Q'eqchi' people

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Q´eqchi´
Kek'Chi Maya Children.jpg
Young Q'eqchi' Maya children, Belize
Total population
900,000[1]
Regions with significant populations
 Guatemala 852,012
 Belize 11,142
 Mexico 835
 El Salvador 338
 Honduras  ?
Languages

Q'eqchi', Spanish, Kriol, English

Religion

Catholic, Evangelicalist, Mennonite, Maya religion

Q'eqchi' (or Kekchi in English orthography, K'ekchi in the former orthography) are one of the Maya peoples in Guatemala and Belize, whose indigenous language is also called Q'eqchi'.

Before the beginning in the 1520s of the Spanish conquest of Guatemala, Q'eqchi' settlements were concentrated in what are now the departments of Alta Verapaz and Baja Verapaz. Over the course of the succeeding centuries a series of land displacements, resettlements, persecutions and migrations resulted in a wider dispersal of Q'eqchi' communities, into other regions of Guatemala (Izabal, Petén, El Quiché), southern Belize (Toledo District), and smaller numbers in El Salvador, Honduras and southern Mexico (Chiapas, Campeche).[2] While most notably present in northern Alta Verapaz and southern Petén,[3] contemporary Q'eqchi' language-speakers are the most widely spread geographically of all Guatemalan Mayan groups.[4]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ "XI Censo Nacional de Población y VI de Habitación (Censo 2002) - Pertenencia de grupo étnico". Instituto Nacional de Estadística. 2002. http://www.ine.gob.gt/Nesstar/Censo2002/survey0/dataSet/dataFiles/dataFile1/var26.html. Retrieved 2008-05-27. 
  2. ^ See Kahn (2006, pp.34–49) for an account of Q'eqchi' migrational history and the impetus behind these movements, and in particular pp.41–42.
  3. ^ As indicated by 1998 SIL data, see "Q'eqchi': a language of Guatemala". http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=kek.  in Ethnologue (Gordon 2005).
  4. ^ Kahn (2006, p.34)

[edit] References

Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.) (2005) (online version). Ethnologue: Languages of the World (Fifteenth ed.). Dallas, TX: SIL International. ISBN 1-55671-159-X. OCLC 60338097. http://www.ethnologue.com. Retrieved 2008-05-30. 
Kahn, Hilary E. (2006). Seeing and Being Seen: The Q’eqchi’ Maya of Livingston, Guatemala, and Beyond. Austin: University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0-292-71348-2. OCLC 68965681. 
Wilk, Richard (1997). Household Ecology: Economic change and domestic life among the Kekchi Maya in Belize. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press. ISBN 978-0875805757. OCLC 97031713. 
Wilson, Richard (1995). Maya Resurgence in Guatemala: Q’eqchi’ Experiences. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0-8061-2690-6. OCLC 31172908. 


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