The Controversies Regarding the Reporting of finding the Ciudad blanca and What is Really True? Part I

Part I--Reports of Finding Ciudad Blanca in the Honduran Moskitia Cause Controversy

By Wendy Griffin

Over the last new two weeks, news reports that the Ciudad Blanca, supposedly a lost ruin in the Honduran Moskitia within the Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve, has been found by a team lead by US archaeologist Chris Bird and IHAH archaeologist Oscar Niell have appeared in many places including La Tribuna and La Prensa in Honduran newspapers and the Manchester Guardian and London Telegraph in Europe, National Geographic out of Washington, DC, and as comments of archaeologist’s blogs like Honduran Culture and Politics of Dr.Rosemary Joyce of UC-Berkley and Russel Sheptak. The Wikipedia article in English on the Ciudad Blanca that I helped to update got 29,000 hits over the week the story came out, up from almost none. There is not yet a Ciudad Blanca article in Spanish Wikipedia.

Yahoo! News and even Bloomburg Financial News Service carried stories of the find. This expedition was an on the ground follow up to trying to find the Ciudad Blanca by LIDAR, a type of radar, and the process is being filmed by Steve Elkins with the idea of making a movie about the finding of Ciudad Blanca.

The critiques of the reporting of the find, not the find itself, but how it was reported include several basic criticisms

1) Not cities-maybe true

2) Not Mesoamerican—not true

3) The Ciudad de mono Dios as reported by the explorer Theodore Morde, and the Ciudad blanca as reportedly by the Ladinos, Nahuas, Tawahkas or Miskitos, and Kao kamasa (White house)  of the Pech do not exist, or if they exist are not knowable, and so you can not say if they are found, and that probably what Theodore Morde reported is irrelevant and a hoax.–All also not true.

4) It will cause a problem if an undisturbed sacred site is claimed under the right of Discovery, as not belonging to the people who kept it undisturbed for ceremonial purposes and beliefs, and taken away and dug up,and fenced off.—True

5) There is a claim by the criticizing archaeologists that the Indians who built the fine carved Stone ruins in the Ciudad blanca área of the type reported by the National Geographic team were non-hierarchical and did not have states. – Both not true.

6) This is an astounding new find, that the Ciudad Blanca área was not yet known, and thus the find of the National Geographic team with filmmaker Steve Elkins is so new and astounding that it should reach papers in Europe, the US, and in Honduras. –Not true. Lots is known about the área, and lots has professionally reported,plus the Indians knew where the Ciudad Blanca was, it was not lost.—Somewhat True and Somewhat not True. This issue is caused by the reporters and not by the archaeologist who headed the Project who said, I never said it was the Ciudad blanca or ciudad de Mono Dios. It is a nice find, the issue of reporting on the destruction of the rainforest in the área is quite relevant, some interesting academic reports probably in Spanish in Yaxkin, and in English academic journals that few people read will come out of it, but to sell the idea to newspaper editors, maybe the reporters used as a hook, the White City has been found. I personally am excited to hear what the final reports will be.

However, actually this find and its publicity has the potential of being quite important, because this is extremely good academically and government of Honduras vetted team, so there is no longer any doubt that maybe all those years when Mesoamerican archeologists argued there was nothing looking for in the rainforest of Central America or the rainforest of Peru or Guyana, because there are no civilizations there and so the Indians, such as they might be are, were not worth knowing, maybe they will have to rethink what they think they know, and to what extent that arrogance towards urban hierarchical Indians, who are known to hoard, to have slavery, and kill their neighbors, made them overlook what was good in the rainforest Indians and what it was that they were doing that permitted the continuance of the rainforest.

If the United States finds as the Honduran women and children came across the border, or as the Department of Defense is planning to Map the Honduran Mosquitia that Honduras is the “unknown” country as Tanya Kerrsen calls it in “Power Grab” about the Lower Aguan Valley, they only have their own funding priorities of not funding positions and research in Lower Central America to blame. That lower Central America also means, where US banana companies United Fruit and Standard Fruit are, might be related to why all eyes were rewarded to look elsewhere.   

7.  We do not know the name of the culture who were the creators of the civilization that existed in the Ciudad Blanca área? Probably false. While many people do not agree with me, I believe from the place names, from the crafts, from the God’s names, from clothes shown, from what is known of the ceremonies and their beliefs and their legends, which are reflected in their sculptures I would say that we can say they are Nahua speakers, probably some combination of Nicaroas who immigrated from Teotihuacan (Tula or Tulan) to Cholula (place of the refugees) and then to Soconosco, in the Tehuatepec isthmus area in Mexeco and then to Central America, and Toltecs or in Nahuatlized Spanish Tultecas (people from Tula, the place of tule, some of whom lived in Culhuacan before immigrating) or Agaltecas (people from the place of tule, carrizo or junco) and Pipiles (pipilli the leaders). My theory that the builders of the Ciudad Blanca were Nahuas has been on the Internet site www.roatannet.com/ciudadblanca which is related to the video Search for Ciudad Blanca available in Parts I-IV in English, and  Search for Ciudad Blanca Spanish versión all in one part by Hondurasociety on youtube. That roatannet.com site is down right now, possibly because the interest in the topic was so great over the last two weeks that it gave problems to the website. 

 I believe I now know which of all the ruins in the Mosquitia is the Pech Kao Kamasa (White House) where the Pech hero Patakako died, and the only place names in the área are in Pech and in Nahua, and the place names in Nahua would have special meaning particularly for the Nicarao speakers of Nahua, based on a visión of their wisemen when they left Tehuantepec near Soconosco, Mexico. It is noticeable in the Aztec tribute lists for Xoconosco that many things they required the Xoconosco people to pay tribute in--Green Stone beads, petates of cacao beans, Green feathers, gold, were produced in the rainforest of NE Honduras and were not available locally to them.

I still stand by my theory of Nahua speakers having been the builders of Kao Kamasa, which I first put forth in the book Dioses, héroes y Hombres en el Universo Mitico Pech in 1991, La Historia de los Indigenas de la Zona Nororiental de Honduras prehistoria a 1800 vol. 1, from 1992 which can be seen on google books, which was also presented at the IHAH Seminar in honor of the 500th Anneversary of the Discovery of America in 1992, The History of the Indians of NE Honduras Prehistory to 1800 Vol 1, from 1994, also on google books which is not the same as the Spanish version, the Miskiwat story books with the story of Rah and Miskut published in 1996  and I presented my work to the Latin American Indian Literature Association in 1996, Honduras this Week articles, and Los Pech de Honduras from 2009, and my work Guia de Artesanías Pech (Guide to Pech Crafts), of which there are copies in the San Pedro Sula Museum,the Vine Deloria Jr. Library of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, at the Burke Museum of the University of Washington together with the crafts which the San Pedro Sula Museum also have and among the Pech,  in my blog articles in Spanish and in English on www.healthandhonduranindiansblacks.blogspot.com and

www.crisisderechoshumanoshonduras2015.blogspot.com  and in the Ciudad Blanca article in English in Wikipedia. I have done a material on all the crafts of Honduras, including with David Flores and Cesar Indiano, Hecho a Mano: Una Panarama de la Artesanía Hondureña, including the Nahua Indians of Honduras and all the folkdances of Honduras La Evolución Historica de la Danza Folklorica Hondureña including all the known ceremonies with dances or music. Within the Ciudad Blanca área, there are numerous other ruins that are not the Pech Kao Kamasá, but they relate to Ladino and Aztec stories related to Quetzalcóatl, and Nahuas of Olancho Honduras claim the Ciudad Blanca as an important site in their cultural past. So some of the comments in this three part article will be to explain how we know which cities might be of importance to these other groups who identify with the general myth of the Ciudad Blanca. One story of the City is that it had a lot of White faced monkeys, as noted in the video Search for Ciudad Blanca on YouTube, and the current National Geographic expedition were impressed how many monkeys there were at their site and how unafraid they were.

 Dr. Chris Begley, one of the co-signers of the critique, has his own theory that the Pech built the Ciudad Blanca, but I have no idea what he bases on his reasoning on. Mine in found in the resources above. In my works I also explain what happened to the Nahua Indians that I believe built numerous ruins in Olancho, in the Mosquitia, in Colon, and also in NW and Western Honduras. These states and cities were probably not only of Nahua speakers, but as the leaders they determined things like location of the city, orientation of the city, materials used to build the city, the motifs in the art work, the gods that would be worships, the ceremonies that would be done and when, types of designs and materials and other preferences of luxury goods, names of cities and surrounding countryside, while although there are workers of other ethnic groups, their input into these types of decisions are minimal. The same could be said of United Fruit Company housing in Honduras, and of the Mormon Temple and the Episcopal Churches, and to some extent the organization of Moravian Miskito villages, where the workers are local and not of the same ethnic group or necessarily same race or religión as the people who own and control the work. 

The Nahua Indians   were not the only Mesoamerican Indians in Honduras, but substantial work in recent years has been done on Lenca and on Chorotega languages, so that we can rule them out. Also work has been on the archaeology in the Lenca, Nahua, and Chorotega (Mangue speakers) in Southern Honduras, so that we can say probably the displacement of Mayas of the Classical Maya State based at Copan Ruinas, Honduras from the indefensable valleys to the mountains, was probably first caused by the migration of Chorotegas through the Maya Chorti lands of El Salvador before they arrived to settle on the Gulf of Fonseca such as at Nacaome.  There is some awesome and very interesting ethnohistorical work going on in El Salvador, a lot of it on Wikipedia, and the website about the history of El Salvadoran Indians like the Mayas and the Lencas on the inclusivebusiness website blows away a lot of traditional theories of archaeologists who study Mesoamerican Indians like Olmecs,Mayas, and Lencas in Central America and Mexico. It is evident that the person whose website this is speaks really good Maya Chorti. 

Human Sacrifice Part of the Ciudad Blanca Story Report Pech and Theodore Morde

The Chorotegas like the Nahuas took slaves and sacrificed people to their gods. Some Nahua Indians of the Pipiles may have settled in El Salvador prior to the end of the Classic Period so that the combination caused the depopulation of the Valleys in the Maya and Lenca áreas, not only in Honduras, but also in Guatemala.  Most Chorotegas who settled in the Gulf of Fonseca área were later displaced by Nahua speaking Nicaraos. The Chorotegas moved into Nicaragua in the Rivas región, and again lost the área beside Lake Nicaragua to Nicaroas.  Chorotega sites in the Gulf of Fonseca can be distinguished archaeologically from Nahuas, and the Chorotega (the name means people from Cholula) Mangue language gives words and place names that are very distinctive from Nahua.   The Oto.Mangue speakers of Central Mexico greatly predated the arrival of Nahuas there, and were among the Indians to domesticate corn. Besides Chorotega, another Oto-Mangue language is Masahuat and it is not currently known if the places in Honduras and in El Salvador were called Masahuat because they were Oto-Mangue speakers or if the name of the communities comes from macehuales (common people, vassals) in Nahua. The people who have been working on the Wikipedia Mexico Project deserve a lot of credit for my understanding of what was going on in Mexico relative to immigrant groups leaving Mexico and ending up in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Honduras.

Did this National Geographic Team Find Cities in NE Honduras?

.—1) it was initially  reported as  they found two cities, but according to Honduran archaeologist Ricardo Agurcia an archaeological site must show that it had a population of over 10,000 people, so maybe it would be more technically correct to say they found two settlements with a significant number of Stone crafts and carvings. The animals shown included a vulture, and a were-jaguar.  The latter is interesting as shamans (nahuas) changing into their protective animal spirit (nagual) and particularly changing into jaguars is a Mesoamerican motif and belief since the time of the Olmecs. Significant urban settlements with White Stone cobbled streets, terraced architure, earthwork city walls, temples and plaza are known for the White City área in the Rio Platano Biosphere in the Honduran Mosquitia. Whether this find is one of them, hard to tell from the reporting that has been released so far. Below it is explained about the types of sites generally found--forts in the mountains with walls around the city, the most likely type of archaeological site findable by radar or satellite technologies, residential type sites of Mesoamerican Indians who probably lived in champas (Eastern Honduras Nahua Word at time of Conquest Champagua and still today) or palapas (Western Honduras Word at the time of Conquest as in the place name Petoapalapa, a pueblo de indios now just called Petoa) which have thatched roofs, but no walls to let in the breeze.

When the Spanish conquered Nicaragua, this is the type of houses the Nicaroa Nahua speaking Indians lived in. Nahua speaker thatched houses differed from Pech houses in that Nahua speaker houses often had stucco floors. These have been noted in what were formerly Lenca áreas (the Lencas did not do that in the Classic period) and in the Trujillo área, the Garífunas still sometimes run into stuccoed floors from the Post Classic when they go to build their homes. Because the Word Palapa is found in the Founding of San Pedro sula document by Pedro Alvarado in 1536 giving Petoa Palapa as an encomienda, the Wikipedia article in Spanish saying that Palapas represent philippino influence in Mexican architecture is probably not true. Palapas in Mexico are reportedly especially common in Western Mexico, and maybe an important key to finding out what language Petoa, Tocoa, Omoa, Yojoa, etc. are in Northern Honduras.

Pech generally built houses of very perishable materials, including unrolled bamboo (tarro) such as in the San Pedro Sula Museum, or of cane with a thatched roof, and still in the 1950's were building houses without walls. The Pech Word kao (house) refers to houses without walls (champas in Honduran Spanish, palapas in Mexico), and with walls, but can be modified like kao chajú (a tapir house) of perishable materials or kao pechakwa (other people's type houses) with clay walls and a thatch roof. Both the Nicarao and the Pech were reported as living with extended families in larger houses.  If your regular house, or your house in the fields has no walls, if your village is under attack, you either run away and hide in the forest or in caves like the Pech, or you take refuge in a mountain fort like the Nahuas, Lencas, and Chortis of the Post Classic period. It would be shocking if there was a society that could get a walled fort built and large temples built without a centralized government structure, as some archaeologists have theorized about the Ciudad Blanca. However, that thought seems to be caused by confusión on their part. For example if some of the archaeological sites of NE Honduras have carved Stone ceremonial benches which show female shaman (which I have not seen), they would be Mesoamerican, as Pech ceremonial benches are low, of the Wood of the capulín tree, and the Watá, the spiritual and political leader of the Pech, would sit on this bench during a ceremony, and it was made particularly for that ceremony. Some of the large carved corn grinding stones in NE Honduras, which are in Trujillo Museums,and are similar to the ones in the San Pedro Sula Museum, and are in the video Search for Ciudad blanca on YouTube, may have served a similar purpose for the Mesoamericans of NE and NW Honduras.

So fort sites of Mesoamericans with temples and plazas and sometimes ballcourts, residential sites of Mesoamericans with temples and plazas, cave burials of Mesoamericans who also used the caves for other ceremonies, are known for the Postclassic period in NE Honduras and hunting/fishing/temporary housing type sites for the Pech and other Tropical forest type tribes are known for the Classic Period in NE Honduras. The Caves in the área of these Classic period Tropical Forest tribes sites do not seem to have been used either ceremonially nor for primary or secondary burials in the Classic period in NE Honduras. This would follow colonial period burial practices of these tropical forest tribes Indians, who buried under the ground, with open thatched structures over them and grave goods,mostly foods like pineapples and iguanas, left there in the open.  

Both the Pech and the Tawahkas try to avoid caves and the highest points of mountains as they say evil spirits live there. In fact, that is where the Nahuas would do ceremonias, and in Pech stories these other Indians are often identified as evil spirits allied with the spirits of storms, which would match the Mesoamerican rain spirits identified later in this article. In Catecamas Olancho a colonial pueblo de indios which used to have Nahua cofradías and the main Nahua Federation villages are outside of it , the patrón saint fair for which there used to be a guancasco is Nuestro Señor de las Aguas on 2 December at the end of hurricane season in the Carribbean, even though the convent there was to Saint Francis of Asisi. Does the Catholic Church even have a saint called Our Lord of the Waters?

Do the Sites Reported by National Geographic and the others in the Ciudad Blanca área qualify as Mesoamerican?

2) Some archaeologists who have written whole books about Mesoamerica complained that they thought the peoples in the Ciudad Blanca area were not Mesoamerican. That particular criticism seems unfounded. One of the most controversial things in Mesoamerican studies, according to Dr.Robert Carmack, author of the Legacy of Mesoamerica, is the definition of Mesoamerica.

Various criteria are used including monumental temples with plazas, urban center, intensive agricultural techniques (in NE Honduras this is shown by terraced agriculture like at Tulito on the Rio Paulaya and at Las Crucitas on the River Aner near the River Wampu), speaking Mesoamerican languages including Nahua, participating in the Mesoamerican dominated long distance trade routes, and participating in religions that share common characteristics, including human sacrifice, corn and rain and agricultural gods and their related ceremonies organized by a calendar, and having hierarchical societies.

As we will see NE Honduran city-states organized into provinces meet all of these criteria, including the principal language noted for naming archaeological ruins in the área and some geological features like rivers and mountains and mountain passes are in Nahua.  I have only found 3 Pech names for anything still used in geography in NE Honduras, as the tendency seems to have been to translate Pech names to Spanish like river "asowa" in Pech to Ojo de Agua which would be wa "ojo" and aso "agua" or wáter. The Pech área has a river called Ojo de Agua River and Ojo de Agua is a common place name in NE Honduras.

Mesoamerican Language Used in the Ciudad blanca Area--principally Nahua

The Pech seemed to have had the tendency to name rivers by their color which would also tell you what they are good for fishing for, so names like Rio Tinto (a dark colored river), Rio Negro (black or dark colored river) Agua Blanca (White Water), Aso Sewa (Yellow wáter river), Agua Zarka (Green colored wáter river)  are examples of the many types of names in the Pech área. Thus it is unusual that there would still be a Pech name for the área where the Kao Kamasa is believed to be. The sheer number of Nahua place names in NE Honduras is astounding. This área has only slowly been coming under the control of the Honduran government over the 20th century.  I am not sure the Word "control" even now reflects the reality of the Honduran government to much of the Mosquitia and Eastern Olancho like where the Tawahkas live.  In the área where I believe the Pech Kao Kamasa to be only Nahua and Pech langauges are used  in the surrounding place names.

The Builders of the Ruins in the Ciudad blanca área participated in Mesoamerican Religious System

The new National Geographical group reported finding Stone carvings with the motif of Were-jaguars. Were-jaguars are thought to be associated with Mesoamerican rain dieties, which fits in well with the names of Nahua dieties known in Honduras, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, such Esquipul the black panther at night who devours human hearts from whose name Esquipulas, Guatemala seems to come from, and there is a pool there used in the rain ceremonies of the Mayas.  Pech stores are full of celestial black tigers who menace the Pech, including one in the área of Boqueron or Olancho Viejo, which they think was the cause of the destruction of the Spanish town of San Jorge de Olancho. Temples with priests burning incense by day to idols were reported by the Spanish of Olancho El Viejo. The Pech do not make idols of their gods, do not burn incense, do not make temples that are different from houses, and do all of their ceremonies at night when the spirits the hidden ones come out, so nothing about the Indians of Olancho El Viejo, or the Mesoamerican type ruins of the Ciudad blanca área match the Pech culture, and it totally matches what we know about Nahua speakers. One of the things the black panther in the sky did was take out of the heart of the Pech hero Patako while he was in heaven checking if there was another Patakako (Our person who does in Pech).

Nahua Rain god Images in Ciudad blanca área and NW Honduras place names--Tláloc or Quia

Another diety associated with were-jaguars is the rain god called Tlaloc by the Aztecs, but Quia among Central American Nahua speakers, such as Quiatlan the place of the rain god Quia, now Quimistan, Santa Barbara, where there was a cave with hundreds of copper bells used for music in the human sacrifice ceremonies besides pools of wáter. These bells are also found in the Sandy Bay Museum at St. Anthony’s Key Resort on Roatan, in the Honduran Bay Islands. These bells seem to have made in NW Honduras, but the copper may have come from the Bay Islands and from Manto, Olancho.  Examples of the Quimistan bells were recently on exhibit in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Exhibit on Central America.

Besides Stone carvings of Were-Jaguars (which may show nahuas or priests changing into their nagual or protective animal spirit called nagual in Honduran Spanish a Jaguar), other proof of the belief of Northeastern Honduran Indians belief in these rain dieties are the  Tlaloc cups in a style of pottery known as Tohil Plumbate (Plombiza Tojil in Spanish) for its glaze have been reported near San Esteban, Olancho (formerly called Tonjagua) and in ruins in the Ciudad Blanca or White City visited by Ted Maschal in the municipio of Culmi, Olancho. The current National Geographic team did not report finding Tohil Plumbate or Tlaloc cups, and in fact mentioned no interesting pottery.

Were Jaguars indicate a belief in nahuas and naguals among the Indians of the Ciudad Blanca

The belief in nahuas or witches (brujo) who could change into their naguals or protective spirits is extremely widespread in Honduras,including the Lenca área, the South, the Center,and NW Honduras. The animals can include owls (lechuzas), dogs or coyotes (also the origin of the bad cadejo and the good cadejo), jaguars or panthers, and pigs. In Honduras 30 years ago, children commonly were thought to have a nagual. The relationship of the words nagual and nahua are in Mesoamerican cultures since Olmec times (1,000 BC)  according to Historical linguist Dr.  Lyle Campbell. Among the Maya Chorti they call Catholic saints “nagualitos”, little protective spirits in Spanish, so even though the Maya Chorti Word Tzikin used for the ceremony for the ancestors on the day of the Dead entered Pech as sikinko, the house of the saint, the Maya Chorti do not use tzikin to refer to saints or idols, and the Indians of the Agalta valley in 1808 did use tzikin to mean an idol with a native paper face.   The ending -ko in sikinko (church in Pech) may come from Nahua -co place, rather than -kao house in Pech, and trilingual Spanish-Nahua speakers-Pech speakers may have introduced Christianity to the Pech in the missions of Olancho. The Nicaroa god Esquipul was associated with the constellation ursa major (Big Bear in Spanish, I think the Big Dipper in English) and that is why he is often mentioned as the celestial night tiger or panther in Pech stories. According to Dr. William Davidson's new book on the Black Christ of Esquipulas, the -as was added by the Spanish to make Esquipulas easier to pronounce. The identification of the people who controlled Esquipulas as Toltecs at the time of Conquest comes from the oficial Esquipulas Guatemala website, and I believe they are quoting Conquistador Pedro Alvarado's soldiers who said the Pipiles in the área were brethern of the Toltecs. Pedro Alvarado published a book of his conquest of Eastern Guatemala, prior to attempting to conquer Western Honduras.

How to Recognize Toltecs in Archaeological Sites and These are Present in NE Honduras Archaeology

There was also a Tohil Plumbate Tlaloc pot in the Copan Ruinas Museum on Central Park in Copan Ruinas, Honduras the last time I visited there. Tohil Plumbate is associated with the arrival of Toltecs in Central America, and Wikipedia in Spanish has a good article and photo. The Tohil Plumbate figures that were included in the recently finished Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, also included the Old Fire God, who is also the God of the Center.  The colonial name of Copan was Copante, which in Nahua means bridge, and is still used in Honduran Spanish to mean a piece of Wood that you put across a stream to cross it safely. The original Mayan name was probably Zotz, the bat. I believe the new Postclassic site found in the El Bosque section of Copan Ruinas, may indicate the arrival of the Toltecs from Mexico who founded Payaqui (among Nahuas) first as a confederation with the Maya Chorti. Green obsidean from a mine controlled by the Toltecs in Hidalgo, Mexico, blackbosidean from Salvadoran sites,but not Guatemalan sites of obsidean, and Fine Orange Ware,and cream and buff pottery mark this site, the site of a Toltec pochteca merchant in El Salvador, an archaeological site called El Coyote in Santa Barbara, and Chichen Itza.

 The Spanish reported repeatedly about the macanas or mahoghany sword clubs with black obsidean teeth in their fights with Honduran Indians particularly in Olancho. There is a whole container of the black obsidian teeth for macanas in the Trujillo Rufino Galan Museum. There is also an obsidean core for making obsidean knives. The Nahuas of Central America tried to get a monopoly on the distribution of obsidean, including controlling mines in El Salvador. There are uncertainities if they got the control of the La Esperanza Intibucá obsidean mine away from the Lencas. Naco (place of the son of the sisimite) Santa Barbara was a major place for obsidean tool and weapon production having many more pieces of obsidean than any where around. Trujillo was seriously at the end of this distribution system. The Pech Indians used wooden arrowheads tipped with poisin for arrows, and seemed to have always used Wood as the Pech Word for arrowhead arrosa means pine arro, head sa, or an arrowhead of fine ocote pine.  Basalt arrow heads which would have needed poisin like from poisonous frogs or toads to be effective are also found around Trujillo, Honduras.  The Lencas like Chief lempira are also reported to have used poisoned arrows. The palm to make bows and the Wood of arrows pejival palm,generally known by the Miskito name supa in Honduras, is cultivated, not wild, but was used by all Honduran Indians who made bows and arrows. The Nahua derived verb Macanear (to hit hard repeatedly) and the noun Macanazo (now a beating, literally a wound caused by a macana) and mancaneado (something that is difficult and tiring to do--Este es macaenado) are still in use in Honduran Spanish.

Thunder/Lightening, Fire, Rain Gods, and Tree cotton, native to Central America, and Firestones

According to several Honduran Indian groups including the Pech, the Lencas, and the Maya Chorti, the thunder god sent down a lightening bolt and caught the forest on fire,and the people kept the fire, and after that they could eat cooked meat, that before they could only eat it rare. So the thunder and lightening and rain gods, and the fire gods are usually considered the same gods in Honduras.  These included Tlaloc or Quia for whom Quiatlan, now Quimistan, Santa Barbara, and Nahuehue, the son of the sisimite and a woman, for whom Naco, Santa Barbara was probably named, among the Nahua speakers. Managua is the main indigenous language name for rain spirits that has been found among the Lencas, who often use Spanish glosses for concepts like gods in the sky (angelitos), gods in the earth (diablos, vírgenes), in the wáter (sirena), and ancestors (animas).

The Mayas seemed to associate getting the gift of being able to make fire when they wished with also knowing about cotton, and this may be related to the technique reported by the Maya Chorti, the Pech, and the Lencas of rubbing two stones together over a piece of cotton, and then it caught fire from the spark, and then they added ocote resinous pine which here in the US we also call fatback pine. Interestingly this is not the technique for making fire for the New Fire Ceremony of the Indians of Quetzaltepeque, Chiquimula who use a fire drill, a technique common in US and Canada Indians. This knowledge of how to make fire at will seems to come to the Honduran Mayas and Lencas about the same time as cotton, pottery, how to make pottery waterproof by treating it with bitter atol made of corn, and set fire to substantial áreas for corn, which maybe due to Olmec influence seen in the Stone carvings in the area. 

Relationship Celestial Rain gods and Goddesses who care for wáter, fish, Aquatic animals  

Most Honduran Indians see a relationship between earthly wáter and its spirits like Texiguat or Siguaté ( the lady of the pool of wáter in Nahua, probably the origin of the sirena in Honduran Spanish, place names in Atlantida, El Paraiso, and Olancho) who is probably equivalent to the Goddess of Terrestial Waters (and its fish) in Teotihuacan and the Lady of the Jade Skirt among the Aztecs. The large Green female Stone statues in the  Trujillo area (maybe at the Poza de la Sirena in the municipio of Santa Fe), in the Bay Islands and in Olancho, possibly at the archaeological site La Llorona, were probably this goddess. She is thought to be either the sister or the wife of Tlaloc the rain god.

Green Goddess Figure  who brings rain and abundant fish identified archaeologically in NE Honduras

This goddess is also shown as a small half axe of Green Stone with a female top that can be worn as a necklace. There are examples in the Trujillo Museums including the one at the Fort. This same type of female half axe figure in known for the Nicarao sites of Nicaragua and Costa Rica.The source of the Green Stone is thought to be at the archaeological site of Tulito (little Tulan, the place of a lot of Tule, the name the Toltecs (people from Tulan  who called  Teotihuacan, Cholula )city of the Refugees in Nahua,given because they had to abandon Teotihuacan due to attacks), Chichen Izta in Mexico). Small Green Stone axe heads were also used, and were known to the Pech and Ladinos as thunder stones.  These have been found buried at entrances of caves near Nahua speakers like Gualaco, Olancho above the Agalta Valley, also now part of the Nahua Federation in Honduras. Examples of these Green Stone axe heads can be seen in the San Pedro Sula Museum in Honduras.

Importance of Caves for Ceremonies and Burials among the Nahuas of NE Honduras, Avoided by Tropical Rainforest Indians

 The use of caves is thought by the Nahua speakers themselves as one of the predominant features that typifies the ethnic group, noted the SEDINAFROH website. Similar uses of caves have been reported in the Choluteca, Francisco Morazon, Colon near Trujillo, Santa Barbara, and Copan Depts. as well in Honduras. An interesting cave was found at Las Crucitas site in the Ciudad Blanca área of Olancho. In the Culmi, Olancho área in the Ciudad blanca zone, Ladinos have taken Green Stone necklaces out of the cave burials in the area and tried to sell them to researchers in the área. A small offeratory in a cave at Jamasquire, now one of the towns in the Nahua Federation outside of Catacamas Olancho, was reported by archaeologist Doris Zemurray Stone and was confiscated by the Honduran government, which still upsets the Jamasquire Indians. An example of modern Green Stone work from the Trujillo área was donated to the Burke Museum of the University of Washington, and can be seen on their website and on Wikimedia Commons.

Source of Green Stone for the Green Female Water and Fish Goddess and tie-in to Tula

Tulito, the source of the Green Stone, is on the Rio Paulaya (River of Blood in Miskito) on the edge of the Ciudad Blanca área and shows that it grew to be a prosperous city with plazas and temples and terraced agricultura, probably as a result of its Green Stone exports. It was described principally by the Sir Walter Raleigh expedition of British archaeologists looking for Ciudad Blanca.  Tulian (place of a lot of tule) is also a related Tula place name in NW Honduras. Since acalt in the Náhuatl dialect or agatl in the Nicarao Nahua dialect, can mean tule, junco, or carrizo, the agalteca, Agalta names are also related to the concept of Tulan, the place of a lot of tule. Tula was also used to mean capital city,  where people are so close together they are like tules in the wáter, noted linguist Jeff Pynes.

Sea Foam and Wave Incised Punctate Decoration on Orange Ware and tie in to Cholula and Teotihuacan, and the Goddess of Celestial Waters

The Paulaya River is also where there were round clay pots in the wáter as reported by Doris Zemurray Stone with photos that show the waves and seafoam (s's and dots) motif similar to the motif on Classic Era (300-900 AD) Fine Orange Pottery of Cholula and Teotihuacan in Mexico. These are probably offerings to the spirit of the wáter, the sirena in Spanish, and possibly related to the Goddess of Terrestial Waters and taker care of fish shown in a cave under one of the pyramids in the Center of the Classic period ruin Teotihuacan.

Ties of Nahuas of NE Honduras to Nicaroas in Nicaragua and Costa Rica who migrated from Mexico

Rosemary Joyce argued that since the archaeology of the Ciudad Blanca área in some ways ressembled that of Nicaragua and Costa Rica the culture that created them could not be Mesoamerican. That is not true. It is known that both the Chorotegas (name means people from Cholula) and Nicaraos (named by the Spanish for the chief Nicarao, but they call themselves Nahoa) of the Pacific Coast of Nicaragua and the Guanacaste región of Costa Rica were both immigrant groups right from Cholula and previously from the Valley of Mexico, both within Mesoamerica.

Slave societies known to have existed in NE Honduras

It is also known the Indians of the Ciudad Blanca and other Mesoamerican type groups of NE Honduras were slave societies from whom the Spanish reported getting slaves from them. The slave trade of selling Costa Rican Indians as slaves continued into the 1840’s when Indian slavery finally ended in the Mosquitia, because the British finally stopped buying them, having ended slavery in 1839 in its Empire. So we should not be surprised to see some Costa Rican type crafts in NE Honduran sites, and the Green Stone and gold of the Costa Rican postclassic sites probably came from NE Honduras.

Trade Routes Changed in Post Classic Honduras to Canoe Routes

Part of the definition of Mesoamérica is to participate in the long distance trade routes controlled by Mesoamericans. These trade routes switched to using primarily canoes in the postclassic period, and one reason Copan was less populated in the post classic is that it became a backwater, which it still is,  with the major trade going on near the Coast.

Fine Orange and Incised Punctate Potteries in Ciudad blanca área both related to Cholula and Teotihuacan Fine Orange and a coarser ware in Cholula

My belief is that both Sula Fine Orange which replaces Lenca polychromed ceramics in the Sula valley in the Post Classic, and  also fine Orange ware is made in El Salvador and incisived punctate ware made in NE Honduras and in Nicaragua, are all local productions trying to imitate Fine Orange ware and its coaser versión made in Cholula and used in Teotihuacan in the Classic Period, but it seems to disappear in Mexico by the end of the Classic period and reappear in Central America.

When the Lencas of La Campa make pottery, the women make the pots,but the men decorate it.Maybe in this Nahua speaking immigrant group the people who knew how to make Fine orange pasted ceramics ended in some locations, while those who knew how to put the incised punctate decorations ended up in other places.

Renaming places in NE and NW Honduras after places left behind in Mexico by Toltecs and Nicaraos

Place names associated with the Nicarao and Cholulateca migrations like Culhuacan (originally a Toltec neighborhood in the Valley of Mexico founded after they left Teotihuacan) and Cholula are in the Ulua Valley in the list of encomiendas given by Pedro Alvarado in 1536. Place names associated with the Culhua were also reported by Alberto membreño in the Department of Lempira, in Western Honduras. There is a whole book on the Perseverancia de náhuatl en una zona supuestamente lenca (The Continuance of Nahuatl in a supposedly Lenca área, about the issue of places and chief names and vocabulary words and legal documents in Nahua in Lempira.

Clothes shown in NE Ceramics match Toltec styles, not Aztec styles

Fine paste orange ceramics were reported in the Ciudad blanca área by explorer Ted Danger who made the Search for Ciudad Blanca video with Discovery Channal cameraman Tony Barrado. A small amount of polychromed ceramics are known for NE Honduras including in the Trujillo Rufino Galan Museum where you can see clearly the dress of a chief with a kidney shield, and no tilma, and Bay Islands polychrome, in which you can see a stylized warrior-king, was reported by William Duncan Strong in NE Honduras on the mainland as well.  These postclassic NE Honduras polychromes are a completely different style than the extremely widespread Ulua Polychromes of the Classic period of the Honduran Lencas, which in the Sula Valley disappear in the Postclassic, but which seem to continue at Postclassic sites further inland like Tenampua, a fort site above the Comayagua Valley, protecting the entrance/exit of the valley between Comayagua and Tegucigalpa.

Walled Forts in the mountains  necessary for the Nahuas due to their practices of stealing women, children, and ambushing hunters of other ethnic groups

If the Nahua Indians had a culture where they were stealing people's wives, and capturing people,maybe particularly children and warrior aged men, to sacrifice to their gods or to sell as slaves, one would expect the other Indians to get angry at them and try to attack them. This appears to have been a concern as Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala see Indians up in the mountains in the Postclassic, including Indians like Maya Chortis and Lencas who were known to have been in the valleys in the Classic period. There are a number of walled cities or forts known for the Post Classic period including possible Papayeca in the Aguan Valley, excavated professionally by Dr. Paul Healey, Tenampua above the Comayagua Valley, Paso de Conquista near La Brea, Ocotepeque which was the Maya Chorti hero Copan Galel's first fort where he fought against the Spanish, and then he went to a second fort also part of the área he was responsable in Citalá, El Salvador.  The Lenca chief Lempira fought in a fort above Erandique, Lempira. He reportedly had so much stored there that he could have fought another 6 months against the Spanish if not for treachery. One does not just suddenly have a fort with huge earthernwork walls to protect you from the Spanish. The Postclassic in Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua seemed to be a time of wars. Cerro Palenque at Santiago Pimienta in Cortes Department where the Chief Cicumba fought against the Spanish also seems to be one of these forts.

The Pech say in their myths that they had to hunt in groups and in the mountains, not in the valleys, because if they went to the valleys, the hunters were captured, sacrificied to the Gods, and eaten. When a Pech woman was kidnapped by the giant Takaskro (the Pech name for the sisimite) her husband's brother was counselled by bats in the cacao grove to not try to attack him within his Stone suit (inside his Stone fort), but to wait until he came out and then attack him, which he did and he got the wife of his brother back.  The sisimite besides being a mythical creature of half man-half monkey to was hairy and lived in the forest like a Sasquatch or BigFoot, Xiximite was also the name of two Pre-Columbian Salvadoran kings of the Señorío of Cuscatlán, a Pipil Nahua speaker Kingdom in the PostClassic in El Salvador, which supposedly Ce Acatl Topiltzin Quetzalcóatl also founded, which eventually displaced most of the Maya Chorti from Western El Salvador, limiting their Access to fish and salt and corn products..

Why People who Use Radar Technologies are more Likely to Detect Fort Sites in the Mountains

Most of the fairly well known archaeological sites in the Ciudad blanca área of Honduras are in the valleys.    However, forts are more likely have things sticking out of the ground that can be seen by technology like Lidar or the satellite radar coordinates used by the people who made Search for Ciudad Blanca video on Youtube.  In this video, it is clear they at river level, but the archaeological site is up in the mountains, and from where they were, there was no entrance way.  At the Papayeca site, above the Aguan Valley there only about 2 entrances to the city and there were walls (murallas, muros) all around the city and there were ditches (zanjas) or natural gullies around them.  That may be what the National Geographic team found and to say it is hard going to get there is an understatement. There are temples and plazas inside these post classic forts in NE Honduras and some have had ballcourts in Honduras, all outside the Maya area. Agalteca, Comayagua may one of these types of forts with ballcourts. In Europe and in the US, where there were forts or walled cities, people often lived and work outside of them, and then took refuge in them in times of attack. In Honduran colonial Spanish these places were called "plazas fuertes" (fortified plazas) or "peñol" the latter of which were always on a mountain. Palenque, as in the name Cerro palenque, the archaeological site in Cortes which Rosemary Joyce is famous for working at, also meaning fort in Spanish. 

Why  Post Classic North Coast Applique Ceramics of NE Honduras belong to the Mesoamericans and not the Pech Indians

The principal type of ceramics found between La Ceiba and the Ciudad blanca área called North Coast Appliqué is principally used to make incense burners with three hollow feet and lug handles. An example of the feet of the incense burners is seen in the Search for Ciudad blanca video on Youtube. The Trujillo Museum used to devote about one-fourth of its floor space to North Coast applique pieces. They are unlikely to be indicative of the Pech as the Pech do not burn incense in their ceremonies. This same s’s and dots,which I have been told is waves and seafoam is found on clay pots left in the Paulaya River, probably as an offering to the sirena for fish and rain. The Pech made their offerings to the sirena in biodegradable guacals and guacalitos from tree gourds.  North Coast Appliqué was also found near the La Entrada, Copan archaeological park at La Jigua, Copan (which had been a pueblo de indios in colonial times)  and used to shown in the Museum there. Because many Post-Classic potteries are monochrome orange to red colors, archaeologists had been disregarding them as uninteresting or unimportant. There has been an issue in Honduras about archaeologists either not knowing which ceramics indicated the postclassic, or considering monochrome ceramics unimportant, even though as in the case of El Bosque site in Copan Ruinas and La Jigua, Copan site, the monochrome ceramics turn out to be imported long distances to the area, and thus probably elite ceramics.

Where were the long distance trade routes that connected NE Honduran Indians, including those of the Ciudad blanca área, to Mesoamerican dominated trade routes from Costa Rica and Panama through Mexico City to the US Southwest?

The long distance Indian trade routes from Trujillo went down the Paulaya, across to the Patuca,to the Guallambre, and from there they could reach the Indians of Central Nicaragua (documented by Jaime Incer in the book by Gotz von Houwald mayagna), the Choluteca and Gulf of Fonseca área,the Tegucigalpa área, El Paraíso Dept.and into the Nahua and Mangue speaking parts of Nicaragua. This trade route is still attested by place names like the river between Honduras and Nicaragua is the Pochteca River (the Pochteca were the long distance merchant class of the Toltecs and the Aztecs), Azacualpa, the place of the temple of the patrón god of the Pochtecain Nahua, according to the late Dr.Hugo Nutini, and located in almost every department of Honduras, and Calpules and -calpa, from calpulli and the place of the calpulli, the basic administrative, landholding organization of Nahua speakers.

The long distance trade route also went down the Atlantic Coast past the Desaguero on the Rio San Juan in Nicaragua, along the Costa rican coast,and ending in Veragua, in Panamá. The Indians of Veracruz Mexico showed a map to Cortes of this trade route and where the rests(posadas) and fairs (ferias) for trading were. Honduran Indians continued to trade in regional fairs with the most important at Esquipulas in Guatemala and at San Miguel in El Salvador. The trade in obsidean continued until at least the early 1800’s, in feathers at least into the 1940’s, and in live tropical birds and medicinal plants continues until today.

Bringing ítems from far away for status purposes is known to have happened in pre-Columbian times in Honduras and in Mexico. Many products produced in NE Honduras such as whole live jaguars and jaguar skins and jaguar claws, live tropical birds like Green parrots and macaws and their feathers, liquidámbar, rubber, gold, copper, cacao, conch shells cut into wind jewels for the worship of Quetzalcóatl and the god of the Wind, are known to have arrived in the Aztec capital of Tenochitlan, where Mexico City is now.  The NW Honduran made copper bells, known as war bells and used in human sacrifice ceremonias in Mexico and El Salvador, were found in the trade route going into the US Southwest such as to Naco Arizona.  

Nahua Corn Gods, Moon goddesses, and Female Water Spirits continue in legends, in place names, and in archaeology in NE Honduras 

 Honduran place names and legends in NE Honduras, including in the Ciudad Blanca región, also point to participation in Mesoamerican religious beliefs, chiefly with Nahua names still. In Honduras and in El Salvador, the mother of the Young corn god Xipe, now called el cipotillo or duende in Central American legends, had this child as a result of an illicit affair with the morning star (Quetzalcoatl) was punished and turned into  a wáter spirit known as the Sucia (the dirty one), or Siguanaba (the female spirit) or are sometimes combined with the myth of La Llorona (the female who cries). There are legends of these in Wikipedia in Spanish such as linked to Mitología Pipil  and in Wikipedia in English (sihuanaba). La llorona is a large archaeological ruin within the Ciudad blanca área, and may be where the Green feminine Stone life statue was.  Clay life size statues of Xipe Totec have been reported for the Agalta Valley, and looters in the Ciudad blanca área thought one had been found there, too.   An example of this type of statue is in the Banco Atlántida next to the Honduras Maya in Tegucigalpa.

Among the Maya Chorti, the spirits in the wáter are the sirpe, and their job is to go to the sky at the beginning of the rainy season to bring the clouds for the rain. As a spirit that goes between the earth and the sky, they are often traslated as angelitos by the Lencas and the Chortis. The actual 4 rain gods are given Saint’s names by the Maya Chorti and are also called los 4 hombres trabajando (the 4working men) among Chortis and Lencas.  

Quetzalcóatl as an important rain god, and corn god in the Ciudad blanca and NE Honduras

Quetzalcóatl carved in Stone and as metate heads are found throughout the NE Honduras región including the Trujillo área, such as are in the Trujillo Museum, and in the Search for Ciudad blanca video on YouTube, you can see examples from that área in situ and in Museums.  Quetzalcóatl was associated with the god of the wind, who was also the god of hurricanes in Central America. The name Papayeca, the chief city of an Alliance of two states Papayeca and Champagua,  the place of the chief priest Papa of Quetzalcóatl in his form of god of the wind in the Aguan Valley área south of Trujillo, shows the importance of this god.  Yeca might be related to the Pech belief that the wife of Takaskro the sisimite who captured Pech women named Jicara and Cacao, was called Yekayeka.

One story of how the Nahuas got corn collected among Nahuas in Mexico is that the son of the Sisimite and a human woman Nahuehue became the captain of the 4 thunderbolt/rain gods, the god of the center, and when the ants showed that corn was under the mountain of substanance, the thunderbolt gods hit the mountain with lightening, and the people were able to get the corn. Nahuehue, being tired after helping to break open the mountain, rested and was disgusted when he woke up and found the people had left none for him and refused to teach the people how to grow the corn. Finally, however, he taught them how to grow milpas. In other versions, it is Quetzalcóatl who teaches them how to grow milpas. The Word milpa (growing together corn, beans, and squash) was used in Honduras in pre-columbian times in NE Honduras as the town in Olancho Valley south of Catacamas and north of Juticalpa now called Santa maria del Real was originally called Escamilpa.
So he is important for controlling the wind and rain related to the growing of corn. Too much rain, especially the problems of hurricanes, makes corn and especially bean cultivation very problematic in NE Honduras.

So there is every evidence that the Ciudad Blanca área Indians spoke a Mesoamerican language, believed in Mesoamerican gods, practiced Mesoamerican type ceremonies, built Mesoamerican type architecture, made Mesoamerican type crafts and clothes, probably grew Mesoamerican type crops, participated in long distance trade routes dominated by Mesoamericans, and had typical Mesoamerican type problems with their neighbors that required the building of forts, had typical Mesoamerican type weapons, and what is left of the language and what is known about them from their neighbors points to Nahua speaking Indians.

What would a Pech or Tol speaker Archaeological Site Look Like?

The team of archaeologists who made up the Sir Walter Raleigh Expedition to look for the Ciudad Blanca on the Rio Paulaya reported two types of archaeological sites. There may also be a third type, a few bones, a few shells, post holes, that are very hard to find archaeologically a thousand years later. Those will be the Pech sites based on what we know of their architecture, their hunting, their crafts, their fishing. A similar problema exists finding archaeological sites of Tol speakers in Yoro and Atlantida, who reportedly moved even more often than the Pech. there may be no specific Tol pottery, because it takes 15 days to dry a pot to fire it. It might have been easier to trade meat with sedentary groups for pots, which is what they did on Montaña de Flor in the 1940’s. 

The Problems with the General Words for Unconquered Indians--Payas and Jicaques

 Although the Tols have words in their language for canoe and bow and arrow, but even in the 1940’s did not make them,  and there are colonial era reports of Jicaques in canoes with bows and arrows, maybe those canoe going Jicaques (unconquered Indians) were not the same ethnic group and may not have spoken the same language as Tol. Not only are there Nahua place names in Yoro and especially Atlantida, but in the Tolupan religious hierarchy collected by Dr. Anne Chapman at the last Tol speaking community Montaña de la Flor at least 3 of the top 4 gods their names are in Nahua like Teot and Toman. Nahua influences have been noted in words related to crafts among the Pech and the Tawahka Indians of Honduras and stories seem to have the characters, but their names are changed according to the language like the Sisimite.

Both Paya and Jicaque seemed to have been used by the Spanish as general terms for unconquered Indians. The use of Paya dates literally to the arrival of Christopher Columbus when the Mayan chief  Yumbe (One path in Mayan) told Columbus that the Indians to the West of Trujillo were Mayas (and that is why they are still called that today, even though we know they speak at least 26 different languages) and those to the East were either Payas or Tayas, the manuscript copy is not clear. Taya as in Tayaco, a common place name in Olancho and Colon, including there is a rive Tayaco, may have been the Nahua speaker name for the Pech Indians, and so while the Nahuas of the Agalta valley still spoke Nahua, all Pech villages were called Tayaco (place of Tayas). Most things the Pech would say about themselves like My name is would start with Tasma, I and emphasis, so the people who started their sentences like that, the nahuas may have called Tayas.  On the map of Central American provinces at the time of Conquest in Central America in the Wikipedia Historia del El Salvador article, you can see an área for Tayacones. (People who live in places called Tayaco). When the Nahua speakers no longer spoke Nahua, they switched to calling Pech villages El Payal and Tawahka villages El Sumal, and Garífuna (Black Caribs) villages El Caribal.

The Word Paya I believe refers to people who lived in Payaquí (among nahoas according to colonial translations, among Yaquis according to linguist Dr. Judith Maxwell) and included both Mesoamericans like Lencas, Nahuas, Maya Chortis, and non-Mesoamericans like the Pech Indians. Both Nahua meaning Witch or Priest, and Pipil meaning leader, member of the ruling class, are not necessarily the name the ethnic group had for its self or its language. Pech for example just means "People" and the world is divided into "Pech" and "Pechakwa" (other people). Now when speaking Spanish they call their language Pech, but in Pech there is no other Word for their language except "our tongue".  The case of the Pech Indians does not seem particularly unique as far as I can tell among other indigenous groups that still speak their language.