Meeting with Tzotzil Maya Culture

Irma Pérez Hernández is a nineteen-year-old girl from the village of Chenalho on the Chiapas highlands in Mexico. She grew up at the intersection of two traditions: alongside her grandmother - a shaman, healer, and midwife - faithful to traditional Maya beliefs, and Protestantism (Presbyterian), which her mother practices.

The meeting will be opened by Prof. Witold Jacórzyński - an anthropologist living in Mexico, researcher of indigenous cultures, affiliated with Centro de Investigación y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social in Mexico City - who will speak about the lives of contemporary Maya people.

Then Irma Pérez Hernández will take the floor. She will talk about the culture, spirituality, and beliefs of the Tzotzil Maya, and will also demonstrate limpia - a ritual of spiritual body cleansing with a bundle of herbs, stemming from ancient traditions and still practiced today in Chiapas and many other indigenous cultures of Latin America; she will invite a willing audience member to participate in the ritual. She will also present several Mexican folk dances, including "La bruja", to which she will invite the audience, and will present the spiritual world (cosmovisión) of the Tzotzil Maya through her paintings - on screen and live.