EL SALVADOR

PERSPECTIVES
lepa, which in pre-Columbian times ruled
many lands. The Taulepa are known in the
oral tradition of the tribal narratives as the
Jaguar Clan, ruled by women who are celebrated
as the founders of the kingdom
and rich in ritual tradition.
When my grandmother was in her
teens, an economic crisis hit El Salvador
because of the devastating effect of the collapse
of world coffee prices. In response to
this crisis, in 1932, the indigenous people
of the western part of El Salvador rose up
demanding the rights of access to their
ancestral tribal lands. Our clan was unable
to join that uprising due to our distant
location in the east at the opposite end of
the country. As a gesture of support, my
grandmother’s grandfather gathered his
militias and went across the country to
support the uprising as a friend, not as a
formal member of the Lenca tribe. Many
of his men did not come back; he survived
with multiple wounds and several pieces
of shrapnel embedded in his body.
For the tribal leaders of the western
part, the outcome was more final. The
soldiers of the Republic captured them,
executed them and in this way, the last
nobles of those tribes came to an end.
After the uprising, on January 22, 1932,
forces of the Republic systematically killed
between 35,000 and 50,000 indigenous
people in a massacre called La Matanza.
Persecution continued. Anyone wearing
indigenous dress or having indigenous
physical features was deemed guilty of
participating in uprising and risked being
murdered.
As a result, many indigenous people
stopped wearing their traditional clothing
or practicing their customs and culture
for fear of death. Many did their best to
assimilate into the general population.
They adopted the mainstream language
and Catholic religion, restricting traditional
practices to the privacy of their
homes. This was the virtual end of a distinctive
indigenous culture.
Despite these prohibitions and fear of
death, leaders like my grandmother and
her parents kept their dual identity: a
European way of life publicly and a blend
of tribal culture and philosophy at home.
What little autonomy
and few lands had been
granted by the Spanish
Crown to the Lenca chiefs
were then completely
abolished after the
birth of the Republic
of El Salvador in 1821,
whose leaders invoked
the principle of equality
for all and refused to
recognize any ethnic
diversity.
In her case, my grandmother embodied
three cultural heritages: the indigenous
Lenca, the European and the
Sephardic. She never made a formal distinction
among her traditions and values.
Instead, my grandmother saw these three
sources of wisdom as one, something she
referred to as “the ancient ways.”
Yet the indigenous traditions in her
family were perhaps stronger than those
of other members of the community, since
she was never forced to attend a Catholic
service or to become a Christian. In addition,
to avoid political indoctrination she
was never sent to school to receive a formal
education. Today these two factors
would be seen as a disadvantage for a
child; in her particular context, these factors
were exactly what ensured that our
grandmother maintained intact most of
her ancient practices, values and world
view.
When she grew up, life gave our grandmother
only one child, my father. They
lived in a country where the prohibition of
indigenous lifestyle was still in force and
this meant that my father could not fulfill
his role as a tribal chief, a right given to
him by virtue of his birth in our lineage.
When I was born in 1971, my grandmother
was extremely pleased as she
wanted me to grow up knowing our heritage
and acting on it. When I was nine
months old, my father separated from
my mother and my grandmother took me
under her care and stewardship.
Unlike my grandmother, who was
kept away from schools and religion, I
was obliged to attend school. However, I
was not required to take religion classes
or attend church services. My grandmother’s
view on literacy was that reading
and writing would help me survive in this
other world where oral tradition no longer
holds the same dignity and power as does
the written word.
Growing up I remember her with a big
basket on her head filled with all kinds of
goods, going to the villages selling fruits,
eggs, flowers, herbs and many other
things. She tirelessly roamed the region,
buying and selling local produce to earn
the money needed to buy my school books
and uniforms. I grew up clinging to her
skirt as we walked up and down the muddy
tracks or the dusty roads during the
two seasons of the tropical year.
Wider political events were to have
another devastating impact on our
people. During the 1980-1992 civil war,
death squads and the army killed around
80,000 people in El Salvador. The civil
war forced us to become internally displaced
people. Suffering was not new to
us; many indigenous families had been
living under indentured semi-slavery
since the birth of the Republic. The civil
war was just another layer of instability
and danger that would test our strength
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