The drinking, smoking saint

We visited a couple of villages that border on to Lake Atitlan which are quite typical of Guatemala but they each had their own unique points. The first was one where hippies who moved to this area some years ago have congregated and set up stalls and even small businesses; the air was redolent with dope smoke! The second was a larger town where we visited the shrine of Maximón – a pre-Columbian Maya god that became blended with influences from catholicism in order to preserve belief in it. Consequently he became called by different names such as San Simon or even San Judas Iscariot – hence the reason for people having to give money to approach him. We also had to pay ten quetzales to photograph him.
Maximón is represented by a venerated effigy which resides in a different house each year, being moved in a procession during Holy Week. He has his own small chapel near the Cathedral from where he appears on the Good Friday procession. During the rest of the year, devotees visit Maximón in his chosen residence, where his shrine is usually attended by two people from the representing Cofradia who keep the shrine in order and pass offerings from visitors to the effigy. Worshippers offer money, spirits and cigars or cigarettes to gain his favour in exchange for good health, good crops, and marriage counselling, amongst other favours. The effigy invariably has a lit cigarette or cigar in its mouth and a hole in its mouth to allow the attendants to give it spirits to drink. He is adorned with many colourful garlands including a kipper tie under which money for him was placed.
The worship of Maximón treats him not so much as a benevolent deity but rather as a bully whom one does not want to anger. His expensive tastes in alcohol and cigarettes indicate that he is a very human character, very different from the ascetic ideals of Christian sainthood. Devotees believe that prayers for revenge, or success at the expense of others, are likely to be granted by him. In Maximón’s house there were also statues of saints dressed in the manner of saints in the local cathedral as well as a glass coffin containing an image of the dead Christ.
All very strange and to add to the strangeness we travelled in the local transport – a flatbed truck which has a bar welded in the middle for us to hold on to whilst going along the roads – and we had to hold tight as the roads are full of pot holes.