SURVIVING CONQUEST: The Maya of Guatemala in Historical Perspective*
The Maya of Guatemala are today, as they have been in the past, a dominated and beleaguered group. Few have expressed this enduring reality more poignantly than the late Oliver La Farge. Commenting forty years ago on why Kanjobal Indians take to drink, La Farge observed that "while these people undoubtedly suffer from drunkenness, one would hesitate to remove the bottle from them until the entire pattern of their lives is changed. They are an introverted people, consumed by internal fires which they cannot or dare not express, eternally chafing under the yoke of conquest, and never for a moment forgetting that they are a conquered people."1 La Farge's observation is important because, among other things, it views conquest not as a remote, historical experience but as a visible, present condition. Sol Tax and others concur with La Farge, portraying