About Peoples and Residents of Colima: a Sociolinguistic Approach

Abstract

In 1554, 32 years after the conquest of the lands of Colima by the Spaniards, the notary Lorenzo Lebrón de Quiñones wrote a document called Relación sumaria de la visita in which he describes the state of 200 towns in the region. The document states that the original inhabitants of these lands were reduced in number, to one hundredth of what they were when they were conquered. This fact is of special importance since such an excessive population decrease would have an indisputable impact on the reduction and transformation of the primitive cultural practices, among which, of course, is the language. The state of extermination documented by Lebrón de Quiñones has been the basis on which the generalized idea that there are no more indigenous communities in Colima has been sustained over time. This work tries to account for the permanence of an indigenous identity sustained in practices and beliefs with a Mesoamerican past that is made visible through diverse cultural and linguistic remnants.