NO. I HONDURAS STRONG, KIDDER, AND PAUL 9 



"Native Races" (1882) is a treasure house of ethnographic source 

 material, and the same author's " History of Central America " ( 1883) 

 not only indicates the sources but also the major trends of native and 

 European contact in the period of conquest. More recently Cyrus 

 Thomas and John R. Swanton (1911) have presented in brief form 

 the salient facts regarding the distribution of Indian languages in 

 Honduras as part of their study of the languages of Mexico and Cen- 

 tral America. Preeminent in this field, however, is the voluminous 

 and detailed work of Walter Lehmann, who in a preliminary report 

 in 1910, and in " Zentral Amerika " (1920), his given us a wealth 

 of data based on close examination of the sources as well as personal 

 linguistic work in the lield. In addition to an intensive study of origi- 

 nal sources and present-day Indian dialects, Lehmann has also in- 

 cluded many sweeping theoretical generalizations. The latter, however, 

 concern us less in the present study than do the specific references to 

 linguistic and cultural distributions in Honduras at the time of the 

 Conquest. 



In general, the linguistic maps of Thomas and Swanton (1910), 

 and Lehmann (1920) agree as regards the distribution of native 

 languages in the Ulua drainage. Both place Choi, Chorti, and other 

 Maya-speaking groups to the west of the Ulua River proper. Follow- 

 ing Lehmann, we find that the Lenca occupied a large area around 

 Lake Yojoa, extending north almost to the junction of the Comayagua 

 and the Ulua. From here to the coast the valley of the Ulua and 

 Chamelecon Rivers was Jicaque territory. To the west, Lenca and 

 Jicaque territory bordered on that of the Chorti and Choi Maya, 

 Copan being one center of Chorti occupation. The Lenca and Jicaque 

 demesnes extended east to that of the Paya who with the Sumu, oc- 

 cupied the northeastern corner of Honduras." 



To the south, peoples of Lenca speech extended to the Pacific coast. 

 To the west they were bordered by the Pipil of Salvador along the 

 Lempa River, and to the east by various Chiapanecan and Matagalpan 

 groups (see linguistic maps, Thomas and Swanton, 191 1, and Leh- 

 mann, 1920). 



Thus it appears that all of the territory investigated by the present 

 expedition was occupied by Jicaque and Lenca-speaking peoples at the 

 time of the Conquest — with one very important exception. This was 

 the occurrence in the same region of various Nahuatl-speaking pueblos 

 along what appear to have been trade routes extending from south- 

 ern Mexico and from the Pipil (Nahuatl) territory in Salvador. Leh- 



* Linguistic and tribal distributions in Honduras have already been discussed 

 in some detail; see Strong, 1935, pp. 7-19 and 140-172. 



