Customs, beliefs and traditions as expressions of cultural identity in the western region of Honduras

Abstract

As part of the research priorities identified by the UNAH and sponsored by the Office of Scientific Research, a study was performed that describes and interprets the state of the beliefs, customs and traditions in the collective imagination of Western region of Honduras. This study looked at a series of interviews with different key actors for research; a tool was applied to confirm and validate the information in at least six hundred people in the main departmental cities, as well as villages and hamlets in the region.

The results demonstrate a deeply rooted cultural imitation mainly in older people; many expressions of cultural identity are unknown or undervalued by the younger generation. The beliefs and traditions of the Maya Chortí and Lenca people try to survive resisting many of them to fall in to oblivion. Religious syncretism has produced a hybridization retaining pre-hispanic features as well as those imposed since the Colony.

There is a significant amount of local knowledge; forms of existence that the population has been useful for them in their daily lives. It is a knowledge filled of values and feelings, a mythical, subjective, spiritual and superstitious wisdom that is missing in the scientific landscape. These cultural expressions are the life of the people of this noble region; it has worked and it continues to run for them; their ideas, dreams, hopes and possibilities are there, want to show that they exist, are angels with a single wing and culturally, need others to fly.

Revista Ciencia y Tecnología, N° 15, December 2014: 94-110