The
Indigenous Veracruz
By
John P. Schmal
|
|
|
Indigenous Tamaulipas By John P. Schmal The
state of Tamaulipas is located in the northeastern portion of the
Mexican Republic. It shares
common borders with the Mexican States of Nuevo León (to the west), San
Luis Potosí (to the southwest) and Veracruz (to the south). It also
shares its northern boundary with the American state of Texas.
On the east, Tamaulipas also has a 458-kilometer long coastline
along the Gulf of Mexico. With a
total of 80,249 square kilometers, Tamaulipas is divided into 43
municipios and occupies 4.1% of the national territory.
However, Tamaulipas’ 3,268,554 inhabitants make up only 2.9% of
the national population of the Mexican Republic. The capital of
Tamaulipas is Ciudad Victoria. The northern, central, eastern and
southeastern regions of Tamaulipas mainly consist of hills and coastal
plains that expand westward into the Sierra Madre Oriental. Only the
western and southwestern regions of the State include the high mountains
of the Sierra Madre Oriental. Origin
of the Name There
are several theories about the origins of the name Tamaulipas, the most
accepted of which states that Tamaulipas means “high mountain.” The
name is believed to derive from the Huasteca word, “Tamaholipa.” Tam
means “in” or “the place of.” While
some say that Tamaulipas means “the place of high mountains,” others
historians believe it means “the place where people pray a lot.” The
investigator Gabriel Saldívar
y Silva theorized in his “Los Indios de Tamaulipas” (Institute de
Instituto Panamericano de Geografia e Historia Publication No. 70:
Distrito Federal, 1943) that the indigenous peoples of Tamaulipas
represented an Eastern branch of Paleo-Americans that had probably
arrived in the region from New Mexico, Coahuila and Texas. Conquest
of the Huastecas The
first Spanish expedition to reach Tamaulipas was led by Hernández de Córdoba
and Juan Grijalva (1518). A
few years later, after taking control of Tenochtitlán (Mexico City) and
the Aztec Empire in August 1521, the Conquistador Hernán Cortés
marched toward Huasteco territory on the Gulf Coast with a large force
of Spaniards and Mexica auxiliaries. The Huasteco Indians, who speak a
form of the Mayan language, today occupy 55 municipios in the modern-day
states of Veracruz, San Luis Potosí and Hidalgo, as well as smaller
regions of southern Tamaulipas and Querétaro. It is believed that they
were isolated from the rest of the Maya and evolved separately and may
have arrived in the area as early as 200 A.D. Under Aztec rule, the
Huastecos occupied two Aztec provinces, Atlan and Tochpan. After meeting with considerable resistance, Cortés defeated the
Huastecos and founded the Villa de San Esteban in 1522. However,
subsequent revolts by the Huastecos in October-December 1523 and 1525-26
were put down with great cruelty. In spite of their battles with both
the Mexica and the Spaniards, the Huastecos continue to survive today,
maintaining many aspects of their traditional culture and language. In
fact, Huastecan music and dancing have influenced the musical folklore
of Mexico. After
the conquest of the Huastecas, the Spaniards explored the Tamaulipas
coastline up to the Rio Grande during the late 1520s. Then, in 1530,
Franciscan missionaries began their work in the southern area of
Tamaulipas, creating the first mission for the Huastecan and Pame
Indians. In the decades that followed, Spanish slaving parties ranged
northward into what they called “Chichimec” territory in an attempt
to find natives for the profitable trade in Indian slaves. The slaving
activity reached a crescendo in the 1580s and was continued later in a
disguised form under the system of “congregas” by which entire
rancherías were rounded up and transported to Nuevo Leon. However,
native attacks eventually pushed the Spaniards back to the Tamesí River
in southern Tamaulipas. For the next century-and-a-half, the Spanish
authorities became more focused on subduing other areas of Mexico and
paid little attention to most of this area. Not until 1747 did extensive
European colonization begin with the founding of the “Nuevo Santander”
colony. The
Seno Mexicano By the
end of the Sixteenth Century, Spanish settlement was moving northward
along the western slope of the Sierra Madre Oriental toward the Rio
Grande River that today represents the border between Texas and
Tamaulipas. The Spanish movement became even more targeted in the early
Seventeenth Century when Spain recognized that the French advance down
the Mississippi River represented a threat to its colonial empire. This
prompted the Spaniards to establish missions and presidios in east Texas
in 1716. Two years later, the mission of San Antonio de Valero (later
known as “The Alamo”), was established. However,
according to Hubert J. Miller, in “Jose de Escandon: Colonizer of
Nuevo Santander” (1980), the Spanish advance into Texas bypassed the
area called the “Seno Mexicano,” which extended from the Pánuco
River at Tampico to the Nueces River in Texas. Inland, it stretched to
the Sierra Madre Oriental, a distance that ranged between 100 and 150
miles. This region encompassed nearly all of present-day Tamaulipas and
the southern triangle of Texas below the Nueces River. Indigenous
Groups in the Seno Mexicano According
to Miller, there were an estimated 80 Indian tribes that occupied the
Seno Mexicano prior to the arrival of the Spanish colonists in the
mid-Eighteenth Century (the Nuevo Santander settlement). Studies
indicate that some thirty dialects were spoken, many of them closely
related to one another and probably originating from a trunk language.
The more advanced tribes tended to live in communities consisting of
four to five hundred persons. Early
observers noted that these small tribal groups appeared
to be at war with each other a great deal and had minimal contact with
native groups outside of their immediate areas. Most of their languages
have been lost to history. The primary sources
of information available about these Tamaulipas indigenous groups are: ·
Gabriel Saldivar, “Los
Indios de Tamaulipas” (Mexico City: Pan American Institute of
Geography and History, 1943). ·
J. R. Swanton, “Linguistic
Material from the Tribes of Southern Texas and Northeastern Mexico”
(Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1940). ·
Rudolph C. Troike, "Notes
on Coahuiltecan Ethnography," Bulletin of the Texas
Archeological Society 32 (1962). ·
Campbell, Thomas N.
“Coahuiltecans and Their Neighbors,” in Handbook of North American
Indians, Vol. 10 (Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1983). According
to Saldivar, when the Spaniards arrived, they found four cultures in the
area of present-day Tamaulipas. Each of the four groups are discussed
below. Grupos
del Norte (the Coahuiltecans) The
Groups of the North were primitive, nomadic groups that lived mainly in
the area between the Purificación and Bravo Rivers (The Río Bravo is
known as the Rio Grande to Americans today). These numerous small
northern Tamaulipas tribes appeared to speak closely-related languages
and shared the same basic culture. Because the Spaniards did not
initially take an interest in describing individual native groups or
classifying them into ethnic and linguistic groups, major dialectic and
cultural contrasts went unclassified for a long time. The
first attempt at classification was based on language, and came after
most of the Indian groups had already gone extinct (or assimilated).
Eventually, scholars constructed the so-called "Coahuiltecan
culture" by assembling bits of specific and generalized information
recorded by Spaniards from widely scattered parts of the region. Today,
we recognize that the Coahuiltecans were made up of hundreds of small,
autonomous, distinctively named Indian groups that lived by hunting,
gathering and fishing. It was their practice to move from one
traditional campsite to another, following herds of migrating animals
and tracking seasonal changes. The Coahuiltecans were tattooed and wore
a breechcloth or hide skirt, fiber sandals, and, in bad weather, they
covered themselves with animal hides. Animal teeth, bones, feathers,
stones, and seeds were worn as jewelry and sometimes woven into their
intricately braided hair. Shelter consisted of small temporary huts of
brush or grass, sensible structures given their way of life and the
climate of the area over which they ranged. The
Coahuiltecans ranged through a large area that included most of
present-day Coahuila, Nuevo León, northern Tamaulipas and southern
Texas (north to San Antonio River). A large number of the small tribal
groups or bands belonging to the Coahuiltecan stock remain unknown to
this day and even their locations – in many cases – is not clear. A more
detailed discussion of the Coahuiltecan Indians can be accessed at the
following link: http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/bmcah Grupos
de la Sierra Madre (i.e., Janambres, Pizones, Pames, Anacah) The
Groups of the Sierra Madre – such as the Pizones and Janambres –
were semi-sedentary groups who occupied caves and projections within the
mountains. They lived by hunting and practiced a very rudimentary form
of agriculture. The groups of the Sierra Madre were very belligerent and
initially opposed the Spanish incursions, but eventually were
assimilated. Grupos
de Tamaulipas (i.e., Contetunas, Tagualilos, Maguagues, Caramiguay) The
Tamaulipas groups included some sedentary peoples who were dedicated to
agriculture, with well-structured religious practices. The Tamaulipec
groups were mainly small tribes that occupied the central and
southeastern parts of the present-day state. Today, it is believed that
the so-called Tamaulipecan family was related the Coahulitecans. Through
their Coahuiltecan ties, it is believed that the Tamaulipecs were part
of the Hokan language group, but very few fragments of their languages
survive today. However, Miller notes that “there is evidence that some
of their words may still be present in the language of the Mexican
American people in the south Texas area.” It is likely that the
Tamaulipecs also have some connection to the Karankawan and Tonkawan
groups to the north of them (in Texas). Grupo
de Hauxteco (Huastecos) The
fourth Tamaulipas group, the Huastecas – discussed in more detail
earlier – were a more advanced group that extended through much of
Veracruz and merely occupied the southern portion of the present-day
State of Tamaulipas. Miller referred to the Huastecas as “the cultural
heirs of the Olmec civilization.” The Huasteca cultivated cotton
(which they supplied to the Aztec Empire), maintained trade with other
indigenous groups to the west, built artificial terraces and raised
domesticated animals. A list
of some of the Coahuiltecan and Tamaulipecan groups and their locations
is shown below:
Nuevo
Santander In 1742,
José de Escandón, Lieutenant General Captain of the Cerro Gordo
District, carried out three expeditions through the mountains of
southern Tamaulipas and helped friars to establish 11 missions there.
Then, in September 1746, Escandón received word that he had been
appointed to head the colonization project known as “Nuevo Santander”
– the establishment of small settlements along the Rio Grande that
would commence in the next year. In 1747,
Escandón engineered a seven-point penetration from southern Tamaulipas
with a convergence of all the expeditions at the mouth of Rio Grande. On
June 1, 1748, he was officially appointed the Governor of Nuevo
Santander, named for his home province in Spain. In a period of seven
years, Escandón would establish 23 settlements and 15 missions with
1,337 families (6,000 colonists) along the Rio Grande in Tamaulipas. The
whole colony was settled with remarkable speed. For the first time,
viceregal officials relied on colonists rather than missionaries and
soldiers to settle a new territory. Many of the settlers of Nuevo
Santander are, in fact, the ancestors of today’s Tejanos. Political
Chronology Tamaulipas
represented a large portion of the Spanish province of Nuevo Santander,
which was founded in 1748 as a part of the Nueva España Kingdom. It
became part of the “Provincias Internas” in 1777 until Mexican
independence in 1822. On October 3, 1824, Tamaulipas became an
independent state. Twentieth Century According to the 1895, 1900 and 1910 Mexican census schedules, no
inhabitants of Tamaulipas spoke any indigenous languages.
At least no one admitted to speaking such languages, although it
is likely that there may have been bilingual speakers.
In the
unusual 1921 Mexican census, residents of each state were asked to
classify themselves in several categories, including “indígena pura”
(pure indigenous), “indígena mezclada con blanca” (indigenous mixed
with white) and “blanca” (white). Out of a total state population of
286,904, only 39,606 persons (or 13.8%) claimed to be of pure indigenous
background. A large portion
of the population – 198,990, or 69.4% –classified themselves as
being mixed, while 38,845 (13.5%) claimed to be white. Not
until 1930 did any speakers of indigenous languages turn up in the
census. In that year, 185 persons were classified as indigenous speakers
who also spoke Spanish. This
figure reached 306 in the 1940 census. By the time of the 1950 census,
Tamaulipas had one monolingual speaker of indigenous languages and 695
bilingual speakers. The
2000 Census According
to the 2000 census, the population of persons five years and more who
spoke indigenous languages amounted to 17,118 individuals. The primary
groups were: Náhuatl (8,407
speakers), Huasteco (4,083), Totonaca (1,321), Otomí (530), Mazahua
(467), Zapoteco (432), Maya (226), and Mixteco (200). The
2005 Conteo According
to Mexico’s 2005 census count (conteo), 20,221 persons five years of
age and older spoke indigenous languages in Tamaulipas.
The three languages most represented in the population were:
Other
languages represented in the population were the Mazahua, Otomí,
Zapotec and Mixtec. 2010
Census In the 2010 census,
Tamaulipas was ranked 27th among the Mexican states and the
Federal District for the number of persons 5 years and older who speak
indigenous languages. A total of 23,296 residents of the State
represented 0.8% of Mexico’s indigenous speakers. Only Colima,
Zacatecas, Guanajuato, Aguascalientes and Coahuila had smaller
percentages of indigenous speakers.
In the 2010 census, the three most represented language-speakers
in the Tamaulipas population were:
Huasteco is the
eleventh most spoken language in Mexico – with 161,120 Huasteca
speakers in all the states 2010, representing 2.41% of Mexico’s
indigenous speakers five years of age or more. Ciudad
Matamoros has been recognized by the National Population Council (CONAPO)
as a major center of attraction for migrants from other Mexican states.
Tampico and Matamoros are both the destination for Nahuas from
various states, especially Veracruz, Nuevo León and San Luis Potosí. Mexicans
Considered Indigenous The 2010 census also
included a question that asked people if they considered themselves
indigenous, whether or not an indigenous language was spoken. The
results of this question indicated that 15.7
million persons 3 years of age and older identified themselves as
“indigenous.” By
comparison, 6.9 million people in the same age bracket were tallied as indigenous
speakers, meaning that approximately 8.8 million Mexicans aged 3 and
older did not speak an indigenous language but considered themselves to
be of indigenous origin. In this category,
Tamaulipas – with 3.9% percent of its people 3 years of age an older
considered indigenous – is ranked 30th among the Mexican
states and Distrito Federal. At the present time, Tamaulipas continues
to attract indigenous language speakers from other states, but its
overall population of native speakers is relatively small compared to
many of its sister states in the Mexican Republic. Copyright
© 2014, by John P. Schmal. Bibliography: Campbell,
Thomas N. “Coahuiltecans and Their Neighbors,” in Handbook of
North American Indians, Vol. 10 (Washington: Smithsonian
Institution, 1983). Campbell,
Thomas N. Campbell, “The Indians of Southern Texas and Northeastern
Mexico: Selected Writings of Thomas Nolan Campbell” (Austin: Texas
Archeological Research Laboratory, 1988). "COAHUILTECAN
INDIANS," Handbook of Texas Online (http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/bmcah),
accessed February 04, 2014. Published by the Texas State Historical
Association. Departamento de la Estadística Nacionalm. “Annuario de
1930” (Tacubaya, D.F., Mexico, 1932). Flores Montemayor, Eduardo. “Historia, Lenguas y Leyendas
de Tamaulipas.” (I.T.C.A.,
Conaculta: Mexico, 2003). Gerhard,
Peter. “The North Frontier of New Spain,” (Norman, Oklahoma:
University of Oklahoma Press, 1982). Hodge,
Frederick Webb (ed). “Handbook
of American Indians North of Mexico” (2 vols., Washington: GPO,
1907, 1910; rpt., New York: Pageant, 1959). Instituto Nacional de Estadística,
Geografía e Informática (INEGI). Principales Resultados del Censos de
Población y Vivienda, 2000 y 2010. INEGI. Conteos de Población y Vivienda,
2005. Miller,
Hubert J. “Jose de Escandon: Colonizer of Nuevo Santander” (Edinburg,
Texas: The New Santander Press, 1980). Prieto, Alejandro. “Historia, Geografía y Estadística del Estado de Tamaulipas”
(Mexico City: Tip. Escalerillas, 1873; rpt., Mexico City: M. Porrúa,
1975). Saldivar, Gabriel. “Los Indios de Tamaulipas” (Mexico
City: Pan American Institute of Geography and History Publication No.
70, 1943). Scheffler, Lilian. “Los Indígenas
Mexicanos: Ubicación Geografica, Organización Social y Política,
Economía, Religión y Costumbres,” (México, D.F.: Panorama
Editorial, 1992). Swanton,
J. R. “Linguistic Material
from the Tribes of Southern Texas and Northeastern Mexico”
(Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1940). Thomas,
Cyrus and John R. Swanton, “Indian
Languages of Mexico and Central America and Their Geographical
Distribution” (Washington: GPO, 1911). Troike,
Rudolph C. “Notes on Coahuiltecan Ethnography,” Bulletin
of the Texas Archeological Society 32 (1962).
|
By John P. Schmal
|
|
|
The land-locked state of
San Luis Potosí is located in center-north Mexico.
With a surface area of 61,138
square kilometers (representing 3.1% of the total area of the Mexican
Republic), San Luis Potosí is politically divided into 58 municipios
and touches nine other Mexican states. The state is adjacent to
Coahuila on the north, Nuevo León on the northeast, and Tamaulipas on
the northeast. Additionally, San Luis Potosí has a common border with
Veracruz Llave (on the east), Guanajuato, Querétaro and Hidalgo on
the south, Jalisco on the southwest, and Zacatecas to the west.
San
Luis Potosí had a 2010 population of 2,585,518 which represented 2.3%
the Mexican Republic’s entire population, and is distributed into
64% urban and 36% rural (in contrast to the national figures of 77%
versus 22%, respectively). The capital of San Luis Potosí is the city
of the same name. The state name was originally granted in honor of
the city’s founder, Luis de Leija, but also to honor Viceroy Luis of
Velasco. Potosí was added to the name because the mines of this
region had a richness similar to the famous mining settlement of that
name high in the Bolivian Andes, the source of so much silver. The
early settlers of this area felt sure that this region also had
immense silver deposits. Their hopes were certainly fulfilled, though
not only in the way they had originally envisioned. Besides silver,
which was mined in vast quantities, major deposits of gold, fluorite
and mercury were also discovered. The State of San Luis Potosí has
a very angular look dominated by three
natural regions: 1.
Altiplano (the Highland
Plateau or Mesa del Centro) occupies most of western SLP or roughly
two-thirds of the state’s total area. Most of this high plateau is
broken by spurs of the Eastern Sierra Madre Oriental Mountain Range.
It is largely desert in the north.
2.
Sierra Madre Oriental Range
takes up the northwest of SLP 3.
Planicie de Golfo dominates
the southeast of SLP. Indigenous
Groups at Contact In
pre-Hispanic times, two primary indigenous groups dominated what we
now know as the present state of San Luis Potosí:
The Chichimecas (in the west) and the
Huastecas (in the east). The
Chichimecas occupied the entire western region at the time of Spanish
contact. The Chichimeca’s actually consisted of several groups,
including:
Otomí The
Otomí are one of the largest and oldest indigenous groups in Mexico.
The different language groups in the Otomí family, including Otomí,
Mazahua, Matlaltzinca, Ocuiltec, Southern and Northern Pame and
Chichimec Jonaz (Manrique), have been molded by their various
relationships with other central Mexican nations and by their own
dispersal and migration to settlements.
The Otomí called themselves Ñañhu, which means those who
speak Ñuju. Guachichiles The
Guachichiles, of all the Chichimeca Indians, occupied the most
extensive territory, extending some 100,000 square kilometers from
Lake Chapala (Jalisco) in the south to Saltillo (Coahuila) in the
north. Considered both
warlike and brave, the Guachichiles roamed through a large section of
the present-day state of Zacatecas. The Aztecs used the term
“Guachichile” as a reference to “heads painted of red,” a
reference to the red dye that they used to paint their bodies, faces
and hair. Although the
main body of the Guachichile territory lay in Zacatecas, they also
inhabited or travelled through large sections of western San Luis
Potosí, northwestern Guanajuato, eastern Aguascalientes and the Los
Altos area of Jalisco. The Guachichiles were among the first of the northeastern peoples to be
“reduced” to settling down in Spanish towns that included the
agricultural town of Saltillo and the mining towns of Mazapil in the
far north, as well as seven agricultural and mining towns of central
San Luis Potosí. Guamares Pames The
Huastecos (Teenek) The Huastecs became culturally dominant in the region between 750 and 800
AD. Over the next few centuries, the Huastecas managed to spread their
influence over a large territory from the Tuxpan River to the Pánuco
with most settlements along the banks of the Huayalejo-Tamesí River,
along the northern Veracruz and southern Tamaulipas coast and west
into the Sierra Madre Oriental. However, they never built cities and
ceremonial centers as large as in other parts of Mesoamerica. One
reason for this was that the Chichimeca were a constant threat from
the West. In the Post Classic period, Huastec territory shrank due to incursions by
Nahuas and Otomí in the south and west, culminating into Aztec
conquest of much of their territory by 1450 A.D. The Aztecs had become
jealous of the Huastecas because of the abundance and diversity of
fruits in their territory; so they declared war on the Huastecs. After
hard-fought battles, the Huastecs were defeated and forced to pay
taxes of skins, paper, feathers, cotton and blankets. Some of the Huasteco Indians lived in the eastern
part of SLP. The geographic entity named for them– the Hausteca –
comprises a
vast region of Mexico, covering parts of the states of Veracruz, San
Luis Potosí, Tamaulipas and Hidalgo.
When the Spaniards arrived in 1519, the Huastecos put up a
fierce resistance in the area known as Pánuco
(now in northern Veracruz). Post-Tenochtitlan Chichimeca
War (1550-1590) However,
by 1590, the Guachichiles who occupied much of western SLP had been
pacified. A report of a distribution of clothes to the Guachichil
settlements in November 1593 described several thousand Guachichiles
as living in SLP pueblos immediately after the Chichimeca War, and an
undeterminable number still living in rancherías outside of Spanish
control around Matehuala and further east. Evangelizing
the Chichimecas On August 5, 1591 the caravan arrived at Uccello, where the caravan
split up to go to its various destinations. One of the four groups –
228 Tlaxcaltecans under Captains Francisco Vazquez and Juaquin Paredes
--was sent from San Juan del Rio to the mines of San Miguel Mexquitic
in SLP. Early
Spanish Settlements
On June 10, 1550, Cateano Medellin led a group of Spaniards and
Tlaxcaltecans in the settlement of Matehuala. The area around the
present-day cities of Matehuala and Charcas was then inhabited by a
Guachichil group, known as Bozalos
or Negritos. It has been estimated that the Guachichil population of
the area at this time was about 25,000. In 1574, Charcas Viejas was founded as Santa María de las Charcas by
Francisco Ruiz with the help of miners and missionaries from Zacatecas.
However, they were twice driven out by the Chichimecas, returning to
the mining camp around 1583-84. Tlaxcaltecans settled in Charcas in
1591-92, setting up their own gobierno (government). Soon after, other
mining centers and cattle ranches spread across the surrounding area. When the Spaniards first arrived in the area that is now called San Luis
Potosí – Guadalcázar – Río Verde and the surrounding region,
there were three groups of hunters and gatherers living in the area:
On November 3, 1592, Villa de San Luis Potosí was founded by Miguel
Caldera. With the discovery of gold, Spanish and Christianized Indians
from the south migrated to the area to work in the mines and on the
haciendas. The Spaniards had gained control of the larger surrounding
area by 1616-17 with the opening of Franciscan missions in the area. La Huasteca Region La Huasteca is a geographical and cultural region located along the Gulf
of Mexico which includes parts of the states of Tamaulipas, Veracruz,
Puebla, Hidalgo, San Luis Potosí, Querétaro, and Guanajuato.
Historically and ethnically, the La Huasteca region is roughly defined
by the area dominated by the Huastecas when their civilization was at
its height in the Mesoamerican period. The
Huasteca is considered a rich agricultural region with an abundance of
water from the riverine system flowing to the Gulf. Geographically it
has been defined as the area running from the Sierra Madre Oriental to
the Gulf of Mexico with the Sierra de Tamaulipas as the northern
border and the Cazones River as its southern border. It extends over
the south of Tamaulipas, the southeast of San Luis Potosí, the
northeast of Querétaro and Hidalgo and the extreme north of Veracruz
and Puebla and a very small portion of Guanajuato. The
actual area of the region is somewhat disputed. Some Mexican
government institutions have defined the Huasteca region as a region
of about 22,193 kilometers consisting of about 55 municipios divided
between San Luis Potosi (19), Veracruz (28) and Hidalgo (8). Different
organizations have their own classifications for the size and shape of
the Huasteca, including SEDESOL (39 municipios), and CONAPO (83
municipios). Today, despite the fact that the large region is named after them, the
Huastecas occupy only a fraction of this region which is now home to
six indigenous ethnic groups with over 250,000 speakers of various
languages. However, those who live in the region share a number of
cultural traits such as a style of music and dance along with
religious festivals such as Xantolo. Of
the 55 municipios, the indigenous population of the Huasteca region in
2000 was 1,575,078, of which 76.7% were Nahuatl and 21.64% were Teenek,
followed by the Otomíes
(2.2%); Tepehuas (0.64%); The Pames (0.35%); and the Totonacos and
Chichimeca Jonáz, which represented less than 0.4%. Indigenous
San Luis Potosí (1895-1920) The 1895 Mexican census indicated that only 47,046 speakers of
indigenous languages five years of age or more lived in the state of
San Luis Potosi. This population group represented only 8.3% of the
state population of 568,449.
In the next census (1900), the indigenous speaking population
dropped to 31,937, representing only 5.6% of the population. However,
the 1910 census recorded a significant increase in the indigenous
population to 63,448, bringing the percentage to 10.1%. The
1921 Mexican Census In the
unusual 1921 Mexican census, residents of each state were asked to
classify themselves in several categories, including “indígena pura”
(pure indigenous), “indígena mezclada con blanca” (indigenous
mixed with white) and “blanca” (white). Out of a total state
population of 445,681,
The
2000 Census
In the 2000
census, 235,253 inhabitants of San Luis Potosí spoke indigenous
languages, representing 10.23% of the state population aged 5 or more.
The most widely spoken languages were as follows:
· Náhuatl (138,523)·
Huasteco (87,327)
·
Pame (7, 975)
·
Otomí (314)
·
Zapoteco (128)
·
Mixteco (130)
·
Chichimeca Jonaz (115).
Náhuatl Náhuatl
speakers live in almost every municipio of San Luis Potosí, but have
a heavy concentration in several municipios in the southeastern
portion of the state that border the states of Veracruz and Hidalgo.
These municipios include Tamazunchale, Axtla, San Martín
Chalchicuautla, Xilitla, Coxcatlán and Matlapa. According to
ethnologue.com, the two most widely spoken Náhuatl languages in SLP
are: ·
Central
Huasteca: spoken by an estimated 200,000 persons in the states of
Hidalgo, Veracruz and SLP ·
Western
(Oeste) Huasteca: spoken in 1,500 village by an estimated 400,000
persons (circa 1991) in both San Luis Potosí and Hidalgo. Centered in
Tamazunchale, San Luis Potosí it is also called Náhuatl de
Tamazunchale Huastecos
de San Luis Potosí (Teenek) In the 2000 census, the Huasteco
Indians numbered 87,327 in San Luis Potosí, most of them concentrated
in 11 municipios. Another 51,625 lived across the border in Veracruz.
The population of the Huastecas in these two states alone – 138,952
– represented 92.5% of the 150,257 Huastecas living within the
Mexican Republic. The
indigenous languages in the Huasteca have evolved in recent decades,
with more speakers that are bilingual than monolingual. In the Hidalgo
Huasteca monolingual speakers in 2000 were 25% of the indigenous
population, while in San Luis Potosi and Veracruz the percentages were
10.7 and 12.2% monolingual population. Panes
(xi’úi de San Luis Potosi) The
Pames – who call themselves xi'úi – speak a language that belongs
to the Otomanguean Linguistic group. They use the word “Pame” to
refer to themselves only when they are speaking Spanish. But in their
religion, this word has a contemptuous meaning and they try to avoid
using it. The xi'úi
region, known as “The Pameria,” occupies five municipios of San
Luis Potosí (Ciudad del Maíz, Alaquines, Tamasopo, Rayón and Santa
Catarina) and three communities in the Queretaro municipio of Jalpan
de Serra. The Pameria municipios in SLP run from the northern border
with Tamaulipas to the southern border with Querétaro (in a narrow
portion of the state). In the 2000 Mexican census, the Pame only numbered
8,312 in the entire Mexican Republic. The largest share of Pame
speakers -- 7,975 individuals – lived in SLP, representing 95.9% of
their total population. Their share of the total indigenous population
within the Republic was less than four percent.
Chichimeca-Jonaz The
Chichimeca-Jonaz language is found only in the states of San Luis
Potosí and Guanajuato. Chichimeca Jonaz is classified as a member of
the Oto-Manguean language family and is divided into two major
dialects: the Pame dialect, which is used in San Luis Potosí, and the
Jonaz dialect used in Guanajuato. With a total of 1,433
Chichimeca-Jonaz speakers living in the state of Guanajuato in 2000,
it is interesting to note that the great majority - 1,405 persons five
years of age or more - actually lived in the municipio of San Luis de
la Paz. In 2000, only 115 persons – living in the municipio of
Alaquines and the village of La Palma – still spoken the language in
SLP. The
2010 Census In
2010, SLP had 361,653 persons who were identified as indigenous, and
this represented 14% of the total population. As expected, however,
not all of the people who were indigenous spoke an indigenous
language. In 2010, SLP had 248,196 persons five years of age or more
who spoke an indigenous language, representing 10.7% of the
population. The four most spoken languages in this census were:
Tamazunchale -- the municipio on the southeastern tip of
SLP on the border with Hidalgo – had the largest indigenous
population (60,609 or
62.6% of the municipio’s population), in addition to having an
indigenous speaking population of 38,226 (44.3% of the municipio’s
population 5 years of age and older). Aquismón – also in southeast SLP - had the second
largest indigenous population, 37,745 (or 79.6%), ranking a distant
second place. Aquismón also had a considerable number of indigenous
speakers, numbering 30,289 (or 72.4% of the municipio population 5
years of age and older). Primary Sources Chemin
Bässler, Heidi. “Los Pames Septentrionales de San Luis Potosí” (México:
INI, 1984) Departamento
de la Estadística Nacional, “Annuario de 1930” (Tacubaya, D.F.,
Mexico, 1932). Departamento
de la Estadistica Nacional, Estados Unidos Mexicanos, “Censos
General de Habitantes: 30 de Noviembre de 1921, Estado de Jalisco,”
(Mexico, Distrito Federal: Talleres Graficos de la Nación, 1926) Frye,
David. “The Native Peoples of Northeastern Mexico” in “The
Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas: Volume II:
Mesoamerica: Part 2” (edited by Richard E.W. Adams and Murdo J.
MacLeod (Cambridge University Press, 2000)). Gerhard,
Peter, “A Guide to the Historical Geography of New Spain” (Norman,
Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1972). Gerhard,
Peter. “The North Frontier of New Spain” (Princeton, New Jersey:
Princeton University Press, 1982). Gordon,
Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World,
Fifteenth edition, “Languages of Mexico” (Dallas, Texas: SIL
International). Online: http://archive.ethnologue.com/15/show_country.asp?name=Mexico Instituto Nacional
de Estadística Geografía e Informática (INEGI).
XII Censo General de Población y Vivienda 2000; Censo de Población y
Vivienda 2010. Nava,
Fernando. “Chichimecas Jonaz” (México: INI - SEDESOL, 1994). Powell,
Philip Wayne, “Soldiers Indians and Silver: North America's First Frontier War.”
Tempe, Arizona: Center for Latin American Studies, Arizona State
University, 1975. Wilkerson,
J. “The Ethnogenesis of the Hausteca and Totonacs” (1972: PH
Dissertation, Dept, of Archaeology and Anthropology, Tulane
University).
|
