Mopan Territory

Last updated

Territory of the Mopan Maya
Aikal(Mopan Mayan)
c. 950–1720s
Mopan Territory map.png
Location of the Mopan Territory in the 17th century / marked in light grey, including Chinamita and Muzul Territories / 2023 map based mostly on Becquey 2012 and Feldman 2000 / via Commons
StatusDissolved
CapitalMopan / likely now San Luis
Common languages Mopan Mayan
Religion
Maya polytheism
Demonym(s) Mopan; Aycal
Government Confederacy of settlements with aristocratic and theocratic features
Leader 
• ca 1697
Taxim Chan / last known
Historical era Postclassic to Precolonial
• Established
c. 950
• Disestablished
1720s
Population
• ca 1692
10,000–20,000 / estimate
Today part of Belize; Guatemala
Native name per Jones 1998, p. 21, based on historical name per Thompson 1976, p. 100 and Jones 1977, p. 5. Founding and dissolution dates per Thompson 2019, p. 156 and Jones 1998, p. 420. Map based mostly on Becquey 2012, maps 3, 6 and Feldman 2000, p. xvii. Capital per Jones 1998, pp. 19, 21–22, 433. Common language per Thompson 2019, p. 156 and Thompson 1988, p. 39. Demonyms per von Houwald 1984, p. 263. Government per Jones 1998, pp. 20–21. Leader per von Houwald 1984, pp. 266–267. Population estimate per Schwartz 1990, p. 35.

The Mopan Territory, historically also known as Aycal, was a Postclassic polity of the former Maya Lowlands, in present-day Belize and Guatemala.

Contents

Geography

The Territory 'lay immediately north of the Manche Chol [Territory] and southeast of Lake Peten,' with the modern town of San Luis, Peten, as the most likely site of ancient Mopan. [1] Though its full extent remains 'virtually unknown,' the Territory is thought to have stretched north along the Mopan River, thereby encompassing the Chinamita Territory, and east to the Sittee and Sibun Rivers, thereby encompassing the Muzul Territory. [2] This would situate the Territory directly south of Dzuluinicob, southeast of the Peten Itza Kingdom, east of Lacandon territory, and north and west of Manche Chol Territory. The aforementioned Kingdom, in particular, is thought to have held marked political, cultural, or spiritual influence over the Territory. [3] [note 1]

History

Pre-Columbian

Classic city-states in what would later become the Mopan Territory are believed to have met their political and demographic demise during the mid-eighth and mid-ninth centuries of the Classic Maya collapse, with only residual hinterland settlements remaining afterwards. [4] [note 2]

Columbian

The earliest Spanish arrival to the Territory may have been Hernán Cortés, who in 1525 is thought to have crossed its northeastern portion. [5] The earliest Spanish military campaign into the Territory may have been the 1543–1544 Pachecos entrada, which failed due to timely intercession of Dominican friars. The Dominicans' early proselytising efforts in the Territory 'were notably unsuccessful,' though. [6] This prompted more determined activity beginning in the 1570s, which 'continued throughout the next century.' [7] [note 3]

Some or much of the Territory was reportedly attacked by the Peten Itza Kingdom en los últimos años antes de la llegada de los españoles, 'in the last years before the [1697] arrival of the Spanish [to Tayasal],' the latter purportedly seeking to conquer the former. [8] [note 4] This is naturally thought to have strained Mopan–Itza relations. [9]

The Spanish conquest of Peten resulted in the western portion of the Territory being 'militarily bludgeoned into submission at the end of the seventeenth century.' [10] Coincident and ensuing reducciones throughout the Territory forcibly removed most residents to the newly-Spanish Peten by the 1720s. [11] [note 5]

Society

The Territory was dotted by dispersed, riverine hamlets, each consisting of one or a few families of Mopan speakers. [12] Settlements are thought to have shown 'little evidence of wealth,' for instance, with 'generally a hut of regular house type, although somewhat larger, serv[ing] as the temple.' [13] Despite this, the hamlets are thought to have been organised into various lineage groups which, in turn, 'clearly constitute[d] an identifiable "people" or larger "nation" living in a contiguous region.' [14] [note 6]

Legacy

The earliest description of the Territory in print is thought to have appeared in the 1688 Historia de Yucathan by Diego López de Cogolludo, who credited this information to Bartolomé de Fuensalida, a Franciscan friar who himself likely first got it from an Itza delegation to Tipu in 1618. [15] Scholarship has advanced little since then, however. As of 2009, the state of archaeological and archival research on the Territory was deemed 'poor,' with the former Mopans described as a people who remain virtually unknown materially and geopolitically except for documentary references or linguistic reconstructions. [16] [note 7]

The Territory's residents are deemed the main ancestors of the modern Mopan Maya people of Belize and Guatemala.

Notes and references

Explanatory footnotes

  1. ↑ So much so that it has been suggested that [b]ien eran sus aliados, o bien su territorio formaba parte integrante del estado de los Itzáes de Tayasal, 'either they [the Mopans] were their [the Itzas'] allies, or their territory [Mopan Territory] was an integral part of the state of the Itzas of Tayasal ' (von Houwald 1984, pp. 266–267). Spanish colonial accounts reported that Kan Ek' sólo conocía, aparte de la suya, las "naciones" de los Mopanes, del Tipú y de los Muzules, 'knew only, other than his own, the "nations" of the Mopans, of the Tipu and of the Muzuls' (von Houwald 1984, p. 266). Upon the 1697 fall of Tayasal, at least some of the Territory's caciques were listed in Spanish records as among those who le obedecían a, 'obeyed,' Martín Francisco Chan, nephew of the recently deposed Kan Ek' of Tayasal (von Houwald 1984, p. 265, Jones 1998, pp. 384–385, 418–419).
  2. ↑ However, as languages of the Ch'olan branch of the Mayan languages family predominated in the southern Maya Lowlands up to the ninth century, while those of the Yucatecan branch arose in the northern Lowlands, mass north-to-south migrations after AD 900 have been proposed to explain the 16th century preponderance of Yucatecan branch languages in the southern Lowlands (Becquey 2012, paras. 8-10). Mopan Mayan is thought to have been the first language of the Yucatecan branch to separate from its sister languages (Rice & Rice 2009, pp. 18, 72, 77–78). Rice & Rice 2009, p. 71 notes, furthermore, that the Territory's residents 'almost certainly were an ancient [Classic southeastern] Petén population,' while Rice & Rice 2009, p. 93 suggests that these early residents may have 'originally [been based] in the eastern [Peten] lakes area (in the Terminal Classic period, for example), [... and only] later pushed southwards and eastwards by the expansionist Itza.'
  3. ↑ In particular, the early 17th century success of Dominican work in the Manche Chol Territory is thought to have provoked Mopan–Itza military campaigns against Spanish misión towns therin during 1631–1632 (Jones 1998, pp. 49–52).
  4. ↑ Jones 1998, pp. 56–57 suggests this aggression 'must have been part of an even larger effort to reconsolidate Itza control over the Belize River valley itself,' and further suggests that the Itzas first sought such control via 'one or more wars, beginning in the 1630s, that resulted in the incorporation of the entire region from Yalain to Tipuj [including at least some of the western Mopan Territory] into the larger Itza political sphere.' In particular, Jones 1998, p. 58 suggests 'Mopan, briefly a mission town itself, was probably attacked by the Itzas [in the 1630s] and subsequently incorporated into the Itza political system as an outlying colony whose duty was to monitor the frontier with [Dominican-controlled] Verapaz.'
  5. ↑ Though at least a residual population in ephemeral, dispersed hamlets is thought to have escaped such fate (Thompson 2019, pp. 30–32, 156, Jones 1998, p. 420). They are believed to have been shortly joined by returning residents and Itza refugees, and eventually absorbed into late 19th century settlements of Mopan and Q'eqchi' refugees (Thompson 2019, pp. 31–32, 156, Jones 1998, pp. 420–421, Schwartz 1990, p. 90, Wilk & Chapin 1988, p. 9).
  6. ↑ Jones 1977, pp. xv–xvi and Spores 1986, p. 76 suggest the Territory may or likely had some degree of political unity or organisation, and similarly, Jones 1998, pp. 20–21 interprets the term Mopan as a 'political-ethnic designation.' Thompson 1976, pp. 74, 76, though, suggests each hamlet may or likely was 'independent with no evidence of any supravillage organisation.'
  7. ↑ Jones 1998, p. 19 deemed the Mopans 'one of the least well known, both historically and geographically, of all lowland Maya peoples.' Spores 1986, p. 68 felt there was 'still no thorough examination of [the Columbian history of the Territory] in print.'.

Short citations

  1. ↑ Jones 1977, pp. 5–7, 25; Thompson 1988, p. 36; Atran et al. 1993, p. 634; Jones 1998, pp. 5–7, 19, 433–434.
  2. ↑ Jones 1977, pp. 5–7, 21; Jones 1998, pp. 19–22, 168–169, 433–434; Rice & Rice 2009, pp. 12–13.
  3. ↑ von Houwald 1984, pp. 262–263; Jones 1998, p. 99; Atran et al. 1993, p. 639.
  4. ↑ Thompson 2019, pp. 30, 70, 156.
  5. ↑ Thompson 1976, p. 6; von Houwald 1984, p. 255; Jones 1989, pp. 295–296.
  6. ↑ Spores 1986, p. 68.
  7. ↑ Jones 1989, pp. 100–101.
  8. ↑ von Houwald 1984, p. 263.
  9. ↑ von Houwald 1984, pp. 266–267; Jones 1998, p. 101.
  10. ↑ Spores 1986, p. 68; Jones 1998, pp. 173, 233; Schwartz 1990, p. 35; Wilk & Chapin 1988, p. 10.
  11. ↑ Thompson 2019, pp. 30–32, 156; Jones 1998, pp. 408, 420, 516–517.
  12. ↑ Thompson 2019, pp. 156–157.
  13. ↑ Thompson 1976, pp. 74, 76.
  14. ↑ Jones 1998, pp. 20–21.
  15. ↑ Jones 1998, pp. 19–20.
  16. ↑ Rice & Rice 2009, pp. 13, 17.

Full citations

  1. Atran S, Chase AF, Fedick SL, Knapp G, McKillop H, Marcus J, Schwartz NB, Webb MC (December 1993). "Itza Maya Tropical Agro-Forestry [and Comments and Replies]". Current Anthropology. 34 (5): 633–700. doi:10.1086/204212. JSTOR   2744279. S2CID   147519787.
  2. Becquey C (5 December 2012). "Quelles frontières pour les populations cholanes?". Ateliers d'Anthropologie. 37 (37). doi: 10.4000/ateliers.9181 .
  3. Beyette BJ, LeCount LJ, eds. (2017). "The Only True People": Linking Maya Identities Past and Present. Boulder, Colo.: University Press of Colorado. ISBN   9781607325673.
  4. Feldman LH, ed. (2000). Lost Shores, Forgotten Peoples: Spanish Explorations of the South East Maya Lowlands. Latin America in Translation / En Traducción / Em Tradução. Durham, N. Car., and London: Duke University Press. ISBN   0822326302. OL   9874598M.
  5. Graham E (2011). Maya Christians and their Churches in Sixteenth-Century Belize. Maya Studies. Gainesville, Fla.: University Press of Florida. ISBN   9780813036663.
  6. Jiménez Abollado FL (January 2010). "Reducción de indios infieles en la Montaña del Chol: la expedición del Sargento Mayor Miguel Rodríguez Camilo en 1699". Estudios de Cultura Maya. 35: 91–110. ISSN   2448-5179.
  7. Jones GD, ed. (1977). Anthropology and History in Yucatán. The Texas Pan American Series. Austin, Tex. and London: University of Texas Press. ISBN   0292703147. OL   18272858W.
  8. Jones GD (1989). Maya Resistance to Spanish Rule: Time and History on a Colonial Frontier. Albuquerque, New Mex.: University of New Mexico Press. ISBN   082631161X. OL   2213175M.
  9. Jones GD (1998). The Conquest of the Last Maya Kingdom. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. ISBN   0804733171.
  10. Machault J (2018). "Organización y modalidad del intercambio a larga distancia en 'la Montaña' del Petén, siglos XVI-XVII". Indiana. 35 (1): 97–120. doi:10.18441/ind.v35i1.97-120.
  11. Rice PM, Rice DS, eds. (2009). The Kowoj: Identity, Migration, and Geopolitics in Late Postclassic Petén, Guatemala. Mesoamerican Worlds. Boulder, Colo.: University Press of Colorado. ISBN   9780870819308.
  12. Schwartz NB, ed. (1990). Forest Society: A Social History of Petén, Guatemala. The Ethnohistory Series. Philadelphia, Penn.: University of Pennsylvania Press. JSTOR   stable/j.ctv4s7k6r.
  13. Spores R, ed. (1986). Ethnohistory. Supplement to the Handbook of Middle American Indians. Vol. 4. Austin, Tex.: University of Texas Press. ISBN   0292776047. OL   18331655W.
  14. Thompson AE (December 2019). Comparative Processes of Sociopolitical Development in the Foothills of the Southern Maya Mountains (PhD thesis). Albuquerque, New Mex.: University of New Mexico. OCLC   1156632404.
  15. Thompson JE (1976) [first published 1970 by Univ. of Okla. Press]. Maya History and Religion. The Civilization of the American Indian. Vol. 99 (3rd printing of 1st ed.). Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN   0806108843. OL   11114327W.
  16. Thompson JE (1988) [first published 1972 by Benex Press]. The Maya of Belize: Historical Chapters Since Columbus (reprint of 1st ed.). Benque Viejo, Belize: Cubola Productions. ISBN   9686233032. OL   1792198M.
  17. von Houwald GF, ed. (1979). Comentario. Nicolás de Valenzuela: Conquista del Lacandón y Conquista del Chol. Vol. 2. Berlin: Colloquium Verlag. ISBN   3767804859.{{cite book}}: |journal= ignored (help)
  18. von Houwald GF (1984). "Mapa y Descripción de la Montaña del Petén e Ytzá: Interpretación de un documento de los años poco después de la conquista de Tayasal". Indiana. 9: 255–278. doi:10.18441/ind.v9i0.255-271.
  19. Wanyerka PJ (August 2009). Classic Maya Political Organization: Epigraphic Evidence of Hierarchical Organization in the Southern Maya Mountains Region of Belize (PhD thesis). Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois University. OCLC   776149169.
  20. Wilk R, Chapin M (September 1988). Ethnic Minorities in Belize: Mopan, Kekchi, and Garifuna (Report). Washington, DC: US Agency for International Development. Doc ID PN-ABI-653.

16°44′38″N89°04′05″W / 16.744°N 89.068°W / 16.744; -89.068

Related Research Articles

The Spanish conquest of Yucatán was the campaign undertaken by the Spanish conquistadores against the Late Postclassic Maya states and polities in the Yucatán Peninsula, a vast limestone plain covering south-eastern Mexico, northern Guatemala, and all of Belize. The Spanish conquest of the Yucatán Peninsula was hindered by its politically fragmented state. The Spanish engaged in a strategy of concentrating native populations in newly founded colonial towns. Native resistance to the new nucleated settlements took the form of the flight into inaccessible regions such as the forest or joining neighbouring Maya groups that had not yet submitted to the Spanish. Among the Maya, ambush was a favoured tactic. Spanish weaponry included broadswords, rapiers, lances, pikes, halberds, crossbows, matchlocks, and light artillery. Maya warriors fought with flint-tipped spears, bows and arrows and stones, and wore padded cotton armour to protect themselves. The Spanish introduced a number of Old World diseases previously unknown in the Americas, initiating devastating plagues that swept through the native populations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Flores, Petén</span> Place in El Petén, Guatemala

Flores is the capital of the Petén Department, Guatemala's landlocked, northernmost department. The population is 13,700 (2003).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tayasal (archaeological site)</span>

Tayasal is a Maya archaeological site located in present-day Guatemala. It was a large Maya city with a long history of occupation. Tayasal is a corruption of Tah Itza, a term originally used to refer to the core of the Itza territory in Petén. The name Tayasal was applied in error to the archaeological site, and originally applied to the Itza capital. However, the name now refers to the peninsula supporting both the archaeological site and the village of San Miguel. The site was occupied from the Middle Preclassic period through to the Late Postclassic (c. 1200–1539 AD).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Itza people</span> Central American ethnic group

The Itza are a Maya ethnic group native to the Péten region of northern Guatemala and parts of Belize. The majority of Itza are inhabitants of the city of Flores on Lake Petén Itzá, and nearby portions of Belize where they form an ethnic minority.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spanish conquest of Guatemala</span> 1524–1697 defeat of Mayan kingdoms

In a protracted conflict during the Spanish colonization of the Americas, Spanish colonisers gradually incorporated the territory that became the modern country of Guatemala into the colonial Viceroyalty of New Spain. Before the conquest, this territory contained a number of competing Mesoamerican kingdoms, the majority of which were Maya. Many conquistadors viewed the Maya as "infidels" who needed to be forcefully converted and pacified, disregarding the achievements of their civilization. The first contact between the Maya and European explorers came in the early 16th century when a Spanish ship sailing from Panama to Santo Domingo was wrecked on the east coast of the Yucatán Peninsula in 1511. Several Spanish expeditions followed in 1517 and 1519, making landfall on various parts of the Yucatán coast. The Spanish conquest of the Maya was a prolonged affair; the Maya kingdoms resisted integration into the Spanish Empire with such tenacity that their defeat took almost two centuries.

Itzaʼ is an endangered Mayan language spoken by the Itza people near Lake Peten Itza in north-central Guatemala and neighboring Belize. The language has about 1,000 fluent speakers, all older adults.

Mopan is a language that belongs to the Yucatecan branch of the Mayan languages. It is spoken by the Mopan people who live in the Petén Department of Guatemala and in the Maya Mountains region of Belize. There are between three and four thousand Mopan speakers in Guatemala and six to eight thousand in Belize.

The Petén Basin is a geographical subregion of the Maya Lowlands, primarily located in northern Guatemala within the Department of El Petén, and into the state of Campeche in southeastern Mexico.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spanish conquest of the Maya</span> Conquest dating from 1511 to 1697

The Spanish conquest of the Maya was a protracted conflict during the Spanish colonisation of the Americas, in which the Spanish conquistadores and their allies gradually incorporated the territory of the Late Postclassic Maya states and polities into the colonial Viceroyalty of New Spain. The Maya occupied the Maya Region, an area that is now part of the modern countries of Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras and El Salvador; the conquest began in the early 16th century and is generally considered to have ended in 1697.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nojpetén</span> Capital city of the Mayan kingdom of Petén Itzá; now Flores, Guatemala

Nojpetén was the capital city of the Itza Maya kingdom of Petén Itzá. It was located on an island in Lake Petén Itzá in the modern department of Petén in northern Guatemala. The island is now occupied by the modern town of Flores, the capital of the Petén department, and has had uninterrupted occupation since pre-Columbian times. Nojpetén had defensive walls built upon the low ground of the island, which may have been hastily constructed by the Itza at a time when they felt threatened either by the encroaching Spanish or by other Maya groups.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yucatecan languages</span> Mayan language subgroup

The Yucatecan languages form a branch of the Mayan family of languages, comprising four languages, namely, Itzaj, Lacandon, Mopan, and Yucatec. The languages are presently extant in the Yucatán Peninsula, encompassing Belize, northern Guatemala, and southeastern Mexico.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yalain</span>

The Yalain have been proposed as a Maya polity that existed during the Postclassic period in the Petén Basin of northern Guatemala, based in the central Petén lakes region. A small town called Yalain was described in 1696 by the Franciscan friar Andrés de Avendaño y Loyola. It was said to consist of a relatively small number of residences clustered within rich agricultural land. The town was located to the east of Lake Petén Itzá and was said to have been farmed by the inhabitants of Nojpetén, the capital city of the Itza kingdom. The political extent and archaeology of the Yalain is poorly understood.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spanish conquest of Petén</span> Final stage of the conquest of Guatemala

The Spanish conquest of Petén was the last stage of the conquest of Guatemala, a prolonged conflict during the Spanish colonisation of the Americas. A wide lowland plain covered with dense rainforest, Petén contains a central drainage basin with a series of lakes and areas of savannah. It is crossed by several ranges of low karstic hills and rises to the south as it nears the Guatemalan Highlands. The conquest of Petén, a region now incorporated into the modern republic of Guatemala, climaxed in 1697 with the capture of Nojpetén, the island capital of the Itza kingdom, by Martín de Ursúa y Arizmendi. With the defeat of the Itza, the last independent and unconquered native kingdom in the Americas fell to European colonisers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kejache</span>

The Kejache were a Maya people in northern Guatemala at the time of Spanish contact in the 17th century. The Kejache territory was located in the Petén Basin in a region that takes in parts of both Guatemala and Mexico. Linguistic evidence indicates that the Kejache shared a common origin with the neighbouring Itzas to their southeast and the Kejache may have occupied the general region since the Classic period. The Kejache were initially contacted by conquistador Hernán Cortés in 1525; they were later in prolonged contact with the Spanish as the latter opened a route southwards towards Lake Petén Itzá.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lakandon Chʼol</span> Maya people

The Lakandon Chʼol were a former Chʼol-speaking Maya people inhabiting the Lacandon Jungle in what is now Chiapas in Mexico and the bordering regions of northwestern Guatemala, along the tributaries of the upper Usumacinta River and the foothills of the Sierra de los Cuchumatanes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peten Itza kingdom</span> Postclassic Maya state

The Peten Itza kingdom was a kingdom centered on the island-city of Nojpetén on Lake Peten Itza.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Manche Chʼol</span> Postclassic Maya nation from the 10th cent to 1704

The Manche Chʼol were a Maya people who constituted the former Manche Chʼol Territory, a Postclassic polity of the southern Maya Lowlands, within the extreme south of what is now Petén and the area around Lake Izabal in northern Guatemala, and southern Belize. The Manche Chʼol took the name Manche from the name of their main settlement. They were the last of a set of Ch'olan-speaking groups in the eastern Maya Lowlands to remain independent and ethnically distinct. It is likely that they were descended from the inhabitants of Classic period Maya cities in the southeastern Maya Lowlands, such as Nim Li Punit, Copán and Quiriguá.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chinamita</span> Former Maya nation from ca 16th cent to ca 1700

The Chinamitas or Tulumkis were likely a Mopan Maya people who constituted the former Chinamita Territory, an early Columbian polity of the Maya Lowlands, likely in present-day Belize and Guatemala. In the early 17th century, the Territory probably lay along the Mopan River in the eastern Petén Basin and neighbouring portions of western Belize, being thereby situated east of the Itza of Nojpetén, south of the Yaxhá and Sacnab lakes, and west of Tipuj.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dzuluinicob</span> Postclassic Maya state from ca 11th cent to 1544

Dzuluinicob, or the Province of Dzuluinicob or Ts'ulwinikob, was a Postclassic Maya state in the Yucatán Peninsula of the Maya Lowlands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Muzul Territory</span> Former Maya state from ca 15th cent to 1756

The Musul or Muzul Territory is thought to have been a Postclassic polity of the former Maya Lowlands, in present-day Belize. Little is currently known of the Territory, though it is presumed to have been subordinate to or formed part of the Dzuluinicob Province or the Mopan Territory.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.