San Andrés Xecul church
Iglesia de San Andrés Xecul
Interesting facts
- The façade carries about 200 modelled and painted figures, from saints and angels to maize, fruit, animals and human forms.
- The church was declared a national historical monument of the colonial period in 1970.
- Its riot of colour and pattern is often compared with the woven huipil blouses worn by the town's Maya women.
- Uphill from the main church stands a smaller yellow chapel, El Calvario, beside which Maya ceremonies with burnt offerings are still held.
- According to local legend, a lone man arrived one night to build the church, and by morning the townspeople found it finished.
- The name Xecul is usually explained from K'iche' roots meaning roughly 'under the blanket'; in colonial records the town appears as Shejul.
- In 1820 the townspeople joined the indigenous revolt against colonial tribute led by Atanasio Tzul, whom the rebels symbolically crowned king.
- Sources disagree on its age: most place the church in the seventeenth century, while others trace the parish back to the sixteenth.
Why it is worth it
Few church fronts anywhere are as exuberant as that of San Andrés Xecul in the western highlands of Guatemala. Its façade is painted a vivid yellow and crowded with figures modelled in relief and picked out in bright colours: saints and angels stand alongside climbing vines, flowers, ears of maize, monkeys, quetzal birds and double-headed eagles, while a pair of jaguars clings to the columns near the top. The whole front reads less as a European Baroque frontispiece than as a painted tapestry of the Maya world.
The church dates from the Spanish colonial period, and the façade is generally regarded as a masterpiece of syncretic folk Baroque, the blending of Catholic imagery with the beliefs of the indigenous people who built and decorated it. The town is overwhelmingly Maya, largely K'iche', and the creatures and plants on the walls are often interpreted through K'iche' cosmology, in which the living world is watched over by protective animal spirits and maize stands for life itself. Catholicism, evangelical Christianity and Maya ceremonial practice all have a place in the town, and the church remains its living parish church and principal landmark.
San Andrés Xecul is a small municipality in the department of Totonicapán, set in the highlands at around 2,400 metres above sea level. The church stands at the centre of the town, and its colour makes it stand out from a long way off. The surrounding highlands are dotted with K'iche' market towns such as Salcajá and San Francisco El Alto.
Getting there
The church stands in the centre of San Andrés Xecul, about 10 km north of Quetzaltenango, Guatemala's second city, and is reached by a paved road branching off the main highway north of Quetzaltenango. The nearest airport by straight line is Retalhuleu (RER), about 48 km to the south-west; the country's main international airport, La Aurora (GUA) in Guatemala City, is several hours away by road.
On these lists
14.90464, -91.48259per Wikidata