Ixchiguán

Ixchiguán

Native women clothing from Ixchiguán.
Ixchiguán

Location in Guatemala

Coordinates: 15°10′03″N 91°55′55″W / 15.16750°N 91.93194°W / 15.16750; -91.93194
County Guatemala
Department San Marcos
Government
 • Mayor David Pérez[1] (LIDER)
Climate Cwb

Ixchiguán is a municipality in the San Marcos department of Guatemala. The economy is based on temporary work force on the coffee plantations, respectively on a male migrating work force in Mexico.

Mam, which is one of the Mayan languages of Guatemala, is spoken in Ixchiguán and in the neighborhood of the city. In two or three villages around the city, the indigenous people speak also K'iche', another language that belongs to the Mayan languages group.

History

Spanish Colony

Main article: Tejutla, San Marcos
Bishop Pedro Cortés y Larraz portrait; he arrived to Tejutla in 1770.

In 1690, Tejutla had a large area and included the modern municipalities of Comitancillo, Ixchiguán, Concepción Tutuapa, Sipacapa, Sibinal, Tajumulco, Tacaná and part of what is now San Miguel Ixtahuacán. According to the historical writings from Recordación Florida of Francisco Antonio de Fuentes y Guzmán, Tejutla belonged to Quetzaltenango Department and it was a "prosperous land with rich weathers and comfortable forest with enough water".[2]

Tejutla was an important commercial and religious center; in August 1767, Joseph Domingo Hidalgo described Santiago Tejutla as "El Curato" -i.e., the focal center of commerce of all the towns that were around it− in the Gaceta de Guatemala, the official newspaper of the times. Then, in the last quarter of the 18th century, bishop Dr. Pedro Cortés y Larraz, who arrived from Cuilco in 1770 as part of the inspection he was doing of the Guatemalan dioceses, called Tejutla "Santiago en la Cima del Monte" (English: Santiago at the top of the hill" and reported that there were "sixty four families who lived very well" in the area.[3]

After independence from Spain

The Central American United Provinces constitution from 11 October 1821, showed Tejutla under modern San Marcos jurisdiction for the very first time.

In 1870 Tejutla reached "Villa" category and, due to its development, its authorities requested to the House of Representatives of Guatemala to be named a Department capital. The department was going to have the municipalities mentioned above, along with the modern municipalities of Cuilco, Santa Bárbara and San Gaspar, Huehuetenango, from the modern Huehuetenango Department. Besides, in those days, Motocintla, Cacahuatán and Tapachula—which would go definitively to México in 1892 due to the Herrera-Mariscal treaty[4][5]— were under the jurisdiction of the secular convent located in Tejutla. Furthermore, Tejutla even had House representatives of its own in those days.

But power shifted when the conservatives led by field marshall Vicente Cerna werfe defeated by the liberal forces of generals Miguel Garcia Granados and Justo Rufino Barrios −who was a San Lorenzo native; once the liberals were in power, the expelled the regular clergy from Guatemala and abolishing mandatory tithing for the secular clergy, thus leaving Tejutla without their main administrative and leadership support, the "curato". In fact, Barrios government confiscated monasteries, large extensions of farm land, sugar mills and Indian doctrines from the regular orders and then distributed it to his liberal friend and comrades, who became large landowners in the area.[6]

Ixchiguán was established as municipality on 9 August 1933; later in the 20th century, many people from Ixchiguán have migrated to Worthington, Minnesota, a city that is considered a center of Mam speakers in the United States.

Climate

Ixchiguán has temperate climate (Köppen: Cwb).

Climate data for Ixchiguán
Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Year
Average high °C (°F) 14.7
(58.5)		 14.8
(58.6)		 16.4
(61.5)		 16.8
(62.2)		 15.8
(60.4)		 15.0
(59)		 14.8
(58.6)		 15.2
(59.4)		 14.7
(58.5)		 14.3
(57.7)		 14.8
(58.6)		 15.0
(59)		 15.19
(59.33)
Daily mean °C (°F) 7.7
(45.9)		 7.6
(45.7)		 9.1
(48.4)		 10.0
(50)		 10.3
(50.5)		 10.3
(50.5)		 10.1
(50.2)		 9.9
(49.8)		 10.1
(50.2)		 9.6
(49.3)		 8.9
(48)		 8.6
(47.5)		 9.35
(48.83)
Average low °C (°F) 0.7
(33.3)		 0.5
(32.9)		 1.8
(35.2)		 3.2
(37.8)		 4.9
(40.8)		 5.7
(42.3)		 5.5
(41.9)		 4.7
(40.5)		 5.6
(42.1)		 4.9
(40.8)		 3.0
(37.4)		 2.2
(36)		 3.56
(38.42)
Average precipitation mm (inches) 15
(0.59)		 11
(0.43)		 25
(0.98)		 70
(2.76)		 180
(7.09)		 271
(10.67)		 193
(7.6)		 224
(8.82)		 290
(11.42)		 183
(7.2)		 42
(1.65)		 18
(0.71)		 1,522
(59.92)
Source: Climate-Data.org[7]

Geographic location

Ixchiguá is surrounded by San Marcos Department municipalities:

 Tacaná, San José Ojetenam and Tejutla Tejutla
Sibinal Tejutla
   Ixchiguán  
Tajumulco[8] Tejutla[8]

See also

Notes and references

References

  1. ↑ "San Marcos elige autoridades municipales". Prensa Libre (in Spanish). Guatemala. 8 September 2015. Retrieved 8 September 2015.
  2. ↑ Fuentes y Guzmán 1932.
  3. ↑ Cortés y Larraz 1770.
  4. ↑ Comisión Guatemalteca de Límites con México (1900). Memoria sobre la cuestión de límites entre Guatemala y México (in Spanish). Guatemala: Tipografía Nacional. p. 325.
  5. ↑ "Nuestras fronteras". La Ilustración Guatemalteca (in Spanish). Guatemala: Síguere, Guirola y Cía. I (13). 1896.
  6. ↑ Castellanos Cambranes, Julio (1992). "5. Tendencias del desarrollo agrario en el siglo XIX y surgimiento de la propiedad capitalista de la tierra en Guatemala" (PDF). 500 años de lucha por la tierra. Estudios sobre propiedad rual y reforma agraria en Guatemala (in Spanish). Guatemala: FLACSO. 1.
  7. ↑ "Climate: Ixchiguán". Climate-Data.org. Retrieved 5 September 2015.
  8. 1 2 SEGEPLAN. "Municipios del departamento de San Marcos". Secretaría General de Planificación. Archived from the original on 10 July 2015.

Bibliography

  • Cortés y Larraz, Pedro (1770). Descripción Geográfico-Moral de la Diócesis de Goathemala (in Spanish). Guatemala: Diócesis de Guatemala. 
  • Fuentes y Guzmán, Francisco Antonio de (1932) [1690]. Recordación Florida. Discurso historial y demostración natural, material, militar y política del Reyno de Guatemala. Biblioteca Goathemala de la Sociedad de Geografía e Historia Volumen VI (in Spanish). I-III. Guatemala: Tipografía Nacional. 
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