Tzotzil

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Procession in San Juan Chamula , the cultural center of the Tzotzil

The Tzotzil - Maya are an indigenous people of the Mexican state of Chiapas , in the transition area from North to Central America. The Tzotzil language , spoken by around 350,000 indigenous people in Mexico and Guatemala (data from 2002), is one of the most vital indigenous languages ​​in Mexico .

Proper name

The Tzotzil call themselves bats'i winikotik , "true (original) people". The name Tzotzil is derived from the Tzotzil's own name from Zinacantán sots'il winik , which means "bat people" ( sots'il "bat", winik "man"). According to a myth, the ancestors of the Tzotzil found a bat in Zinacantán, which they then worshiped as a deity.

Residential areas

The Tzotzil live in the central highlands of Chiapas in Mexico. The largest Tzotzil communities, Chamula and Zinacantan , in which, according to the 2010 census, over 99% of the population speaks Tzotzil, but less than half each speak Spanish, are located north of the town of San Cristóbal de las Casas , one of the main tourist attractions in Chiapas . A subgroup of the Tzotzil are the Nahua Tzotzil Indians; they only inhabit the cities of Sayalo and San Gabriel Chiapas . It is a mixed people of both peoples, but has lost the resemblance to the original tribes and has become a people of its own .

history

The Tzotzil are the direct descendants of the classical Maya, who populated the area as early as pre-Columbian times. Due to the linguistic relationship, it is assumed that the Tzotzil, like the Tzeltal and the Ch'ol, go back to the bearers of the late Classical period of the Mayan culture, among others in the cities of Palenque and Yaxchilán , which are also known as Proto-Ch ' language designated ol .

See also

swell

  1. ↑ B. Traven: Land of Spring . Book guild Gutenberg, Berlin 1928, p. 50

literature

  • Robert M. Laughlin: The great Tzotzil dictionary of San Lorenzo Zinacantán. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington 1975
  • Robert M. Laughlin (translator), Carol Karasik (editor): The people of the Bat, Mayan Tales and dreams from Zinacantan. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington 1988
  • Evon Z. Vogt: Zinacantan: A Maya Community in the Highlands of Chiapas. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press; Cambridge 1969
  • B. Traven : Land of Spring Book Guild Gutenberg typesetting and printing of the Buchdruckwerkstätte GmbH, Berlin 1928.

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