The Pech Indians and the Truxillo Railroad

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.