The Indigenous History of El Salvador

El Salvador: The Mesoamerican Cradle of Civilization

I believe that El Salvador is the place of origin of the Mayan and other Mesoamerican civilizations. Here is why:

First, as Robert Sharer (The Ancient Maya) and others have pointed out, after the major Ilopango volcano eruption of about 200 AD, which caused the sites of Chalchuapa and San Andrés to be uninhabitable, there was a massive shift in the locus of Mayan activity and culture from the Pacific coast area to the interior. This demonstrates the centrality of El Salvador during the pre-Classic period.

Second, I have traced the location of the Xibalba cave to the Gruta del Espíritu Santo in eastern El Salvador by determining that the place name “Place of Ball Game Sacrifice”, which is associated with Xibalba, is the nearby town of Corinto. Cor-in-toy means 'place of game sacrifice' in Ch’orti’ Maya.

Third, given that corn is central to Mayan cosmology and identity, examining how and where corn was hybridized gives clues to where the Mayans originated. Corn came from teosinte grass and was then continuously hybridized for thousands of years with teosinte to perfect the corn. Curiously, nearly all the place names of Teosinte occur within the tri-national area of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. Even more, determining that teosinte means “plants in a row on an island” provides an even bigger clue since there are only two islands in that same tri-national area, both in western El Salvador.

Fourth, the name of Nuevo Edén de San Juán (New Eden of St John) and the name of the village of Jardín (Garden), located in north central El Salvador at the junction of the Lempa and Torola Rivers, indicate that it is a place of origin for some group of people. In addition, it is located at a very logical place for someone who would be escaping or leaving the aforementioned Gruta cave, fleeing north into the deep jungle and then following the Torola River downstream to where it joins the Lempa River.

Finally, this post will provide a fifth point of evidence – by matching the place names mentioned in the Popol Vuh along the road to Xibalba to places in El Salvador. The Popol Vuh mentions several names near their homeland or going from the homes of the Mayans to Xibalba: “Change of Canyons”, “Rustling Canyon”, “Gurgling Canyon”, “Throng of Birds”, "Hacawitz Mountain,” and “Split Place," among others. Many of the names further east, closer to the Xibalbans, are harder to identify since the place names are in Lenca rather than Mayan, and thus do not correspond with the names in the Popol Vuh. Here are some of the place names that can be located in El Salvador.

English (Tedlock)	Quiche (Popol Vuh)	Place Name
Change of Canyons	chuchi' jalja siwanub	confluence of the Rio Desague and Rio Lempa, near Masahuat, Santa Ana

Lago Güija was one of the four islands of civilization. Leaving from Lago Güija, the Rio Desague meets the much bigger Rio Lempa and the "canyons change". The first word chuchi' means 'to its mouth', which would describe the new canyon - heading to the mouth of the Lempa (the ocean).

English (Tedlock)	Quiche (Popol Vuh)	Place Name
Rustling Canyon, Gurgling Canyon	nu' siwanub, k'ulk'uch siwanub	Rio Desague, Rio Lempa

These two names are a further descriptor of the Change of Canyons (above.) This is a play on words by the Mayans. nu' seems to refer to nuhk in Ch'orti', which means 'umbilical cord'. (The k in Ch'orti often becomes an h sound in Quiche, or in this case just dropped.) The Rio Desague drains out of Lago Güija, where güija is 'source' or 'navel'. The birthing metaphor continues with k'ulk'uch, where kur means 'pole' and is also a slang for 'penis' and kuch means 'transport', but also is slang for  'womb' or 'vagina'. (The r in Ch'orti almost always becomes an l sound in Quiche.) The "birth place" of the Mayan people was at the confluence of the Lempa and Torola Rivers, near the present day municipality of Nuevo Edén de San Juán. The Lempa River also opens up into the ocean at its mouth - another possible vagina analogy, since the Mayans are birthed out into the ocean via the mouth of the Lempa.

English	Popol Vuh	Place Name
Throng of birds	tz'ikin molay	Most likely San Salvador volcano (Quetzaltepec)

With this one, we find different meanings in Quiche and Ch'orti'. Since Ch'orti' is older and a purer form of Mayan, it is preferable to use. (Quiche has quite a lot of non-Mayan Mexican influence.) In Ch'orti', tz'ik means 'on the left' or 'to the north'. Mor means hill or pile, but mo' is also the word for 'parrot' or 'quetzal'. As the Mayans left the western part of present day El Salvador toward the Xibalbans, the Quetzal Hill (Quetzaltepec) would have been on their left, assuming travel on a similar course as is used today.

English	Quiche	Place Name
Hacawitz Mountain	Jakawitz	Usulután Volcano

The Popol Vuh speaks of Hacawitz being one of the places of the gods and the source of one of the three gifts from the gods. Hacawitz means 'bald mountain', so a volcano is an obvious choice. The Popol Vuh also seems to describe the gift as fire, which certainly obsidian flintstone would describe. Usulután means 'bald, ashy mountain' and it is a source of obsidian, so it seems to fit the description.

English	Popol Vuh	Place Name
Split Place	Pan Paxil	City of El Congo

The place name El Congo appears to come from K'om k'o or 'split tooth'. This could be a reference to tobacco which was used to treat sore or cracked teeth. In addition, 'split tooth' may have been a reference to a bat. One of the totems of the Quiche people who were based at Lago Coatepeque, next to El Congo, was the bat, since they came out of the bat room of La Gruta.

The last place name is the curiously named village of Siete Principes (Seven Princes) between the city of El Congo and the lip of Lago Coatepeque. While it could be named for a literal meeting or gathering of seven princes, it could also be named for the Mars long-count date of Seven Ahau (Junajpu in Quiche), which means Seven Lord or Seven Prince. Seven Junajpu is perhaps the most important date in Mayan history since it is associated in the Popol Vuh with the death of One Junajpu. His mistake in tracking the planets led the Mayans to discover new astronomical knowledge allowing them to later defeat their enemies. In addition, this date is associated with the first successful cultivation of squash, gourds, rubber, and chilis.

El Salvador is the original land of k'an a'n, ripe spring maize, and the land of ah k'an a'n, the maize spirit, for the Mesomerican people. It is time to see how the great Mexican civilizations of the Olmec, Zapotec, and Toltec fit into this picture.

El Salvador's Four Islands of Civilization

The beginnings of Mesoamerican civilization happened at Tulan Zuyua, Isla Tigre, in the Golfo de Fonseca. It was here that the four Mayan-Mesoamerican tribe leaders attained greatness by communicating with the gods at the center of the galaxy, with the aid of a tobacco smoke bath, one of the three gifts of the gods. But the tribe leaders sought to establish greatness on earth and to do that they knew that they needed to begin to work the earth.

Leading this effort was the Quiche Maya leader who was renamed Masa Manix. Masa or "Deer" for copying the deer in trying various leaves, fruits, nuts, and berries to see if they were edible. And Manix or "Work the earth" for having the vision of cultivating edible plants toward the end of establishing a way of life based on agriculture. But the tribes had to find sites that were on islands in order to keep their people, as well as their experimental gardens, safe from the Xibalban lords who were afraid of water. The tribes learned that they were safe in water during the escape from the cave, La Gruta del Espíritu Santo. Even the babies were safe when place on reed baskets in the water.

The four leaders and their tribal followers left Isla Tigre toward the north and then headed west into present-day El Salvador. The four leaders took the Dog star, Sirius, as a sign, and while fasting, watched the eastern horizon to see if Siruis was rising before the Sun. This would have placed their departure from Isla Tigre in the month of July. This also could be a reference for the Mars long-count date, of 4 Tzi or 4 Dog. That would be approximately 8050 BC (+/- 200 years). The Popol Vuh notes that the tradition of silently looking to the east began at this time to honor Tulan Zuyua, the place where the tribes first attained greatness. In the east they also left behind their Bat room brothers and the sisters, the Tams and the Ilocs.

One of the four leaders, Balam Akbar, and his tribe, stayed in the east. [Click to enlarge map.] They went to Isla Olomega on Lago Olomega, in the south of present-day San Miguel Department in El Salvador. This is who the Popol Vuh calls the "Olomans". This includes the "Greathouses": the Lencas, the Uluas, the Olmecs, and many more.

The other three tribes were very sad to leave the Olomecans behind. And the people were very hungry. According to the Popol Vuh, the Quiche leader sniffed his staff and wondered if even the wood could be consumed. At that moment the tribes approached the Lempa River, which was so wide it appeared to be a sea. Somehow the sea seemed to part and they were able to cross. It could be that they approached in a drought and the normal June and July rains had not occurred, allowing people to wade across the river. Or maybe they were able to cross on their rafts.

The tribe of Ik Balam went to an island at the mouth of the Lempa River, to a place called Teokan, or island of learning. At that time the ocean would have been at least 100 meters lower and the mouth of the river several miles further south. The island village that they established would have been flooded over between 8000 BC and 5000 BC during the period of global warming. In fact, it is likely that the village would have been re-established several times.

The Popol Vuh says that Ik Balam had no children. While that might be a literal statement, I think it is more likely that this tribe was wiped out, either by disease, by an attack from the Xibalbans, or, most likely, a flood as the ocean levels rose. In fact, my guess is that the early city of Teokan was destroyed in the Lake Agassiz flood of 6400 BC. Lake Agassiz was a huge lake on the North American continent which emptied much of its huge volume of glacial melt into the oceans in about 6400 BC. It is possible that this event caused a tsunami that impacted most coasts around the world, including El Salvador. The civilization of Teokan would have been destroyed and the Ik Balam tribe wiped out. Or maybe not - but more on that later. The Olomecans then resettled Teokan from Lago Olomega and renamed it Teok'an'an, or "island of ripe spring maize."

The other two tribal leaders, Masa Manix and Balam Kitze settled their tribes on Lago Coatepeque (Tammakchan) and Lago Güija, respectively. These became the Quiche and Ch'orti' lineages, respectively, and all the Mayans can trace back their roots to these two tribes. Tammakchan means "deep inside the rainbow" and Güija means "source" or "navel". Lago Güija is one of the sources of the Lempa River, which has great symbolism considering that Teokan was at the mouth of the same river.

From the four islands the Mesoamerican tribes started the American continents agricultural revolution.

The Mesoamerican Great Escape of 8800 BC

The Mayan and Chibchan bands, as well as band leaders of other Mesoamerican lineages, were subjugated in La Gruta del Espíritu Santo near Corinto, El Salvador, by the Xibalba (xibahkha) lords. At some point they made an escape or guinda, as Salvadorans would call it. The Popol Vuh doesn't speak much about the actual escape from the cave, so much of what I write is a best guess based on the clues that we have from geography and the Popol Vuh.

In terms of a date, my best guess is 8800 BC, +/- 500 years, using the date 7 Cimin (Kame/Kimi) from the Mars retrograde long count calendar. To me the repeated use of the phrase "1 Cimin 7 Cimin" throughout Part 3 of the Popol Vuh (Tedlock revised edition) is a reference to the date of the escape from the cave, with the second name (7 Cimin) the date reference.

One can imagine that the escape took place at night and the clans escaped to the one spot that they knew the Xibalba lords would not follow them to: the impenetrable jungle, the Baja Profunda, several miles north of the cave and likely home, at that time, to jaguars and other wild creatures of the night. The Bradshaw Foundation describes this jungle as a result of the 2002 visit to the cave and the jungle and notes that there are petroglyphs similar to La Gruta cave there.

As day broke the clans ran as the Xibalbans lords threatened, going northwest, straight to the Torola River. With no other choice, they ran into the water. Those that submerged themselves were saved because the Xibalban lords did not pursue them. We know because xibahkha means, "those who are afraid of water." Where the Torola is met by Rio San Antonio there may be enough water to submerge oneself, at least in the rainy season.

From there the bands likely fled downstream to the west, in the river or along the bank, however they could go. They stopped when they reached the confluence of the Torola with the Rio Lempa. Here they made an encampment and any time that the Xibalban lords came near the whole community, with newly acquired swimming skills, could find safety in the Torola or Lempa River.

This is the location where I believe the Popol Vuh speaks of the Great Hollow (pg 157, Tedlock), which I think should be translated Great Canyon. The Rio Lempa is a Lenca name, for which I have not found a good dictionary. But I believe the base name in Chorti Maya would be Rum-pas, which would be "opening up" or "splitting of" the soil or land. The 'r' in Chorti became an 'l' in Lenca and other Mayan languages. The Rio Lempa certainly splits the land of El Salvador in two. 

The Popol Vuh also refers to this as one of the places of reeds. Here two place names provide evidence: The Rio Torola, where Torola is a type of reed and the Rio Jalala, where hararak is a type of cane grass and the 'r' would change to an 'l' in Lenca. The Rio Jalala starts near San Gerardo in northwest San Miguel department and joins the Torola just before it meets the Lempa. Click to enlarge map.

Finally, the first Spanish settlers to the area where quite aware of the importance of the area as a place of origin for the local indigenous, so much so that they named the municipality of this location, Nuevo Edén de San Juan. Even more to the point is the village of Jardín (Garden), near the confluence of the two rivers and two miles north of the municipality. Perhaps this marks the very spot of the guinda encampment of 8800 BC.

The Popol Vuh describes six clans being together in the escape, three from the jaguar room of the cave and three from the bat room. The three from jaguar room all became part of the larger proto-Mesoamerican people. But only one of the three from the bat room became part of the Mayan nation, the greater Quiche clan. At some point later on, the other two bat clans, the Tams and the Ilocs, according to the Popol Vuh, decided not to become Mayan. They preferred to remain mountain people, i.e. hunters and gatherers, rather than agriculturalists.

I believe that the Tams refer to the Talamanca people and all of the Chibchan language group which now spreads from southern Honduras to Columbia. And the Ilocs refer to the Miskitu, Sumu, Matagalpa, and Cacaopera people. The Popol Vuh refers to the 13 associated tribes of the Tams and the Ilocs.

How else does one explain the presence of the village of Cacaopera in El Salvador? Their nearest linguistic cousins would be over 100 miles away in central Nicaragua. Yet there is one lone village of this language group, five miles from the Corinto cave. All the others migrated east and south but this clan did not want to leave their homeland of 8800 BC. Some have mistakenly identified the Cacaoperans as Ulua, but Uluans, as we shall see, are much more closely related to the Lencas, i.e. part of the proto-Mesoamerican people.

Ingredients of Civilization: Water, Mountains, Salt

Let’s take a step back and ask, ‘Why El Salvador’? Why was it one of the birth places of Mayan civilization? To answer this, one needs to look at the geography and natural resources: access to water for food and for trade routes, access to mountains to provide varied agricultural zones that allow for hybridization of potential crops, and access to salt that makes a varied diet (not just meat and fish) more acceptable.

El Salvador’s access to the Pacific Ocean allowed very early peoples to have access to fish and other ocean products. The Lempa River is the largest river system along the Central American Pacific coast and allowed easy access inland via canoes.

In the western half of the country, El Salvador’s coast rises quickly from the ocean to the coastal volcanic range. This allowed the early Mayans to live off of the ocean at the same time that they were experimenting with various agricultural products like corn, beans, and squash, which grow better at higher elevations. There are only a few other places in Mesoamerica with the close proximity of mountains to coast, one of which is the Olmec area along the Gulf Coast of Mexico. The Tuxtla range rises quickly from the Gulf Coast near the Olmec site of Tres Zapotes.

Another key to early development was access to salt and clay. Salt was necessary as the diet transitioned from primarily meat to primarily grains. Salt was one of the most valued early trade products. Clay was necessary to begin to form pots and other food-related products, as the diet was diversifying. Both of these were available in large quantities in Usulután in east-central El Salvador.

One of the advantages to Mesoamerica (southern Mexico and northern Central America) over many other areas is access to two oceans. The two places with the narrowest trans-ocean journey in Mesoamerica are the Tehuantepec Isthmus in southern Mexico and the line from western El Salvador north to the Guatemala-Honduras border along the Atlantic. Is it a coincidence that the Olmec civilization lies at the Atlantic terminal of the Tehuantepec Isthmus and that the earliest Mayan civilization lies at the Pacific terminal of the Lempa to Motagua route?

From the Lempa River, a canoe could get one to the area of Ocotepeque in southeast Honduras. From there it is about 40 miles overland to the Copán River which flows into the Motagua River, giving access to the Atlantic Ocean. Anthropologists have determined that the first settlers of the present site of Copán arrived in 2000 BC, most likely from the Pacific Coast. This would indicate that by that date, the early Mayans of El Salvador had discovered the important Lempa-Copán-Motagua route from the Pacific to the Atlantic.

First posted, Dec. 6 on BlogBox