The Indigenous History of El Salvador

The Settlement of Copan from Southeastern El Salvador

Copan is one of the most important Classic Maya sites, the center of a kingdom from the 5th century CE (AD) until the 9th century CE. Archeologists have determined that Copan's elite were Ch'orti' Maya, but it was a multi-cultural site with many ethnic enclaves. One of those enclaves was the Poton Lenca, with their most important base at Quelepa, El Salvador.

According to Poton tradition, when Copan collapsed soon after 822 CE, the Poton royalty at Copan returned to El Salvador and settled at Sesori, currently in northern San Miguel department. From Sesori they created a Lenca federation with at least 60 affiliated villages. The modern Poton royalty trace their lineage directly from the Sesori leadership.

Before Copan was a Maya kingdom, it was a river valley with at least 1800 years of human settlement. Archeologists have determined, mainly by examining ceramics, that this early settlement of Copan was not Maya but Lenca. See, for example, Cameron L. McNeil, "The Environmental Record of Human Populations and Migrations in the Copan Valley, Honduras," in The Ch'orti' Maya Area Past and Present (Metz, McNeil, and Hull).

The two most likely dates for the settlement of the Copan valley are 2300 BCE (Before Common Era) or 1400 BCE, according to McNeil. Pollen grain has been dated to 2300 BCE that is either corn or teosinte grass. If it is teosinte it could have been either naturally ocurring or cultivated, since teosinte was cultivated by early Mesoamerican cultures to hybridize with corn. Of the ceramic shards found in the valley, the oldest possible date is 1400 BCE. The encountered ceramics that have been dated at between 1400 BCE to 100 CE indicate a non-Maya presence with the closest affinity to the El Salvador Pacific Coast (Lenca) or Olmec (consistent with a Lenca presence).

The 2300 BCE date seems more likely - the encountered seeds could be wild teosinte but it seems like quite a coincidence. The 2300 BCE date is about 300 years before the time of the major expansion for both the Maya and the Lenca out of their homelands in El Salvador to northern Honduras, Belize, northern Guatemala, and the Chiapas/western Guatemala Pacific coast. At the time of 2300 BCE, the Lenca were primarily centered in southeastern El Salvador, at Lago Olomeka (now Olomega) and nearby villages like Tihuilotal. If Copan was settled in 2300 BCE it would have been by the Lenca from the Lago Olomeka area of southeastern El Salvador.

If, instead, Copan was settled in 1400 BCE or soon thereafter, it would have been equally clear a Lenca settlement, given the type of ceramic that has been found there. By 1400 BCE the Lenca had an Atlantic coast settlement near the mouth of the Ulua River at Travesia. They might have had settlements in the Comayagua Valley and around Lago Yojoa as well. But even if some of the settlement push to Copan came from one of these Honduran sites, the major cultural and political push would have been from southeastern El Salvador, either from Quelepa or Lago Olomeka, since this area remained at this time the center of the Lenca people. Given the ceramic record at Copan, it seems that there was contact between Copan and southeastern El Salvador throughout the pre-Classic period.

The Maya arrived in about 100 CE to Copan. While it is more commonly thought that this first presence was Ch'olan from nearby, my belief is that it was a Kanjobal migration directly from Teotihuacan. This would help explain the bat symbolism common at Copan. Bat is the totem of the Kanjobal, who came out of the bat room of the cave with the Quiche, unlike the Ch'olan and Lenca ancestors who came out of the jaguar room. Then with the Ilopango eruption in about 420 CE causing all of western El Salvador to be uninhabitable for at least 100 years, a large migration of Ch'olan people arrived at Copan. Most likely both to assist his Ch'olan cousins but also seeing the opportunity to extend Tikal's influence, K'inich Yax K'uk' Mo' led a migration from Tikal to Copan. Under his direction the first dated monument was built in 427 CE, marking the beginning of the Copan high civilization. It is likely that at this time or soon thereafter, the Lenca were welcomed back to Copan since the Ch'olan migrants from western El Salvador were very friendly with the Lenca.

When the Maya created the tremendous Copan kingdom there was a Lenca enclave at Copan. This enclave would have maintained contact with all the Lenca centers in Honduras and El Salvador, including Quelepa. Thus from 2300 BCE or 1400 BCE until the time of Copan's collapse in about 830 CE - that is, for over 2,200 years - the Lenca people travelled between southeastern El Salvador and Copan, with only a small break from about 100 CE to 430 CE.

What route did the Lenca follow? It is possible that they used the length of the Lempa River to travel by canoe at least half the distance of the journey. This might have happened on the downstream journey from Copan to Olomeka, but given the Lempa's current it is unlikely a river journey was used going upstream. Most of the time they likely traveled by foot. The map details what I think is a likely route. The route avoids major rivers, for example, by staying east and north of the Lempa. The route also passes through some villages later well known as Lenca centers, such as Sesori and Arcatao.

In fact, the Quelepa - Copan trail is the best explanation for the concentration of Lenca villages in eastern Chalatenango, far from the main concentrations of Lenca villages in far eastern El Salvador. Six of the 60 named Lenca villages from 900 CE are in Chalatenango, with only a handful between those and the eastern ones beginning with Sesori.

By beginning to explore the possible routes between major trade centers we gain clues to the origin of many places along the way.

From Teosinte to Corn, But Where did Teosinte Come From?

The Mayan, Lencan, and Pipil peoples that now populate much of El Salvador, as well as Honduras and Guatemala, were born of corn. The gods are associated with corn, including both the diseased corn (pellegra), associated with Ixbalamque, and the perfect corn, treated with ash or lime water, associated with Hunapa. And the first Mayan people were made were of perfect corn dough (masa).

Scientists now know that corn was hybridized from Balsas teosinte grass in southwestern Mexico by 6700 BC. The Guatemalan teosinte found in the highlands of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, is similar but was not used at first to hybridize corn.

But where did teosinte come from? When did the very early hunter-gatherers of Mesoamerica first learn that they could eat teosinte? And was it as revered by those early people as much as corn was for the Mayans, Lencas, and Pipiles?

Among many Mesoamerican people teosinte is associated with birds and it is possible that the plethora of bird gods is a collective memory of early peoples learning from birds to eat the teosinte kernels. Certainly teosinte would have been an important food substance at least until about 3000 BC when corn hybridization would have improved to the point where growing corn would have begun to replace gathering wild teosinte. Early peoples ground up teosinte and made it into a drink. It continues to be used by people in parts of Mexico and Guatemala as both a food product and to hybridize with corn to bring out certain qualities - such as resistance to disease.

One of the most surprising things about teosinte, is that nobody today calls it 'teosinte'. Anthropologists have not found any indigenous or Spanish speaking communities that call teosinte grass, 'teosinte'. Among the names used by the Chorti Mayas, for example, are ixim ka, wild corn. So where did the name come from? To help answer that, I have mapped the ten occurrences of the place name 'teosinte' or 'teocinte', 'teocintli'. [Click to enlarge]

Most of the occurrences of Teosinte are located in the Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador tri-border region. There is also one southeast of the area on this map in Nicaragua, Cerro Teosintal. Surprisingly, there are two place names of 'teosinte' many hundreds of miles away in Jalisco, just south of Puerto Vallarta. Many assume that the name teosinte comes from the nahua, teocintli. However, there is only one place with that name in Mexico. In addition, very few place names in the areas surrounding the eight Central American places are of nahua origin (pipil in the case of El Salvador).

This indicates that the name probably originated somewhere in the Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador region and that perhaps this was the first place that the very early indigenous, in the 12,000 to 7000 BC period, began gathering teosinte kernels. As such, teosinte must come from the proto Mesoamerican language that gave rise to the Mayan, Lencan, Chibchan, and other language groups. What is remarkable is that these place names still exist. That would mean that these places have been remembered for perhaps 10,000 years of continuous human settlement as sources of sustenance. So how did the name teosinte get to Puerto Vallarta? More on that another time.

I have been to the two Teosinte villages in central and eastern Chalatenango. In eastern Chalatenango, Teosinte is a village outside of Arcatao, in an area that was Lenca at the time of the Spanish occupation. There is a lot of wild grass growing in the hills above Arcatao, like La Cañada.

In central Chalatenango, Teosinte is a village northeast of Tejutla, in an area that was Chorti Maya in 1525 AD. It is a beautiful village. Teosinte, like Arcatao, is an organized community, part of CRIPDES, and a sister city to Arlington, Massachusetts. In 1991 I took a hike up into the hills above Teosinte and found wide expanses of wild grass. It may not have been 'teosinte' but for 10,000 years this has likely been a source of sustenance for the peoples of El Salvador. Considering its location so close to the Matamaras cave along the Sumpul River, this area should be investigated for signs of very early human activity, like the Corinto cave in eastern El Salvador.

Arcatao, Inspiration of the Maya, the Lenca, and the Bloque Popular

Arcatao, retroguardia of Lempira and the FMLN
inspiration of the Maya, the Lenca, and the Bloque Popular (social movement)

Anyone who has been to Arcatao knows that it is a magical place. It is a place alive with the spirits of those who have gone before. Every tree and rock seems to ooze wisdom, humor, strength, and a humble confidence. So many great leaders of the revolutionary movement have come from Arcatao - Violeta Menjívar, Facundo Guardado, and María Chichilco, to name only a few. Perhaps going back to the beginning will help to explain why.

In Arcatao there is a story about the creation of the town that a long time ago a priest came to people living on a nearby mountain, Iremón, and eventually convinced them to move down to the valley where Arcatao is now located, involving some theatrics of the mysterious moving of the statue of the town's patron saint.

There is likely to be truth to this story, but it might not have been Catholic priests, as is currently believed. The line of the Potón-Lenca royalty, based in Sesori, San Miguel, traces its lineage back to 900 A.D., when the Chorti Maya city of Copán was collapsing at the end of the Maya Classic period, due to overpopulation and resource depletion. The Chorti people, including leaders and scientists, moved in many directions, including a significant migration to western Chalatenango. One Chorti group went to Sesori and joined with the local Potón Lenca to reinvigorate the Lenca civilization.

The Lenca story says that the civilization was created by founding many towns, stretching from La Unión in the east to eastern Chalatenango. Three towns were created in Chalatenango - Potonico, Guancora (now renamed Comunidad Ignacio Ellacuría, and Arcatao. Who settled these towns? Generally, there may have been a few educated Chortis from Copán who moved to each town in order to provide direction and teach people more advanced agricultural techniques, astronomy, and the rhythm of Mayan life. However, most of the people would have been from the surrounding hills, including La Cañada, Gaulcimaca, and Iremón. The Lencas sent out organizers to live among people, learn from them, but also to help teach and guide them. The social movement of the masas (people of the corn) was already being created in 10th Century AD.

So, it may have been a Chorti or Lenca priest, not a Catholic priest, that helped to found the town 1,100 years ago. However, there is a vague clue that Arcatao may be even older than that. The Salvadoran archeologist and historian, Antonio R. Arocha, has a map in his book, El Salvador, La Antigua Patria Maya, of the Mayan temples and towns that were built in El Salvador, each representing a region and together being a federation of regions. One of the 12 sites on the map is Arcatao. Unfortunately there is no narrative or explanation.

A second source, the entry for Arcatao on Wikipedia in Spanish, says that there are Mayan ruins, including a temple, on top of the Iremón mountain, eight kilometers south of Arcatao. No source is listed for this information. I checked on google earth and I sure don’t see any temple on Iremón, so I’m not so sure, LOL. More importantly, the Mayans were not know to build religious sites on the tops of mountains.

Finally, a third source also points to this possibility. In colonial times the Spanish bishops kept detailed records. In the 17th century El Salvador was part of the Diocesis of Guatemala. The Bishop would make the rounds to various portions of the Diocesis and one year ventured to Suchitoto. From there the Bishop went 10 leagues to the northeast and there visited an old indigenous community where there were also the ruins of a Mayan religious site. Each league for the Spanish was 4.2 kilometers, approximated by how far one can walk in one hour. Arcatao is located approximately 36 kilometers (8.5 leagues) northeast of Suchitoto, but I would guess it would take more than 8 1/2 hours to make that hike, even with a mule.

If there are Mayan ruins in the Arcatao area, they would have to date from the Classic Maya period (400 to 800 AD) or earlier, since the Lencas in the post Classic period (after 900 AD) were not known to construct ceremonial religious sites. I believe that if there is a large Mayan site in Arcatao it is not located up on the mountain but underneath the town’s central plaza and Catholic church. Every time that I have trudged up the steep approach to the plaza I have been reminded of the steep pyramids at Copán and Chalchuapa.

For those who have travelled extensively in Latin America it is typical to hear stories of the Spanish building churches or cathedrals on top of the ancient ruins of holy indigenous sites. This was obviously to wipe out the old religion and replace it with the new, hoping that the veneration for the old religious site would stay associated with the place and the new religion. Could it be that the Bishop who visited the area of Arcatao in the 17th Century ordered that a church be built on top of the old Mayan ruins that may be located there? Perhaps the goats that roam the churchyard know the answer.

One time when I was visiting Arcatao, a Mayan merchant of clothing and cloth ventured into town and stayed for many days. I was struck by how this man arrived in the first place, but even more so by how at home this man was and how he seemed to know the town. It seemed as if it wasn’t by chance that Arcatao was on the trade route of this Mayan merchant. Maybe Arcatao is part of an ancient trade route been Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.

One more history of Arcatao is worth telling. In the first century of Spanish occupation, the local viceroy kept meticulous records of the Spanish settlers in order to exact heaving tributes to go to the King of Spain. There is record that Arcatao was settled by Miguel Diaz. In 1548 he was growing cotton, cutaras (can someone translate?), and algarpatas (plant to make rope) there. There is an unclear reference that Arcatao may also have been called ‘Xuzclan’, a Mayan name. It could be that ‘Xuzclan’ is its Chorti Maya name, while ‘Arcatao’ is clearly a Lenca name.

The Spanish colonial records of the 1540s also state that Arcatao was in the area that recently been at war. This clearly refers to the efforts of the Spanish to subjugate the indigenous peoples. To call it a war means that the subjugation of Arcatao was not a simple, quick process. The Chorti Maya, based out of the area of Nueva Concepción, Tejutla, and Citalá were known to have fought against the Spanish from about 1527 to 1530, when they were defeated. However, the Lenca, led by a joint female-male command of Antu Silan Ulap and Lempira, also fought the Spanish in Honduras and El Salvador from 1528 to 1537. Because Arcatao was primarily a Lenca town and because of its proximity to many Lenca towns in Honduras, I think that the reference to war in Arcatao was part of the war that Lempira fought.

Some of the roots of the struggle for social justice that are so strong in Arcatao are linked back to Lempira and the struggle by the Lenca against the Spanish occupation – roots that Arcatao shares with the current struggle of the people of Honduras for social justice and true democracy against a coup government and those in the international community who support its farcical electoral process.

Today, Arcatao, as described in a community blog, is part of the rural organized communities of El Salvador, CRIPDES, perhaps similar to the Lenca federation that it was part of 1,000 years ago. It received support in the past from Copán and Sesori, today it is supported by the Madison Arcatao Sister City Project.