The Pech Indians and the Truxillo Railroad
By Wendy Griffin
The first ethnographic study of the Pech Indians was done by
a former employee of the Truxillo Railroad Eduard Conzemius, a native of
Luxembourg. He studied Pech history, culture, location, and language between
1919 and 1927. He noticed the Spanish flu epidemic 1918-1920 killed about one
third of the population of the Pech Indians.
When the Truxillo Railroad expanded along the Sico and
Paulaya rivers they displaced Pech villages. Although their concession said they
had to pay for land that was inhabited when they passed through, according
Aniceto Duarte, the employees of the Truxillo Railroad came to their house and
told they had to move and that the government had given them this land. Aniceto’s
father moved to Culmi where he married Pech woman from there. Others went to
live on the Rio Platano.
In the 1930’s a Ladino rancher from Olancho got land outside
of Trujillo and brought up two Pech couples to settle there and take care of
his cattle. After that when Pech from Culmi would come up selling pigs, they
would stay at the houses of the Pech couples noted Don Carlos Duarte who made
the trip once.
The first time I was aware of these pig selling trips was in
Stephen Echerd’s field notes on the Pech language where he collected in Pech
and translated into Spanish stories, including the life and death of Ivan
Betancourt and the selling of pigs in Trujillo. It was 10 days to Trujillo with
the pigs and 5 days back without them.
Although mostly men made the trip, sometimes women went too. Dona Juana’s
grandmother made the trip to buy a cast iron kettle to cook sugar cane juice in
to make “rapadura” or “dulce”, raw sugar made into blocks. She regaled Dona
Juana with the amazing things she saw like coconut trees that could grow beside
the salty sea. Coconuts are called sea trees in Pech.
Don Amado, the father of Hernan Martinez, met a man coming
up from Catacamas selling pigs who wanted someone to go with him. So Don Amado
went. After the man sold the pigs, he wanted to take the train back as far as
it went in Olancho, and so a friend who had a ranch in Bonito Oriental said
leave the boy with me and he can work for me. So for two years Don Amado worked
on a ranch with cattle, houses, and mules, and learned a lot.
Meanwhile his family at home was worried and after two years
sent word that he should come home. Then they married him to Dona Amada, so
that he would no longer wander.
Doris Stone said the Payas sometimes came to the North Coast
to work for the banana company, but as soon as they finished their contract,
they would go home. Also they went home for ceremonies which were still being
done into the 1950’s.
There is controversy about whether the United Fruit’s
Truxillo Railroad company was good for local commerce or not. While they did
have a commissary, people seemed to buy from fresh vegetable and breadsellers,
from locals who had dairy cattle, and the company had a butcher shop in Jerico
that bought pigs and cattle to satisfy the local demand and the demand along
the line. Arabs sold cloth and other goods. So it would seem that local
commerce prospered in spite of the Truxillo railroad’s commissary and ships
which brought in special things for Christmas.
