People of the Corn

The Mayan call themselves People of the Corn. Their creation myth tells of how they were born out of corn stalks. Corn is red, white, black and yellow. The people of Guatemala are red, white, black and yellow. They have survived on corn for thousands of years and work hard to cultivate and harvest it, using techniques thousands of years old. 

La tapizca is what is called the harvest of the corn. All is done by hand. Once the rain stops in late October the corn stalks are doubled over to dry. By the time la tapizca begins, the kernels of ears and hardened and the stalks are dry as a bone. The ears are pulled from the husks by workers and thrown into an old feed bag. Each worker moves down a row of corn. Row after row after row. This is la tapizca.

Although the red corn seed is never planted, one pure red ear, and only one ear, out of thousands of ears, was harvested. A few ears even turned out pink. As Ela put it, it is a friendship between the white and yellow breeds. 

The variety in color is both amazing and beautiful. 

Diego, a mozo, or young worker in the field. I asked Benancio how much he pays the workers. He said it depends on age (as there were two men around 40 years old along with the six 12 or 13 year olds). He said he pays the young ones about Q35 for the day. That is $4.37. Throughout the day, we probably harvested about 3 acres of corn. 

Sure, Hendrick is just a little guy, but look at the size of this ear of corn! Of course, not all were that large, but a few of them were the biggest I've seen. 

I've really come to enjoy giving Hendrick the camera. 

Ela in the kitchen with a view. They are slowly dismantling this old building but since it is easier to cook large amounts of food over the wood stove (Ela fed myself, her family and the 8 workers breakfast, lunch and dinner) she decided to take advantage of what remained of the kitchen. 

After removing all the ears from the stalks we gather together and sort them: las semillas; the perfect ears which are saved for seed, las bonitas; the good looking ears, and las feas, the gnarled, bug-infested or molding ones. 

All the sorted ears are stuffed into old feed sacks according to category...

...and carried, as Manuel is here, back to the house. There, they are laid out on the terrace to dry for a few months before storage. 

A mountain of corn. Because this was an El Niño year we had what seemed to be little rain (for me it was drastic because last year was a record year for rain). Throughout the relatively dry wet season people would talk, worrying about the harvest. But, as we unloaded bag after bag of good-sized ears, Ela and Benancio confirmed that this year's harvest is normal. With a sufficient supply of kernels, they will continue to make tortillas, tamalitos, tamales and chuchitos and as such will continue living as People of the Corn.