The Geographical, Linguistic, and Cultural Position of the Popoluca of Veracruz

Abstract

Ll THE GEOGRAPHICAL, LINGUISTIC, AND CULTURAL POSI- TION OF THE POPOLUCA OF VERACRUZ By GEORGE M. FOSTER had not contemptuously referred to a I F of THE pre-Conquest Aztecs Chontales and Popolocas (Popoloco, number distinct alien groups as Popo­ luca, Pupuluca, etc.), the work of later ethnologists would have been much simpler. Fifty years ago Brinton corrected the then common assumption that the various groups so designated were parts of one tribe which had been broken up by invading hordes and forced to flee in all directions. 1 The Nahuatl words chontalli and popoloca are variously translated as foreigner, stranger, barbarian, and one who speaks an unintelligible tongue, and are common nouns, not tribal names. Brinton attempted to classify all of the groups so designated, and to a considerable extent was successful. One of the Popoloca groups that has proven most baffling is that known as the Popoluca of Veracruz, who speak languages related to Mixe-Zoque. Various scattered references to this group, or groups, for actually there are four dis­ tinct idioms spoken, have appeared from time to time, but in none has the relationship of the four groups been clearly defined. This paper, based on field work in 1940 and 1941, attempts to delimit as precisely as possible the geo­ graphical position of the Veracruz Popoluca, comments on earlier references to them, discusses probable linguistic relationships, and very briefly summa­ rizes the cultural status of the most numerous division. North and west of the Coatzacoalcos River, which drains the northern part of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, rises a local coastal volcanic mountain chain which runs from southeast to northwest past Catemaco and the Tuxtlas until it disappears in the marshy depression of the Papaloapan drainage. In­ dividual peaks rise to 5000 feet, and the entire area, which is separated from the cordillera of Oaxaca, is rough and broken. On the southern and eastern slopes of this range, and in the flat Coatzacoalcos river basin, are found all of the present day Veracruz Popoluca. As pointed out, four linguistic groups are distinguishable. These may be referred to as the Sierra, Oluta, Sayula, and Texistepec Popoluca. The first-named, numerically most important, live in the mountains at altitudes of from 400 feet to nearly 3000 feet and occupy about 25 villages and rancherias with populations numbering from 50 to more than 1000. The total population is about 10,000. The other three groups are limited to the pueblos of the same names, all near the trans-Tehuantepec railroad line at a distance of about 40 miles from the Coatzacoalcos terminal, and are linguistic islands of about 3000 inhabitants, each surrounded by Span­ ish and Aztec-speaking peoples. 1 D. G. Brinton, Chon/ales and POpollUas: A Contribution /0 Mexican Ethnology (Compte­ Rendu de la Huitieme Session, Congr~ International des Am~ricanistes. Paris, 1890), pp. 556-564.