Guarded by Two Jaguars: A Catholic Parish Divided by Language and FaithBy EricHoenes del Pinal. Tuscon: The University of Arizona Press. 2022. 257 pp.

Guarded by Two Jaguars: A Catholic Parish Divided by Language and Faith provides a nuanced and theoretically sophisticated ethnographic portrait of the complexities of religious pluralism in Guatemala as played out in a Q'eqchi-Maya parish in the city of Cobán, Alta Verapaz. The field site, in a region with a long and novel history of Catholic evangelization (especially as concerns the role of Q'eqchi’ language and culture in the project) is well chosen. The parish itself straddles rural and urban contexts and showcases the varied tensions which accompany processes of transnationalism, ethnic politics, and modern projects of identity formation within both the local community and the global institutional structure of the Roman Catholic Church. The main research question this monograph addresses concerns how an ostensibly homogeneous population of Q'eqchi’-Maya came to differentiate itself into Mainstream versus Charismatic Catholics under the shadow of a powerful transnational institution, the Catholic Church, itself often imagined as monolithic (“universal”) and rigidly hierarchical. Although several contemporary ethnographies in the Maya region have explored comparable themes, Hoenes del Pinal approaches this question in a novel and productive way, focusing on how language and other forms of communication do not simply reflect or express confessional differences somehow generated in other contexts, but rather constitute the very experiences from which religious identities are formed, reformed and contested dialogically. The key theoretical touchstone is Bakhtin's concept of heteroglossia, which is employed to interpret differing and sometimes opposing notions of what constitutes “correct” ritual language, while serving more broadly as a metaphor to understand the dynamic and shifting nature of Catholic identity and practice. This is a beautifully written and closely argued ethnography. Each chapter is framed with an engaging ethnographic vignette which helps the reader contextualize the material and analysis which follows, and the text is peppered with astute and often amusing observations that will resonate with researchers who work in comparable contexts. It begins with a critical introduction, followed by two chapters which outline the historical and ethnographic context and its relation to shifting trends in Catholic evangelization as well as national ethnopolitics. The analysis of the theological and pastoral movements which have helped define the religious field in Guatemala through the last century—Catholic Action, Liberation Theology, the Theology of Inculturation and the Catholic Charismatic Renewal—is particularly useful and thorough. The following four data-rich chapters focus on the different ways that linguistic and other communicative practices serve to differentiate parishioners, establishing a tension around what it means to be Q'eqchi’ and Catholic. The themes treated here include the ways religious authority is established communicatively in different ways by Charismatic and Mainstream Catholics; the deployment of differing language ideologies between the two congregations; the role of music and singing in defining communal conflict; and how the body itself, through communicative gestures and postures, becomes a site of contention between Charismatic and Mainstream Catholics. The final empirical chapter continues this attention on the body, though shifts the focus both thematically and methodologically through an examination of Holy Week processions organized by the Mainstream Catholic congregation, drawing on the author's own participation in the event to theorize how collective religious identities can be formed through shared corporeal experiences. In addition to providing an incisive summary, the conclusion offers an intriguing update on the state of religious and communal conflict in the parish, which has diminished markedly since the core research of the book was conducted between 2004 and 2006. Hoenes del Pinal's commitment to ethnography has served him well here, as it obliges critical consideration of complex, at times conflicting, local realities. The focus on language and related communicative practices calls for some specific methods—including close analysis of Spanish versus Q'eqchi’ code choice in particular ritual speech events, and systematic video recording and observation of gestures and bodily dispositions in Mainstream and Charismatic ritual contexts—which expand our understanding of how these identities are produced intersubjectively, in very particular settings. By highlighting the character of local tensions as understood and expressed by Q'eqchi themselves, considerable insight is gained into the nature of religious identities and expressions, which are clearly formed in the context of emergent and often oppositional forces and possibilities. These forces, while localized, also extend beyond the community to the various instantiations of the global Catholic church as a remarkably complex, “heteroglossic” institution. While long-term community studies have historically been a mainstay of Mesoamerican ethnography, their continued relevance has been questioned by some key figures in the field, who cite the inexorable pull of global economic forces and rise of extra-local forms of identity and ethnopolitics as demanding new research sites and methods. Hoenes del Pinal's work highlights the continued value of attention to local contexts, which is arguably where these broader possibilities and tensions are confronted, transformed and managed most acutely. Likewise, his approach to religion and the nature of conversion resists reducing these complex experiences to an inevitable by-product of other processes (economic, political, social etc.). Local Catholic identities, though diverse in their theological content and ritual expression, have proven remarkably sticky through all these transformations, a fact which challenges a key observation emerging from the Anthropology of Christianity, which posits that conversion to Charismatic forms is experienced in terms of a near absolute break with previous lifeways. As with any well-focussed ethnographic study, questions remain for future consideration. Of particular interest here is the intriguing decline in local conflict between Charismatics and Mainstream Catholics in the decade following the principal period of fieldwork, and the remarkable unifying popularity of a new evangelization project which emerged from the Fifth Episcopal Conference of Latin America held in Aparecida, Brazil in 2007. Dubbed las santas misiones (the holy missions), this project seems less directly concerned with specific issues of doctrine or practice than with creating ways to proudly perform Catholic identities through a range of public activities and displays. As Hoenes del Pinal notes, this project has proved popular among a broad swathe of local Catholics, including an increasing number of non-indigenous parishioners. It is here, perhaps, that a closer consideration of the mechanisms of institutional power may be warranted, particularly at the diocesan level. Especially intriguing is the apparent decline in support for inculturation theology, which had strongly colored local understandings of Mainstream Catholicism for so many years, and which is considered by some scholars of Latin American religion to be key to the future success, whatever that may look like, of the Catholic Church in the region. This monograph is an essential addition to the literature on religious conversion and ethnic identity in Guatemala and beyond. The focus on language and communication in particular helps move forward key debates in the Anthropology of Christianity (and the Anthropology of Catholicism more specifically). It would be a welcome addition to classes on Mesoamerican Studies, Religious Studies, ethnicity, and language and culture.

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