Aguateken

The indigenous people of the Aguatek , also Aguacatecas , Awakateken or Balamiha after their self- designation , live relatively isolated in the highlands of the Central American country Guatemala in the Huehuetenango department . A small minority of the Aguatek live in the south of neighboring Mexico .

The Aguateks maintain a traditional rural way of life and practice subsistence farming based on the cultivation of vegetables (mainly maize and beans ) and sugar cane ( cash crop ) . As a result of the decline in local indigenous land holdings in Guatemala, many aguateks turned to wage labor in the agricultural sector.

The Aguatek language, Awakatec , belongs to the group of Mam languages ​​within the Maya languages .

literature

• James Stuart Olson : The Indians of Central and South America: An Ethnohistorical Dictionary . Greenwood Publishing Group, 1991. ISBN 0313263876 . P. 7.