The role played by the Spiritual Guide in the kaqchikel Maya community of Sumpango

Abstract

This article wants to give a witness to the educational activity of Doña Delfina Solloy Jutzuy, long-time teacher in the bilingual primary school in Guatemala and spiritual guide in the Maya kaqchikel village of Sumpango. The framework of this essay is inspired by her life story that is the result of a large interview that analyse the formative role of “guide”, role that can’t just be the results of learning, but it needs the presence of a gift, a specific talent that, in Delfina’s words has a sacred origin. The objective is to explore a different paradigm of feminine, in order to think about a kind of formation that can overcome the idea of inter-culture toward a trans-cultural one. The epistemic horizon is hermeneutic, the methodology, that has a qualitative structure, uses tools of the Ethnographic Pedagogy.