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55 CHAPTER THREE The Monkeys dance Adjusting the Performance the fIeldWoRk A description and interpretation of the mid-twentieth-century Monkeys Dance was a key ingredient in Cook’s analysis of axis mundi symbolism and myths of regeneration within twentieth-century Momostecan culture (Cook 2000:107–18). That account was based entirely on interviews, as the Monkeys Dance was not performed during Cook’s residency in Momostenango in 1975 and 1976. The opportunity to observe and document the dance with photos and video in 2006, and to do so with the help and literal blessing of don Pedro, the autor and chuchkajaw of the dance, a son of the 1970s-period dance sponsor who had been Cook’s source on the dance, was a timely and much-anticipated culmination of delayed ethnographic gratification . The new work on the Monkeys Dance in 2006 through 2009 has largely confirmed the description from the 1970s but has added considerable richness to the information, including extensive photographic and video documentation ,someofwhichhasbeenpresentedontheFoundationfortheAdvancement of Mesoamerican Studies (FAMSI) website.1 Cook and Offit participated in offerings and ritual prior to the dance as minor sponsors in 2006 and had many conversations and formal interviews with dancers and dance sponsors in 2006 and 2007. Following the murder of don Pedro in October 2007 we participated by invitation in the practice pole felling and raising at the new sponsor’s house in February 2008. Cook returned to Momostenango to observe the dance a second time, including the 56 chapter three felling of the dance pole and the closing ceremony at Santiago’s well in July 2008. The dance has accommodated to changing circumstances over the past thirty years. The team responded successfully to a series of crises in 2007 and 2008, surmounting what seemed like daunting challenges following don Pedro’s murder, a case study revealing how culture and agency interact within Momostecan tradition and expressive culture that is explored in chapter 5. Older dance sponsors report that Ixbatz ancestors first brought the Monkeys Dance to Jutacaj in Aldea Xequemeya, the staging ground for the dance performed in Momostenango. There are differences of opinion about whether it was Jose Ixbatz—who first emigrated to Rakana in Jutacaj from Pasuk, Los Cipreses—or the brothers Eugenio and Diego Ixbatz who actually introduced the dance and the marimba that accompanies it. In the second or third generation from the start of the dance, Bartolo Ixbatz served as autor (sponsor) and chuchkajaw (diviner/priest) for the dance and also played the marimba. The dance remained in Jutacaj for a time, with Samuel Ixcoy serving as autor after don Bartolo. Sometime around 1960 Agostino Raxc’oy became autor and chuchkajaw and the dance rehearsals were then moved to Xequemeya center, but the marimba remained in the Ixbatz family and was played by don Venancio, the current marimbista, who has held this position for over fifty years. Sponsorship of the dance was passed from Celestino Raxc’oy to his son Pedro between 1982 and 1984, and don Pedro remained as autor and also served as chuchkajaw, except for one year when he was suffering from a serious illness, through the performance of 2006. Following the tragic murder of don Pedro in October 2007 the sponsorship of the dance and the role of chuchkajaw returned to the Ixbatzes, with Mauricio Ixbatz serving as autor and Anselmo Ixbatz returning to the role of chuchkajaw, a role he had taken briefly during don Pedro’s illness. If each autor served for about twenty years, this suggests that the dance came to the aldea of Xequemeya in about 1908 and that it might have come with Ixbatzes from Los Cipreses, so it may have been performed elsewhere in Momostenango from an earlier period. The dance combines the Deer Dance, which is well known and performed in many highland towns (Paret-Limardo, 1963; Mace 1970; Cook 2000:110–12; Hutcheson 2003:366–498), with the tightrope performances of animal impersonators—a jaguar (tigre or balam), a mountain lion (león or coj), and two monkeys (mono, or c’oy in K’iche’, literally spider monkeys). In 2005 autor Pedro Raxc’oy agreed to permit Cook and Offit to document the dance within its religious context by serving as minor sponsors or collaborators in producing the dance. He noted that several other foreigners had completed studies in recent years, but the dancers had not benefited. We agreed to participate honorably and to complete our part of the agreement, [13.59...

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