Awakatek people

The indigenous people of the Aguateken, also Aguacatecas, Awakateken or after their self-designation Balamiha lives, relatively isolated in the highlands of the Central American country Guatemala in the department of Huehuetenango. A small minority of Aguateken lives in the south of neighboring Mexico.

The traditional way of Aguateken based on the cultivation of maize and beans, and still pursue many Aguateken an agricultural lifestyle with vegetable cultivation for subsistence and cultivation of sugar cane as a cash crop. Because of the reduction indigenous communal land ownership in Guatemala, many Aguateken of wage labor turned to the agricultural sector.

The language of Aguateken, the Awakatekische, belongs to the group of languages ​​within the Mam Mayan languages ​​.