Eric Hoenes del Pinal: Guarded by Two Jaguars: a Catholic Parish Divided by Language and Faith

Eric Hoenes del Pinal's anthropological study about a Catholic Parish in Cobán, Alta Verapaz, Guatemala, is an analysis of two lay groups in a mostly indigenous (Q'eqchi) Catholic parish in the Guatemalan Highlands.The book's most important theme concerns the conflict between these two indigenous groups-the older and dominant mainline Catholics, who consist of catechists and other active members, and members of the newer Catholic Charismatic Renewal movement.The analysis of this conflict includes the way religious identities and boundaries are constructed through rituals, including theological discourse, gestures, music, and the different uses of the indigenous and Spanish languages.The bulk of the book's data derives from fieldwork done over the course of a year, in 2005 and 2006.In the final chapter, an update of developments is provided with data from fieldwork collected in the summers of 2015 and 2017.Hoenes del Pinal received an Honoree Mention of the Geertz price in 2023 for this book.The biographical information about the author is important because he grew up in Cobán, the town that is the subject of the book.Although not indigenous himself, Hoenes del Pinal speaks and reads Q'eqchi, the indigenous language of the subject area.This ability aided his research, given the book's subject and main theme: the impact of languages and locality on ethnic and religious identities.The work is divided into seven chapters, not including the Introduction and Conclusion.In the Introduction, titled "Catholicism as Heteroglossia," Hoenes del Pinal provides some theoretical information, principally concerning Mikail Mikhailovich Bakhtin's term "heteroglossia" (p.20-26) and information from "The Anthropology of (Catholic) Christianity (in Guatemala)" (p.14-20).Also important is