Situated on a section of its own, Humberto Ak’abal’s poem “In the K’iche Language” provides an interesting framework for the rest of the collection. It is the only poem we read from this collection that is not part of the “500 Years” section. In fact, it is separated from the rest of the poems and has its own accompanying image, which displays a Guatemalan cemetery. The image depicts different cells of people celebrating around graves. When studying it, it is difficult not to recall the “Dia de Los Muertos” tradition generally thought to be Mexican. However, this tradition originates from some parts of Mayan culture, from the ceremony by the name of ‘Hanal Pixan’. Hanal Pixan is a day where families gather and spend the day celebrating with the spirits of their deceased loved ones. It is a tradition that looks at death not as a finality, but as a part of life. Having this image before the “In the K’iche Language” poem makes perfect sense. The poem itself is very simple, it has two verses, four lines, and has a very clear message. “In the K’iche Language/ we don’t say good-bye/ but katinch’ab’ej chik/ (I’ll talk to you again),” (page 152) When paired along with the image beforehand, this way of saying goodbye sheds some light into how Ak’abal’s culture addresses death and the impermanence of things. It seems that to them things don’t end, and it is expected to see things again. Going back to the placement of the poem in the collection, I think it’s interesting to keep in mind what follows it. The next section, 500 Years, is entirely about the effect of colonialism on Indigenous cultures, and most of the poems in it discuss the subsequent plight on them. I think that “In the K’iche Language” and its placement in the section before, could be interepreted as Ak’abal’s way of saying:”We’re still here, and we’re gonna stay here. Despite everything.” It gives some hope to the 500 Years section, in retrospect.
This interpretation is very interesting. I think the idea of the never ending cycle of life and death is also illustrated in the “500 years” section. The string of beads wrap the animals and human as if they’re all interconnected, and perhaps signifying that every living creature is no more important than another due to their impending mortality. Even in Akabal’s poem “Paradise,” he personifies objects of the natural world saying, “Je’lik ch’umil and Kowilaj che’/made love on the grass/and covered themselves with sky” (p. 159). According to Mayan culture, despite the impermanence of life, everything remains interconnected in the cycle of life and death.
The acceptance of death was always something I admired from various Latin-American and Native cultures. I have also recently explored this theme through a scientific lens. There are two main prespectives I think are worth mentioning: Firstly, the idea that everything can be viewed as an ecosystem of birth and decay, so we are an active part in this system of recycling matter. Secondly, all that exists is comprised of atoms and the idea of individuality of objects is an illusion. We are all one big soup of atoms bouncing off eachother. Whats impressive about native cultures coinciding views is that they didn’t need some advanced science to tell them that. They already knew that people and trees were equals in the process of life.