4 - El Q’eq Roams at Night

Summary

The 1898 crisis enabled the rapid growth of German-owned plantations and fincas de mozos, where German planters carved out a partial sovereignty that included a judicial system, the appointment of representatives of state authorities, and a combination of violence and patriarchal affection. Q’eqchi’s expressed their interpretation of this new economy through the figure of El Q’eq, a half-man, half-cow, produced from the sexual union between a German coffee planter and a cow. As a hypersexualized beast charged with protecting German plantations and ensuring order, El Q’eq also revealed the territorial limits of Guatemalan state sovereignty and unsettled claims of a linear march toward a liberal nation-state. El Q’eq was also a reflection of plantation discipline, the sexual economy of plantation life, and the perversion of Q’eqchi’ morals and social norms in racial capitalism.