Easter, Passover and the innumerable rites of spring used to make me anxious and defensive. Tales of death, rebirth, joy and sorrow, suffering and salvation, history recited, vows reaffirmed, sacred foods eaten: traditions created to allow tribes to regroup, bond, and go forth again into an uncertain world. Part of me bridled; I wanted to flee the certainty of it all. It felt like a noose, not a passage to freedom.

Until I met Maximón during Semana Santa in Santiago Atitlan in the Guatemalan Highlands.

During that feverish, Christian holy week, parades of worshippers throng the cobbled streets. Trumpets and coronets blare, women sport their finest embroidered huipiles, children dash around sucking on dulces, and everyone noisily celebrates the return of another spring.

andrewtonnphoto.com
andrewtonnphoto.com

But there’s a darker side to these religious festivities. Lurking beneath the painted saints, church bells and swirling incense is the cult of Maximón, an enigmatic, mustachioed fellow wreathed in silk scarves, smoking a fat cigar. Ancient, shamanistic religions simmer just below the surface in Santiago, uneasily sharing pew-time with Christianity; the cult of Maximón, also called San Simon, is at the center of this spiritual tug-of-war.

mayaexpeditions.com
mayaexpeditions.com
Who is he? Some say Judas; others call him an evil Indian saint. Thousands pray to him and swear he cures all manner of illness. Equivocal and ambiguous, he is a complex hybrid of Maya and Roman Catholic beliefs, representing rites of dying and rebirth that became intermingled during the time of the Spanish Conquest: rituals at once agreeing and fiercely at odds with each other.
Sstepper/Wikimedia Commons
Sstepper/Wikimedia Commons

I acquired my first, guardian Maximón from a dusty market stall in Santiago over 25 years ago. He whispered to me to pick him up and I obeyed, purchasing him for a few quetzales, tucking him into my backpack. It wasn’t until I reached customs leaving the country that I realized what I had was not merely a crudely carved souvenir, but a spiritual icon imbued with enigmatic power. The officers grabbed for him, demanding I hand him over. But I stood my ground in an unexpected flush of ferocious energy, never letting him out of my grasp. It took me an hour of tearful arguing with uniformed men until I was finally allowed to depart with my ‘cultural antiquity’.

Time hasn’t been kind to him. Yet despite his busted nose, several lost fingers and a missing left foot, he continually radiates healing vibes from his perch on a varnished box near my desk.

Susan Dworski
Susan Dworski

Today, just in time for Easter, I received another small, ragged, no-frills figure of Maximón from Guatemala, a surprise gift from a visiting friend.

Susan Dworski
Susan Dworski

Barely six inches high, this bad boy means business. No saccharine Easter bunny, he. Master of ambiguity and indeterminate, amoral sexuality, teller of ribald stories, maker of witchcraft, and probably drunk, he puffs his cigar. The clouds of tobacco smoke are intended to confuse and mislead the mythical Lords of Death who dwell in the underworld in the Maya House of Gloom, thus protecting the living. Maximón’s my kind of rebirther.

Tradition has had its way after all, sneaking up on me despite my resistance in the shape of a dark lord disguised as a crafty Maya trickster wreathed in cigar smoke.

It is Maximón who unties my self-imposed bonds, freeing me once again to celebrate and give thanks for the miracle of another spring, inviting me lighten up and join the complex, unruly human tribe.

Susan Dworski

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2 replies on “Celebrating Spring with Dark Ambiguity of Maximón

  1. I’m a new subscriber (found you thru Maira Kalman). Your blog is such a rich cultural resource, across such a spectrum, I now have to find a way to make more time available to experience your postings. I’ve long been under the spell of Guatemalan and Oaxacan folk art, and loved this post on Maximon.

  2. Welcome and thanks so much for your kind words!

    When you wrote “found you thru Maira Kalman” did you mean you found us by looking for Maira Kalman posts OR that Maira Kalman told you about Improvised Life?

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