What I got my Mom

The Red and Blue/Purple runner, shawl type thing I found in a shop in Antigua Guatemala. And it is the most spectacular color and the blue pattern is all threading. And it is the only thing like it I saw. I am very proud to have rescued it from a shop where it was rumpled on a bottom shelf. I hope it's of good quality and can only wonder why no one else had bought it. It comes from the Nahuala region of Guatemala. And the other is from some of the local indians, in Antigua proper, and is more traditional of what I saw. Theresa, the woman who sold it to me said it took her mother 3wks to make. Regardless... i was like ok, I'll take it and only later became captivated by its pretty awesomeness. You'll be happy to know mom also got coffee and some extremely tasty sugarcane.

Here's some facts for you know, informationals sake:

The name Nahualá / Nahuala / Nawala' / Niwala'
Local residents translate the name Nahualá roughly as “enchanted waters,” “water of the spirits,” and “water of the shamans,” and they often object to the common Spanish translation of the name as “agua de los brujos” (or “water of the witches”). Scholars have typically argued that the name Nahualá derives from a compound of the Nahuatl term nagual or nahual (pronounced NA-wal), meaning “magician” (and related to terms for clear or powerful speech) and the K’ichee’ root ja’, meaning “water.” However, the loanword nawal, which entered the Mayan languages about a thousand years ago, came to denote “spirit[s]” or “divine co-essence[s],” as well as “shaman[s]” in K'ichee'. Some Maya linguists have argued apocryphally that the “true” name should be Nawalja’ or Nawal-ja’, disregarding that the word ja’ is regularly apocopated at the ends of words --especially toponyms-- not only in K’ichee’, but related Mayan languages. Those who promote the neologisms Nawalja’ and Nawal-ja’ also ignore that the pronunciation of the neologisms is inconsistent with the pronunciation in sixteenth-century K’ichee’- and Kaqchikel-Mayan recorded in several early colonial manuscripts written in Latin orthography by members of the native nobility.

For example, the sixteenth-century Título de Totonicapán mentions a Late Post-classic Period site called “navala,” (not “navalha”). Although scholars have argued that the site of the título corresponds to the modern community of Nahualá, it may actually correspond to a pre-colonial Nahua-, K’ichee’- and Tz’utujiil-speaking community located some 20 kilometers to the south: San Juan Nahualá or San Juan Nagualapan (later annexed as a ward of the departmental capital of San Antonio Suchitepéquez). The earliest mention of Nahualá occurs in one of the sixteenth-century Kaqchikel-language Xpantzay Títulos, which mentions a site called, “chohohche niguala” which almost certainly corresponds to a modern canton of the cabecera of Nahualá, Chojojche’ (Cho Joj Chee' = "Before [the] Crow Tree"). Several other sixteenth or early seventeenth-century titles in Spanish and K’ichee’ mention Nahualá either directly (as “Navala”) or obliquely, in terms of the landmarks of the community, including Siija (a Late Post-Classic fortress settlement located atop a hill of the same name, 12 kilometers west of Nahualá), Pa Raxk'im ("in the green bunchgrass/thatch," the name of the mountain chain that envelops most of the township's highland territory, as well as a Nahualeño village of the same name), Chi Q'al[i]b'al ("at the throne" a site located near Siija, mentioned in the Xajil chronicle popularly known as the Anales de los Cakchiqueles), Chwi' Raxon or Pa Raxon ("above the cotinga/verdure/green feathers/wealth," the mountain in the center of the township's head town), Poop Ab'aj ("Petate-Stone," a site located northeast of the town, along the precolonial road that became part of El Camino Real during the Spanish period), Xajil Juyub', Pa Tz'itee', Chwi' Patan, and others).

[edit] History
Despite early references to the community, foreign scholars and many Mayas themselves have ironically tended to claim that the community was only founded in the second half of the nineteenth century, promoting particularly apocryphal interpretations of local legends.

Nahualá was settled at least as early as the Pre-Classic Period. Archaeologist John Fox, who conducted archaeological surveys in the area during the 1970s, identified structures from the Pre-Classic, Classic, and Post-Classic Periods. Grinding stones dated to as early as 500 BCE found in archaeological sites around Quetzaltenango were likely manufactured near the cabecera of Nahualá, where residents still mine volcanic basalt and carve grinding stones that are sold throughout Guatemala’s western highlands.

[edit] Population
Nearly the entire population of the municipality is made up of K’ichee’-Mayas who speak the K'iche' language. The population of the township is estimated to be between 50,000-85,000 individuals, about 10% of whom live in the township’s head-town or cabecera. Statistics vary widely because much of the township’s territory and several large villages are also claimed by Nahualá’ sister township, Santa Catarina Ixtahuacán.