Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in I, Rigoberta Menchú, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Tolerance vs. Resistance
Class, Race, and Inequality
Ancestors, Tradition, and Community
Gender and Sexuality
Language, Education, and Power
Spirituality, Nature, and the Sacredness of Life
Summary
Analysis
On their 12th birthdays, Maya-Quiché children are given an animal to take care of so that it can later be sold. When Rigoberta turned 12, she received a pig, two chickens, and a lamb. Rigoberta was overjoyed at this new responsibility. After her pig gave birth to piglets, she knew she had to find a way to feed them. Therefore, Rigoberta began weaving during any possible break during the day. After two weeks, she weaved enough cloth to sell at the market so that she could buy food for her pigs. After seven months of such successful work, she then sold the piglets so that she could buy both food and clothing for herself. Her parents were thrilled to see how well she got along with animals.
Receiving animals as a gift allows children to learn responsibility: they must be creative and hardworking if they want to keep their animals alive and earn a profit from selling them. In this way, these enjoyable activities—spending time caring for animals and connecting with nature—serve to prepare the child for adult life, when they’ll have a variety of responsibilities for both animals and other people. Rigoberta’s success in this enterprise highlights her hardworking attitude, her connection to nature, and her willingness to follow the community’s traditions.
Themes
Going down to the town was a rare occasion when Rigoberta was a child. When going to the market, her mother would ask other members of the village if they needed anything. The whole community took part in the enterprise, providing a horse or giving her woven objects to sell, so that they wouldn’t all have to take time off work to go to town.
This communal participation in trips to the market emphasizes the community’s collective organization. Its objective is not for individual people to acquire personal wealth, but rather for the entire community to thrive as a whole, sharing and distributing all available resources.
Themes
Rigoberta then describes the fiesta that inaugurates the maize harvest. In this ceremony, the villagers pray together, burn incense, and light candles, asking the earth permission to cultivate the land. Before placing the seeds in the ground, another ceremony is performed to honor the seed that will multiply. The families pray to the earth and the natural elements to provide food for them, promising not to waste any. Men, women, and children take part in the planting of the seeds. Later, they keep watch over the land in order to keep animals from digging them up. While the maize is growing, villagers go to the fincas to work, although some women stay home to look after the plants. Rigoberta emphasizes that maize is at the core of the Maya-Quiché culture.
The ceremony anticipating the maize harvest underscores the deep respect that the Maya-Quiché community has for their land and its products. The earth is not venerated as an abstract god, but rather respected as a concrete entity. Any human intrusion or modification must involve the earth’s consent, in the same way that entering someone’s home requires their consent.
Themes
Another ceremony takes place before cutting the first leaf. Villagers with the biggest leaves share them with others, and the villagers usually use them to make tamales. The community celebrates the harvest by thanking the earth and God for providing for them. This is a moment of joy, because no one has to go down to the fincas, and everyone can enjoy the food they have reaped. To demonstrate their gratitude, the whole village gathers in the community house and takes part in a feast.
Once again, the village organizes itself in order to pool and distribute all resources as fairly as possible. This highlights both respect for the unpredictable products that the earth might bring (a good or bad harvest) but also commitment to equality and generosity toward all members of the community, as they’ve all worked hard.
Themes
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This community house, Rigoberta describes, is also used for village-wide discussions. Since everyone takes part in the cultivation of the land, important conversations revolve around the collective nature of the work. In her village, the community decided to divide the land into individual plots while retaining a common piece of land that everyone took turns cultivating. This common land could provide for community members in need, such as widows.
Rigoberta’s village functions in a democratic way, since all decisions concerning the community’s economic organization and well-being are made collectively. Such peaceful debates contrast with the Guatemalan government, which privileges the wealth and power of a few: the ladino elite.
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