22 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 97 



they regained confidence, although they still told me that they had some fear 

 that they were not being told the truth, for those captains who had come in 

 advance of me had told them the same things and more to the same effect, and 

 that they had lied to them and had carried off their women when they had sent 

 them to make bread, and that the men who accompanied them had been forced 

 to carry loads, and they believed that I would do the same. Nevertheless, with 

 the assurances which the Mexicans and the Interpreter (Marina, a Mexican 

 woman) whom I had with me gave them, and seeing those of my company 

 happy and well treated, they were somewhat reassured. I sent them off to speak 

 to the Chiefs and people of the pueblos, and in a few days the Captain at Naco 

 wrote me that some of the neighboring pueblos had become peaceful, particularly 

 the chief pueblos which are : Naco, where the Spaniards are residing, Quimiztlan, 

 Sula and Tholoma (Cheloma) — the smallest of these had more than two thousand 

 houses — and other villages which were subject to them; and that the envoys 

 said the whole country would soon be at peace, for they had sent messengers to 

 pacify the people, telling them of my arrival among them and all that I had said 

 to them, and also what they had heard from the natives of Mexico; they added 

 that they greatly desired that I would go to Naco, as my arrival there would give 

 confidence to the people. This I would have done with good will, had it not 

 been very necessary for me to continue my journey in order to arrange that 

 which I shall explain to your Majesty in the following chapter.'" 



From the foregoing it seems quite possible that the people of Naco 

 Spoke a Nahuatl dialect understandable to the Aztec caciques and 

 to Dofia Marina, Cortez' famous Mexican Indian woman interpreter. 

 Had the temporary captives from Naco been Jicaque, Lenca or Maya, 

 this would not have been possible. It is also possible that certain 

 Nahuatl dialects served as a lingua franca in the area, due to the 

 obviously extensive trade connections then in existence with Mexico 

 and to the extent of Pipil influence exerted from Salvador. How- 

 ever, elsewhere Cortez mentions linguistic difficulties when entirely 

 alien languages were encountered by his men, but this does not seem 

 to have been the case here. 



Cortez then proceeded by sea to the newly founded town of Tru- 

 jillo. His settlement near Puerto Caballos was soon abandoned, owing 

 to sickness and lack of food, in favor of Naco. A number of large 

 and rich pueblos in this vicinity were gradually conciliated by San- 

 doval, but the inhabitants of Naco, owing to the severe treatment 

 they had received from Olid, refused to return to their homes. While 

 Sandoval was at Naco, the caciques of two pueblos named Quespan 

 and Talchinalchapa came to him to report the depredations of some 

 other Spaniards who had arrived from the South." These were seized 

 and proved to be a party under Garro from Nicaragua that had been 



" Bernal Diaz, 1916, vol. 5, p. 407, from the fifth letter of Hernando Cortez to 

 the Emperor Charles V ; also see p. 60. 

 "Bernal Diaz, 1916, vol. 5, p. 66. 



