Qeqchi

The Qeqchi are a Maya people whose pre-Hispanic homeland was the hill country of central Guatemala, around Alta and Baja Verapaz, then called Tezulutlan, the land of war. Their traditions recall a migration from central Mexico into the Guatemalan highlands, where they settled as maize farmers under their own kings and laws.

Their religion centred on the Tzuultaq'a, mountain and valley spirits who dwelt in caves and watched over rain, crops and game. The Spanish, who began conquering Guatemala in the 1520s, found their towns difficult to subdue.

Bartolome de las Casas was entrusted with peaceful conversion, and Dominican missionaries established churches and gathered villages, but many communities retreated into the forests. Plantations and slave raids pressed those who remained, and Qeqchi families migrated into the Peten lowlands, Caribbean coast, southern Belize and Chiapas, making their language the most widely dispersed Mayan tongue.