Teopan - Ancestral Home of the Quiches - The Indigenous History of El Salvador

When the Mayan ancestors left Isla Tigre following the advent of the 3rd sun, marked by a triple star event in 8207 BCE, each of the four lineages went to an island, in order to be safe from their fierce enemy the Xibalbhans at Corinto cave who were afraid of water. [Click to enlarge map.] Two lineages remained to the east - the Lenca/Olmeca lineage at Lago Olomega (Teomeka) and the Zapotec lineage at the mouth of the Lempa River (Teoakan). The Quiche lineage and the Ch'orti' lineage went to the west of El Salvador - the Quiches to Lago Coatepeque (Teopan) and the Ch'orti's to Lago Güija (Teotipa).

All of the four destination regions are beautiful, but Lago Coatepeque and Teopan are spectacular. Today Teopan is a private playground of some of El Salvador's wealthiest families. In the photo Teopan can be seen just to the right of center. Coatepeque is a crater lake and the serpentine nature of the hills surrounding the lake is especially clear, although a similar phenomena is found at Olomega and Güija. The hills became seen as a ringed serpent that protected the islanders. This led to another name of Coatepeque: Tamakchan, which means "deep inside the rainbow", where rainbow (makchan) means "serpent that stops up" (the rain). It is easy to see where the rainbow serpent originated. The name Tamoanchan is associated with western El Salvador (Arocha, 1990) and is found in Huasteca songs. It is possible that Tamakchan changed to Tamoanchan over the years among the Huasteca Maya.

The name Teopan means "island of sprouting", as in a plant breaking the soil. Teopan today is ringed with private yards and expensive homes. Only the eastern part has relatively few homes, as well as the top half of the island. One needs the permission of one of the island's residents to access the ferry (below) onto the island. Modern day Quiches would have to work at one of the homes in order to access their ancestral home.

While it is possible that Coatepeque is a Nahua (Pipil) overlay on the original name of the lake, meaning "serpent hill", Coatepeque does have a possible meaning in Ch'orti'. (The Quiche ancestors would have spoken proto-Chorti until they left for Mexico in about 2300 BCE. The two languages did not begin separating before that date.)

Ka- - our (prefix)
Wet - companion, fellow neighbor

Or "our neighbor", from the perspective of the Ch'orti's. The later Pipils would have changed this to something meaningful in their language, adding the "tepeque" and changing vowels somewhat to go from Kawet to Coat.

Teopan and the Coatepeque lake shore have an abundance of ceramics and stones that date from the Classic or post-Classic all the way back to the pre-Classic or earlier. More are demonstrated in the photo gallery at the end. Some of the oldest ones include rocks that are carved in a way that enhances natural features, such as the one at right above found near the ceremonial mounds on Teopan. The mounds, below left, were scheduled to be excavated starting December 2012. I believe that these mounds will be dated, at their earliest level, earlier than any pre-Classic Mayan site. Most of the carved stones and ceramic pieces on Teopan and Coatepeque have found their way into private homes, including the wealthy homes on Teopan.

The Quiche ancestors lived on Teopan from about 8200 BCE until about 2300 BCE - 5,900 years. At the latter end of that span they no doubt spilled over to the lakeshores of Coatepeque as the population increased. The Quiche are referred to as Cauec or Kawik in the Popol Vuh, a reference back to Hakawitz, the origin of tobacco. The Quiche probably were the first to cultivate tobacco.

Further evidence of the link with tobacco comes from the name of the wife of Quitze, the founder of the Quiche lineage. Her name is Kaqa Paluma:

Kah - start, beginning
K'ah - happiness

Pahr - shaping, fashioning
Lum - earth

The name means "start of happiness" and "shaping the earth". Start of happiness is a clear reference to Hakawitz, near the present-day Salvadoran town of Alegria, and the finding of tobacco. We also see that the Quiche seem to be the first mound and pyramid builders, done in homage to Hakawitz.

I have previously written that the elite Quiche leaders were the first to suffer from pellagra - or a lack of niacin, which resulted from a diet too heavy in untreated corn. Pellagra causes skin lesions, dementia, and death, as well as other symptoms. As a result of the symptoms of pellagra, with cause still unknown, the Quiche ancestors were sent into exile to the northwest coast of Mexico in about 2300 BCE to an island called Teacapan, which means "remembering Teopan." Later the Quiches were a primary formative group at Teotihuacan and tried to return to El Salvador before settling in western Guatemala.

When the Quiche ancestors left Coatepeque it seems likely that the Ch'orti' ancestors sent some families of their lineage at Güija to Coatepeque. These families became the Huasteca lineage and the same thing happened to them as the Quiche - they ate too much untreated corn and also began to suffer from pellagra. I believe that they were sent into exile along the northeast coast of Mexico, to their present-day home isolated from the rest of the Maya. Soon the Ch'orti' Maya discovered ash or lime as a way to treat corn and prevent pellagra; this process is called nixtamalization. Perhaps they first learned of these substances as fixing agents with natural plant dyes.

It appears that a remnant population of the Maya remained along the lake. These people are the ancesors of the present-day community of Coatepeque: one version of their oral history says that they lived along the lakeshore, then moved about ten kilometers from the lake and carried the name Coatepeque with them.

Two other local places have interesting histories. Congo means "Joint Tooth" in Ch'orti': K'om - "joint, splice"; K'o - "tooth, molar, beak". I believe that this is the place called Split Tooth in the Popol Vuh.

The second place is Siete Príncipes (Seven Princes). The name sounds like it comes from Classic Mayan days but the oral history suggests it was given by a foreigner who lived in the area in the 1950s and 1960s and wanted to highlight the seven cultural mounds grouped together so that he gave the place the name Siete Príncipes. The local people say that there are seven mounds - my colleagues and I were able to locate five of the seven on a visit in August 2012.

The mounds are obviously cultural and likely date to a period immediately after the Huastecas' departure in about 2000 BCE. The Siete Príncipes mounds would have represented the departure from Isla Teopan and more generally the expansion out from the four islands in El Salvador to the Pacific coast, ranging from Chiapas to El Salvador, as well as to the Atlantic Coast in Belize.

What may be most interesting about Siete Príncipes is that it lies close to the midpoint of a line connecting Tazumal (Chalchuapa) and San Andres Mayan sites. This suggests that Siete Príncipes was the first step away from Lago Coatepeque and Lago Guija and that Tazumal and San Andres were the next step before major expansion along the Pacific Coast to Chiapas once the nixtamalization process was discovered.

From Coatepeque the Quiche ancestors could walk north-northeast to the Lempa River. Going downstream they would arrive at the meeting place called Arcatao, where they would gather regularly with the other four lineages. Further downstream at the mouth of the Lempa was Tehucan, the home of the Zapotec ancestors and later a Mayan community. Going upstream by canoe they could arrive at Lago Guija and the Ch'orti's - although they probably more commonly walked or ran there. The fascinating mysteries of Guija are the next thing I will explore in this blog.

Photo Gallery

Carved stone from Lago Coatepeque, using natural features of the stone:

Another carved stone, possibly dating to before the pre-Classic:

The next carved stone probably dates from the early pre-Classic and one can see how the sophistication grew:

Here's a carved stone from the Classic era. This one is doing a yoga pose which serves as a based for the carving.

Other pre-Classic or Classic carved stones were found by the private landowners on Teopan and now serve as trophy pieces.

Another Classic-era carved stone on Teopan:

There are other vestiges of the Mayan presence at Teopan, including this mound:

Close to the mound were these rocks which appear to be the corner of an ancient rock wall.

The steps going to the top of Teopan appeared to be of the pre-Hispanic era:

At the very top of Teopan was this etched stone which appeared to have an astronomical formation on it:

Like the carved stones, the ceramics from Lago Coatepeque appear to span from pre-pre-Classic (on the left, below) to pre-Classic (on the right, below) to Classic to post-Classic. One also sees a range of East Asian faces to perhaps European faces on the ceramics.

The left and middle appear potentially pre-pre-Classic while on the right is likely pre-Classic.

More ceramics from either pre-pre-Classic to early pre-Classic.

This is a fascinating assymetrical ceramic face that may date to the time of the Quiche or Huasteca pellagra outbreak. Pellagra can cause insomnia, mental confusion, and dementia.