Crafts from
the Areas Adjoining the White City or Ciudad Blanca Area, Honduras in the Burke Museum
By Wendy
Griffin 2/10/2017
Names of
crafts and raw material in English and in Honduran Spanish . The names in
Honduran Spanish are usually Nahua derived names. There are Spanish-Nahuatl
dictionaries online.
These
crafts can be seen at “Burke Museum, Ethnology Collection, Browse Collections,
Mexican and Central American Collections, Arts, Crafts and Toys Honduras”
Name on the
Burke Museum database, then Spanish names and other information
1. Raw Material, Bark, Pech
Majoa
(Spanish) Puru, in Pech. Sani in Miskito. Twine made by leaving the “babosa”
tree in water for two weeks, then peeling off the inner bark and twisting it to make a cord. Used for most string crafts in northeastern
Honduras rainforest, including hammocks, because it is too wet to grow plants
like maguey or mescal. The exceptions are the cord for bows (of bows and
arrows) and fishing lines which are made from pita (silkgrass), a relative of
the pineapple family.
2. Carrying
Basket (This is actually a hanging
basket, not a carrying basket), Pech
Yagual
(Spanish). Made with one of several vines and then majao is woven to form the
basket and the hanging strings. Yaguals are also made the Maya Chorti and the
Ladinos of different vines and different material for the rope. Sometimes
Ladino yaguals have gourds (guacales) on the hanging strings or a Coca Cola
bottle so that if a rat tries to climb down the rope, it slides on the gourd or
the Coke bottle and down to the floor.
Yaguals are hung from the roof beams and things like the spice “achiote”
(anetto) or “Manteca” (lard, which can be obtained from different kinds of
animals) or gourd bowls (guacales) could be kept here.
3. Flute (Pech)
Flauta
de Carrizo (Spanish) Arwa (Pech) This flute is made of Carrizo (Spanish), a
bamboo like plant --Acatl in standard Nahuatl, Agalt in Nicarao Nahua, and
black wax from a special wild bee. Carrizo only grows above 1,5000 feet.
4. Calendar (Pech)
Calendario
Pech (Spanish). Made from majoa, the twine made from the inner bark of “babosa” tree. This may be the same as the
chulmeca tree, the Nahua derived name. A
knot is made for each day. When the day
is over, a knot is cut off. The
Miskitos, Tawahkas, and the Maya-Chortis used these, although the Chortis used
another kind of fiber for the rope, probably maguey. This type of rope calendar
was apparently used in Classic Period (300-900 AD) Maya Chorti culture, because
there is a glyph that means “we have already made the knot for the year” (ya se
nudó el año), as in the phrase, “we have already made the knot to indicate the end
of the 12th year of the Reign of 18 Rabbit”, a famous Copan Mayan
King.
5. Gourd Bowl, Pech
Guacal/Huacal
(Spanish) Wi (Pech) Made from a tree gourd or calabash by scrapping it clean
inside and out, and then cutting it in half.
Used by all ethnic groups in Honduras to serve liquidy foods or drinks.
6. Wall hanging, Tawahka
Tunu (from
the Miskito word tunu), Takimi in Pech.
Cloth made of the inside bark of a tree. The cloth in Tawahka is called “amat”
from “amate” in Nahua. The amate tree, a type of ficus, is used in Mexico to
make bark paper from the outside bark of the tree, and bark cloth from the
inside bark of the tree. The term “amate” for these trees in Honduras was known
like the place name “Los Amatillos” (the little amate trees) in Southern
Honduras. There are stone bark beaters found in archaeological ruins including
in the Tawahka area near the junction of the Guampu with the Patuca, in
Trujillo area, and in Santa Barbara. The Tawahka wall hanging shows the
traditional pitpan shallow draft wooden canoe and paddle used to travel on the
rivers of Honduras. A different kind of
wider keeled canoe, called dori in Miskito are used for travelling by ocean. NE
Honduras is rich in the type of big hardwood trees needed to build these kinds
of canoes and pitpans (pipantes in Spanish).
Idols (tzikin)
made of straw and bark paper or manioc root with bark paper face was reported
in the Agalta Valley, Olancho still in 1808. The Pech living in the Sierra de
Agalta were apparently Christianized with the help of this ethnic group as the
Pech word for church is sikinko,” the place of the tzikin” , in Nahua. Maya
Chortis who have a ceremony for the ancestors on 1 November till dawn of 2
November (Day of the Dead) called “tzikin”, but they do not call saints “tzikin”,
but rather “nagualitos” (little protective spirits from the animal protective
spirits each person has called a nagual in Honduran Spanish). Dr. Brent Metz
thinks the Chorti word “tzikin” comes from “to celebrate” in Maya Chorti.
The
Burke Museum collection also includes Miskito Indian Wall hangings made of “tunu”
which show some of the tropical birds traditionally exported from NE Honduras towards
the rest of Honduras, towards Mexico and to the Pueblo Indians of the Southwest
United State, such as the scarlet macaw (called guara in Honduran Spanish) and
the green parrot called “lora” in Honduran Spanish.
7. Shaving Brush, Maya-Chorti
Cepillo
de Afeitarse de Maguey de Castilla (Spanish) A brush made of maguey fibers, a
plant like agave. Maguey is a cultivated plant among the Chorti. The Toltec
King Ce Actl was known after his death as “Hijo de Maguey” (a son of Maguey).
Among the Mayas in Guatemala he was known as Precious Jewel, possibly in
association with green stones, such as
Jade near the Maya Chorti area in Guateamala. A source of jade used in trade with
the Mayas was also found in San Luis, Santa Barbara.
8. Tortilla Basket, Maya-Chorti
Canasta
tortillera de Carrizo (Spanish). Made from the bamboo like plant Carrizo, also
used in the Pech flute above. Honduran Lencas
also make baskets, often large ones, of Carrizo. Besides being baskets, into
the 1940’s the standard way to buy and sell basic grains like beans and corn
was by “medidas” (measures) as measured by a standard sized basket holding
about 4 pounds. Smaller amounts were sold by measures using a “guacal” or gourd
bowl. This has now been replaced by weight scales in markets, but Carrizo baskets
are still in demand for selling heavy items like “rosquillas” (baked corn meal
donuts). Corn tortillas are usually wrapped in a white cotton cloth, often
embroidered, and then served at the table in the tortilla basket to keep them
warm.
9. Whistle, Lenca
Pito de
alfararía (clay whistle). This whistle has the shape of a jaguar, which seems
to have a special connection to the Lencas. This red pottery with white
painting is made in La Campa, Lempira in southwestern Honduras. In the San
Pedro Sula Museum in northwestern Honduras there are 1,200 pre-Columbian clay whistles
(one note) or ocarinas (several notes),so
this seems to have been a common item.
One of the uses has been to alert people in a village a pedlar is
coming. Another use seems to have been
to scare their enemies in war. Not every potter knows how to make whistles,
they are unusually hard to make. I have not seen any reports of clay whistles
in NE Honduras yet. This might be because of spotty records, or because the
groups in NE Honduras didn’t include Lencas.
One
theory about the pre-history of the San Pedro Sula area was that it was Lenca
in the classic period (300 -900 AD) as evidenced by lots of Ulua Polychrome.
But in the Postclassic period (900-1500 AD), when many northern Lenca
archaeological sites go into decline, the makers of Sula Fine Orange seem to
have pushed out the Lenca makers of Ulua Polychrome from the area. My theory is that this Sula Fine Orange is a
local version of Fine Orange ware in the Teotihuacan, Cholula Puebla area. Among the Lencas of La Campa, the women make
the pottery, but the men paint it white with a feather. In Northwestern
Honduras we have a Fine Orange ware, but with no decorations on it. The Fine
Orange ware in Mexico had incised S’s
and dots. In Northeastern Honduras you have a pottery with incised s’s and
dots, but it is not a Fine pottery. Since
the Nahua speaking Nicarao are a group which is migrating, and which reported
many losses of people before arriving to Nicaragua, maybe those who knew how to make Fine paste
orange pottery remained in the San Pedro Sula area, but those who knew how to
put the incised dot decorations moved on to the Trujillo and White City
areas. Incised punctate ware is also
common on the Pacific Coasts of Nicaragua and Costa Rica. A local Fine Orange ware was also apparently made
in El Salvador in the Post Classic period, apparently by Nahua speaking Pipiles.
10. Pendant
Pájaro Tallado
de Piedra Verde (A bird carved from green stone). Although it is called a
pendant by the Burke, I think it does not have a hole to put a string through.
It is just a carving. This is a modern
stone carving by someone from Corozo Alta outside of Trujillo from the green
stone source used to make green stone beads and axe celt goddesses. This source
is a part of the river at an archaeological ruin known as Tulito (little
Tula?), on the western edge of the White City area on the Río Paulaya (River of
Blood in Miskito). The trade route going
to the White City and City of the Jaguar might have gone down the Paulaya River
rather than the mouth of the Patuca, because the Paulaya River is a gold
bearing river, as is the Sico River and parts of the Platano River. The gold bearing
part of the Patuca is below the Guampu river, another entrance to the White
City area, but from the east. In the 1930’s
Pech from Culmí and even Ladinos from Catacamas in the Olancho Valley would
walk up the Paulaya River Valley and then along the beach to Trujillo to sell
pigs. It is about a 10 day journey with pigs, and 5 day journey home without
pigs.
The Pech
of Culmi at the headwaters of the Paulaya would also often walk to Catacamas,
about a day and half trip, staying overnight in Aguacate in the days before the
road was put in the 1960’s. So this traditional
trade route of Trujillo, Rio Paulaya, Culmi, Valley of Olancho remained open
and viable well into the 20th century. . This was the route United
Fruit’s Truxillo Railroad was following.
The current highways do go from Trujillo to the Rio Platano Biosphere area at
Sico. The City of the Jaguar is on an
unnamed tributary of a tributary of the
Río Paulaya according to Doug Preston’s book The Lost City of the Monkey King,
so it is on this trade route which seems to have been dominated by Nahua
speaking groups. At Carbonales another route turns south from the Coast road
and goes through Conquire, El Carbon, San Esteban (Tonjagua), Telica, and
Juticalpa in the Valley of Olancho. This was a royal road/mule track before it
was a paved road. The archaeological ruin at the village of El Carbón of Agua
Amarilla in the Sierra de Agalta was called Guatemala according to Karl Helbig’s
1950’s studies of Paya ruinas. Guatemala
can be translated as the land of many forests or land of the Indians authorized
to be Eagle Warriors in Nahua according
to Judith Maxwell, depending on whether the a is short or long. The capital
city of the neighboring country of Guatemala was shown on Aztec maps with
eagles, so that was the actual meaning of that city’s name.
11. Bark, Raw Material, Pech
Corteza
de Capulín (Capulín bark). The Pech tear off strips of this tree’s bark to use
to tie things with. This is also the tree that the Pech would cut down, take off
the outside bark, then slit the inside bark so that it would come off in one
piece, and then place this on top of a tapesco rack as a bed. The Pech did not
use petate sleeping mats of tule as did the Lencas, Maya Chortis, and Nahuas
did. The sheets of the Pech were made of tunu bark cloth. It is cool in the mountains of Olancho, but
these sheets were supposedly very comfortable for sleeping. The Pech would also cut low benches of
capulín wood, which were used by the Watá or shaman when doing a ceremony in
the house, such as the blessing of a new house. A new ceremony required the
making of a new bench. Unlike most of
the plants the Pech use, capulín is a tree that grows in secondary growth areas
instead of primary growth forest. Majoa
is also a tree that will grow in secondary growth, guamil in Honduran Spanish.
12. Key
Chain, Garífuna
Llavero
de Caracol (Seashell Keychain). This is
a small West Indian conch cut in the form of the Aztec Wind Jewel, associated
with Quetzalcoatl. The Black Bay Islanders
say before a storm, the conchs walk on the reef, so that you can see lots of
them moving (assuming they have not been killed from the sedimentation from the
airport extension and similar projects).
This is why they would have been associated with Wind and storms. The Aztec used a larger species of conch for
their wind jewels. The Nahuas of the Trujillo and Bay Islands areas also seemed
to use the larger conchs as trumpets (pito in Honduran Spanish), as did the
Lencas before them as see on Ulua Polychrome pottery. Conchs were probably part
of the things exported by the Honduran Nahuas up to the Mexican Aztec area. I
am told if you cut the top off the conch like this to get a Aztec Wind Jewel,
this is also the way to get the conch out to make conch soup or conch fritters.
Garifunas have taken over this
eco-system now, but in several of the items in the Burke Museum, you can see
they continue making the jewelry from the seashells and then selling
it to the Ladinos who come to the beach in Trujillo.
There is
one spot on the Hog Keys (Cayos Cochinos) where the Garifunas live that the
name is in Nahua. The Hog Keys are about half way between La Ceiba and the Bay
Islands, so maybe this was a good resting spot, plus a good spot to dive for
shells. At least the original name of
Utila was also in Nahua.
13. Mesh
bag, object 2013-189/39, Pech
Ara’ Aye
(small majao bag) in Pech. Bolsa de
Majoa in Spanish. This is a small
carrying bag such as for camotes (sweet potatoes) or malanga. It is also the
size for men to carry their fishing gear in and then at the end of the fishing
trip, wrap the fish up in bijao leaves and put them in the bag and carry them
home. This is made from the twine of the
inner bark of the “babosa” tree, majoa in Spanish, or puru in Pech. Pech women generally make the bags, but the
men usually go into the forest to get the tree to make the majao. In this case, a Pech man also made the “pencas”
or strips of majao and then sold them to the Pech woman who wanted to make the
bag. Maya Chortis make an even more closed weave bag for carrying their
personal things like their identity card, as traditional clothes had no pockets.
The Maya Chortis used maguey to make these bags. It is
often the Maya Chorti men who work maguey. I don’t know what language majoa comes from
but it is similar in sound and structure to Nicarao, the Río Pao a river in the
White City area off the Rio Paulaya, etc., so it might be Nicarao Nahua in origin.
This “ow” sound, like in bow-wow, is not common in other Honduran or Pech or
Miskito words.
14. Mesh
bag, object 2013-189/42
Matata
or Matate (Spanish) from metatl in Nahua. Ara’ in Pech. This is a larger mesh bag made from the twine
of the inner bark of the “babosa” tree (majao).
The Miskitos and Tawahkas also made these. When meat was cooked/smoked, the
leftover meat was wrapped in bijao leaves and stored in this bag with cinches
closed, hung from the rafters. The Maya-Chortís
make a similar net bag which they call “red”
(net) in Spanish. The Chorti bag is from maguey. The Chorti say that “mescal”
the rope associated with the Nahuas of Olancho is “reventosa” (it easily
breaks), but maguey is “masiso” (durable, thick),which is why they prefer
maguey.
15. The
Burke wrote this was Copal,but it is actually ocote, pitch pine.
Ocote
(Spanish). This is burned for light all
over Honduras. The Pech did not burn
copal incense, but rather just ocote at their all night ceremonies. There is an
example of copal resin, wrapped in a corn husk (tuza) wrapper from the Maya
Chorti area in the Burke Museum. The
Pech ceremonies were at night, in a house, not a temple, because they believed
the spirits of the animals, the mountains, the deep pools, the trees, known
collectively as the “asari chita” (the hidden ones) only came out at night to
feed, so ceremonies to them must be at night. There are no images of the asari
chita. The spirits themselves come. This is a big difference between the
constant burning of incense and rubber to the many idols in the Trujillo and
Olancho El Viejo areas in the early conquest period or the idols seen in the
Valley of Agalta in the early 1800’s. The Pech do not use tobacco at their
ceremonies, which is said to make flee the asari chita, as does the use of
Spanish. The Pech have no longer done most
of these ceremonies since the road went in in the 1960’s.
16. Gourd Container, Bottle, Pech
Tecomate
in Honduran Spanish, except the Pech call it sin ido (without exit) in Spanish.
This is the standard carrying container for water or more like corn beer (chicha)
in rural Honduras including the Maya Chorti and the Lencas. Unlike jicaros and
guacales which come from tree gourds, tecomates and barcos come from vines that
grow on the ground. In Honduras they are usually stopped with a dried corn cob
(olote). This one had a majoa string to carry it with over the shoulder.
17. Gourd Cup, Pech
Jicaro
in Honduran Spanish, wi sa (head gourd bowl) in Pech. These elongated narrower
tree gourds were the standard drinking utensils for example for water. A house
often had a special stick with several branches hanging out, hanging up from
the rafters, too, that was a “porta-jicaros”, a place where the jícaros were
hung over the branches.
There
are also examples of maracas using guacales (large and round), jícaros
(elongated, narrower),and morros (small and round) in the Burke Museum
collection of Honduran crafts. Maracas
were used by both the Maya Chorti (they are sculpted into the ruins at Copan)
and the Lencas (shown on Ulua Polychrone) in pre-Columbian times in Honduras.
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