“Gather grain and seeds and gather the shoots, for times of drought and hunger are coming. Sharpen your weapons, for enemies hidden behind the mountains and hills will not be long in stalking the ease and wealth of these lands with greed.” From Popol Vuh, a text recounting the cosmology, mythology and history of the highland Maya people in Guatemala, circa 1550.
Rabinal’s soil and the memory of its seeds
The soil of Rabinal, a small town located in the department of Baja Verapaz, Guatemala, holds stories of resistance and memory. At dawn, the sound of the ‘metate’ grinding stone and the aroma of corn reflect the continuity of an ancient agricultural tradition of the Maya Achi people. These communities have cultivated maize, beans and amaranth for centuries, integrating their cosmovision into planting and respect for the land.
The town’s older men, guardians of ancestral knowledge, have passed on agricultural techniques based on the observation of the moon and the winds, ensuring the adaptation of crops to climatic changes. Among all plants, amaranth has been a symbol of resilience, thriving in poor soils and withstanding drought.
The arrival of the colonisers brought attempts to erase these practices through the prohibition of crops and traditions. However, seeds like amaranth survived in hidden corners thanks to strategies of agricultural resistance. Through centuries of violence and oppression, those who understood the value of each seed ensured its continuity, preserving not only food but also history and culture.
Amaranth in times of war and resistance
Amaranth has not only withstood the passage of time, but it has also survived war.
During the long internal armed conflict in Guatemala (1960-1996), Rabinal was the scene of massacres, forced displacement and the ‘scorched earth’ strategy of burning crops and thereby poisoning water sources. The military sought not only to eliminate people, but also to erase their way of life, forcing communities to integrate into ‘model villages’ under strict control. This left thousands of people without livelihoods.
Aniceta Toj and Luisa Manuel Xitumul, two Maya Achi women, recall the fear and hunger in those days when they could neither plant nor work. Luisa from the community of Panacal, remembers: “There came a point when the law prevented us from working, and we started to go hungry. We had no tortillas, no beans. After a month, the generals arrived and gathered the remaining people of Panacal to ask us if we wanted to live or die.”
When violence wiped out entire villages, many families fled, taking only the bare necessities. Some people buried seeds in containers and cloths before fleeing. Rabinal’s villages fell silent. The survivors were forced into a daily struggle against hunger, wandering in the mountains, hiding and surviving on whatever the jungle had to offer.
When 19-year-old Aniceta fled her village, she first buried amaranth seeds. She survived in the mountains by feeding on roots, and there she gave birth to her son, alone, relying on the knowledge passed down by her mother and what she had learnt in her training to become a midwife. With the birth of her child, she embodied the resilience of the Indigenous women of her village. Despite adversity, these women take care of life.
Aniceta, a Mayan Achi leader and guardian of seeds, sits in the corridor of her house in Rabinal, Baja Verapaz. In her traditional dress, embroidered with flowers. Photo: Lesli Liliana Juárez Alvarado
When the first leaves sprouted, not only the land that began to heal but the community itself
Amidst the uncertainty, the memory of amaranth persisted. In the evenings, the elderly people invoked the crops that once fed their villages. In their words, amaranth was resistance itself.
Some of these peasants eventually found the seeds that their ancestors had hidden before the war, protected by the earth as witnesses to a future that still seemed possible. Others were not so fortunate; the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation (FAFG) has documented more than 100 clandestine burial sites in this region, many involving peasants who were returning to their villages for food.
The return to Rabinal and the restoration of the land
After years of flight, some of the survivors returned to Rabinal. What they found was desolate: destroyed villages, barren fields, soil hardened by war and neglect. Aniceta Toj anxiously dug into the earth where her home had once stood. Her trembling hands found what she had buried before she fled: amaranth seeds, untouched and waiting.
Amaranth not only represented hope for the community; it was a real opportunity. Research has shown that its seeds can be preserved for years and that its root systems help to regenerate degraded soils. Aniceta did not know about these studies, but her intuition and memory told her how to care for the soil. She patiently removed the stones from the land, waited for the rain and sowed. When the first leaves sprouted, it was not only the land that began to heal but the community itself.
Luisa Manuel Xitumul experienced her return in the same way. “There was no corn. As women we started to get together and addressed our problems by sowing seeds to produce food,” she recalls.
The rebirth of amaranth attracted attention. Neighbours arrived, first with curiosity, then with questions, and then with their own seeds in their hands. They understood that shared planting generates spaces for meeting and collaboration; these were fundamental elements in the reconstruction of social networks after the war.
Although many still considered amaranth as a grain of the past, others recognised its value. Community organisations such as Qachuu Aloom, a Maya Achi women-led organisation in Baja Verapaz, played a key role in the recovery of amaranth, promoting both its consumption and its relevance to food sovereignty. “Before, amaranth was the basis of our food; it was the gold of our ancestors, and that is why they were wise people. Now, after its forced disappearance, we are starting to grow it again and we are giving it to families as the main food to strengthen food sovereignty,” according to the women who work with the organisation.
Amaranth and the fight against malnutrition
The effects of the armed conflict in Guatemala left deep scars on the land and on the collective memory and nutrition of its communities. The war worsened Indigenous peoples’ food security, leaving generations in a situation of extreme vulnerability. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and UNICEF, some 46 per cent of children in Guatemala suffer from chronic malnutrition, which severely limits their physical and intellectual development.
Research published in 2024 by the Autonomous Regional University of the Andes, entitled Amaranth enterprise development: a path to food sovereignty and reduction of malnutrition, highlights that amaranth, because of its high protein, vitamin and mineral content, is an essential resource for combating malnutrition and strengthening food security. According to the study, the communities that grow and consume amaranth recognise its positive impact on reducing malnutrition in rural areas, especially among children.
They recovered ancestral recipes that the war had nearly stolen from them
For families in Rabinal, this information was not new. After the war, women began to revive their traditional practices , combining amaranth flour with corn to make tortillas and atoles (a thick, hot drink made with corn, water or milk and sweetener). In this way they recovered ancestral recipes that the war had nearly stolen from them.
The FAO recognises amaranth as an exceptionally resilient crop that is fundamental to the identity of Indigenous communities. However, while amaranth was returning to the fields and tables in Rabinal, in other countries its value was growing for different reasons. Since the 1990s, amaranth has been promoted for its health benefits and sold as a ‘superfood’ in health food shops and specialised supermarkets in the United States, Japan and Europe.
But with fame came danger. The organisation GRAIN has denounced large corporations for trying to appropriate ancestral crops under the pretext of ‘agricultural development’. Amaranth, like quinoa and other traditional grains, has fallen victim to biopiracy; companies are patenting improved varieties and privatising knowledge that belongs to Indigenous peoples. For Rabinal farmers, this meant a new struggle. They not only had to cultivate amaranth, but also to protect it again.
Aniceta and other women from Rabinal realised that their work could not stop with planting. If amaranth fell into the hands of large companies, its community value would disappear. Starting in 2003, they rescued seeds, formed collectives to share them and thereby established support networks with other Indigenous communities. Little by little, amaranth regained its place in local markets. It was sold alongside maize and beans, reaffirming its importance in daily diets. Today, each seed exchanged and each new plot sown is a declaration of resistance. What was once considered a forgotten food is now a symbol of recovery and sovereignty.
At dusk, when the heat subsides and the air smells of damp earth, Aniceta walks among her plants and touches the leaves with the same devotion her grandmother once did. She doesn’t speak of struggle or resistance, though that is exactly what she embodies. She speaks of planting, of caring, and of waiting. She knows the land has its own time and that, in the end, it always gives back what is entrusted to it. Like seeds, the memory of her people had found a way to survive.
Today, Aniceta is working with Qachuu Aloom. Together with over 500 women, she is part of a powerful network of seed guardians who are protecting more than 70 native and creole varieties of corn, beans, squash and other traditional crops. For them, every seed is a story, every harvest an act of resistance, and every planting season a step toward food sovereignty and cultural survival.
Author: Luisa María Castaño Hernández is Groundswell International’s communications coordinator for Latin America and the Caribbean. Contact: lhernandez@groundswellinternational.org
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This article is part of Issue 2-2025: Cultivating health and healing
