Ch'orti Maya Area: Past and Present

11. Some Data and Reflections on the Demographic Dynamism and Continuity of the Colonial Ch′orti′ Population: The Many Copans and San Juan Ermita

11 Some Data and Reflections on the Demographic Dynamism and Continuity of the Colonial Ch′orti′ Population The Many Copans and San Juan Ermita Lawrence H. Feldman In 1978, I led a team that conducted a survey of colonial documents pertaining to twenty-eight Guatemalan and Honduran communities of the southeastern Maya periphery. While a written report was made of the results, it was never published. Data from this study elucidate the lifeways of Maya people and the land-use practices in this region, as well as the pressures placed on these people by Spanish colonization. Such pressures caused population instability and sparked migrations, such that one must be careful in claiming that contemporary Ch′orti′ populations and cultural practices are directly descended from past societies in the same locations. The Area The area we selected for survey conforms to the region where Ch′orti′ was likely spoken. Until now, there has been little precision in the published literature as to Ch′orti′ language boundaries, particularly for western Honduras . Language boundaries were not static during the three hundred years of Spanish control. For example, Mayan languages like Yukatek and Q′eqchi′ expanded at the expense of Ch′olti′, which ceased to be spoken by the end of the colonial period. The Ch′orti′ area was no exception, but we do have good evidence from various sources (see Table 11.1), including Estrada Monroy’s (1972) reference to a General Archives of Central America (AGCA) document, that Ch′orti′ was spoken throughout western Honduras at different times. As can be seen in Table 11.1, be148 Demographic Dynamism and Continuity · 149 sides Ch′orti′, “Care” was also spoken in the region; this may have been a Lencan dialect, as Lenca was spoken immediately to the east (for example , in Lamani, Honduras). Whatever the case, Care and Ch′orti′ were listed as distinct languages, and by the twentieth century “Care” ceased to be mentioned in official documents, leaving Ch′orti′ as the region’s sole remaining indigenous language. Ultimately, our survey covered all of the major colonial towns in the Guatemalan departments of Chiquimula and Zacapa as well as the Honduran departments of Ocotepeque and Santa Rosa de Copán. In terms of colonial jurisdictions, the Guatemalan towns belonged to the old corregimiento of Chiquimula de la Sierra, while the Honduran settlements were in the partido of Gracias a Dios. The data selected for discussion here regard especially San Juan Ermita in Guatemala and the now-abandoned colonial town of Copán in Honduras. The Many Copans Nowhere is the continuity amidst dramatic change in the Ch′orti′ area more clearly seen than in the different “Copans” that have come and gone throughout history. First, there was the Classic period center that has attracted the most attention from modern archaeologists and epigraphers, including in this volume. Contrary to popular assumptions, the Spanish knew of its ruins very early in the colonial period (García de Palacio (1927 [1576]), and it was first excavated in the early 1800s, according to Juan Galindo’s 1834 paper (in AGCA). Table 11.1. Earliest documented dates of languages spoken in colonial western Honduras Language Town Date Reference Ch′orti′ Copán 1576 García de Palacio (1927) Ch′orti′/Nahua Naco 1576 García de Palacio (1927) Ch′orti′ Opoa eighteenth century AGCA document Ch′orti′ Cucuyagua eighteenth century AGCA document Ch′orti′ Corquín eighteenth century AGCA document Ch′orti′ Sensenti eighteenth century AGCA document Ch′orti′ Gracias 1576 García de Palacio (1927) Care Llama 1632 Arriaza (1957) Care Gualala 1632 Arriaza (1957) Care Santa Bárbara 1632 Arriaza (1957) Care Lapaera 1632 Arriaza (1957) Care Tambla 1632 Arriaza (1957) 150 · Lawrence H. Feldman The second Copan was a Postclassic center that helped lead the Ch′orti′ resistance to the Spanish invasion. Early in the colonial period this town vanished, and subsequently was sometimes confused by the Spanish chroniclers (see García de Palacio 1927 [1576]; Fuentes y Guzmán (1933 [1699]) with the Copan ruins of the Classic period. Colonial records explicitly refer to yet a third Copán in 1582 (Anonymous 1946) and in an unpublished land title in 1629 (Copán 1629). We know that this Copán was distinct from the Postclassic site because the records describe the Postclassic site as lying on a mountaintop overlooking the colonial settlement. The abandoned Postclassic site and the colonial town were...