Huehuecho Mask

TITLE: Huehuecho Mask
TYPE: face mask
GENERAL REGION: Latin America
COUNTRY: Guatemala
SUBREGION: Baja Verapaz
ETHNICITY: Mayan (Achí)
DESCRIPTION: Huehuecho (Goiter) mask
CATALOG ID: LAGT012
MAKER: Ezequiel Chen Zarpéc (Rabinal, 1950- )
CEREMONY: Baile de los Huehuechos (Güegüechos)
AGE: 2021
MAIN MATERIAL: wood
OTHER MATERIALS: oil-based paint

The Baile de los Huehuechos (sometimes spelled Güegüechos) is one of several pre-Christian masked dances of the Rabinal region of Baja Verapaz, Guatemala. In the Achí dialect, a güegüecho is a goiter. The dance is also sometimes called the Danza de la Patzca (Dance of the Rags), and it is normally danced in Rabinal during the celebration of Corpus Christi. The dance originally was dedicated to the Mayan god of rain, Jun Toj, to guarantee the conditions for a good harvest. Its characters consist of four men with gigantic goiters (like this mask), four with small goiters carrying pilgrim staves, and a woman named Aj Muy. They frequently cry out “jakorik ka petn chic,” which in Achí means: “May the frost come to me.”

For more on Guatemalan masks, see Jim Pieper, Guatemala’s Masks and Drama (University of New Mexico Press, 2006).