Tacuba

Tacuba on the map of El Salvador

Tacuba ( Nawat: Takupan ) is a municipality in El Salvador in the department of Ahuachapán. It is located far to the west of the country near the border with Guatemala.

Name

A widespread interpretation of Nawat name Takupan is "place of the ball game " (see Nahuatl Tlach ( tli ) ' ball, ball game, " the Location -co and - pan" on "). A connection with tlacōtl " rod " is also possible. Not to be confused is the place with the eponymous district of Mexico City, the old Tlacopan that may have identical names origin, but is traditionally interpreted as " Flowering plant on flat ground".

History

The old Tacupan was founded by the Pipil. At about 1200, the area came under the rule of Cuzcatlán.

The former rule of Cuzcatlán was conquered by the Spanish in 1528 final. 1550 Tacuba had about 500 inhabitants. Throughout the colonial period, it was going to Provincia de Izalcos or Alcaldía Mayor de Sonsonate. 1770 lived in the village of Tacuba, which was subordinate to the minister of Ahuachapán approximately 996 Indigenous in 351 families. The local church was destroyed in an earthquake in 1773.

1824 Tacuba came first at the Department of Sonsonate. With the creation of the department of Ahuachapán it is connected to the same on 9 February 1869. By 1890 it had 3340 inhabitants.

In the 19th century Tacuba became a center of coffee cultivation. Through two government decrees of the President Rafael Zaldívar in the years 1881 and 1882, the property rights of indigenous communities in El Salvador were lifted and dissolved the jointly managed ejidos. As a result, the landowner also stretched in Tacuba their coffee plantations at the expense of the indigenous people.

1932 Pipil peasants of Tacuba in the uprising involved against the landlords and the military rule of General Maximiliano Hernández Martínez. After the suppression of the rebellion it came to Matanza, a massacre, the beginning of 1932 about 30,000 people fell across El Salvador to the victim, in Tacuba over a quarter of the total population, almost every man over 12 who could not escape. The mass shootings lasted for about a month. The Nawat the Pipil language was forbidden in the sequence and so brought to the brink of extinction within a few decades.

Pipil culture today

Tacuba is the only municipality in the department of Ahuachapán, where there are still some speakers of Pipil language Nawat, which was brought as a result of harsh repression since the genocide of the Pipil 1932 to the brink of extinction. In everyday life, but it is hardly to be heard because it is only spoken by a few old people.