According to the census of 1880 there were 31,000 Indians in Mexico
belonging to the _Familia Chontal_.[185] No such family exists. The word
_chontalli_ in the Nahuatl language means simply “stranger,” and was
applied by the Nahuas to any people other than their own. According to
the Mexican statistics, the Chontals are found in the states of Mexico,
Puebla, Oaxaca, Guerrero, Tobasco, Guatemala and Nicaragua. A similar
term is _popoloca_, which in Nahuatl means a coarse fellow, one speaking
badly, that is, broken Nahuatl. The popolocas have also been erected
into an ethnic entity by some ethnographers, with as little justice
as the Chontallis. They are stated to have lived in the provinces of
Puebla, Oaxaca, Vera Cruz, Mechoacan, and Guatemala. Sometimes the same
tribe has been called both Chontales and Popoloras, which would be quite
correct in the Nahuatl tongue, since in it these words are common nouns
and nearly synonymous in signification; but employed in an ethnographic
sense, they have led to great confusion, and the blending into one of
distinct nationalities. I shall attempt to unravel this snarl as far as
the linguistic material at my command permits.
The Chontales of Oaxaca lived on the Pacific coast on the Cordillera in
that State, in the Sierra Quiegolani. They were brought under instruction
in the latter part of the sixteenth century by Father Diego Carranza,
who labored among them for twelve years with gratifying success, and
wrote a _Doctrina_, _Sermones_ and _Ejercicios Espirituales_ in their
language.[186] Unfortunately these works are no longer to be found, and
the only specimen of their idiom which I have obtained is a vocabulary
of 23 words, collected by John Porter Bliss in 1871. This is too limited
to admit of positive identification; but it certainly shows several
coincidences with the Yuma linguistic stock.[187] Provisionally, however,
I give it the name of _Tequistlatecan_, from the principal village of the
tribe, where Father Carranza built his church. The Chontales of Guerrero
were immediately adjacent to those of Oaxaca, in the same Sierra, and
there is every reason to believe that they belonged to the same family;
and from their location, history and associations, I do not doubt that
Orozco y Berra was right in placing the Triquis in the same family.[188]
The Chontales of Tabasco occupied most of the basin of the Rio Grijalva.
Herrera states that their language was that in general use in the
province, being richer in words than the Zoque, or the provincial Mexican
which has been introduced.[189] This leads us to believe that it was a
Maya dialect, a supposition confirmed by a MS. vocabulary obtained by the
late Dr. C. H. Berendt. By this it is seen that the Chontal of Tabasco is
a member of the numerous Maya family, and practically identical with the
Tzendal dialect.[190]
In Nicaragua two entirely different peoples have been called Chontales.
The first of these is also sometimes mentioned as Popolucas. Their tongue
is, or a generation ago was, current in and around the city of Matagalpa
and in various hamlets of the departments of Matagalpa, Segovia and
Chontales. The only specimen I know of it is a vocabulary, obtained in
1874 by the Rev. Victor Noguera, and supplied by him to Dr. Berendt. It
contains a small percentage of words from the neighboring dialects, but
in the mass is wholly different, and I consider it an independent stock,
to which I give the name _Matagalpan_.
The second Chontales of Nicaragua are those mentioned as Chontal-lencas
by M. Désiré Pector, and are none other than the Lencas described by Mr.
E. G. Squier.
The Chontal of Honduras is located geographically in those regions where
the Chorti dialect of the Maya stock prevails, and there is no reasonable
doubt but that it is Chorti and nothing more.
The Chontales described by Mr. E. G. Squier as living in the mountains
north of Lake Nicaragua, about the sources of the Blewfield river, and
of whose language he gives a short vocabulary,[191] are proved by this to
be members of the extensive family of the Ulvas.
Of the various tribes called Popolocas, that living at the period of the
conquest in and near Puebla was the most important. Their chief city was
Tecamachcalco, and they occupied most of the old province of Tepeaca. We
can form some idea of their number from the statement that in the year
1540 Father Francisco de las Navas visited their country for missionary
purposes, and in less than two months converted (!) and baptized 12,000
of them, and this without any knowledge of their language.[192] The
first who did obtain a familiarity with it was Francisco de Toral,
afterwards first bishop of Yucatan. He described it as most difficult,
but nevertheless succeeded in reducing it to rules and wrote an _Arte y
Metodo_ of it, now unfortunately lost.[193] Its relationship has remained
obscure. De Laet asserted that it was merely a corrupt dialect of the
Nahuatl;[194] while Herrera was informed by his authorities that it was
a wholly different tongue.[195] In this opinion he was right. In 1862
Dr. Berendt succeeded in obtaining a short vocabulary of it as it is
still spoken at Oluta, Tesistepec, San Juan Volador and the neighboring
country. A comparison shows that it belongs to the Mixe family. The
ancient province of Tepeaca adjoined directly the territory of the Mixes,
and this identification proves that their tongue was more important and
extended much more widely than has hitherto been supposed. It was spoken,
therefore, by the Tlapanecos, Coviscas and Yopes, who were located in
this region.
The Popoloca of Oaxaca is an entirely different tongue. It is mentioned
as identical with the Chochona, and some have supposed this dialect,
in which we have a _Catecismo_ by Father Roldan, was the same as the
Popoloca of Tepeaca. This is an error. As I have said, the first
missionary to master and write about the latter was Father Toral, who
wrote his _Arte_ about 1561; but more than ten years before that, to
wit, in 1550, Father Benito Fernandez had printed in the city of Mexico
his _Doctrina en Lengua Misteca_, and had composed variants in the
Tepuzcolola and Chochona dialects of that tongue.[196] The Chochona
or Popoloca, of Oaxaca, belongs to the Zapotec-Mixtec, and not to the
Zoque-Mixe family.
The Popolocas who lived in and near Michoacan were also called Tecos,
and Orozco y Berra enumerates the language they spoke, the Teca, among
those which are extinct.[197] The name _Tecos_, however, was merely an
abbreviated form of _Cuitlatecos_, and was applied to the conquered
Nahuatl population around Michoacan. In some of the old glossaries _teco_
is explained by _Mexicano_.[198] The language they spoke belonged to the
Nahuatl branch of the Uto-Aztecan stock.
The Popolocas of Guatemala were located at the close of the eighteenth
century in two curacies widely apart.[199] One of these was Yanantique,
partido of San Miguel, province of San Salvador, and contained the
villages Conchagua and Intipuca. Now Intipuca is a Lenca name, as stated
by Mr. Squier, and we are thus authorized to identify these Popolocas
with the Lencas. The other Popolocas were at and near Conguaco in
the partido of Guazacapan, province of Escuintla, where they lived
immediately adjacent to the Xincas. Dr. Otto Stoll identifies them with
the Mixes, but by an error, as he mistook the vocabulary collected
by Dr. Berendt of the Popoloca of Oluta, for one of the Popoloca of
Conguaco.[200] What language is spoken there I do not know, as I have not
been able to find a word in it in any of my authorities.
Dr. Julius Scherzer has further added to the confusion about the
Popolocas of Guatemala by printing at Vienna a vocabulary under this
name which he had obtained near the Volcan de Agua.[201] It is nothing
more than the ordinary Cakchiquel dialect of that locality, known as the
_lengua metropolitana_ from its official adoption by the church.