Episode number 16 of Series “Faces of culture”.
Modern day Maya in the highlands of Mexico and Guatemala have fused the burdens of service to ancient gods and to the Christian God into the cargo system, during which a man must work his way up through four levels, paying out large amounts of money to the church, in order to gain prestige. Corn farming is no longer sufficient to pay the cargo, so that they often have to sell their labour to landowners far away from their homes. At the end of each year the cargo is passed to the next man and the next stage is undertaken.