Language of Poqomchi' (Mayan) offering ceremonies

AMERINDIA 42: 103-134, 2020 Language of Poqomchi’ (Mayan) offering ceremonies1 Igor VINOGRADOV Russian State University for the Humanities & University of Bonn Abstract. Some Poqomchi’ Mayan communities in Guatemala actually practice traditional offering ceremonies. Through the mediation of a ritual specialist, they provide humans with an opportunity to submit requests to divine authorities for something they wish to obtain. The language used during this ritual communication differs from everyday Poqomchi’ in certain lexical, grammatical and discursive respects. Based on primary fieldwork data, this paper discusses parallel syntactic constructions, the metaphorical use of certain lexemes, the functions of loanwords and the unexpected choice of tense/aspect/mood categories, among other features. In addition, this article presents morphologically annotated and translated textual extracts from three offering ceremonies, which may be useful for further studies on Poqomchi’ ritual communication. Keywords: Poqomchi’, Mayan languages, ritual discourse, offering ceremonies, syncretism 1. Introduction Poqomchi’ belongs to the K’ichean branch of the Mayan family. This language is spoken in Guatemala in the departments of Alta Verapaz, Baja Verapaz and El Quiche by around 70,000 people, according to the 2001 census (Richards 2003: 72). However, this estimate seems to be understated. Since the time of the Conquest, autochthonous pre-Columbian beliefs and the Christian religion have intimately fused together. This process of 1 The fieldwork in Guatemala was carried out thanks to the financial support from the Firebird Foundation for Anthropological Research. I am heartily grateful to my Poqomchi’-speaking friends and colleagues for their aid and support: Maurilio Juc Toc, Francisco Ical Jom, Romelia Mó Isém and Esteban Tul Jor, among many others. Special thanks go to Mayron Pacay Buc for his dedicated help in the transcription of the audio recordings. This article has been written during my research residency at the Department for the Anthropology of the Americas at the University of Bonn, supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation. I am thankful to Frauke Sachse for supervising my research project. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers, whose suggestions made an important contribution to improving this paper. 104 AMERINDIA 42: 103-134, 2020 religious accommodation through retaining some of the original traits while borrowing selected themes and institutional arrangements is usually termed syncretism, or hybridization; see Cook & Offit (2013) for a detailed discussion. Manifestations of religious syncretism are observed throughout the Maya area (see, for example, Watanabe 1992 and Wilson 1995), and Poqomchi’ communities are no exception. Although the vast majority of Poqomchi’ speakers conform to the Christian religion, traditional cultural beliefs are not as underrepresented as they were a few decades ago. Sometimes, the same people who attend mass in church also become involved in traditional ritual practices. The pan-Mayan movement (Warren 1998; Molesky-Poz 2006) seems to have made a significant contribution to the promotion of these activities. It emerged as an ethno-cultural force in the late 1980s during the last stages of the civil war in Guatemala, seeking to strengthen Maya identity through cultural reaffirmation; see England (2002). The Maya movement rapidly evolved into a political force, whose principal ideas “include a revalorization of Maya culture and language, a demand for public education that better serves Mayan communities and takes indigenous languages into account, access to public services in local languages, access to more equitable economic and political opportunities” (England 2003: 734), etc. This recent attempt at cultural and political decolonization accounts for the even more syncretic nature of most ritual activities in the modern Maya societies. Offering ceremonies (ceremonias mayas) are instances of such activities. Through the mediation of a ritual specialist, they provide humans with an opportunity to submit requests to divine authorities for something they wish to obtain. It is well known in the case of various Mayan groups that the language used during ritual communication differs from everyday language in certain aspects; see Hanks (1984) for Yucatec, Tedlock (1992) for K’iche’ and Hull (2003) for Ch’orti’, among others. This paper centers on Poqomchi’, a Mayan group whose rituals have never been the object of a profound ethnolinguistic study. Based on original fieldwork data, this article describes the most prominent linguistic peculiarities of the Poqomchi’ ritual language. Some traits, such as the abundant uses of syntactic parallelisms, have been observed in other VINOGRADOV I.: Language of Poqomchi’ (Mayan) offering ceremonies 105 Mayan languages and in Meso-America in general. Other traits are more specific to Poqomchi’: for example, the omission of tense/aspect/mood markers and metaphorical uses of certain lexemes. This paper is structured as follows. Section 2 provides a brief overview of the basic grammatical features of Poqomchi’. Section 3 introduces the material on which the study is grounded. Section 4 describes the structural principles of the discourse, as delivered by a ritual specialist during the communicative stage of an offering ceremony. Section 5 addresses linguistic properties of the ritual language at some length, highlighting distinctive lexical, grammatical and discursive traits. The appendix contains three short fragments of prayers, which are morphologically analyzed and translated into English. 2. Basic grammatical features of the Poqomchi’ language Poqomchi’ is a synthetic language. Its morphology is mainly agglutinative. Nouns lack grammatical categories of gender and case. The distinction between singular and plural number is mostly optional, with some exceptions concerning nouns denoting humans. The most complex noun morphology is found in the semantic domain of possession. A personal prefix attached to a possessed noun signals the person and number of the possessor, as in (1).2 (1)a. nu-mahk b. 1SG.POSS-sin mahk sin ‘my sin’ ‘sin (general term)’ The possessive prefix nu- in (1a) conveys the first person singular. Some nouns require additional vowel lengthening when they bear a possessive prefix. (2)a. nu-haa’ 1SG.POSS-water ‘my water’ b. ha’ water ‘water (unpossessed)’ 2 Examples are spelled according to the orthographic conventions of the Guatemalan Academy of Mayan Languages. Abbreviations used in glosses are as follows: 1, 2, 3: first, second, third person; ABS: absolutive; ABST: abstract; AGT: agentive; AP: antipassive; COM: completive; DAT: dative; DEF: definite; DIR: directional; EMPH: emphasis; ERG: ergative; INC: incompletive; INDEF: indefinite; INDPOSS: indefinite possessor; INTENS: intensifier; INTRZ: intransitivizer; IRR: irrealis; NEG: negation; NMLZ: nominalizer; NUM: numeral; OPT: optative; PASS: passive; PL: plural; POSS: possessive; POT: potential; PRED: predicative; PREP: preposition; PROG: progressive; PTCP: participle; REAL: realis; REFL: reflexive; REP: reportative; SG: singular; STAT: stative; TR: transitive. 106 AMERINDIA 42: 103-134, 2020 The noun ha’ ‘water’ takes the prolonged vowel in the possessive form: nu-haa’ ‘my water’ (2a). If a noun denotes an inalienable object, usually a body part or a kinship term, it bears an additional suffix of unspecified possessor, when a possessive prefix is absent. The noun tuut ‘mother’ exemplifies this feature in (3). (3)a. nu-tuut b. 1SG.POSS-mother tut-b’ees mother-INDPOSS ‘my mother’ ‘mother (general term)’ Poqomchi’ has a specific class of words traditionally labeled ‘relational nouns’. These purely functional nouns have lost a great part of their initial lexical meaning. In a possessed form, they indicate a participant with a certain semantic role or certain spatial relation. Relational nouns thus function like prepositions. (4) x-at-yo’-j-ik w-uum COM-2ABS-scare-PASS-REAL 1SG.POSS-cause ‘You got scared because of me.’ (Vinogradov 2016: 188) (5) x-i-xit’ koq r-iib’ COM-3SG.ERG-introduce DIR r-i’sil meexa i 3SG.POSS-REFL 3SG.POSS-under table ‘The mouse entered under the table.’ (Mó Isém 2006: 234) DEF ch’ooh mouse The relational noun uum ‘cause’ introduces the agent in (4). In (5), the relational noun i’sil ‘under’ specifies the spatial relationship between two objects: the table and the mouse. Poqomchi’ has a complex tense/aspect/mood system, which consists of two interrelated paradigms conveying different meanings from the temporal, aspectual and modal semantic domains. The first paradigm is prefixal, and includes three basic categories: the completive (x-), the incompletive (k-, q-, i(n)-, Ø), and the optative (a-, ch-, q-, k-, Ø). The choice of a particular allomorph depends on the verb transitivity and the following personal prefix. The suffixal paradigm of modal categories usually labeled ‘realis’ and ‘irrealis’ complicates this system. In addition, there are two highly productive analytical constructions with auxiliary nonverbal predicates: the auxiliary predicate k’ahchi’ signals the progressive aspectual meaning, while the predicate na(ak) conveys the potential modal/temporal meaning. VINOGRADOV I.: Language of Poqomchi’ (Mayan) offering ceremonies 107 Poqomchi’ marks core arguments on the verb form in compliance with the ergative-absolutive alignment, exemplified in (6). (6)a. x-at-chal-ik b. x-at-q-il COM-2ABS-come-REAL COM-2ABS-1PL.ERG-see ‘you came’ c. ‘we saw you’ x-oj-aw-il d. x-oj-chal-ik COM-1PL.ABS-2ERG-see COM-1PL.ABS-come-REAL ‘you saw us’ ‘we came’ The absolutive prefix at- cross-references the unique argument of an intransitive predicate in (6a). The same prefix indicates the direct object of a transitive predicate in (6b). Subjects of transitive predicates are crossreferenced by the ergative paradigm of personal markers (6c). The third person singular has no overt absolutive marker. Poqomchi’ is traditionally described as having a split ergative system. The pattern of alignment changes to the nominative-accusative in the progressive and potential tense/aspect/mood constructions, where the ergative markers cross-reference the unique argument of an intransitive predicate (7). (7) na=q-oj-iik chaloq aj=pasear POT=1PL.POSS-go-NMLZ DIR AGT=walk ‘We will go for a walk.’ (Mayers 1958: 66) Instead of the expected prefix oj-, in (7), one observes the same prefix q-, which is used in (6b) to indicate the subject of a transitive predicate; compare (6d). The construction in (7) is better analyzed as biclausal. It contains the auxiliary predicate na and the main verb in a nominalized form as its complement. The morpheme q- is, in fact, a possessive marker rather than an ergative prefix (both possessive and ergative sets of markers are typically identical in Mayan languages). A similar situation is also observed in Chol, another Mayan language with a split ergative system, as described by Coon (2010). Poqomchi’ is a verb-initial language. The basic unmarked word order in a transitive construction is VOS, as in (8). (8) x-i-q’eb’ i kinaq’ i teew COM-3SG.ERG-knock.over DEF beans wind DEF ‘The wind knocked over the beans.’ (Mayers 1958: 41) 108 AMERINDIA 42: 103-134, 2020 However, the basic word order is rather uncommon in a real discourse, as Poqomchi’ has several morphosyntactic devices to promote arguments to the first position in a clause. At present, there is no typologically adequate reference grammar for Poqomchi’. An overview of Poqomchi’ morphology can be found in Brown (1979) and Mó Isém (2006). Some relevant information about the language structure is also provided in Malchic et al. (2000), where Poqomchi’ is contrasted with Poqomam, its closest relative. 3. Corpus of recordings I was able to attend at three Poqomchi’ offering ceremonies during my fieldwork in 2017. They were celebrated in different locations and with distinct ritual specialists performing. These ceremonies apparently belong to the same genre. They did not have a predetermined specific purpose, as is the case of agricultural or burial rituals or inauguration ceremonies of a new dwelling. Instead, participants could come with their own problems and desires. All three recordings were made following consent from the ritual specialists. The overall audio corpus comprises about four hours. Although ethnographic aspects are beyond the scope of this paper, I concisely describe these ceremonies below in order to provide a closer look at the metalinguistic context of the discourses addressed in the subsequent sections. The first ceremony in my corpus was celebrated on June 28, on day 3 Tz’i’ according to the ritual 260-day calendar.3 The ceremony was celebrated in a rock shelter named Convento Ramchah, which is located near the village of Tampo in the municipality of Tactic (Alta Verapaz). A local group of spiritual guides organized the ceremony. As they pointed out to me, they regularly organize such ceremonies, approximately once a month, in different sacred places around Tactic. This fills them with supernatural energy and allows for maintaining a spiritual connection with the divine world. 3 The importance of this calendar for contemporary Mayan spiritual practices has been widely discussed; see Tedlock (1992), for example. VINOGRADOV I.: Language of Poqomchi’ (Mayan) offering ceremonies 109 About 15 persons participated in the ceremony: seven ritual specialists and their family members, including three children. A middle-aged man from Tactic was responsible for the organization and a great part of the ritual discourse. The ceremony was celebrated to the sound of marimba music, played on the cell phone of one of the participants. The second ceremony was recorded on October 7, on day 13 B’atz’, in the village of Pajuil in the municipality of Chicaman (El Quiche). Pajuil is located within a chain of mountains at some distance from the main transport corridors, with unique access through a country road, about two hours from Chicaman. The ceremony was celebrated at night on the top of one of the hills surrounding the village, inside a small wooden cabin of approximately 3 x 5 meters, with a slightly elevated altar on one side. The ritual specialist was a local elderly man. The ceremony was dedicated especially to me. I brought the offerings, which were burned during the ceremony; namely, a few bunches of colored candles, two small loaves of bread and two pounds of sugar. Besides the ritual specialist and me, there were only two other participants: my local collaborator and a young assistant to the ritual specialist. The last ceremony in my corpus was celebrated on October 20, day 13 K’at, in a sacred place named Cuevas Chitul. This is a small and depthless cavity at the foot of a hill, located in the municipality of Santa Cruz Verapaz (Alta Verapaz). It is situated in direct proximity to the roadway, which runs to Coban, the main city of the department. Unfortunately, unavoidable noise from passing buses and trucks negatively affected the quality of the recording. Around 65 people participated in this ceremony. Some of them came from neighboring departments. This was the longest ceremony in the corpus, lasting more than two hours. As with the ceremony in Tampo, an institutionalized group of ritual specialists organized it. However, in this instance, five spiritual guides were involved in pronouncing ritual discourses at the same time, and their prayers were different. As I was unable to record each of them in an audible way, I only focus on two particular ritual specialists. 110 AMERINDIA 42: 103-134, 2020 4. Structure of prayers Although the ceremonies in my corpus were celebrated in different places and directed by ritual specialists with different backgrounds, they notably have a similar internal structure. This structure is generally in line with what has been observed for other Mayan groups; see Scott (2009) for Kaqchikel, for example. The ceremony usually begins with the preparation of the altar. First, ritual specialists, with the help of assistants, clean the sacred place, throwing away garbage and ashes that may have remained from former activities. Next, ritual specialists arrange offerings on the altar. The communicative phase begins when it is lit with fire. At this moment, ritual specialists begin their speech performance. In fact, they are unique speakers during the ritual communicative act, since participation of the attendees is typically limited to nonverbal activities. Furthermore, the ritual communication is unidirectional: from ritual specialists towards divine authorities. Unlike shamans in some Asian traditional communities (Balzer 1990), Poqomchi’ ritual specialists do not verbally transmit responses from the divine world. At the beginning of the communicative act, ritual specialists greet the sacred place and the divine authorities to whom they will address subsequent petitions. This set of addressees is highly heterogeneous and includes, at least, natural phenomena, such as the sun, the sunrise, the wind, the sunset, the darkness, the hills and valleys, as well as ancestral spirits. Depending on the background of the particular ritual specialist, it may also include certain panMayan deities or Catholic saints, and specifically Jesus Christ. The divine addressees may also remain unnamed, just being referred to by second-person forms. These introductory invocations may be simple greetings (9) or general non-detailed thanks (10).4 (9) k’aleen aweh ixib’ tz’i’ / k’aleen aw-eh ix-ib’ hello tz’i’ 2POSS-DAT three-NUM Tz’i’ ‘Hello to you, 3 Tz’i’.’ (T) 4 The sources of examples are indicated by letters: “T” stands for the ceremony in Tampo, “P” for Pajuil, and “Ch” for Chitul. The symbol “/” divides intonation units. The first line of examples is intended to reflect, wherever possible, salient phonetic peculiarities, while the second line represents the text in normalized orthography, with morphemic division. The proposed English translation mainly relies on Dobbels’ (2003) dictionary and attempts to be as close as possible to the original. VINOGRADOV I.: Language of Poqomchi’ (Mayan) offering ceremonies (10) inut’yosej aweh nuwa’ nuhaa’ / i-nu-t’yos-ej aw-eh nu-wa’ INC-1SG.ERG-thank-TR 111 nu-haa’ 2POSS-DAT 1SG.POSS-meal 1SG.POSS-water ‘I thank you for my meal, my water.’ (T) In (9), the greeting is directed to the spirit of the calendar day on which the ceremony is celebrated. In contrast, the addressee’s individuality of the acknowledgment in (10) remains unclear from the context. At the initial stage of the prayer, human participants remain unnamed, being referred to by third-person plural or first-person plural forms (11). (11) ayu’ qojkan / chupaam i loq’laj ye’aab’ ayu’ q-oj-kan chi ru-paam i here INC-1PL.ABS-be PREP 3SG.POSS-in ‘We are here, at the holy place.’ (T) DEF loq’-laj ye’aab’ holy-INTENS place In (11), the ritual specialist from Tactic uses the verbal absolutive prefix oj- to refer to the entire group of attendees (probably including himself), but does not provide any further information about who they are. Closer to the midpoint of the prayer, ritual specialists typically invoke names of some hills, volcanoes, towns, ancient cities, rivers and other geographical objects, as in (12). (12) ajwal kampana yuuq’ kampana k’ixkaab’ / ajwal ketzalteka yuuq’ ajwal ketzalteka k’ixkaab’ / ajw-al kampana yuuq’ kampana k’ixkaab’ ajw-al ketzalteka father-ABST Campana hill yuuq’ ajw-al hill Campana valley ketzalteka father-ABST Quetzalteca k’ixkaab’ father-ABST Quetzalteca valley ‘Lord Campana hill, Campana valley, lord Quetzalteca hill, lord Quetzalteca valley.’ (P) Some of these geographical objects only have local significance and are likely unknown to inhabitants from other regions. On the other hand, some well-known ancient Mayan cities are also commonly mentioned, including those located in Mexico, such as Palenque, Bonampak and Edzna. At a certain point, perhaps closer to the second half of the ceremony, ritual specialists begin to invoke each of the 20 nahuals, one after another. 5 5 For basic information on nahuals, see de la Garza (1987), among many others. 112 AMERINDIA 42: 103-134, 2020 These invocations are simple wordings, which include numerals from one to 13 and the nahual’s name: ‘one K’at’, ‘two K’at’, ‘three K’at’, and so on. If more than one ritual specialist performs during the spiritual act, the invocations to nahuals are the only points where they speak in chorus, usually accompanied by the attendees. When a particular nahual is invoked, this is an opportunity to address specific petitions to it concerning its area of responsibility. For example, the nahual Tz’ikin is considered a protector of business. Therefore, petitions of financial well-being are normally addressed to it (13). (13) chan bendecir ruho’oob’ rulajeeb’ awak’uun benedikto ja’ / […] wilik ta naq ruho’oob’ wilik ta naq rulajeeb’ / […] chayeew reh haaw / loq’laj nawaal tz’ikin / ch-a-b’an bendecir ru-ho’-oob’ ru-laj-eeb’ aw-ak’uun OPT-2ERG-make bless 3SG.POSS-five-NUM 3SG.POSS-ten-NUM 2POSS-son benedikto ja’ wi-lik ta_naq ru-ho’-oob’ Benedicto exist-PRED OPT 3SG.POSS-five-NUM exist-PRED Ja ru-laj-eeb’ ch-a-ye-ew r-eh jaaw 3SG.POSS-ten-NUM OPT-2ERG-give-TR 3SG.POSS-DAT sir wi-lik ta_naq OPT loq’-laj holy-INTENS nawaal tz’ikin nahual Tz’ikin ‘Bless five, 10 of your son Benedicto Ja, […] so that he has five, so that he has 10; […] give it to him, sir, holy nahual Tz’ikin.’ (Ch) In (13), the spiritual guide asks for prosperity in business for a man by the name of Benedicto Ja. The possessed numerals ‘five’ and ‘10’ refer to bank bills of five and 10 quetzals. This petition is directed exclusively to the nahual Tz’ikin rather than to an undefined set of multiple supernatural authorities. At this stage, ritual specialists tend to mention petitioners by name. When the spiritual guide concludes the petition, the beneficiary usually comes closer to the altar and makes several circles by walking counterclockwise around the fire. Prayers in my corpus have no special closing formula at the end. The ritual communicative act ends with a repetition of general thanks to supernatural authorities. After that, participants kiss the sacred place and clean the altar. Hugs and handshakes also play an important role at the end of the ceremony. VINOGRADOV I.: Language of Poqomchi’ (Mayan) offering ceremonies 113 5. Linguistic analysis This section discusses linguistic phenomena, which are typical of the Poqomchi’ ritual discourse. It illustrates differences in grammar, discourse structure and lexicon between ordinary conversational Poqomchi’ and its ritual variety. In this section, I present syntactic couplets and triplets as the most prominent syntactic features of ritual discourse (Section 5.1). Then, I move onto particular issues with word choice (Section 5.2). To illustrate deviations in the grammatical system, I discuss the use of tense/aspect/mood categories in Section 5.3. 5.1. Parallel syntactic constructions Abundant use of couplets (or syntactic parallelisms) is probably the most widespread linguistic trait of ritual discourses in Meso-America (Bricker 1974; Lengyel 1988; Monod Becquelin & Becquey 2008; Vapnarsky 2008; García 2014). Parallelisms are usually defined as subsequent repetitions of the same syntactic structure, which includes a variable element; see Monod Becquelin & Becquey (2008) and Lacadena (2010). Norman (1980: 387) notes that “among the Mayan communities of Mexico and Guatemala, verse forms based on pervasive grammatical parallelism are to be found in ceremonial speeches, oral history, songs, prayers, curing rituals, magical incantations, and dance dramas”. Poqomchi’ offering ceremonies are not an exception in this regard (14). (14) ayu’ loq’laj q’iij / ayu’ loq’laj saqum / ayu’ na qaq’oriik ayu’ na qapahqaniik chi achii’ chi awach haaw / ayu’ loq’-laj q’iij ayu’ loq’-laj saq-um ayu’ here holy-INTENS day here holy-INTENS white-NMLZ na=qa-q’or-iik ayu’ na=qa-pahq-an-iik POT=1PL.POSS-speak-NMLZ here a-chii’ chi a-wach 2POSS-edge PREP here chi POT=1PL.POSS-ask-AP-NMLZ PREP jaaw 2POSS-front sir ‘Here is the holy day, here is the holy light; here we will speak, here we will ask; at your edge, at your front, sir.’ (Ch) Fragment (14) illustrates three consecutive syntactic parallelisms. The first one is ‘here is the holy day, here is the holy light’. Two nominals, q’iij ‘day’ and saqum ‘light’, are incorporated in the same syntactic frame, ‘here is the holy…’ In the second and third parallelisms, the variables are lexical 114 AMERINDIA 42: 103-134, 2020 roots, while their grammatical marking is repeated. Both verbs, q’or ‘speak’ and pahqan ‘ask’, are used in the potential aspect and take the firstperson plural marker. The nominals chii’ ‘edge’ and wach ‘front’ attach the same second-person possessive prefix a-. Parallel couplets provide the canvas for the ritual discourse, while fragments that do not form part of any parallelism are in the minority; see also Lengyel (1988). In fact, Fragment (14) consists of 15 words, but only the appeal jaaw ‘sir’ does neither belong to the invariable frame nor to the variable part of a parallelism. Different semantic relations between variable elements are possible. (15) hat ta naq ilool hat ta naq ka’yineel keh taqeh loq’laj awixq’uun loq’laj awak’uun hat ta_naq il-ool hat ta_naq ka’y-in-eel k-eh taqeh 2 see-AGT 2 OPT loq’-laj aw-ixq’uun observe-AP-AGT 3PL.POSS-DAT OPT loq’-laj PL aw-ak’uun holy-INTENS 2POSS-daughter holy-INTENS 2POSS-son ‘You would be the one who sees, you would be the one who observes your daughters, your sons.’ (Ch) There are two parallelisms in (15). The first one includes the words ilool and ka’yineel, which are close synonyms denoting an agent of the action of seeing or observing. In contrast, the second parallelism in (15) includes two antonyms, ixq’un ‘daughter’ and ak’un ‘son’, which are clearly opposed to each other for sex. Another option for creating a parallelism is to alternate a Poqomchi’ word with a related Spanish loanword (see also Bricker 1974: 372), as in (16). (16) chateh taqeh i b’eeh / chateh taqeh i pwerta / ch-a-teh taqeh i b’eeh ch-a-teh taqeh i pwerta OPT-2ERG-open PL DEF door PL DEF road OPT-2ERG-open ‘Open the roads, open the doors.’ (Ch) Although puerta ‘door’ is not an accurate synonym for b’eeh ‘road’, this does not matter to the possibility that these two lexemes occur in the same parallel construction (16). See also a very detailed semantic classification of Mayan parallelisms in Christenson (2007: 35-41). VINOGRADOV I.: Language of Poqomchi’ (Mayan) offering ceremonies 115 Besides couplets, there are also instances of the use of triplets (Hull 2003; Vapnarsky 2008) in Poqomchi’ ritual discourse, as illustrated in (17). (17) ma’ qojakanaa’ ma’ qojaq’eb’ ma’ qojach’i’taaj ma’ q-oj-a-kan-aa’ ma’ q-oj-a-q’eb’ NEG OPT-1PL.ABS-2ERG-abandon-TR ma’ OPT-1PL.ABS-2ERG-lose NEG NEG q-oj-a-ch’i’t-aaj OPT-1PL.ABS-2ERG-disturb-TR ‘Do not abandon us, do not lose us, do not disturb us.’ (T) In (17), the vetative morphosyntactic frame is repeated three times in a row with different verb stems. Variable elements of a triplet are usually combined together, according to the principle of semantic proximity concerning their meanings (18). (18) k’aleen / loq’laj elb’al i teew elb’al i suutz’ elb’al i mayuul / k’aleen loq’-laj el-b’al i teew el-b’al i suutz’ hello cloud holy-INTENS go.out-NMLZ el-b’al i mayuul go.out-NMLZ DEF fog air DEF go.out-NMLZ DEF ‘Hello, holy way out of the air, way out of the cloud, way out of the fog.’ (T) The nouns teew ‘air’, suutz’ ‘cloud’ and mayuul ‘fog’ are not synonyms, but have related meanings from close semantic domains. According to Christenson’s (2007) classification, this is a functional-based associative parallelism. With regard to possible quatrains, it is not easy to elaborate a principle that could strictly differentiate them from a simple pair of couplets (Montes de Oca 2008: 227). One such factor can be the presence of a semantic relation between all parts of a quatrain and, at the same time, the absence of a closer relation between both first and second, and third and fourth variable elements of this construction. (19) k’aleen aweh okb’al i q’iij / okb’al i saqum / okb’al i ora okb’al i tiempo / k’aleen aw-eh ok-b’al i q’iij ok-b’al i saq-um hello 2POSS-DAT enter-NMLZ DEF day enter-NMLZ ok-b’al i ora ok-b’al i tiempo enter-NMLZ DEF hour enter-NMLZ DEF time DEF white-NMLZ ‘Hello to you, beginning of the day, beginning of the light, beginning of the hour, beginning of the time.’ (T) 116 AMERINDIA 42: 103-134, 2020 Example (19) does not satisfy this criterion. There are four consecutive nouns occurring in the same syntactic environment: q’iij ‘day’, saqum ‘light’, ora ‘hour’ and tiempo ‘time’ (the last two lexemes are loans from Spanish). Nevertheless, two first elements (‘day’ and ‘light’) and two last elements (‘hour’ and ‘time’) frequently occur in couplets separately; compare the pair q’iij – saqum in (14) above. Furthermore, there is no evident semantic property that would link all these four items together more than they are related within respective pairs. A more probable candidate for a quatrain is presented in (20). (20) hat qatuut hat qamayaab’ hat qayuq’ul hat qak’ixkab’al / hat qa-tuut hat qa-mayaab’ hat qa-yuq’-ul 2 1PL.POSS-mother 2 1PL.POSS-Maya.PL 2 hat 1PL.POSS-hill-ABST 2 qa-k’ixkab’-al 1PL.POSS-valley-ABST ‘You are our mother, you are our Mayas, you are our hills, you are our valleys.’ (P) Example (20) illustrates a highly productive combination in the speech of the ritual specialist from Pajuil. The last two items, in fact, do form a stable diphrasism, ‘hill’ – ‘valley’, but this is not true for the first two items, ‘mother’ and ‘Mayas’, which are not encountered as parts of an identical couplet in my corpus. Although there is a clear semantic relation within each pair of elements (the first pair relates to ancestors, and the second to the natural environment), these four terms are also related as a whole, describing the divine addressees of the prayer. Two couplets may follow each other without any binding, as in (14), or some additional material may separate them, as in (15). There are also instances where two couplets are overlapped. Sometimes, the variable element of one parallelism at the same time forms part of the invariable syntactic frame of the subsequent parallelism, as in (21). (21) qojatoob’eej qojamehreej chaloq yuuq’ qojamehreej chaloq k’ixkaab’ / q-oj-a-toob’-eej q-oj-a-mehr-eej chaloq yuuq’ OPT-1PL.ABS-2ERG-help-TR OPT-1PL.ABS-2ERG-hold-TR q-oj-a-mehr-eej chaloq k’ixkaab’ OPT-1PL.ABS-2ERG-hold-TR DIR valley ‘Help us, hold us hill, hold us valley.’ (T) DIR hill VINOGRADOV I.: Language of Poqomchi’ (Mayan) offering ceremonies 117 Fragment (21) contains two couplets. The first one includes two different verbs, toob’eej ‘help’ and mehreej ‘hold’, which take the same set of grammatical morphemes. The second couplet is based on the frame qojamehreej chaloq ‘hold us’, which exhibits variation due to the diphrasism yuuq’ ‘hill’ – k’ixkaab’ ‘valley’. Therefore, the verb mehreej belongs both to the variable part of the first parallelism and to the invariable part of the second. Example (22) illustrates a similar chain of parallel constructions. (22) ma’ qojq’ehb’ik ma’ qojsahchik tuut ma’ qojsahchik haaw / ma’ q-oj-q’e<h>b’-ik ma’ q-oj-sa<h>ch-ik tuut ma’ NEG OPT-1PL.ABS-fall<PASS>-REAL NEG OPT-1PL.ABS-lose<PASS>-REAL lady q-oj-sa<h>ch-ik jaaw OPT-1PL.ABS-lose<PASS>-REAL sir NEG ‘Let us not fall, let us not be lost, lady, let us not be lost, sir.’ (T) In (22), the overlap also concerns a verbal form, sahchik ‘be lost’. It alternates with the verb q’ehb’ik ‘fall’ in the first parallelism. Meanwhile, as part of the syntactic frame ma’ qojsahchik, it also provides the invariable basis for the subsequent couplet. 5.2. Lexical peculiarities Although the corpus size is not large enough to make substantiated claims about the lexicon, there seem to be some genre-specific lexemes in Poqomchi’, which are typical of ritual communication. For example, the ritual specialist from Pajuil abundantly uses the word ma’ley (23), which is absent in most Poqomchi’ dictionaries. According to one of my language consultants, this term can be translated as ‘spirit’; however, further semantic study is required. (23) ma’ley awach ma’ley achii’ / qahaaw / ma’ley a-wach ma’ley a-chii’ spirit 2POSS-front spirit q-ajaaw 2POSS-edge 1PL.POSS-father ‘Spirit in your front, spirit at your edge, our father.’ (P) In invocations to particular nahuals, specific lexemes are used to describe them by association. For example, when ritual specialists address themselves to the nahual I’x, which is considered as a protector of natural 118 AMERINDIA 42: 103-134, 2020 resources, they usually refer to mountains and forests in accordance with this associative principle (24). (24) chakuy qamahk i’x / q’an amontaña saq amontaña / q’an araxchee’ saq araxchee’ / ch-a-kuy qa-mahk i’x q’an a-montaña saq OPT-2ERG-forgive 1PL.POSS-sin I’x q’an a-montaña yellow 2POSS-mountain a-rax-chee’ saq white a-rax-chee’ 2POSS-mountain yellow 2POSS-green-tree white 2POSS-green-tree ‘Forgive our sins, I’x, your mountain is yellow, your mountain is white, your forest is yellow, your forest is white.’ (T) Fragment (24) is also notable with regard to the use of the adjectives q’an ‘yellow’ and saq ‘white’, which do not denote colors in this context. When combined within the same couplet, they receive an indirect meaning, which appears to be similar to that of the word loq’laj ‘holy’ in several examples above. As this color metaphor is found in all three ceremonies in my corpus, it seems to be very useful in Poqomchi’ ritual discourse. There are several other instances of the metaphorical use of certain lexemes. Typically, an uncommon reading is triggered by the context that deals with an individual nahual, as in (25, 26). (25) chapuhb’aaj i ti’ chapuhb’aaj i k’axkilal / chapuhb’aaj i problema ch-a-puhb’-aaj i ti’ ch-a-puhb’-aaj i k’ax-kil-al OPT-2ERG-shoot-TR DEF pain OPT-2ERG-shoot-TR DEF ch-a-puhb’-aaj i problema OPT-2ERG-shoot-TR DEF problem difficult-NMLZ-ABST ‘Shoot the pain, shoot the difficulties, shoot the problems.’ (T) (26) k’ahchi’ qaq’aanb’iik / k’ahchi’ qa-q’aan-b’-iik PROG 1PL.POSS-yellow-INTRZ-NMLZ ‘We are getting yellow.’ (T) In (25), the verb puhb’aaj ‘shoot’ conveys the indirect meaning ‘free, liberate’. The context apparently inspires such an unordinary word choice. This fragment is dedicated to the nahual Ajpuhb’, whose name literally means ‘shooter’. A similar situation is observed in (26), which uses the verb q’aanb’ik ‘get yellow’. By means of this lexeme, the ritual specialist expresses the idea that the petitioners become wiser. This metaphor stems from the name of the nahual Q’aniil, which is literally translated as ‘yellowness’. VINOGRADOV I.: Language of Poqomchi’ (Mayan) offering ceremonies 119 Religious syncretism, which runs through the prayers, is especially salient at the lexical level. Two dimensions of syncretism are observed in my data: one stems from pan-Mayan activism, and the other from Christian traditions. The influence of the pan-Mayan movement is manifested, for example, in appeals to certain legendary personages from the Popol Vuh, such as Tepew, Q’uq’umatz, Xpiyakok, B’alam K’itze’ and B’alam Aq’ab’, among others. They have no direct relation to Poqomchi’ culture; rather, they serve to certify the identity of modern Poqomchi’ people as descendants of the ancient Mayan civilization. In addition, Poqomchi’ prayers contain certain non-Poqomchi’ words, which were apparently loaned from other Mayan languages. The most frequent source is the K’iche’ language, as there is substantial evidence of contact between Poqomchi’ and K’iche’ societies (see van Akkeren 2008). For example, the word tz’ite’, which means small red seeds used in ritual practices, has evident Mayan origins, but it is not a proper Poqomchi’ word. The root te’ ‘tree’ would be chee’ in Poqomchi’. While this word is also absent in Dobbels (2003), it occurs in my corpus (27). (27) wilih q’an atz’ite’ saq atz’ite’ q’an ab’ara saq ab’ara wilih q’an a-tz’ite’ saq a-tz’ite’ q’an DEM a-b’ara saq yellow 2POSS-tz’ite’ white 2POSS-tz’ite’ yellow 2POSS-staff white a-b’ara 2POSS-staff ‘This is your yellow tz’ite’, your white tz’ite’, your yellow staff, your white staff.’ (T) The word tz’ite’ is used in (27) together with b’ara ‘staff’ (from Spanish vara) within the same couplet. Both words denote important ritual objects. Sentence (27) can be translated as ‘This is your holy tz’ite’, your holy staff’. Another example of such an internal Mayan influence is the diphrasism tz’aqol ‘former’ – b’itol ‘shaper’. In Poqomchi’, there is the word tz’aqol ‘the one who constructs’, but there is no word b’itol, nor even the root b’it, which is present in K’iche’ (Christenson 2003: 19), for example. The Poqomchi’ alternative for this diphrasism would be tz’aqool – k’oxool (Dobbels 2003: 735). However, it is the wording tz’aqol – b’itol, which is consistently used in my corpus (28). 120 (28) AMERINDIA 42: 103-134, 2020 chakuy qamahk jaaw / loq’laj tz’aqol loq’laj b’itol ch-a-kuy qa-mahk jaaw loq’-laj tz’aq-ol OPT-2ERG-forgive 1PL.POSS-sin sir holy-INTENS loq’-laj build-AGT holy-INTENS b’it-ol form-AGT ‘Forgive our sin, sir, holy former, holy shaper.’ (T) The Christian dimension of syncretism manifests itself in Spanish loanwords for denoting religious concepts, such as santísima trinidad ‘holy trinity’ and dios ajawb’ees ‘God the Father’. Fragments of Catholic prayers (the Lord’s Prayer, Hail Mary, etc.) can be incorporated in the discourse of ritual specialists, either in Spanish or in Poqomchi’. The use of the directional particle johtoq ‘up’ can also be attributed to Christian influence (29). (29) inqat’yoxej johtoq aweh / in-qa-t’yox-ej johtoq INC-1PL.ERG-thank-TR ‘We thank you.’ (P) DIR:up aw-eh 2POSS-DAT As several Poqomchi’ ritual specialists pointed out to me, Mayan divine authorities are not located in any specific place or direction, but are rather dispersed throughout the universe and can be evoked at any site; see similar observations by Wilson (1995) and Scott (2009). However, the particle johtoq ‘up’ in (29) makes it clear that the utterance is directed upwards, although the English translation does not reflect this. Hence, this acknowledgment is specifically intended for the Christian God, who is located in the sky, and not to nahuals, ancestral spirits or other Mayan divinities. 5.3. Tense/aspect/mood categories Grammatical properties of the ritual discourse are mainly determined by the communicative situation. Many utterances pronounced by a ritual specialist are petitions. Furthermore, the communicative situation implies the presence of a speechless divine addressee. Hence, second-person referential forms and optative constructions prevail in the discourse. VINOGRADOV I.: Language of Poqomchi’ (Mayan) offering ceremonies (30) 121 qojawuch’ihleej chupaam qatz’eet chupaam qasak’aaj q-oj-aw-uch’ihl-eej chi ru-paam qa-tz’eet chi OPT-1PL.ABS-2ERG-accompany-TR PREP ru-paam qa-sak’aaj 3SG.POSS-in 1PL.POSS-right PREP 3SG.POSS-in 1PL.POSS-left ‘Accompany us at the left side, at the right side.’ (P) Example (30) presents a typical verb form of Poqomchi’ ritual discourse, which is marked by the optative and refers to the second person of the subject. However, other verbal categories can also be in an optative sense during ritual communication. There are instances, where the construction, which denotes the potential tense/aspect/mood in ordinary everyday communication, describes a desired situation, rather than a probable one (31, 32). (31) na’awisam chu’nchel i ti’ na’awisam chu’nchel i k’axik wilik chi kiij haaw / na=’aw-is-am chu’nchel i ti’ na=’aw-is-am chu’nchel POT=2POSS-quit-NMLZ PREP.all DEF pain POT=2POSS-quit-NMLZ PREP.all i k’ax-ik wi-lik chi k-iij DEF difficult-NMLZ exist-PRED PREP 3PL.POSS-back sir jaaw ‘Quit all the pain, quit all the difficulties [that] they have, sir.’ (Ch) (32) nakooj ab’eesam nakooj awilom / na’ayeem qeh rusuqkiil i qak’uxl rusuqkiil i qanima’ / nak=ooj a-b’ees-am nak=ooj aw-il-om POT=1PL.ABS 2POSS-guide-NMLZ POT=1PL.ABS 2POSS-see-NMLZ na=’a-ye-em q-eh POT=2POSS-give-NMLZ 1PL.POSS-DAT 3SG.POSS-nice-NMLZ ru-suq-kiil ru-suq-kiil i q-anima’ 3SG.POSS-nice-NMLZ DEF 1PL.POSS-soul i qa-k’uxl DEF 1PL.POSS-heart ‘Guide us, see us, give us happiness of our hearts, happiness of our souls.’ (T) The examples in (31) and (32) may also be understood as simple predictions of future situations (as in ‘you will quit all the pain’ and ‘you will guide us, you will see us’), yet their interpretation as desired optative events fits more naturally into the context of ritual performance. In ritual speech, grammatical meanings of both verbal categories, the optative and the potential, seem to be very close to each other. Another phenomenon concerns the contextual omission of overt tense/aspect/mood morphology. Verbal predicates, which must normally bear a tense/aspect/mood marker, can sometimes lack it, specifically when 122 AMERINDIA 42: 103-134, 2020 the corresponding semantics can be inferred from the context or from the peculiar properties of the speech act situation (33). (33) ayu’ wilik haaw i nik’ nimaal i kimayiij kik’am chaloq loq’laj awak’uun / ayu’ wi-lik jaaw i nik’ nim-aal i ki-mayiij here exist-PRED sir DEF how big-NMLZ ki-k’am chaloq loq’-laj 3PL.ERG-bring DIR holy-INTENS 2POSS-son DEF 3PL.POSS-offering aw-ak’uun ‘Here is, sir, the value of the offerings [that] your holy sons brought.’ (Ch) A complete form in (33) would be x-ki-k’am, but the completive prefix xis dropped. Any alternative interpretation of this verb form (as an event that is planned in the future or that is still not concluded, for example) would not make much sense. Contextual omission is possible, not only for the completive prefix, but also for the incompletive (34). (34) ayu’ qasik’ awuuk’ qapermiso ayu’ qa-sik’ aw-uuk’ qa-permiso here 1PL.POSS-permission 1PL.ERG-look.for 2POSS-with ‘Here we look for our permission with you.’ (T) The form qa-sik’ ‘we look for’ in (34) apparently stands for a complete form in-qa-sik’ with the incompletive prefix in-. Such instances of the contextual omission of tense/aspect/mood markers have also been reported for other Mayan languages of different subgroups; see Ayres (1991: 143-144) for Ixil, Zavala Maldonado (1992: 69) for Akatek and Vinogradov (2015) for Q’eqchi’, among others. This seems to be a remnant of the earlier autonomous morphological status of the preverbal tense/aspect/mood markers in Mayan languages, which was subsequently lost in the process of grammaticalization. Although the contextual omission of tense/aspect/mood markers in Poqomchi’ is not exclusively restricted to the particular genre of ritual discourse, the ritual communicative act significantly narrows the metalinguistic context, which results in the more frequent use of this grammatical device. VINOGRADOV I.: Language of Poqomchi’ (Mayan) offering ceremonies 123 6. Conclusion Offering ceremonies among contemporaneous Poqomchi’ people naturally combine ancient pre-Columbian traits with Christian traditions imposed by Spanish colonialists in the 16th century and new pan-Mayan ideas of cultural self-identity, which emerged at the end of the 20 th century. This syncretism manifests itself not only in the ethnographic peculiarities of these ceremonies, which are beyond the scope of this paper, but also in the language used by Poqomchi’ ritual specialists throughout the ceremony. This study only presents a first attempt to document and analyze the linguistic properties of this specific discursive genre. It is possible to identify some traits, which seem to be typical of ritual speech in Poqomchi’. They include the use of parallel syntactic constructions (couplets, triplets and chains of them), the use of certain genre-specific lexemes, the development of specific indirect lexical and grammatical meanings and the contextual omission of tense/aspect/mood markers. Of course, this list is far from exhaustive. The fact that there are several features, which are specific to a particular ceremony or a particular ritual specialist, suggests that the present study is based on a very small corpus of recordings, which does not allow for making well-grounded reliable conclusions. Further studies are necessary to confirm these preliminary findings and to consider them from a broader cultural and cross-linguistic perspective, when a wider sample of primary data is available. References Ayres, Glenn. 1991. La gramática Ixil. Guatemala: Centro de Investigaciones Regionales de Mesoamérica. Balzer, Marjorie M. 1990. Shamanic worlds: Rituals and lore of Siberia and Central Asia. New York: M. E. Sharpe. Bricker, Victoria. 1974. The ethnographic context of some traditional Mayan speech genres. Explorations in the ethnography of speaking, R. Bauman & J. Sherzer (eds), 368-388. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 124 AMERINDIA 42: 103-134, 2020 Brown, Linda K. 1979. Word formation in Pocomchi (Mayan). PhD dissertation, Stanford University. Christenson, Allen. 2003. K’iche’–English dictionary and guide to pronunciation of the K’iche’–Maya alphabet. <http://www.famsi.org/mayawriting/dictionary/christenson> Christenson, Allen. 2007 [2003]. Popol Vuh: Sacred Book of the Quiché Maya People. <http://www.mesoweb.com/publications/Christenson/PopolVuh.pdf> Cook, Garrett W. & Offit, Thomas A. 2013. Indigenous religion and cultural performance in the new Maya world. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Coon, Jessica. 2010. Rethinking split ergativity in Chol. International Journal of American Linguistics 76(2): 207-253. De la Garza, Mercedes. 1987. Naguales mayas de ayer y de hoy. Revista Española de Antropología Americana 17: 89-105. Dobbels, Marcel. 2003. Diccionario Poqomchi’–Castellano. Guatemala: PROASE. England, Nora C. 2002. Maya linguists, linguistics, and the politics of identity. Texas Linguistic Forum 45: 33-45. England, Nora C. 2003. Mayan language revival and revitalization politics: Linguists and linguistic ideologies. American Anthropologist 105(4): 733-743. García, María L. 2014. The long count of historical memory: Ixhil Maya ceremonial speech in Guatemala. American Ethnologist 41(4): 664-680. Hanks, William F. 1984. Sanctification, structure, and experience in a Yucatec ritual event. The Journal of American Folklore 97(384): 131-166. Hull, Kerry. 2003. Verbal art and performance in Ch’orti’ and Maya hieroglyphic writing. PhD dissertation, University of Texas at Austin. Lacadena, Alfonso. 2010. Naturaleza, tipología y usos del paralelismo en la literatura jeroglífica. Figuras mayas de la diversidad, A. Monod Bequelin, A. Breton & M. H. Ruz (eds), 55-85. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. VINOGRADOV I.: Language of Poqomchi’ (Mayan) offering ceremonies 125 Lengyel, Thomas E. 1988. On the structure and discourse functions of semantic couplets in Mayan languages. Anthropological Linguistics 30(1): 94-127. Malchic Nicolás, Manuel Bernardo, Mó Isém, Romelia & Tul Rax, Augusto. 2000. Variación dialectal en Poqom. Guatemala: Cholsamaj. Mayers, Marvin. 1958. Pocomchi texts, with grammatical notes. Norman: Summer Institute of Linguistics. Mó Isém, Romelia. 2006. Fonología y morfología del Poqomchi’ occidental. Bachelor dissertation, Universidad Rafael Landívar. Molesky-Poz, Jean. 2006. Contemporary Maya spirituality: The ancient ways are not lost. Austin: University of Texas Press. Monod Becquelin, Aurore & Becquey, Cédric. 2008. De las unidades paralelísticas en las tradiciones orales mayas. Estudios de Cultura Maya 32: 111-153. Montes de Oca, Mercedes. 2008. Los difrasismos: un rasgo del lenguaje ritual. Estudios de Cultura Nahuatl 39: 225-238. Norman, William M. 1980. Grammatical parallelism in Quiche ritual language. Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, B. R. Caron, M. Hoffman, M. Silva et al. (eds), 387399. Berkeley: University of California. Richards, Michael. 2003. Atlas lingüístico de Guatemala. Guatemala: Serviprensa. Scott, Ann M. 2009. Communicating with the sacred earthscape: An ethnoarchaeological investigation of Kaqchikel Maya ceremonies in Highland Guatemala. PhD dissertation, University of Texas at Austin. Tedlock, Barbara. 1992 [1982]. Time and the Highland Maya. Revised edition. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Van Akkeren, Ruud. 2008. Historia y cosmovisión de la franja del Polochic. Guatemala: E.D.E. Consulting & Solidaridad. Vapnarsky, Valentina. 2008. Paralelismo, ciclicidad y creatividad en el arte verbal maya yucateco. Estudios de Cultura Maya 32: 155-199. 126 AMERINDIA 42: 103-134, 2020 Vinogradov, Igor. 2015. “Neutralization of tense-aspect distinction in Q’eqchi’.” 11th Meeting of the Association for Linguistic Typology. University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. August 1-3. Vinogradov, Igor. 2016. El tesoro no recibido por miedo: dos cuentos mayas poqomchi’. Tlalocan 21: 167-215. Warren, Kay B. 1998. Indigenous movements and their critics: Pan-Maya activism in Guatemala. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Watanabe, John M. 1992. Maya saints and souls in a changing world. Austin: University of Texas Press. Wilson, Richard. 1995. Maya resurgence in Guatemala: Q’eqchi’ experiences. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Zavala Maldonado, Roberto. 1992. El Kanjobal de San Miguel Acatán. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. VINOGRADOV I.: Language of Poqomchi’ (Mayan) offering ceremonies 127 Appendix This appendix contains three textual extracts from ceremonies described in Section 3. These are samples of coherent discourse, rather than just utterances taken out of context, which are meant to serve further studies. This is a first attempt at documentation of Poqomchi’ ritual speech, presenting the primary data (albeit linguistically processed) in addition to the discussion of theoretical findings based on these data. 1. Ceremony in Tampo (Tactic, Alta Verapaz) This is a fragment from the introductory part of the prayer. The spiritual guide presents himself and greets the ceremonial site and some supernatural divinities, including ancestral spirits, phenomena of the surrounding environment and several nahuals. k’aleen aweh convento ramchah / k’aleen aw-eh convento ramchah hello 2POSS-DAT convent Ramchah ‘Hello to you, convent Ramchah.’ k’aleen aweh loq’laj ye’aab’ / k’aleen aw-eh loq’-laj ye’aab’ hello 2POSS-DAT holy-INTENS place ‘Hello to you, holy place.’ hin awak’uun / ayu’ xnub’eesaj cho wooq nuq’ab’ / hin aw-ak’uun ayu’ x-nu-b’ees-aj cho w-ooq nu-q’ab’ 1SG 2POSS-son here COM-1SG.ERG-guide-TR DIR 1SG.POSS-foot 1SG.POSS-hand ‘I am your son. I brought here my feet, my hands.’ k’aleen aweh q’equm aq’ab’ / k’aleen aw-eh q’eq-um hello 2POSS-DAT black-NMLZ ‘Hello to you, darkness night.’ aq’ab’ night 128 AMERINDIA 42: 103-134, 2020 reh qawiriik / reh qahi’liik / i loq’laj q’equm aq’ab’ / r-eh qa-wir-iik r-eh qa-hi’l-iik i 3SG.POSS-DAT 1PL.POSS-sleep-NMLZ 3SG.POSS-DAT 1PL.POSS-rest-NMLZ DEF loq’-laj q’eq-um aq’ab’ holy-INTENS black-NMLZ night ‘The holy darkness night, for our sleep, for our rest.’ k’aleen aweh b’alam aq’ab’ / b’alam aq’ab’ hin awak’uun / k’aleen aw-eh b’alam aq’ab’ b’alam aq’ab’ hin aw-ak’uun hello 2POSS-DAT tiger night tiger night 1SG 2POSS-son ‘Hello to you, tiger night.6 Tiger night, I am your son.’ chakuy numahk tutb’ees / ch-a-kuy nu-mahk tut-b’ees OPT-2ERG-forgive 1SG.POSS-sin mother-INDPOSS ‘Forgive my sins, mother.’ ri’sil awooq ri’sil aq’ab’ / r-i’sil aw-ooq r-i’sil a-q’ab’ 3SG.POSS-under 2POSS-foot 3SG.POSS-under 2POSS-hand ‘Under your feet, under your hands.’ aha’ kihi’lik wii’ qamaam / kihi’lik wii’ qati’t aha’ k-i-hi’l-ik wii’ qa-maam k-i-hi’l-ik where INC-3PL.ABS-rest-REAL STAT 1PL.POSS-grandfather INC-3PL.ABS-rest-REAL wii’ q-ati’t STAT 1PL.POSS-grandmother ‘Where our grandfathers are resting, our grandmothers are resting.’ ki’ooj kisutinik i qamaam i qati’t taqeh pasados k-i-’ooj k-i-sut-in-ik i qa-maam i INC-3PL.ABS-go INC-3PL.ABS-return-AP-REAL DEF 1PL.POSS-grandfather DEF q-ati’t taqeh pasados 1PL.POSS-grandmother PL past.PL ‘Our grandfathers, our grandmothers of the past go and return.’ 6 B’alam Aq’ab’ can also be understood as a proper name from the Popol Vuh. VINOGRADOV I.: Language of Poqomchi’ (Mayan) offering ceremonies ajkamanom / ajpom ajkandela / ajsones / ajq’ooj taqeh / aj-kam-an-om aj-pom aj-kandela aj-sones AGT-work-AP-AGT AGT-incense AGT-candle AGT-dance ‘Workers, ritual specialists, dancers, musicians.’ 129 aj-q’ooj taqeh AGT-music PL kitz’uyinik kib’ichinik / k-i-tz’uy-in-ik k-i-b’ich-in-ik INC-3PL.ABS-sing-AP-REAL INC-3PL.ABS-intone-AP-REAL ‘They sing, they intone.’ hoj aha’lak’uun / hoj a-ha’lak’uun 1PL 2POSS-son ‘We are your sons.’ chawilow taqeh chaloq awixq’uun ayu’ wilkeeb’ / ch-aw-il-ow taqeh chaloq aw-ixq’uun ayu’ OPT-2ERG-see-TR PL DIR 2POSS-daughter here ‘Take care of your daughters, [who] are here.’ wi-lk=eeb’ exist-PRED=3PL ayu’ xk’o’loq nawaal keej nawaal b’aatz’ nawaal kan / nawaal ajpuh / ayu’ x-k’u’loq nawaal keej nawaal b’aatz’ nawaal kan nawaal here COM-come nahual Keej nahual B’aatz’ nahual Kan nahual ‘Nahual Keej, nahual B’aatz’, nahual Kan, [and] nahual Ajpuhb’ came here.’ ayu’ tooj / ayu’ xk’o’loq i k’at / ayu’ xk’o’loq tuut / ayu’ tooj ayu’ x-k’u’loq i k’at ayu’ here Tooj here COM-come DEF K’at here ‘Here is Tooj, here came K’at, here came lady.’ x-k’u’loq COM-come ayu’ xk’o’loq i tz’i’ ayu’ xk’o’loq i… ajnawaal no’j / ayu’ x-k’u’loq i tz’i’ ayu’ x-k’u’loq i here COM-come DEF Tz’i’ here COM-come DEF ‘Here came Tz’i’, here came nahual No’j.’ ayu’ xk’o’loq i nawaal aaj / ayu’ x-k’u’loq i nawaal here COM-come DEF nahual ‘Here came nahual Aaj.’ aaj Aaj tuut lady aj-nawaal no’j AGT-nahual No’j ajpuhb’ Ajpuhb’ 130 AMERINDIA 42: 103-134, 2020 noq k’o’loq taqeh kemeh / noq k’u’loq taqeh kemeh when come PL Kemeh ‘When [nahuals] Kemeh came.’ ayu’ wilkooj / hin awak’uun keej / ayu’ wilkooj / ayu’ wi-lk=ooj hin aw-ak’uun keej here exist-PRED=1PL.ABS 1SG 2POSS-son Keej ‘We are here. I am your son Keej. We are here.’ ayu’ here wi-lk=ooj exist-PRED=1PL.ABS 2. Ceremony in Pajuil (Chicaman, El Quiche) This fragment is derived from the beginning of the prayer, where the ritual specialist presents the attendants to the divine authorities. He does not mention their names, but describes their activities in broad terms. Some generalized petitions to the divine world are also made at this stage of the prayer. qat’yoxej chuwach i q’iij saqum / qa-t’yox-ej chi ru-wach i q’iij 1PL.ERG-thank-TR PREP 3SG.POSS-front DEF day ‘We thank [it] in front of the day light.’ saq-um white-NMLZ re’ hat / wilik naj aorden chi naah / ajk’achareel / ajhi’leel / taqeh awak’uun / re’ hat wi-lik jenaj a-orden chi naah aj-k’ach-ar-eel DEF 2 exist-PRED INDEF 2POSS-command PREP above AGT-alive-INTRZ-AGT aj-hi’l-eel taqeh aw-ak’uun AGT-rest-AGT PL 2POSS-son ‘It is you who rules over those who live, those who rest, your sons.’ wilih xik’uloq wilih x-i-k’u’loq DEM COM-3PL.ABS-come ‘They came here.’ chatah chaloq chachii’ chawach ajawb’ees santisima cruz ajawal dios yuuq’ k’ixkaab’ / ch-a-tah chaloq chi a-chii’ chi a-wach ajaw-b’ees OPT-2ERG-observe DIR PREP 2POSS-edge PREP 2POSS-front father-INDPOSS santisima cruz ajaw-al dios yuuq’ k’ixkaab’ saint.INTENS cross father-ABST God hill valley ‘Observe, at your edge, in your front, father, Holy Cross, lord God, hill valley.’ VINOGRADOV I.: Language of Poqomchi’ (Mayan) offering ceremonies qat’yoxej awach na’eel / qa-t’yox-ej a-wach ne’eel 1PL.ERG-thank-TR 2POSS-front INTENS ‘We thank you a lot.’ wilih ab’ihnaal akik’eel taqeh / wilih a-b’ihn-aal a-kik’-eel taqeh DEM 2POSS-name-ABST 2POSS-blood-POSS PL ‘These are your names, your bloods.’ tijinik inkan / tij-in-ik in-ki-b’an learn-AP-NMLZ INC-3PL.ERG-make ‘They are learning.’ sik’ooj weeh inkan / sik’-ooj b’eeh in-ki-b’an look.for-PTCP road INC-3PL.ERG-make ‘They are looking for a road.’ molooj na’ojb’al inkan / mol-ooj na’oj-b’al in-ki-b’an collect-PTCP know-NMLZ INC-3PL.ERG-make ‘They are collecting knowledge.’ inkiq’oreej awach ta inkiq’oreej achii’ ta in-ki-q’o’r-eej a-wach ta in-ki-q’o’r-eej a-chii’ ta INC-3PL.ERG-call-TR 2POSS-front OPT INC-3PL.ERG-call-TR 2POSS-edge OPT ‘They would call your front, they would call your edge.’ kab’laj no’j oxlaj no’j / kab’-laj no’j ox-laj two-ten No’j three-ten ‘Twelve No’j, thirteen No’j.’ no’j No’j cheew sabiduria taqeh cheew experiencia taqeh je’ akab’ taq haaw je’ akab’ taq tuut / ch-a-ye-ew sabiduria taqeh ch-a-ye-ew experiencia taqeh je’ OPT-2ERG-give-TR wisdom PL OPT-2ERG-give-TR experience PL so a-kab’ taq jaaw je’ a-kab’ taq tuut 2POSS-like PL sir so 2POSS-like PL lady ‘Give wisdom, give experience; like you, sirs, like you, ladies.’ 131 132 AMERINDIA 42: 103-134, 2020 re’ wo’ inqapahqaaj re’ wo’ inqaq’or / re’ wo’ in-qa-pahq-aaj re’ wo’ in-qa-q’or DEF also INC-1PL.ERG-ask-TR DEF also INC-1PL.ERG-say ‘This is also what we ask, this is also what we say.’ 3. Ceremony in Cuevas Chitul (Santa Cruz Verapaz, Alta Verapaz) This is a particular petition pronounced by the ritual specialist on behalf of a middle-aged woman. The abundant use of the reportative marker inkih, in order to introduce direct citations, is especially notable in this fragment. ayu’ wilkeeb’ awak’uun / ayu’ wilkeeb’ awixq’uun / ayu’ wi-lk=eeb’ aw-ak’uun ayu’ wi-lk=eeb’ aw-ixq’uun here exist-PRED=3PL 2POSS-son here exist-PRED=3PL 2POSS-daughter ‘Here are your sons, here are your daughters.’ k’ahtoq chu’nchel i ti’ / k’a<h>t-oq chu’nchel i burn<PASS>-IRR PREP.all DEF ‘Let all the pain to be burned.’ ti’ pain k’ahtoq chu’nchel i k’axik wilik chi wiij inkih / k’a<h>t-oq chu’nchel i k’ax-ik wi-lik chi w-iij inkih burn<PASS>-IRR PREP.all DEF difficult-NMLZ exist-PRED PREP 1SG.POSS-back REP ‘Let all the difficulties that I have to be burned, [she] says.’ aha’ ink’oloq haaw inkih / aha’ in-k’u’loq jaaw inkih where INC-come sir REP ‘Where does [it] come, sir?, [she] says.’ chih jariik i pahqamaj chaloq chi wiij inkih / chih jariik i pahq-amaj chaloq what something DEF ask-PTCP DIR ‘What is my petition?, [she] says.’ chi PREP w-iij inkih 1SG.POSS-back REP VINOGRADOV I.: Language of Poqomchi’ (Mayan) offering ceremonies 133 kinatoob’ej weh maam kinatoob’ej weh k’een inkih / k-in-a-toob’-ej w-eh maam k-in-a-toob’-ej OPT-1SG.ABS-2ERG-help-TR 1SG.POSS-DAT grandfather OPT-1SG.ABS-2ERG-help-TR w-eh k’een inkih 1SG.POSS-DAT grandmother REP ‘Help me, grandfather, help me, grandmother, [she] says.’ kinatoob’ej loq’laj yuuq’ kinatoob’ej loq’laj k’ixkaab’ / k-in-a-toob’-ej loq’-laj yuuq’ k-in-a-toob’-ej OPT-1SG.ABS-2ERG-help-TR holy-INTENS hill OPT-1SG.ABS-2ERG-help-TR loq’-laj k’ixkaab’ holy-INTENS valley ‘Help me, holy hills, help me, holy valleys.’ qahaaw tz’aqol b’itol tz’aqol b’itol tz’aqol b’itol / q-ajaaw tz’aq-ol b’it-ol tz’aq-ol b’it-ol tz’aq-ol b’it-ol 1PL.POSS-father build-AGT form-AGT build-AGT form-AGT build-AGT form-AGT ‘Our father Tz’aqol B’itol, Tz’aqol B’itol, Tz’aqol B’itol.’ chaj reet inkixowaj nuwach inkih / chih aj r-eet in-k-ixow-aj nu-wach inkih what EMPH 3SG.POSS-reason INC-3PL.ERG-envy-TR 1SG.POSS-front REP ‘Why do they envy me?, [she] says.’ chaj reet haaw inkih / chih aj r-eet jaaw what EMPH 3SG.POSS-reason sir ‘Why, sir?, [she] says.’ inkih REP inkixowaj nuwach ruum naak haaw inkih / in-k-ixow-aj nu-wach r-uum naak INC-3PL.ERG-envy-TR 1SG.POSS-front 3SG.POSS-cause maybe ‘They probably envy me for some reason, sir, [she] says.’ jaaw sir inkih REP hin naak b’ehom chaj inkil taqeh awixq’uun haaw inkih / hin naak b’ehom chih aj in-k-il taqeh aw-ixq’uun jaw inkih 1SG maybe rich what EMPH INC-3PL.ERG-see PL 2POSS-daughter sir REP ‘Perhaps your daughters see [that] I am rich, sir, [she] says.’ 134 AMERINDIA 42: 103-134, 2020 ruum chaal nupahqaaj aweh haaw inkih / r-uum chaal nu-pahq-aaj aw-eh jaaw 3SG.POSS-cause come 1SG.ERG-ask-TR 2POSS-DAT sir ‘This is why I came to ask you, sir, [she] says.’ chawisaj weh nuch’i’k chi wiij inkih / ch-aw-is-aj w-eh nu-ch’i’k chi OPT-2ERG-quit-TR 1SG.POSS-DAT 1SG.POSS-bother PREP ‘Free me from my bother, [she] says.’ loq’laj qahaaw inkih / loq’-laj q-ajaaw inkih holy-INTENS 1PL.POSS-father REP ‘Our holy father, [she] says.’ inkih REP w-iij inkih 1SG.POSS-back REP