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When the conquistadors entered the city of Xelaju,, they were received by Izquin and other high officials of the lineage of Nijaib. It appears that this clan rebelled against Tecum and the other Quiche’ chiefs, if they were not already used as collaborators put in place by the Spanish Crown to pacify the native population. The Spanish believed that Izquin had gold, and from what we know from Ricinos, “received gold, pearls, emeralds and diamonds” and their advance men thanked Izquin, giving him and his peers titles of Sir, and shields to these six Maya leaders, and ‘approved’ them to use Spanish as a language. Later the Jijaib elite were preached in the Christian catechism. Together with other chiefs, Izquin received the name of Francisco. He was later to be one of the first baptized Christians in Guatemala, although the baptism did not happen during those first days under the Spanish Crown.
Continuing to Chwi Tz’ak, the Spanish took control there and left Mexican auxillaries to colonize and hold it. These forces renamed the place Mumustenanco, a rough translation in Nahual meaning “place at the edge of the existing buildings”. It is possible that those families named Herrara from Peublo Viejo would be descendants of these Mexicans. In this way, Momostenango was founded on the same site of the original Qui-che’ administrative town and ceremonial site of Chwi Tz’ak. Missionaries came to evangelize the inhabitants, a church was built on the foundations of antique Quiche buildings. Remains of the pre-hispanic building, then the first church remain beneath the present one. In the lower stratus, a foot of a post-classic ceramic bowl was found at the side of the earlier bell tower.
1524-1558 The reinvented ‘Francisco’ Izquin (Nijaib) did not lose seniority in the new Momostenango. Placed as an administrative representative of the Momostecos, he was considered a chief and was treated as a Spanish noble or ‘Don’. Even more interesting, among the indigenous of the area he was elevated from K’alel (captain) to the rank of Ajpop (king). Thus, (Like this…asi….) on the day of Santa Cecilia en 1558, Quiche’ nobles from Santa Cruz del Quiche’, Quetzaltenango, Chichicastenango, San Antonio Ilotenango, Chiquimula, Totonicapan, Mazatenantgo, San Felipt, Zapotitlan, and others) attended a mass, installed Izquin on a rustic throne (‘entre el pajon’). They gave him a bone of a maquitzal, a lion bone, and a tiger bone composed together as an official baton or a command staff, then silver crowns. His brother was also promoted from Achij (sergeant) to K’alel (captain), and it was declared that the solemn act was not made by the Spanish authorities, but by the Quiche officials alone.
It seems that Izquin had a permanent residence in Quetzaltenango, but by order of the Spanish the Momostecos (people of Momostenango) had to erect houses for Spanish families that remained among them. 16 houses were built, a bit to the east of Pueblo Viejo, in what are now the hamlets of Tunayac and Santa Ana. Their descendents still live under the name of Vicente, who migrated to the hamlet of San Vicente Buenabaj.
1588 Little is known of the death of Francisco Izquin Nijaib, registered in Quetzaltenango in 1588. His coronation as king could have been done in anticipation of his death, because he was already in his late 80’s or older. At the top of the Death Register page is the name Francisco Nijaib, “.. thus passed from the scene as an important man who suffered the unspeakable to have lived in the time of the Conquest.”
REFERENCES CITED:
AGC, Archivo General de Centroamerica, Guatemala.
Borhegyi, S.F., 1965, Archeological Synthesis of the Guatemalan Highlands, Handbook Handbook of Middle American Indians, Univ. Texas Press
Brasseur De Bourbourg. C.E., 1861 Popol Vuh, Le Livre Sacre el les mythes de Pantiquite Americaine, Paris.
Wauchope,R., 1964. Southern Mesoamerica, Prehistoric Man in the New World, U. of Chicago Press
Carmack, R.M., 1966 El Ajpop Quiche’, K’uk’umatz : Un problema de la sociología Historica. Antropología e Historia de Guatemala, vol 18n No. 1.
La Perpetuacion del Clan Patrilineal en Totonicapán. Antropología e Historia de Guatemala, vol 18, No. 2
Toltec Influence on the Post Classic Cultura and History of Highland Guatemala, Middle American Research Inst., Tulane University, Publ. 26
Mann, 1491, 2005, The History of the American Indian before Contact
Recinos, A., 1950 Titulo de los Senores de Totonicapan. Fondo de Cultura Ec., Mexico
Cronicas Indígenas de Guatemala. Editorial Univ. Guatemala.
Lopez Betancourt, Olivia, 2000, Quikab, El Fundador del Gran Rwino del Maiam
Lopez Aguilar, Ervin, 1990, La Formacion Economico-Social Quiche, en Tiempos de Quikab, El Grande 1425-1475
Hall, Brignoli, 2003, Historical Atlas of Central America
Saravia, Rodrigo Guarchaj, 2001, Popol Vuh en K’iche y Espanol,Antiguas Historias de Las mayas K’iche’s de Guatemala |
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The young Izquin served in various battles, and rose in rank socially. He won a flag to carry with him in battle and rising to the title of K’alell, (Captain) giving him the right to order various minor officials and c’ojol (commoners). When he returned from his triumphs, the highest seniors came to meet him outside Utatlan with a seven day fiesta in his honor. He rose again to become Eagle (Balam Ak’ab), a warrior in sacred feathers from that bird. In the same way, his nawal, his animal protector in which he could transform himself, was the eagle. In various occasions he transformed himself to this bird to win in war, flying to attack the enemy from the air. *Recinos 1957
One of his most important military expeditions was to guarantee and expand his chiefdom from Momostenango. Each successful step in his trajectory left his mark in tradition because he was already a famous prince. In one tale, as he bypassed the Rio Xquin Chila, he was presented with fish en homage. Sleeping a night over Cuxmak, and left his foot impression on a rock in the hamlet of today’s San Carlos Sija. He climbed the hill of Quixol in the hamlet of Tunayac because there was supposedly gold there. Today there is an iron mine in that spot. Over the area were left signs to remind the inhabitants of their chief and prince, Isquin Nijaib, Aj Palotz, Aj Utsakibala.
1492 first Columbus expedition arrives in Caribbean Sea
1504 Cortes Expedition from Jamaica to Mexico
In 1501, the Quiche were still trying to control their enemies who were constantly trying to claw their way out of imperial limits placed on them. The Quiche’ sent their bravest princes to frontier areas like Verapaz, Soconusco, and Momos. One of those princes, our Isquin Nijaib, was leading a conquering expedition beginning with the town of Sacapulas.
The Mam frontier to the NE was Pachalum or Xalcadtja’, ‘division of the waters’ where the Rio Negro divides in three branches.The Archeological site Pueblo Viejo Malacanancito is close to this place. It is probable that the Espanoles called this place Malacatan sometime after they conquered the Mam in Mazatenango they were attacked by 1,000 Mam soldiers from Malacatan. Their chief Canil Acab was killed in battle, and the rest fled. The Spanish turned south in chase as far as their fort, which they took in the name of the crown. The site of Pueblo Viejo, Malacatancito would be this fort.
Maya Political/Military History for first 80 years of contact with Spanish Colonial forces:
Early1500’s: The Spanish came in arms, under the leadership of Pedro de Alvarado (fresh from the Cortes expedition to Mexico), Izquin Nijaib played and important part in the outcome of the conflict. At the arrival of Alvarado with his soldiers and friendly Mexican Aztec auxiliaries at the flats to the southwest of Xelaju, they were attacked by the Quiche’ forces. A second attack squadron was led by Izquin Nijaib, and without doubt marching in his army were many soldiers from the area now called Momostenango. Izquin intended to attack the center of the Spanish force which would be the position of Alvarado, but in spite of their supernatural mystical combat powers to transform into lightening bolts and diving eagles, the Quiche could not get close. According to the explanations in the same history of the Qui-che’ soldier’s people (Recinos, 1957), the Spanish were “.protected by a white dove and a white child carried by birds without feet.”…. perhaps a slightly too-convenient selection of symbols for winning a holy war?
Each time Izquin got close, those supernatural beings blinded or bedazzled him and he fell to the ground. In the end, it appears the Eagle could not dominate the dove. Izquin signaled a cease fire and a signal of peace, then a ‘convido’, an invitation to all of the Spanish soldiers to eat, giving them fowl and ‘eggs of the land’ (potatoes or root vegetables) . Although what followed is not very clear, it seems that Izquin intended to convince Tecum, the general of the Quiche forces, to make peace with the conquerors. Tecum did not want to do that, and as we know, Tecum Uman died in combat at the plains of Pinar on February 20, 1524
(Editorial comment: Four years earlier, two plagues of measles and smallpox introduced by Cortez in Mexico had already preceded the conquistadors and decimated the populations of Maya Mam and Quiche’. In 1524 Qui-che’ and Mam soldiers would have been few, young, and untrained. Such extra-ordinary supernatural images described in Maya history were already present in 15 Century European art, and may have been seen, then absorbed into revisions of memory and oral history long after these battles, when there was a need to explain how they could have been defeated. Had it not been for the epidemics, military advances and colonization in Central America could have been prevented or delayed for several hundred years.) |
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