Mochizalco center of Nahua political and symbolic power in the Salvadoran Southwest

Abstract

After five hundred years, the history of the peoples that make up the first civilizing root of what is now called El Salvador continues to be hidden by a thick darkness. The elites that have governed during the last 203 years have allowed only fragments of that becoming to come to light, either to condemn them or to use them as part of the scaffolding of a nation-state project that emerged outside of its deep past. In that scenario and from a confusing mix of liberal, conservative and authoritarian ideas, the Salvadoran intellectuals throughout the twentieth century vigorously promoted the dead indigenous, mainly immersed in the lethargy and silence of an archaeological capsule and a stoic but distant history. The inanimate “Indian,” the one who does not manifest, demand or claim, was given a fabulous past alongside foreign deities, non-existent heroes were granted to him and a kingdom called Cuscatlán was created for him. Thus, the other peoples who shared territory and history with the true Pipil settlement have been conveniently made invisible, while the other Nahua political-administrative centers that coexisted with the real Cushcatan were chained to oblivion. Among these was Mochizalco, a Nahua power center linked to an almost mythical lineage and of a multicultural nature that dominated what is now southwestern El Salvador through a configurational display, as recorded by the Tlaxcalans five centuries ago.