“We pray to our ancestors, reciting their prayers which have been known to us for a long time—a very, very long time. . . . For the sun, we say: ‘Heart of the sky, you are our father, we ask you to give your warmth and light to our animals, our maize, our beans, our plants, so that they may grow and our children may eat.’ We evoke the colour of the sun, and this has a special importance for us because this is how we want our children to live—like a light which shines, which shines with generosity. It means a warm heart and it means strength, life-giving strength. It’s something you never lose and you find it everywhere. So when we evoke the colour of the sun, it’s like evoking all the elements which go to make up our life. . . . We must respect the one God, the heart of the sky, which is the sun.”

—Rigoberta Menchu, from I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala, translated from the Spanish by Ann Wright, 1983.