsi for us ta share. | asked Doha Petrona, a small, thin wornan wi ‘an intelligent face, why there are so few widows in Ri Bey, holding my breath waiting for the hoped-for answer—that the violence thece had been much less. She replied that it was because so many people were killed, not just men but ‘whole fantiles, old people, children, women, The village was deserted for sev- eral years, people fled to the mountains, the pueblo ar the city. Many people never retumed—dead or displaced, no ane knows for sure ‘This was the third village we had visited, and each time it was the sare. The women, without prompting, one by one took turns recounting their stories of horror. They would tel the events surrounding the deaths or disappearances of their husbands, fathers, sons, and brothers in vivid detail as if it had happened244 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY last week or last month rather than six or eight years ago, And the womten— Petrona, Tomas, Ana, sabe, Ivana, Martin, and Macta—continued to ell me their stories over and over during the rie lived amang them. But why? AC itst, asa stranger, and then later asa friend, why wece these women xepestedly re- counting theie Kafkaresque tales torte? What se i the telling? What ws the telationship between silence and testimony? As Suirez-Orozeo has noted, “tes- timony [is] aritual of hoth healing and x conderanation of injustice —the con cept of testimony contains both connotations of somthing subjective and p vate and something objective, judicial and politcal” (1992:367). Tne public spaces that we were compelled to use to thwart surveillance were transformed imo a minal space tha was both private and public inthe recounting Teach ofthe villages in which I met with women, it was always the same inthebeginning. We wauld meetin groups of three or four in font ofthe village health post, the school, ofthe chucch, always ina public space. It was theee tmanths or more before snyone invited me into their home or spoke with me pri wately and individually. Above all else, they had not wanted the gringa to he seen coming to theic house, Under the serutiny of surveillance, the women were afraid of what others in he village might say aboutthem and me, And when I be- {zanta visit people's homes, rumors did spread about Elena and me. The rumors themselves seemed innocuous tome, that was helping the widows or tha was writing a book about women, yet with potentially dangerous repercussions. During one particularly tense period, my visits calsed an uproar. One day when Tacrived to visit with Maria and Marta, [ found them both very anxious and agitated, When [asked what was going on, they said ohat che milltary comm sioner was looking for me, that people were saying I was helping the widows and talking against others in the community. “There are deep divi ‘he community: people don‘ rust one another," explained Marta “Families are divided, and not everyone thinks alike,” Maria added. ‘When [said that | would go look for Don Martin, the military commis- sioner, they became very upset. “He said that he would (ake you tothe garison. Please don’t go, Linda. We know people who went into the garrison and were never seen again." “But {have done nothing wrong," [ said, “T must alk ith them, find out what is wrong.” I worried that my presence might reflect nega tively onthe waren. So I went, Hlena insisting on accompsnying me, dismiss ing my concerns for her well-being by saying, “Si nos matan es el problema de cellos” (If they kill us, it will be their problem). Fortunately for us, the commis- sioner was not home; so [ left a message with his wife, “The next day I decided to goto the destaeamento alone. The trek tothe gar rison was a grueling walk uphill, or so it seemed. The last one hundeed yards ‘were the most demanding emotionally. Rounding the bend, {saw several sol- ers siting in asmall guardhouse witha machine gun perched on the three-foot stanchion, pointed downward and directly at me. The plight of Joseph K in Franz Katka's Trial (1937(1925]) flashed through my mind, the character a: cused ofa crime fr which e must defend himself but about which he could get 1o information, “I didn’t da anything wrong; must not laok guilty,” told my-FEAR AS A WAY OF LIFE. 265 self over and over. I needed to calm myself, as my stomach churned, my nerves frayed. Larcived breathless and terrified. Ultimately, Inew las guilty because was against the system of violence and terror that surraunded me.I asked to speak o the comnmtandante, who received me outside the gates. This struck me 435 unusual and increased my agitation, since [had been to the parison several times before to greet each new commandant and to renew my pesission p2- pers to continue my work. On ofher occasions I had been invited into the com pound. The commandante said he knew nothing about why I was being harassed by the military commissioner and the civil patrol in Be'cal, and he assured me that T could continue with my work and that he personally would Took into the situation. A few days later the commandance and several soldiers arived in the aldea, called a community-wide reeeting and instructed everyone 19 cooperate with the “gringa” who was doing a study Later when che matter had been seitied, some ofthe women explained their concerns to me. They told me stories af how widows fram outlying aldeas, who had fled to the relative safety of Xe'eaj after their husbands had been kilied or kidnapped, had been forced to bring foad and firewood for the soldiers atthe garrison, and then had been raped and humiliated at gunpoint. One brave woman, the story goes, witha baby on her back, went tothe garrison demanding to see her husband. The soldiers claimed he was not there, but she knew they were Iying because his dag was standing outside the gates, and she insisted the dog never lefchis side. Either they stil had him or had already killed him. She demanded to know and told them to g0 ahead and kill her and the baby because she had nothing more to lose. Taday she is a widow. Ie was the hour before dawn on a March day in 1981. Doha Petrona had arisen early to warm tortillas for her husband's breakfast before he let to work in the milpa. He was going to burn and clean i in preparation for planting soon after the first rains in early May. He had been gone only an hour when neighbors ‘came running to tell ber that her husband had been shat and he was lying in the road. When Petrona reached him, he was already dead. With the help of neigh: bors she took the body home to prepare for burial. Petrona considers herself lucky because she says that a least she was able to bury him herself, unlike so ‘many women whase hushands were disappeared, These are amang what Rabert Hertz called the “unquiet dead,” referring to those who have died a violent or “unnatural” death (1960). Hertz argued that funeral rituals area way of stength- ening the social bond. Without a proper burial these souls linger inthe Tiainal space between earth and afterlife, condemned in time between death and the f- nal obsequies. And yet these wandering “unuiet souls,” according to Taussig (1984), may act as intermediaries berween nature and the living, buffeting as well a5 enhancing memories through imagery ofa violent history ‘The young woman siting next to Petrona is her daughter, Ans, who is also a widow. Ana took Pettona’s nod asa sign to begin. Ina quiet voice she said that she was 17 when her hushand Ws killed on the patio of her house while her two children, Petrona, and her sister stood by helpless and in horror. It was August 1981, five marihs after her father had been killed. Soldiers came before dawa,246 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY pulled her husband oot of bed, dragged him outside, punched and kicked himun- LiL he was unconscious, and then hacked him to death with machetes, “Tomasa was just beginning to recall the night her husband was kidnapped, when a man carrying a load af wood with a thump Line stopped on the path about 50 feet away to ask who Twas and why T was in the aldea. Don Pedra is the mili tary commissioner in the community, T introduced myself and showed him my permission papers from the commandante.of the local garrison. After looking at my papers, Pedro told me [was free to vist the community but advised me to in- traduce myself to the head of the civil patrol. Tomasa anxiously resumed her story. Her husband was disappeared by soldiers ore night ineatly [982. She said that several days later she went to the municipio to register his death, and the authorities told her thar if he was disappeared he was not considered dead. She id find his mutilated body some weeks later, but she did not retuen to register his death until several years later. She was cold that she now owed a fine of 100 ‘quetaales because ofthe lateness of her report, Tomasa planned to leave in a few ‘weeks (a pick coffee on a piedmont plantation to earn the money because she ‘wants legal tile to her small parcel of land and che house. ‘The Embodiment of Violence ‘The women have never recovered from their experiences of fear and repres- sion; they continue to live in a chronic state of emotional, physical, and social (cauma. As Suirez-Orozco found among Central American refugees living in Los Angeles, people carry their psychological horror with them even into siti- ations of relative safety (1990), Their nightmares stalk them. The women of Xe'caj carry their pains, heic sufferings, and thei testimonies in their bodies. Doha Martina cried biverly the day her young grandson died of respiratory Infection, and another lay gcavely ill. She said that she tries to forget the past, but ‘when someone dies, the pain in herheart returns and her nerves come on strong. She fled Be'cal in 1981 with her tusband because of death threats. He was hhunted down and was disappeared in Guatenvala Cty several months later. She returned horne to the village Co pick up the pieces of her life as best she could ‘Today she and her four youngest children share a home with her (older) son and daughter-in-law. Somatic messages such as those borne by these women offer insights into individual distress as aesult of misery and war and suggest that there might be other interpretations that do not deny the individual body's is)ease but atthe same time demonstrate the relational qualities ofthe body to “emational, social and political sources of illness and healing” (Scheper- Hughes and Lock 1987). In the case of Guatemala, I want fo suggest another reading ofthe widow's somatization of distress and suffering, thats, chat some ‘of the discrete illnesses from which the women suffer may also be a moral re- sponse, an emotional survival strategy, to the political repression they have ex- pperienced and in which they continue (o live. And this response is felt both in- dividually and collectively. Certainly the ways in which the widows af Xe'caj experience their personal emotions of suffering may be construed as idiosyn cratic and discrete. That these bodily expressions are also cultural renderings ofFEAR AS A WAY OF LIFE 267 collective social and political trauma, however, is afact nat lost on the women, themselves. The invisible violence of fear and terror becomes visible in the suf- ferings and sicknesses of the body, mind, and spirit of the widows of Xe"caj. Their silenced voices speak poignantly through their bodies of their sadness, loneliness, and desolation, af chronic poverty and doubt. ‘The women suffer from headaches, gastritis, ulcers, weakness, diarrhes, sleep, weak blood—disorders usually clustered under the syndrome of posttrau- rmatie distress—and of “folk illnesses such as nervias (nerves), susto (fright), and penas (pain, sorrow, grief). Simply to categorize their sufferings, however, ascither manifestations of clinical syndromes or enlture-bound constructions of reality isto dehistoricize and dehuranize the lived experiences of the women. ona Isabel has had a constantheadache since the day they disappeared het hhusband seven years ago. Itnever leaves her, she says. Doria Juanahas achroniec pain in her heart because of her sadness; she cannot forget witnessing the brutal killing of ber husband and son, Dona Mactina cannot cat because of her nervios. She worries how she will feed her children, how she will earn money to buy What she needs atthe market, Don Jose, a village health promoter, describes in ‘vivid detail the many children who were born during the violence who now have multiple health problems and deficiencies de to sosto, fear, and malnutrition that their mothers suffered ‘What was noteworthy in these instances was thatthe women of Xe’eaipin- pointed the onset of theie physical problems to the events surrounding the death ‘or disappearance of their husbands, sons, or fathers and commmtented on the chronicity of their physical, social, and economic problems. Being “sick” in these cases is inherently dangerous, but the danger is quite different from that described by Talcott Parsons in his seminal article on the social consequences of the “sick role” (1972). tn this situation, illness related to political violence is a ‘efusal to break ties with the person who was killed or disappeared through the maintenance of illness. The bereavement process has yet to be completed. [tis ‘moral refusal to get well. The women's illnesses become actual physical rep- resentation of the widespread violence against the Mavan civilian population for which there has yetto bea resolution. The body stands as politieal testimony, a8 a collective protest strategy. While somatization as a political idiom may be. ‘dangerous game to play. as Scheper-Aughes has noted in the Brazilian context (1992), italso opens possibilities. The women bave come to cepresentihe horror they have witnessed through their bodies, and as such, pain and suffering ex- pressed through illness become a powerful communicative force. Their voices ‘may be silenced by fear and teror, but the body itself has become the site of so- cial and potitical memory. While Lam not suggesting that this constitutes a wholly conscious act on the part ofall women, there daes seem to be a Jevel of awareness in which the ‘women attribute political causality to particular illnesses. And the widespread nature of these complaints forges a commonality and sense of sharing among the268 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY A reexamination of susto is useful here. Susto is a malady, common throughout Mesoamerica, with undifferentiated symptomatology and which ap- ‘ears to have pre-Columbian antecedents. Susto is understood by its vietims to be the loss of the essential life farce due to fright. Often-reported symptoms in- clude depression, weakness, loss of appetite, restlessness, lack of interest in work duties and personal hygiene, disturbing dreams, fatigue, diarchea, and vomiting. If left untreated, the victim literally (though often slowly) wastes away. ‘The literature in medical anthropology is replete with interpeetations of ill- ness and sickness in terms of cognitive and symbolic models of meaning. Folk illnesses such as susto, nervios, and mat de afo have commonly been understood, 1s physiological expressions of individual's maladaptation to societal expecta- tions. The nature of the etiology af susto in Western terms has left medical an- thropologists baffled, although various explanations have been posited, ranging. from mental illness (Pages Larraya 1967), to social behavior asa resultof stress (Mason 1973; O°Nell and Selby 1968), cultural ransgression, inabilicy or un- willingness to fulfill role expectations (Rubel 1964), or assuming the sick role aga form of protest (Uizzell 1974), to purely biological phenomena such as hy- poglycemia (Bolton 1981) and ealnutrition (Burleigh 1986). Recently Rubel, O'Nell, and Callada-Ardon have suggested a middle ‘ground to understand susta as an interaction between social and biological fac- tors (1991). While these studies are important steps in discerning the complexi- ties of susto, I want o suggest an alternative reading. I argue for an interpreta ‘dan of susto that is situational, an embodied understanding af complex social ‘and political relations—one that links the lived experiences of the physical body with the sociat, cultural, and body politie (Scheper-Hughes and Lock 1987). In some-cases in Xe’ea}, the susto from which the women and children suf- feris directly related ta the terror and fear that they have experienced as a result of political violence. Might susto in these cases be seen not solely as a social {and passive) resistance to what has transpired, but as social memary embodied? And atthe same time might we take them at their word, that they are asustada (frightened) and that el espiritu se fue (the spirivsou! has left the body)? T sug- gest that this is an accurate, literal description of what has happened to them. Dofla Marcela’s young son Juanita was asustada when he was returning home on a mountain path ane evening and ran into a platoon of soliders. Tuanito’s father had been killed several years earlier by the army. Now Juanita eats very little, his small edematous body is so lethargic that he hardly moves, outside the house. Don Lucas’s daughter Marca was only eight when the army came to her village. During the past nine years Marta, who is distant and with- drawn, has grown very little, Marca is thin and pale with a distant gaze. She suf- fers fram susto, and when strangers come to the house, she experiences ataques uring which she appears dead and is unable to speak. When Marta does speak, which is infrequent, Don Lucas describes i as “speaking to everyone and n0. cane." He says that she saw terrible things during the violence, that she was wit- ness to many brutal killings inthe village, Don Lucas knows that Marta’s spiritFEAR AS A WAY OF LIFE 249 has left her body due to fright, but he has been unable to help her. These frai wasting bodies are thernselves testimony to what has happened to the Mayan people. Susto, as 2 result of political violence, not only is an individual tragedy bot serves asa powerful social and political record of the transtressions against ‘Mayan people Like the pena in Dofta Martina's heart which is bath bodily and emotion- ally fle, e sicknesses that the women of Xe'caj are experiencing are more than metaphors of their suffering: they are expressions of the rupture of the intricate and immediate connections between the body, mind, and spirit and are ex- pressed in social relations becween the individual, social, and body palitic, The pain and sadness that Martina experiences inher hearts adirect inkto the death ‘of her husband and to have pain no longer isto forget his death. And Martina ‘says that she cannot forget because there has not been justice. The heart is the. ‘center of the vital forces of the spirit for Mayan people, and as such itis the cen- (crf their awareness and consciousness, as it was once believed in Aristotelian philosophy unit Western science “proved” the ditect connection between the ‘orain and consiousness. The alliances between Martina and her husband that helped co sustain her have been broken, a6 have been the social bonds of trust and stability inher community, While am not arguing that the ongoing chronic pains that the women experience are in themselves a form of social resistance, they do serve to connect the women to each other in heir hardships and as such ‘became a mechanism for social commentary and political consciousness, ‘The women speak oftheir sufferings and illnesses in terms of the violence and oppression that they suffer as Mayas. “I have these nervios because Tam poor,” Dofta Martina explaias. “I nave this headache because they killed ray husband and now [ amalone, and it will not go away because lam afraid," Dofia Isabel says. Western medicine can in some instances alleviate their symptoms, but it cannot heal their problems, The medicinal plants the women gather in the mountains do relieve some oftheir pains, but they say things must change before they can be well, As they share their suffering, the women’s understanding of their predicaments takes on a more social dialogue that offers hope for the fu- tue. Notes Acknowledgements. Issould like to thank Naney Scheper-Hlughes, Roger Lancaster, Margarita Melville, Marcie Mersky, Marcelo Susrez-Orozcc, Sebastian Quinac, and ‘Caralyn Nordsttam for comments on earlier versions of this article. The field research ‘on which this article is based was funded by the [asitue for Intemational Education Fulbright Scholars Program. 1. Connertos has defined social memory a5 “images ofthe past that commonly legitimate a present socal order” (1989: 12) In Guatemala fear inculeated into the social memory has engendered a forced acquiescence an the part of many Mayas to the stats ‘quo. At the same time a distinctly Mayan (counter-)sccial memory exists, Indigenous ‘dances (especially the dance ef the conguisia), oral qarratives, the relationship with the ‘antepacados maintained throug the plarving af corn the weaving of cloth, and religious ‘ceremantes are all examples of Mayan social memory.250 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY 2. Rear of strangers isnot a new phenomenon in Guatemala. Maude Oakes, in her study of Todos Santos, reported that in the jate 1940s local people were reticent to clk withthe few strangers who came to the eommunity and that she wo was created with suspicion atthe begitning of her fieldeck (1951), With some, Gakes never developed {rapport of trust, «common experience for most fieléworkers. Singe the last wave of violence, however, community loyalties have been divided and a level of distrust previously unknown hes permeated social fe. A climate af

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