And though Hoy represented Belize with a full heart, The Sarstoon Temash Institute for Indigenous Management expressed their discontent in an open letter on Hoy's costume selection. Her costume was inspired by Xwankil the Mayan deer dance, which is also a religious ritual practiced by the Mayas. Their letter details that "This sacred, ritualized clothing should never be a vehicle for something else, however well-intentioned. In this case, the Deer Dance was descrecrated for a beauty pageant." End quote,.
We asked Hoy about this today and she says that the costume display and creation was not done with any ill intent.
Halima Hoy, Miss Universe Belize
"That is a group effort from the entire organization but we had no malintentions when we did it we had all good intentions to represent our country and represent something that is deeply rooted in our history that we all share as Belizeans."
"I am proud to have represented something that beautiful something that is rooted in the Belizean culture and I just feel like moving forward we do maybe need to you know consult or something like that but I am very proud of the performance I got a lot of positive feedback from the costume a lot of the young women were asking me what it meant and my eyes just lit up when I was sharing the story with them and I believe a lot of people will know that part of tradition in Belize and furthermore it's also something very impactful because it has a message of climate action and you know that our leaders are currently championing for climate action at COP29."
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