Jolom konob

Jolom Konob is the Q'anjob'al name of Santa Eulalia, high in Guatemala's Cuchumatan Mountains. The name, often translated as head of the people, preserves an Indigenous identity alongside the town's Spanish saint's name. The municipality dates its organization as a colonial pueblo to 1550, within the parish of Soloma and the jurisdiction of Totonicapan, under Mercedarian supervision. Religious authority did not belong exclusively to the Catholic clergy. The traditional Maya officeholders known as alcaldes rezadores maintained an archive that included colonial tribute books, boundary disputes with neighbouring communities, and memories of Lacandon attacks and expeditions against them. These records joined spiritual responsibilities to the defence of communal history and territory. The Catholic church also preserved traces of colonial worship, including manuscripts of sacred music and a bell dated 1710. Together, the Indigenous archive and the church's surviving objects reveal a highland community whose institutions developed through the encounter between Maya traditions and Spanish colonial government.