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Honduras Indigenous Groups
The Lenca, the largest indigenous group (numbering
about
50,000), live in the west and in the southwestern
interior. Some
anthropologists argue that the Lenca still practice some
traditional customs and that they are the survivors of a
once
extensive indigenous population that lived in the
departments of
Lempira, Intibucá, La Paz, Valle, Comayagua, and Francisco
Morazán.
Controversy has arisen, however, regarding the
identification of
this community as indigenous because their native language
is no
longer spoken and their culture is to a large extent
similar to the
ladino majority.
Other smaller indigenous groups are scattered
throughout
Honduras. Several hundred Chortí, a lowland Maya
community,
formerly lived in the departments of Copán and Ocotepeque
in
western Honduras. In the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, the
Chortí migrated to the northeast coastal area, and by the
early
1990s, they were practically extinct. The Chorotega
migrated south
from Mexico in pre-Columbian times and settled in the
department of
Choluteca. Like the Chortí, the Chorotega speak Spanish,
but they
retain distinct cultural and religious traits. A
population of Maya
live in the western departments of Copán and Ocotepeque
and still
speak a Mayan dialect. Several hundred Pipil live mainly
in the
isolated northeast coastal region in the departments of
Gracias a
Dios and parts of Yoro and Olancho. About 300 Tol or
Hicaque are
found in an isolated mountainous area of rain forests.
Data as of December 1993
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