The Annals of the CakchiquelsArana Xajilá, Francisco Hernández
History
The Annals of the Cakchiquels
Arana Xajilá, Francisco Hernández
Cakchikel Indians; Cakchikel literature; Guatemala -- History -- To 1821
No supposition could have less support. The whole alleged story of the
Toltecs is merely an euhemerized myth, and they are as pure creations of
the fancy as the giants and fairies of mediæval romance. They have no
business in the pages of sober history.
The same blending of their most ancient legends with those borrowed from
the Aztecs, recurs in the records of the pure Mayas of Yucatan. I have
shown this, and explained it at considerable length in the first volume
of this series, to which I will refer the reader who would examine the
question in detail.[11-2]
There is a slight admixture of Aztec words in Cakchiquel. The names of
one or two of their months, of certain objects of barter, and of a few
social institutions, are evidently loan-words from that tongue. There
are also some proper names, both personal and geographical, which are
clearly of Nahuatl derivation. But, putting all these together, they
form but a very small fraction of the language, not more than we can
readily understand they would necessarily have borrowed from a nation
with whom, as was the case with the Aztecs, they were in constant
commercial communication for centuries.[12-1] The Pipils, their
immediate neighbors to the South, cultivating the hot and fertile slope
which descends from the central plateau to the Pacific Ocean, were an
Aztec race of pure blood, speaking a dialect of Nahuatl, very little
different from that heard in the schools of classic Tezcuco.[12-2] But
the grammatical structure and stem-words of the Cakchiquel remained
absolutely uninfluenced by this association.
Later, when the Spanish occupation had brought with it thousands of
Nahuatl speaking followers, who supplied the interpreters for the
conquerers, Nahuatl names became much more abundant, and were adopted by
the natives in addressing the Spaniards. Thus the four nations, whom I
have mentioned as the original possessors of the land, are, in the
documents of the time, generally spoken of by such foreign titles. The
Cakchiquels were referred to as _Tecpan Quauhtemallan_, the Quiches as
_Tecpan Utlatlan_, the Tzutuhils as _Tecpan Atitlan_, and the Akahals as
_Tecpan Tezolotlan_. In these names, all of them pure Nahuatl, the word
_Tecpan_ means the royal residence or capital; _Quauhtemallan_
(Guatemala), “the place of the wood-pile;” _Utlatlan_, “the place of the
giant cane;” _Atitlan_, “the place by the water;” _Tezolotlan_, “the
place of the narrow stone,” or “narrowed by stones.”[13-1]
These fanciful names, derived from some trivial local characteristic,
were not at all translations of the native tribal names. For in their
own dialects, Quiche, [c]iche, means “many trees;” Tuztuhil, [c,]utuhil,
“the flowery spot;” Akahal, “the honey-comb;” and Cakchiquel, a species
of tree.
_Culture of the Cakchiquels._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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