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.

Twin Sites: Chalchuapa and San Andres

As of yet, El Salvador has three important archeological sites: Cihuatán, for being a large multi-cultural city in the same end-of-Classic time frame as Chichen Itza; Joyas de Cerén, for its mid-Classic farming village locked in time by the covering of lava; and Chalchuapa, for being one of the most important Pacific Coast sites during the pre-Classic period. Of course, there still remains much research to be done at the four islands - Teopán, Teotipa, Olomega, and Monte Cristo - occupied by the Mesoamerican peoples for thousands of years before the beginning of the Mayan pre-Classic period.

While the archeological record so far gives an initial date of between 1500 and 1200 BC for Chalchuapa and an initial data of about 900 BC for San Andrés, I believe that the start date should be closer to 1800 BC and that they were built at the same time. The main argument for the date is that given the close proximity of development of the Ch'orti Maya with the other Mesoamerican peoples - the Lenca/Olmecs and the Zapotecs - prior to 1800 BC, it would be strange for the latter to begin monument building at Pacific coast sites further northwest 300 to 600 years prior to the Ch'orti. In addition it would be logical that the Ch'ortis would have started these sites soon after establishing their Atlantic base at Santa Rita, Belize.

The placement of Chalchuapa and San Andrés seems to indicate that they were built at the same time. The sites are 34.6 kilometers apart. The midpoint of the line connecting the two sites (see map; click to enlarge) is precisely at the lip of Lago Coatepeque. The builders of the two sites would have been living either on Teopán island, along the lakeshore, or near the accessible northern lip of the crater lake (at Siete Principes or Konko/El Congo), since that was the center of Ch'orti' development once the Quiche were forced to vacate the site.

Building the two sites equidistant from the northern lip of the lake would have given the sites symbolic importance. In addition, the line between Chalchuapa and San Andrés is 36 degrees south of a straight east-west line. This is almost exactly the angle of the sun in the sky on the winter solstice (Dec. 21) at this latitude (35 degrees south or 55 degrees above the southern horizon at noon).

Most of the archeological research at San Andrés has been limited to the building that took place during the Classic period. Very little is known what the site looked like during the pre-Classic period. Evidence has been found of habitation by 900 BC but given the limited research, it is quite possible that evidence for an earlier date could appear.

Like all sites in western or central El Salvador, San Andrés was abandoned for at least 200 years following the Ilopango eruption of 200 to 250 AD. When it was reestablished, it was a regional center that included the new better-known site of Joyas de Cerén. At lease seven structures were built including two main pyramids and a palace. The Salvadoran Cultural Ministry maintains a museum at the San Andrés site.

Chalchuapa consists of five main plazas spread over six square kilometers. At times the site is called by one or more of the plaza names: Tazumal, Casa Blanca, Pampe, El Trapiche, and Las Victorias. There are at least 58 large earthen mounds surrounding these five plazas. El Trapiche plaza includes several large Olmec-style carvings. Stela at this plaza indicate that writing was practiced here during the late pre-Classic period. Tazumal Plaza appears to have been developed during the mid-to-late Classic Period. The site was likely Ch'orti Maya throughout the pre-Classic and Classic periods, but then Pokoman Maya settled here before the arrival of the Spanish.

Even though it was not as large as El Mirador or Kaminaljuyu, better known pre-Classic Mayan sites, there are a number of indications that Chalchuapa was the most important site during the pre-Classic period. One is that its abandonment after the Ilopango eruption coincides with the collapse of the Pacific Coast predominance during the pre-Classic period. Two is that it seems to have maintained the closest relationship with the Olmec area of Mexico - this is not surprising given the cultures former close geographic relationship in El Salvador. Third is that many of the pre-classic pottery advances seem to have take place in Chalchuapa. The polychrome pottery which appears to have been a lead-in to the Classic period is found extensively at Chalchuapa.

I believe that Chalchuapa played two more very important roles. Not only did it play a role in coordinating Maya relationships with the Olmecs, it did the same thing with the Chavin and Paracas civilizations in Peru, as well as peoples in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, and Columbia. These trade relations were extremely important for the Mayas.

I would also maintain that throughout the pre-Classic period, unlike the Classic period, there was one recognized, maximum spiritual leader or council among the Ch'orti, and that leader or council was consistently located at Chalchuapa. Even the great center of El Mirador relied on Chalchuapa for its spiritual direction. But after the unpredicted and unexplained Ilopango eruption of 200-250 AD, the spiritual leaders of Chalchuapa, and El Mirador with it, lost their legitimacy. The Classic period, on the other hand, would be marked by many competing claims for spiritual and political legitimacy.

The Maya and Lenca Establish Atlantic Bases

The Quiche Mayas were forced to leave El Salvador in about 2300 BC and by 2000 BC the Ch'orti Mayas at Lago Güija and Lago Coatepeque were anxious to expand beyond their El Salvador home. The Ch'ortis, like the neighboring Lencas and Tehuacanos (Zapotecs), had been sailing the Pacific Ocean for over a thousand years.

But an Atlantic ocean base was needed in order to better explore the four corners of the world. The Ch'ortis had been trading with local people in northern Belize already and it was an easy decision to send an expansion group north to the Corozal Bay, to the site known as Santa Rita. A few hundred years later they sent a much larger expansion group north which began to build the El Mirador site and soon many other sites in the area. Those who went north mixed with the local population and soon the Yucatec or Maya language began to develop. [Click to enlarge the map.]

The Lencas based at Lago Olomega in southeast El Salvador had the same need. They simply went straight north and followed the Ulua River to the coast. There they founded the site of Travesia and from that base explored the Atlantic Ocean extensively. This was the beginning of separation of the El Salvador Lenca language and Honduran Lenca language.

The Atlantic Ocean currents would naturally carry the Ch'orti and Lenca rafts and reed boats north and east around Cuba and then northeast into the North Atlantic. Then a southward current would take them close to the Spanish or West Africa coast. The current from West Africa would take them directly back to Travesia or Santa Rita.

A significant group of Lencas moved about 250 kilometers west to the Mexico-Guatemala border region. Here they founded sites that came to be known as Izapa, Paso de la Amada, La Blanca, Ocos, and El Mesak. A few hundred years later Lencas from Travesia, Olomega, and the Izapa region moved to the Gulf coast area of Veracruz, Mexico, and founded the Olmec civilization. They took with them the name of Olomega (Olomeka) and much of what they learned in their travels of both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

The Tehuacanos, like the Lencas, trace lineage to Balam Akbar. They lived on one of the four original Mesoamerican island civilizations, Teocan, at the mouth of the Lempa River. One of the double meanings of Teocan is 'island of wild vegetation' or 'monte'. Anyone who has spent much time in that region, the Bajo Lempa, can understand why it would be called that. The 'Monte' descriptor in Spanish becomes a trace clue in guessing where they moved to. It appears they moved from Isla Montecristo to Monte Alto in southeast Guatemala, and soon would move to the Oaxaca Valley of Mexico to found San José Mogote and Monte Alban. There they would become known as the Zapotecs.

While all the expansion continued, the base of operations for the Mayas continued to be western El Salvador at the two new sites of Chalchuapa and San Andrés.

Tracing the Mesoamericans’ Travel through Names and Spirituality

The Mesoamerican people were travelers. They made balsa rafts from the balsa trees that grow along El Salvador’s La Libertad coast. They constructed reed boats from the reeds along the Torola River. They made dugout canoes, including large catamaran canoes for ocean-faring. They traveled to nearly every continent, and nearly every major river.

They went first of all to know the four corners of the earth, to know the beauty of the earth. Second, they went to share their knowledge of agriculture, earth’s bounty. Third, they also went to share their science and their spirituality, which for them was inseparable. And these were not things that could be forced on anyone, since that was contradictory of the spirituality itself.

In order to find the traces of the Mayans-Mesoamericans, one can look for at least four things:

• Place names, especially islands, since they were the most sacred places. I will look along coast lines and rivers, since that is how they traveled. I will be looking at lakes, mountains, and towns. For one example, a town with a Mayan name along the Rhine River.
• Examples of sea-faring people that would otherwise seem to be an anomaly. Other legends or stories of mysterious sea-faring people. For example, the Lukka people in the Mediterranean Sea in about 1200 to 1000 BC.
• The names of fruits and vegetables, especially outside the sphere of the well-know agricultural societies. For example, the name of the cranberry will have significance in Ch’orti’ Maya.
• Vestiges of the Mayan-Mesoamerican science and spirituality. In order to trace this, I will need to describe in more detail what it consisted of. It would be better that a Mayan, Lenca, or Zapotec leader do this, but I will do my best to outline it.

Early Mayan – Mesoamerican Spirituality

While there are many great books on Mayan and Mesoamerican spirituality, I wish to take the approach of trying to determine the key points to the spirituality by 2000 BC, that is before most of their expansion throughout Mesoamerica and before most of their travels around the globe on their ocean-faring rafts. The major exception is their travel and establishment of a community on the coast of Peru in about 3500 BC or 3000 BC.

I will use Mayan in this description, but these things would hold true for all Mesomerican groups, such as Lenca, Zapotec, Olmec, etc. Most of this early spirituality is identified in the Popol Vuh, the Mayan holy book:

• Four Original Leaders. There were four original civilizing families or bands that led the Mesoamerican people to greatness. Three came out of the jaguar room of the Xibalba cave and one came out of the bat room. Two other families came out of the bat room but they decided not to join the Mayan-Mesoamerican way of life. The four Mesoamerican leaders were Balam Kitze, Balam Akbar, Balam Ik’, and Maza Manix. They are revered above all ancestors and remembered in all things.

• Three Gifts from the Gods in the East. The Mayans received three gifts from the gods, Tohil, Hacawitz, and Auilix. These were tobacco, which kept people from starving; flint stone from Mount Usulután, which allowed them to make fire during the cold of the last of the Ice Age; and a collapsible raft which allowed them to cross rivers and streams. These were usually called three separate gods but at times were also called a three-fold god. The Mayan people survived to become the people they were only due to these three gifts from the east of El Salvador.

• Looking to the East to Remember their Founding. The early people survived years in the wilderness and then were able to cross the sea as the sea descended due to the last mini Ice Age and make it to the islands in the Golfo de Fonseca. They settled on an island they named 'Balam' (Isla Tigre). This is where they built a tower in honor of the first jaguar leaders and where they founded their spirituality of remembering the three gods who gave them the gifts to survive in the wilderness. Once they left Isla Tigre they went west and always lived west of Isla Tigre. They never failed to look east to remember where they became a people.

• The Leader whose Death Led to the Liberation of the People. One Hunahpu was a great early leader of the Quiche, I believe in about 7500 BC. He was one of the first astronomers and tracked the Mars cycle in the sky. Using the 260-day tzolkin and the Mars retrograde long-count calendar, he became good at predicting when Mars would turn retrograde when it was nearing the center of the galaxy at its retrograde cycle. He challenged their enemies that he could name the day of the retrograde motion and in return, the Mayan people would be free from the constant threat of the Xibalba lords. Unfortunately he was wrong and he was killed, his head place on a tree at the crossroads. But through his mistake later astronomers, such as Ixbalamque, were able to predict Mars motion and was able to once and for all defeat the Xibalba lords. One Hunahpu is revered as the ideal of sacrificing oneself for the good of the people, whether actual or symbolic.

• Supreme Being at the Center of the Galaxy. The orbit of Mars was elongated by the dense gravity along the elliptic formed by the center of the galaxy, causing Mars’ retrograde to occur on the earliest possible date when that retrograde happened at the hole, the void, at the center of the galaxy. This spot, which we now know to be a massive black hole, is where the Supreme Being resides. The Mesoamericans commune with the Supreme Being through a sweat bath – a “bath” of steam and incense.

• Mother Earth or ix (pronounced ‘ish’). There is a reverence for the earth which allows itself to be broken open so that life – corn, beans, squash, and cacao – can spring out.

• The 20 day signs and the Mars long-count calendar. The Mayans had a base 20 counting system and a 260-day calendar that consisted of 20 weeks of 13 days each. In addition there were calendars to track Mars, Venus, and the lunar cycles, including an eclipse cycle. The Mars long-count calendar was a way to keep track of thousands of years – it would take nearly 700 years, and over 900 tzolkins, for this calendar to pass through one sign of 13 days.

• Water, Rainbow, and the Serpent. Water has significance since the time of the escape from the cave and the people fled north to the Torola River. Their pursuers, the Xibalbans or Xibahkhans, could not swim and the people were safe. Those that stepped into the water, that immersed themselves, were saved. Xibahkha means ‘men afraid of water’. One of the four islands that the Mesoamerican people settled on was called Tammakchan, or 'deep inside the rainbow'. It was in Lago Coatepeque, a crater lake in western El Salvador. Makchan or 'rainbow' in Ch'orti' means "serpent that blocks" or "stops up" (the rain or the Xibahkha attacks). Both the rainbow and the serpent are associated with rain and with security. The rainbow also came to be symbolized by the plumed or feathered serpent.

• Pyramids. The Mesoamericans gained access to flint stone on a volcano, Mount Usulután, provided by the god Hacawitz. Flint stone provided fire as well as being a cutting tool. Along with the jaguar, the earliest spiritual buildings took the form of a volcano. At times the volcanoes were represented with a flat top and at other times with a more pointed top. Ceremonies involving symbolic cutting or fire were typical on a pyramid to remember the gift from Hacawitz.

• The Flood. One of the four Mesoamerican islands was at the mouth of the Rio Lempa. The oceans rose following the last of the Ice Age. In particular the flood and tsunami event of about 6400 BC when Lake Agassiz drained into the oceans may have caused the island of Teokan, founded by Balam Ik', to have been wiped out. The Mesoamericans always remembered this founder and re-established a community at the mouth of the Lempa.

• Obsession with Pure Blood. The early Mayan leader One Hunahpu intermarried with another race. Many hundreds - thousands - of years later, his descendants, the Quiches, were the first to suffer from pellegra, a deadly niacin deficiency. The other Mesoamerican groups wrongly blamed the earlier inter-racial marriage as the cause, when in fact it was caused by over reliance on untreated corn. The Quiches were banished, starting tension and conflict, and an obsession with pure blood started. This obsession was shared with many of the people that the Mesoamericans visited.

The Banishment of the Quiche from Coatepeque to Mexico

The first 3,000 years of the civilizing people of Mesoamerica were full of dramatic events: the escape from the ruthless rulers of the cave of Xibalba (Xibahkha in Ch’orti’); surviving the ravages of the wild with the help of three critical gifts from nature; the formation of a religion while on Isla Tigre in the Golfo de Fonseca; the dramatic death of One Hunahpu which led to their later liberation from Xibahkha; and the flood of 6400 BC which swept away one of the four island garden-villages.

But the second most important geo-political event of the last 5,000 years in Mesoamerica – second only to the arrival of the Spanish – was the banishment of the Quiche Maya in about 2200 BC. The Quiche Maya were always considered the lead among the four first civilizing nations. This is shown by their founder being called Manix, or worker of the earth – the first to embrace the vision of an agricultural way of life. In addition, the Quiches lived in the most beautiful of the four island homes – Coatepeque, or what they called Tammakchan.

By 2500 BC corn was getting much closer to it current size, from its start of just a few kernels. The leader of the Quiche was the most reliant on corn in his diet. Now we know that reliance on untreated corn can lead to pellagra and this is exactly what happened. Pellegra causes lesions on the skin, gauntness, mental illness, and death. But the other Mayan and Mesoamerican leaders didn’t know about pellagra.

Instead they remembered a story from their past, from their creation story, the Popol Vuh, that the famous Quiche leader, One Hunahpu, married an outsider, a Xibahkha woman. Her name was Xib’akiyalo. Surely it was this mixing of blood – the blood of the Xibahkhans, represented by the tapir, and the blood of the Quiches, represented by the serpent, that caused the disease – the lesions, the bleeding, the mental illness and the death.

Because they were considered a people of mixed race, which led to disease, the others decided that the Quiches must be sent away before any more inter-marrying happened. And the message of not inter-marrying must go out to all neighboring peoples. The Quiches were sent on balsa rafts as far as they could make it with their provisions of food and water. The Ch'ortis quickly moved into their Lago Coatepeque home and assumed role among the civilizing peoples.

The Quiches made it as far as an island along the coast of present-day Sinaloa, Mexico. [Click to enlarge map.] They named the island, Teocapan (now called Teacapan) for the island home they left, Teopan. The ka in the middle of Teacapan means 'to remember'. Thus, Teocapan means “remembering Teopan”. The made a spectacular home on this island and its memory survived in the stories of the Toltecs and the Aztecs.

The Quiches named the region after their totem, Maza (Deer), which is also the name of many early Quiche leaders. The present-day city of Mazatlán gets its name for the Quiche name of this region.

The Quiches were in Sinoloa before they split into lineage groups, so all those with Quiche lineage - the Kekchis, Uspantecs, Pokomams, Sacapultecs, Sipacapas, Tzutuhils, and Cakchiquels - share the Mexican experience.

The Quiche continued to hybridize corn at their new island home of Teocapan. They found a new location for Balsas teosinte grass in the mountains about 50 miles south. They named the place Teosinte and also named a place just off the coast Teosinte, so that they and the locals would remember how to get up to the highland teosinte.

They often visited a place to the south, Matanchén, where they harvested mollusks. They quickly became great sailors, living along the coast. They formed new villages to south near Tecomán, in present day Colima, at a site called El Opeño, in Michoacán, and up high on the plateau in the Valley of Mexico at a site now called Tlatilco. At some of these sites they reunited with their old cousins, the Olmec/Lencas, and the Tehuacanos/Zapotecs. The Olmecs introduced them to their allies from West Africa who had joined them on the Gulf Coast. Some of them joined the Quiches to live at Tlatilco. The Tehuacanos taught the Quiche how to sail to Ecuador and Perú.

By about 1500 BC, one portion of the Quiche community moved back toward their homeland. They settled at present day Guatemala City at the site known as Kaminaljuyu. This probably became the Uspantec – Pokomam lineage. Remembering the bad blood between them, the Ch’orti’s at Lago Güija, Lago Coatepeque, Chalchuapa, and San Andrés were threatened by the Quiche presence so close by. To outflank the Quiches, they moved a significant portion of their elite and population to the north to northern Belice and to northern Petén and began to build the site of El Mirador.

The competition and the tension between the Ch’orti’ and the Quiche was only just beginning and hundreds of years later became outright warfare. All this happened because of a lack of understand about mental illness and a misunderstanding over the cause of that mental illness. And the message of needing to maintain pure blood was also based on false information and therefore a false message.

What are the clues that early Mayan leaders suffered from pellagra, that the Quiche suffered the first and most, and that the Quiche were banished to northwest Mexico?

• The Quiches have an oral tradition of having spent at least several hundred years in Mexico and of all the Mayan languages Quiche has the most Nahuat influences. The Toltec and Aztec traditions also speak of having come from an island city on the northwest coast of Mexico.

• As I have already discussed, the first chapter of the Popol Vuh appears to have been written in order to explain how so many people, including the leaders suffered from disease: it was the fault of the gods. The gods failed when creating humans three times, creating humans that were gaunt (stick figures), spoke to animals, or were mentally ill. This is an attempt to change the theology to account for widespread disease and mental illness. This chapter explains that it is the fault of the gods that people became ill, sick, and died. The gods goofed up three times in their creation of humans; it is not the fault of your grandmother and your grandfather that they were mentally ill.

• The Quiche seem to have become confused over key points and names in their history. This may be a result of leaders who suffered from mental illness due to pellagra and became confused in the retelling of the Popol Vuh. Another possibility is that the Quiche leaders had forgotten and when they asked the Ch’ol / Ch’orti’ Maya for clarification, they were deliberately misled. The best example of this is the name of the Quiche leader among the first four civilizing leaders. The Popol Vuh says that his name is Majukutaj, which means ‘Not Right Now’ in Quiche. This is an unusual name given that the other three are Night Jaguar, Ik Jaguar, and Kitze Jaguar.
  
  If it were a different name, the tzolkin day-sign calendar offers us a clue what it might have been. The day sign Manik in Yucatec has a symbol of a grasping hand or a working hand. In Ch’orti’, this would be Manix or worker of the earth. The fact that it refers to the Quiche is shown by the Aztec name for this day sign, which is Mazatl or Deer. Many early Quiche leaders were called Deer and it appears to be their totem animal, most likely since very early they followed the deer and tried out various plants to see if they were useful or edible. Thus this sign might have been Masa Manix or Deer Worker-of-the-Earth. Somehow, in their confusion, this morphed into Majukutaj for the Quiche. Another clue that this happened comes from the Ch’orti’ where maix means ‘not right now’. This would suggest that the first step in the confusion was to change the name from Manix to Maix, retaining the meaning of maix.

• One of the more curious anomalies in the tzolkin, the 260-day calendar of 20 13-day weeks, is that the Quiche version has a different starting day than the more commonly used Yucatec version. The Yucatec version begins with the day Imix (Imox in Quiche) and ends with day Ahaw, also spelled Ahau (Junajpu in Quiche). The end day is all important since it is the last day of the year that gives its name to that year. The Quiche version starts six days later with Kej (Manik’ in Yucatec and Manix in Ch’orti’) and ends with Kame (Kimi in Yucatec and Cimin in Ch’orti’). I believe that this is also a legacy from the banishment of the Quiches. Manix was the first Quiche leader while Ahaw (chief) was the title used by the Ch’orti’ leader after the Quiches left.

• Another change in the day sign appears with the sign known as Hunahpu in Quiche and Ahau in Yucatec. Both of these mean ‘lord’. The original name for this day sign was probably Sutz’ or ‘bat’ since the Quiche lord came out of the bat room of the cave. The other three leaders came out of the jaguar room and there is a sign associated with jaguars. When the Quiches were banished from their homeland, the Ch’ol’-Ch’orti’ changed this day sign to Ahau or Ahaw. The best clue that this happened comes from the Aztez name for this day sign, Xochitl. From their base in northwest Mexico, the Quiche provided many root words or sounds for the Nahuat language. In this case Sutz’ (bat) morphed into Xochitl (flower). In addition the Mayan glyph for this day sign appears to the be face of a bat.

• The Popol Vuh discusses how the Mayan leaders of the previous age, One Monkey and One Artisan are overturned and the new leaders, Hunahpu and Ixbalamque take over. While some interpret this as a transition from a non-Mayan time with non-Mayan leaders to the Mayan age, I believe that it really is one set of Mayan leaders overturning another set. In this case One Monkey and One Artisan represent the Quiches who were overturned and Hunahpu and Ixbalamque represent the Ch’ortis who took over leadership. One Monkey and One Artisan appear to become mentally ill: they are called monkeys, they run around naked, and roam the woods. Even their grandmother cannot keep from laughing at them.

• As I already described in a previous post, the meaning of ix seems to have changed from ‘Mother Earth’ to ‘the disease’ with the advent of pellagra. Likewise, after this, imix described untreated – diseased – corn, while a new word for corn – nar – described the good, treated, corn that did not have the disease. The curing of corn is called nixtamalization – ridding the corn of ix.

• Finally, we have the clue of the names along the northwest coast of Mexico, as already discussed above, including Teacapán, Mazatlán, and Matanchén. There are also only two occurrences of the place name ‘Teosinte’, or some variants of that, in Mexico, and both are close to their Teacapán home.

Entering the Underworld Hell - a Look at the Cave Beginnings of Xibalba

It is not by accident that I reached the point in my series on El Salvador indigenous history and got stuck at 600 AD, with the description of Joya de Cerén, the Pompeii-like Mayan classical site which was frozen in time following a volcanic eruption which covered the farming village. The next topics to cover - the spectacular building of Cihuatán in the mid 8th century, its violent destruction about 100 years later, and then the arrival of the Pipiles from Mexico - did not make sense. The Pipiles, for example, told early Spanish chroniclers that they resettled in El Salvador as a form of retribution against all the Olmecas for causing them so much suffering. How does that fit? The Olmecs were from the Gulf of Mexico coast of Veracruz and Tabasco. And who would have attacked Cihuatán in such a fashion? The Pipiles did not have that military capacity.

That is why I have needed to take a big step back and look at the history of corn and the world of the cave dwellers. The history of corn has included an examination of the distribution of teosinte as a place name which was found to be centered in the Guatemala-Honduras-El Salvador triangle area (i.e. Chorti Maya area). Then by determining that teo means 'island' in Chorti' Maya, it was possible to see that teosinte, in fact, means 'plants in a row on an island'. The two islands of Lago Coatepeque ('serpent hill lake') and Lago Güija ('navel' or 'source' lake), both in western El Salvador, were used to continually hybridize corn with teosinte from a variety of local sites. Corn had undergone significant hybridization by 1500 BC, therefore these two islands are extremely early Mayan agricultural sites, i.e. pre-Pre-Classic.

And now the cave. The Popol Vuh offers a very detailed view of Xibalba, the underworld, the cave that the Mayans came out of. Dennis Tedlock, in his very good translation of the Popol Vuh into English, states that the first part of Xibalba means 'fright'. That's an important clue. Xibalba is an evil place, as described in the Popol Vuh, perhaps similar to Hades. Tedlock translates the leaders' names as One Death and Seven Death. Other leaders are called Demon of Pus, Blood Gatherer, Demon of Jaundice, Bone Scepter, Skull Scepter, and so on. You get the picture. And this is men describing Xibalba - you can only imagine what life was like for the women.

The Xibalbans did not just stay in the cave. The Popol Vuh discusses the road(s) to Xibalba as crossing various rivers, but especially mentions Pus River and Blood River, and says that they were traps put there by the Xibalbans. Given the leader names of Demon of Pus and Blood Gatherer, it is clear that the Xibalbans used rivers to ambush people and keep control of the roads, as is typical in "pre-civilized" societies. They controlled the countryside.

In Chorti' Maya, which is the oldest and purest Mayan language and the language of the inscriptions at Tikal and most Classic-era sites, xib is a plural male pronoun, as in 'those men of' or 'those men who'. It is pronounced similar to 'she' in English, with a 'b' at the end. But xib also correlates with the syllable xi. To show the impact of xi in the Mayan psyche or culture, it is helpful to see how it shows up in various words, with meanings in English:

• baxi        'pull out'
• haxi        'roll into a twist'
• ha'xi       'snare with a rope'
• hixi         'pull off with the fingers'
• huxi        'pluck'
• k'uxi       'gnaw on'
• muxi       'grind on the metate'
• see quxi  'lay an egg'

Following Tedlock's lead, in Chorti' the middle syllable is ba'k' which means 'fear' or 'fright'. The 'a' at the end could be ah, as in 'one who does'. But that is only used as a prefix in Chorti', not a suffix. The closest suffix sound is ha, which means 'water'. So Xi-ba'k'-ha means 'men who make water afraid' or more likely 'men who are afraid of water'. This is a derogatory name, something seen over and over again in the names of one's enemies in the Popol Vuh.

But more importantly, putting it together with the fact that some of the earliest Mayan settlements were built on islands, a very clear picture comes about. The earliest Mayans escaped from Xibalba, were pursued, and were only safe after entering water and swimming to safety to islands, because xibakha, the men were afraid of water. The islands were the only place that the Mayans were safe from the xibakha reign of terror. This is made even clearer by the Chorti' verb 'to swim', which is luhxih, giving a directional reference point, i.e. away from xih.

I write this as tears fall down my face. One can only understand the meaning of Xibalba if one understands El Mozote massacre, the Rio Sumpul massacre, the matanza of indigenous of 1932, the nearly 200,000 Guatemalan indigenous killed in the 1980s, the suffering caused by the US government in Central America, the repression of anti-coup leaders in Honduras, and the current murders against Salvadoran anti-mining activists. And then learn to swim.

I recently wrote about various caves in the Mesoamerica region, including La Gruta del Espíritu Santo cave in eastern El Salvador. The Popol Vuh also offers clues regarding the location of Xibalba. The Popol Vuh describes two early Mayan leaders being killed at Xibalba and buried nearby at 'Place of Ball Game Sacrifice'. The Popol Vuh was written in Quiche. Some of the words and syllables have changed from the original, which would have been Chorti' or very close to Chorti'. In Quiche, the 'Place of Ball Game Sacrifice' is Pusb'al cha'j. But let's look at it in Chorti'.

In Chorti', just as in English, there is a connection between the words used for hunted animals and a ball game. In Chorti' korom is hunted animals and kor is ball or pellet. Perhaps the subjects of the Xibalban lords were actually forced to "play" each other, as wild animals, to the death. This may have been both a form of entertainment and a means of population control. The naming of one of the rooms or houses in Xibalba as 'jaguar room' gives this connotation. This interpretation also would be consistent with the evolution of the later ball game fields at Mayan Pre-Classic and Classic sites.

In addition to kor, 'place' is irah, and 'sacrifice' is toy. So the full name would be kor-irah-toy. Two kilometers from La Gruta del Espíritu Santo cave is the town of Corinto. Further confirmation of this connection is the word for 'game place' in Chorti', koromtar.

This placement of Xibalba is consistent with the Popol Vuh. The early Mayans in the Popol Vuh always traveled east from their homes to Xibalba when summoned by the lords there. The Xibalba cave is in northeast El Salvador and one of the roads to Xibalba went from Isla Teopán and Isla Teotipa in west and northwest El Salvador. But the Popol Vuh makes it clear that there were four Mayan clans that escaped from Xibalba. And it turns out that they each went to a different island to escape the men afraid of water.

How Corn Was Hybridized by the Early Maya in Central America

Biologists have been studying the development of corn in Mexico and Central America and have recently discovered that corn was originally hybridized from the Balsas teosinte that is found at mid-range elevations - 500 to 1,5000 meters - in western Mexico, mainly from western Guerrero north to Jalisco. In addition, the earliest traces of corn were dated back to 6700 BC in this area. [Click to enlarge map.]

By tracing the origin of the word teosinte, the precursor of corn, to the Chorti Maya area of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, by mapping all occurrences of it as a place name, and by determining that teo means 'island' in Chorti and teosinte means 'plants in rows on an island', I have been able to isolate two islands in the Chorti area that appear to be very early biological stations in a deliberate effort to perfect corn. These islands are Teopán (meaning 'Sprouting Island') in Lago Coatepeque, in western El Salvador, and Teotipa (meaning 'Food Island') in Lago Güija, which straddles the El Salvador-Guatemala border. Both lakes are within 20 kilometers of Chalchuapa, one of earliest known Mayan sites. Güija would be wihha in Chorti, meaning 'source of stream': a stream drains out of the lake joining the Lempa River.

I am guessing that the dates of the hybridization with teosinte were taking place between 4000 BC and 2000 BC. The start date could be earlier or later. The end date corresponds pretty closely with the date when biologists have determined that corn was approaching a level where it could support higher population densities.

It is no surprise that some of the earliest Mayan villages would be on islands. An island would isolate the experimental fields from most pests and many animals that could harm them. Islands also would have afforded early peoples a measure of safety from predators or enemies.

In addition, both La Venta and Teotihuacán, early civilization sites in Mexico, were built on islands, so there was a tendency for early Mesoamerican people to build on islands. Furthermore, in the case of Teotihuacán it is clear that the Maya were somehow involved in founding the city, given the prefix 'Teo', identifying it as an island. There is no other instance of a place name in Mexico starting with 'Teo' referring to an island. The Aztec god 'Teotl' and all other 'Teo' place names in Mexico were created in reverence for Teotihuacán.

From the two islands, the early Mayans or pre-Mayans identified various sources of teosinte in the area and named the places 'Teosinte' so that they and future generations would remember their location. While the teosinte grass in this area could not be converted into corn, it was, and still is, extremely useful to hybridize with corn plants. Persistent hybridization with teosinte grass was done to continue selecting desired traits, to make different varieties of corn, including popcorn, and to make the corn more disease resistant.

There still is a need to discuss how the two outlier place names of 'Teosinte' ended up in far western Jalisco (see the map), but to do that I will need to discuss the 260-day tzol'kin calendar more, as well as the Mayan sacred text, the Popol Vuh. And I will also take a closer look at both Lago Coatepeque (Lake Serpent Hill) and Lago Güija. Is it possible that western El Salvador was the founding place of all Mesoamerican civilizations, just as the Salvadoran historian Antonio Arocha suggested in El Salvador, La Antigua Patria Maya?

[Post Script: I now believe that the hybridization process may have begun as early as 8300 BC. Feb. 25, 2010]

Teosinte - This is no Fantasy Island

Lago Coatepeque in El Salvador is a very special place, where one seems suspended from time and space. And when studying indigenous history, any place called Serpent Hill is a subject of interest, given that the Chorti are the serpent people. The name was obviously nahuatalized by the Pipiles, but it is likely that the original meaning in Chorti was also Serpent Hill, or something similar. It is clearly in Chorti country, being so close to both Chalchuapa and San Andres. And this was one of the very first centers of Mayan civilization.

So glancing at the lake’s entry on wikipedia, something caught my eye – 'Isla Teopan' - on the map it said Isla del Cerro. The prefix ‘teo’ is extremely rare in El Salvador – there is the municipality of Teotepeque in La Libertad, but this was the only other example I had seen, other than ‘Teosinte’.

Let’s see – lakes … Lago Güija, 25 kilometers north, on the border with Guatemala. It also has an island – Isla Tipa. A little internet searching and this confirmed it! The key to so many riddles. Isla Tipa was also known as Isla Teotipa. Güija, like Coatapeque is in the mera-mera Chorti country, this was no nahuatalization like Teotepeque might be.

Teo means ‘island’ in Chorti' Maya. There it is. It wasn't in the Chorti' dictionary because there are no islands in the highland region where the Chorti's now live. So, Teotihuacán, means 'Island of Tihuacán' and was founded by people who spoke, or at least knew, some Chorti’ Maya. Wow!

Before getting too far ahead, let’s back up to Teosinte. Si’in means ‘many; extended in a series or row’ in Chorti'. The ending of teosinte was always the easiest – te is the generic word for plant in Chorti. So teosinte means “plants in rows on an island" or “island of cultivated plants”. Was this word describing an experimental biological station where the Chorti’s could perfect their hybridization of corn, beans, squash, tobacco, cacao, etc., in isolation from wild animals that would want to eat the plants? Also in isolation of pollens of other plant varieties, if they were aware of that.

That would mean that one of these islands in Lago Coatepeque or Lago Güija may have been the very center, the very first location of Mayan civilization. Or perhaps both. Isla Teopan means “Sprouting Island” or “Breaking Open Island” and that definitely fits the description. There are also an old Mayan temple and monolith on the island. The first Mayan temple and monolith?

But a case can be made for Isla Teotipa in Lago Güija as well. Ti is a conjunction meaning 'on' or 'within'. Today pa is usually the word for tortilla but originally was a generic term for 'food'. So Teotipa is “Food Island.” That couldn’t be any clearer. And then there are the other two islands on Lago Güija: Iguatepec and Cerro Tule. Perhaps teosinte means 'plants on islands in a row' and 'tule' does sound an awful lot like ... well, that will have to wait for another day. For now, I can say that all the 'teosinte' place names that I found were markers for the sources of wild teosinte that was used continuously to rehybridize with the emergent corn on one of more islands in western El Salvador.

Corn itself, we know, originated in Mexico from Balsas teosinte, so there will be a need to revisit corn in 6700 BC or before. Then we can move on to Teotihuacán. But before that will be a stop on the northwest coast of Mexico.

Indigenous Highways

Several years ago when I lived on a farm in northern Illinois, I was overjoyed to learn that the small highway that I lived on had previously been a Native American path, probably called the Piscasaw path after the name of the creek it followed. I checked into other Illinois highways and found that nearly every highway, aside from freeways and streets, had been an indigenous path or highway prior to the arrival of Europeans. Highways 41, 12, 14, 64, 34, and 45 radiating out from Chicago had all been indigenous paths. In fact, the same is probably true in any country in the western hemisphere. This indigenous sense of paths and travel has become part of the collective consciousness of all the people, no matter the race.

Whenever, the first peoples traveled from the Bering Strait, across Alaska, and then down to Patagonia, they didn't walk at random through the countryside. Instead, as long as 12,000 years ago there was a coastal path all the way along the Pacific Ocean. Here in California, highway 1 follows this ~12,000 year-old path for most of its course along the coast. Nearly every Pacific-coast country in North, Central, and South America has a similar coastal highway.

In the United States, a little of the indigenous sense of place is retained through these highways, which followed the terrain. That sense of place was greatly diminished when the Midwest was divided up into mile road grids in the 1860s and 1870s when thousands of settlers, like my great, great grandfather 'settled' there from Europe. Just like that, space could be halved, quartered and sold in a most efficient way. In most cases these mile roads did not follow the terrain and space began to have less meaning, except as private property.

The next step in the transformation of our collective sense of roads in the U.S., and further ridding our culture of its indigenous past, was the introduction of the interstate freeway system by President Eisenhower in the 1950s. To make the interstate 'freeways', hills and mountains were blasted away and huge bridges were constructed rather than winding down a valley to cross the rivers in a natural way. This is what 'free' way meant - speed was everything. Towns were bypassed and local economies were transformed and small businesses destroyed. Every interstate exchange became the same indistinguishable mix of corporate fastfood, corporate malls, and truck stops; place soon meant much less.

Today in Mexico and Central America, the elite economic powers that have brought structural adjustment, export economies, free trade for multinational corporations, and escalated immigration due to entrenched poverty, now try, led by the IMF and World Bank, to push the Plan Puebla Panama, which includes a superhighway through Mesoamerica and southern Central America. This superhighway, like the US interstates, would push Central America into the post-modern world where place has no meaning except as something which can be sold, developed, exploited, or used as entertainment, and in all cases, traveled over in the least amount of time possible.

So, to celebrate the indigenous highways of Central America, I have prepared a map [click to enlarge] to demonstrate some of the first roads in El Salvador, as one example. This is not meant to be an exhaustive list and should be taken with a grain of salt. Still, it shows how indigenous peoples traveled along the lay of the land moving between the early cities.

The course of the coastal or 'literal' highway of El Salvador dates from many thousands of years before the start of the Mayans or Lencas and is the oldest road. In some places it moves inland to avoid mangrove swamps and deltas. In other places, like La Libertad department, it follows the coast closely to avoid the steep hills which rise quickly from the sea.

The trail between Chalchuapa in the west and Quelepa in the east, as well as the trail from Chalchuapa west to Kaminaljuyu (later Guatemala City), became the Pan American highway. The Troncal del Norte highway from San Salvador north past Aguilares and into Ocotepeque, Honduras, likely did not become an indigenous path until the founding of the major Classic-era city of Cihuatán in the 8th century. But as the Cihuatanecos traveled north to Copán and the Atlantic Coast they would have established the route through Colima to Tejutla and then joined the existing route over the mountains past La Palma and Citalá to Ocotepeque.

As discussed earlier, there was a distinct connection between Chalchuapa and El Mirador in the Peten as early as 1400 BC. Again, after the Ilopango eruption in 210 AD, the Chorti followed this route to Belize and Tikal. The route would have gone through present-day Santa Ana, past Metapán and Esquipulas, Guatemala, to the Motagua valley. Because of the terrain, the route would have jogged east past Quirigua to go around the Santa Cruz mountains and Lago Izabal. Today there are highways that follow all of these routes. There also would have been a route north from Quelepa in eastern El Salvador to Los Naranjos site at Lago Yojoa, Honduras, and then on to the Atlantic coast. As mentioned earlier, one of the advantages of El Salvador's geography was the short distance between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Later, routes were added between Copán and El Salvador. [Note: Click on map to enlarge. Typo - map should say 'Mayan and Lencan Roads'.]

By the 8th century AD, the Putún Maya arrived in El Salvador, the multi-cultural city-state of Cihuatán was established, and the indigenous highways and political structure of El Salvador would never be quite the same.

The Popol Vuh, Theology in a Time of Disease

[Este mismo cuento en español.]

I have discussed how the early Chorti Mayans of coastal El Salvador and Guatemala discovered or highlighted the discovery of soaking corn in ash in about 1500 BC, and their promotion of this discovery led to one of the fastest civilization expansions in the history of the pre-modern world.

However, this expansion was only possible with an ideology or theology attached to it. By about 1700 BC, the Chortis were rapidly advancing due to improved agriculture from constantly improving corn and bean production through selective hybridization. In addition, their efficiency at fishing and ocean harvesting was greatly enhanced by their discovery of the 13 to 14 day tidal cycle, which led to the creation of the Tzol'kin calendar.

Finally, their correlation of eclipses with 52-day periods of slack tides and very poor fishing, allowed them to begin long trade journeys to central Mexico, the Veracruz coast, the Peten, and the Yucatan without missing out much on the best fishing. On these trade trips, the Chortis, the master agriculturalists, were always pushing the latest corn hybrid and encouraging more corn production. Corn seed from the most recent harvest was likely one of their major trade products on these trips.

Yet, by 1500 BC or just before then, they faced a major crisis in the legitimacy of their leadership. That was because the very same Chorti elite, those who consumed the most corn, were becoming diseased. They became weak and they became lesioned, with bloody sores all over their bodies. Not only that, but the people in their communities and the people who they convinced to give up hunting and gathering and produce more corn were also becoming diseased. They didn't know yet about pellegra (also called pellagra), the disease caused by niacin deficiency common among those who rely on corn as a staple in the diet.

But due to this disease, throughout Mesoamerica people were rejecting Mayan leadership, rejecting corn and the agricultural lifestyle, and reverting to hunting and gathering. Neighboring peoples who relied on hunting were defeating the weakened Mayan and mocking their diseased leaders. No doubt, civilization was delayed by hundreds of years by pellegra. The Chortis had discovered what seemed to be a cure, but many did not believe them. That is, they did not believe until the Mayans developed a story, a narrative, that explained meaning and truth, despite the scourge of pellegra. This narrative is best described by the Popol Vuh, the sacred text relayed by the Quiche after the arrival of the Spanish.

The early chapters of the Popol Vuh read like a description of the symptoms of pellegra and in each case the conclusion is that the creator beings failed. That is, it wasn't the fault of the people who became diseased nor was it the fault of the Mayan leaders who promoted a new lifestyle. One chapter describes humans who were dry, with no sweat and no blood. Dry is also a word meaning extreme skinniness in Mesoamerica and weight loss and weakness is one symptom of pellegra. Another chapter describes the rain washing away the substance of the skin and organs of the humans - a symptom of pellegra is the wasting away of the skin.

Yet another chapter goes into horrid detail of symptoms of dementia, with the animals speaking back to the humans, even the corn grinding stones - the metates and manos - speaking back and saying that they would grind up those who usually did the grinding. Dementia is one of the advanced symptoms of pellegra.

The Popol Vuh explains that all of these attempts to create human beings failed. A new attempt to create humans was made and it was successful. In this way, the Mayan creation story is parallel to the Poton Lenca creation story of central and eastern El Salvador that I have already described. Ixbalanque, one of the hero twins (the other is Hunahpú) in the Popol Vuh, represents the diseased leader who had lesions all over his body.

By associating this hero, Ixbalanque, with the jaguar, the most powerful animal in the Mesoamerican ecosystems, but also an animal with spots (similar to lesions), the Mayans were legitimizing their diseased leadership. The jaguar people are the powerful people with the lesioned leadership. Many people had to die before the gods revealed the secret of corn soaking, thus the concept of sacrifice was incorporated into the cosmology.

Most importantly, the Popol Vuh reassures people that it is not the fault of the people in the first agricultural villages that they were hearing voices, that they were lesioned, that they were weak and dying. Nor is it the fault of the corn or the agricultural way of life. Rather, it was the fault of the creator beings. Now they had finally succeeded with a new being, a being made of corn dough, corn that has been cured of the disease by soaking it in ash. The narrative of the Popol Vuh helped to convince both the Chorti Maya villagers and neighboring peoples to trust the diseased Chorti leadership and to accept the strange new practice, sent by the gods, of soaking corn in ashes.

[PostScript, Jan. 27, 2010. To remember those who died in this epidemic and to give thanks for the one true answer to overcoming it, the Mayans put a touch of ash on their foreheads.]