Santiago Atitlán is a large Tzutujil speaking town located on an inlet of the southern shore of Lake Atitlán in the Department of Sololá. The inlet on which it is stunningly situated is the saddle between Tolimán and Atitlán volcanoes to the east and San Pedro volcano to the west. Immediately across the inlet from the town is the site of the ancient Tzutujil fortress, Chuitinamit. Both men and women wear traditional dress. The women’s huipil and men’s pants feature what is generally regarded as the finest embroidery work in Guatemala, usually depicting rows of birds. The women’s cortes may have the best ikat dye patterning in Guatemala, or anywhere. Santiago Atitlán has frequently been the site of violent struggle. American priest, Father Stanley Rother, was killed there by pro-government death squads during the civil war, along with nearly 300 of his parishioners. It was the site of the last major massacre of Maya civilians by the Guatemalan military on December 2, 1990. In the aftermath, the military was forced by non-violent popular pressure and media attention to abandon its garrison and leave the town, a historic first. It is also famed for its local school of Maya painters, whose work can no longer be appropriately described as primitive. (See artemaya.com) It is also the home of the widely venerated Maya idol “Maximon”.

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