Lenca Geography of the 16th and 17th Centuries (original) (raw)

I know of no specific identification of the Lenca before 1591. In that instance, the Honduran bishop noted the Merced fathers had organized a "benefficio de los Lencas" (AGI 1591). Apparently, that territory was the same as shown as LENCA on the accompanying map —an ecclesiastical district of Lenca-speakers that stretched south of Comayagua in 1632 (AGCA 1632). The Spanish historian Bernal Diaz, on the Honduran scene in 1525, was probably the first to record places occupied by the Lenca—Maniani, Malalaca, and Agalteca (1525: 554), but the term Lenca probably first appeared as "Lenga," one of the places listed in Pedro Alvarado's repartimiento from San Pedro in 1536 (Alvarado 1536). In that document Lenga is identified only as a site "towards Maniani," which we know was the most important pre-Hispanic settlement of the valley just north of Comayagua. Other sites grouped with Maniani and Lenga include Aramani, Comayagua, and Agalteca, all of which occ...