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Transcript

The Pech People of Honduras

Sources

http://hondurasculturepolitics.blogspot.ca/2010/02/mayanization-in-action-erasing-pech.html

http://www.britannica.com/topic/culture-contact

http://www.nativeplanet.org/indigenous/pech/pechhistory.htm

What Should have Happened

The Effects it has Today

I think that the Spanish should have acted like visitors and anthropologists. Ask them if they can live on their land and instead of assimilating them, let them continue with their traditions, culture and way of life, and learn from them. They could have shared ideas and resources. If the Spanish then wanted to build something, instead of enslaving them, they could have payed the Pech people to help them build it by helping them in return. If the Spanish saw all humans as equals and didn't see themselves as superior to the Pech and weren't so self interested, they could have lived in harmony and peace.

Effect that Cultural Contact had on the People and Culture

Today much of the Pech culture and traditional lifestyle has disappeared due to the influence of religion, loss of ancestral land and sacred sites, cultural assimilation, intermarriage, modernization, and discrimination. Today most Pech have little knowledge of the culture and traditions of their ancestors. Most people younger than 30 or 40 years old have never heard of many of the Pech legends. The ones who know about them have often learned them from books. A few foundations of the Pech culture have not changed, yet outside influences are forcing them to adapt. As new financial pressures arise, the pech people are having to enter the market economy more and more. Elder children go off to school and must pay tuition. More manufactured goods, foodstuffs and small luxury items are becoming popular. Due to their lack of financial resources, many are looking to the outside.

The Effect it has Today

Today there are about 2000 Pech who have resisted total assimilation and, under the National Bilingual Program, have developed Pech-language courses and Pech teachers.

The daily lives and cultural traditions have been greatly affected by outside influence. Increased interaction with Latinos, often discriminatory and patronizing, has created an inferiority complex and resentment among some. Many of the Pech have abandoned their native tongue in favor of Spanish and adopted Latino culture to avoid further discrimination. In addition to the loss of their language, and their assimilation into the Latino lifestyles, many intermarried, thus leading to a greater dissolution of the Pech culture and traditions.

Most missionaries worked with the armed conquistadors in joint effort to rule indigenous people. In the nineteen century, the Spanish missionary Father Manuel de Jesus Subirana was the exception. He dedicated his life to helping the people. He helped the Pech of Santa Maria del Carbon to receive titles for their land which they did in 1862. He wrote a map of Honduras and continued his efforts with the Jicaques in 1864. Then he started petitioning for titles and rights to their land for The Pech of Culmi which received them in January 1898, years after the death of Father Subirana.

Definition of Cultural Contact

Background Before Cultural Contact.

Cultural contact is what occurs when two or more cultures come in contact with one another and affect each other through acculturation (the process of adopting the cultural traits or social patterns of another group), voluntary acculturation (involves the free borrowing of traits or ideas from another culture), and forced acculturation (when one group is conquered by another and must abide by the stronger group’s customs).

The Pech people were originally called Paya. The Pech used to have a special ceremony called Kesh during which they drank traditional beverages such as munia (liquor of yucca) and ostia (liquor of sugar can and corn) and ate food such as sasal (type of tamale made of yucca). During these ceremonies, initiated people entered into contact with spirits. Traditionally they lived subsistence lifestyles, producing mostly everything they needed from the environment. Their agriculture, housing, and family units remain largely unaffected. Before Religion and outside influenced on their society, Pech, couples used to live together and have children without getting married. It left them more freedom to separate and even get back together. Today most have a church wedding and an official ceremony with registration.

Effect that Cultural Contact had on the People and Culture

When the Spanish Fathers encountered the Pech people, they converted half a dozen villages and more than 700 adults and children in less than a year. The first violent interaction between the Pech and Spanish happened in 1661 when the Pech attacked the Latinos, who invaded their territory in the Aguan valley. In return, Captain Bartolome de Escoto counter-attacked the Pech and captured hundreds of them putting them into forced labor.

In the mid 1800's the Spanish influence in the area was increasingly usurped by new forces, the English, French and Dutch pirates. All along the Mosquito Coast and the islands, enclaves of buccaneers raided the Spanish and made efforts to win over the various indigenous groups. They made an alliance with the Miskitos and provided them with firearms to fight the Spanish.

The numerous coastal dwelling Miskitos, newly empowered with weapons, became the dominant force among the indigenous groups of the region. Notorious for their cruelty, they invaded all the other tribes in La Moskitia. The Pech fled from the coasts to find refuge up the Patuca, Sicre, Twas, Platano, Paulaya and Sico rivers. Sworn enemies of the Miskitos, and fighting with only primitive weapons, the Pech suffered extensive casualties and the overall population was significantly affected. They occasionally sought refuge next to Spanish lands to escape Miskito raiders. At other times they allied themselves for short periods of time with the Miskitos (often forced) to fight the Spanish.

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