Santa Ana Cooperative
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To the right of the church is the local weavers' cooperative, founded on 1970. Since its founding it has grown to its current size of 515 cooperative members. They craft their products using beltlooms or footlooms and colorfast yarns of 100% cotton.
The women are divided into groups: weavers of cloth, weavers of belts and waistbands, hand embroiderers, and dressmakers and tailors. Zunil's shawls (perraje), in bright purple, are unusually wide, so that when draped around a woman's shoulders, they reach all the way to her ankles.
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| But these women not only produce their traditional costume, they also make products to export such as various styles of clothing for women, men,, and children including shirts, jackets, slacks, skirts, blouses and coats. Furthermore, they produce purses, knapsacks, tableclothes, placemat-napkin sets, bedspreads, pillowcases, etc. All of these products are either sold locally in the cooperative's gift shop or are exported. |
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San Simón
 Zunil's
reputation for the worship of San Simón is well founded, and a
visit to his current site should not be missed. Along with Santiago Atitlan,
Zunil is one of the few remaining places where the "pagan" image
of San Simon is still openly revered with pomp and ceremony. Also known
as Maximon or Alvarado, Zunil's San Simon is a comical-looking, plastic
tailor's dummy dressed in western clothes (cowboy, soldier, athletic,
with sunglasses, etc). Every year on November 1, at the end of the annual
fiesta , San Simón is moved to a new house. Here his effigy sits
in a darkened room, and guarded by several attendants. San Simón
is visited by a steady stream of villagers, who come to ask his assistance,
using candles to indicate their requests: white for the health of a child,
yellow for a good harvest, red for love, black for an enemy, etc. The
petitioners touch and embrace the saint, and they offer him cigarettes,
money and rum. The latter is administered with the help of one of the
attendants, who tips San Simón back in his chair and pours the
liquor into his throat. Falling liquid is gathered in a basin below him.
Meanwhile outside the house worshippers burn pom (a kind of incense) and more offerings are given over to the flames: eggs, sugar, aromatic plants and sometimes even chickens.
While the entire process may seem chaotic, entertaining and even comic, it is in fact deeply serious and you are expected to show respect. Outsiders have been beaten up for making fun of San Simón.
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