The surprising origin of "Guanaco", the illegitimate Salvadoran Gentilicio
The term Guanaco has become the unofficial gentilicio of Salvadorans, such as Chapín for Guatemalans, gringo for Americans and catracho for Hondurans.Because of its identity character, the word Guanaco has been the subject of various conjectures about its history and etymology, the majority of popular origin, without academic support.
This article discusses some of the most likely origins of this nickname on the basis of primary sources, discarding in the process some origins impossible to support with the historical evidence available or for the arguments given.It is also demonstrated that the term did not originally refer exclusively to Salvadorans, but that all that Central American who was not originally from Guatemala City.The study ends with a new proposal, historically verifiable and linguistically feasible, on the possible Nahuatl origin of Guanaco.
Pejorative sense of the term
The original meaning of the term Guanaco has a pejorative sense that referred to people as silly, ignorant, rustic and another amount of negative epithets, as can be confirmed in dictionaries and purist studies decimononos and the first half of the twentieth century.Term Guanaco, in its pejorative sense, did not originally refer to Salvadorans in particular, but to the peasants or any uncultured person, especially of the Central American provinces, except for those native to the city of Guatemala.
The "Ultrapacino" Guanaco
Of all the authors of the nineteenth century consulted, the one that extends the most in his definition of Guanaco is the writer, journalist and historian Guatemalan Salome Jil (1822-1882), known as Don José Milla, in volume 1 of his work paintings ofGuatemalan customs.He mentions Jil that in the nineteenth century the term "Guanaco" was used in Guatemala to refer to provincials and natives to the rest of Central American republics.The Guatemalans of the nineteenth century were considered more cultured and educated than the rest of Central Americans, so the term did not apply to them, but to all those who were not Guatemalans.This is expressed by Salome Jil:
“Llamamos guanaco, no sólo al que ha nacido en los Estados de Centro-América que no son el de Guatemala, sino á los naturales de los mismos pueblos de la república. Así, oímos hablar frecuentemente de guanacos de Guastoa, de Cuajiniquilapa, de Amatitlan, &; y algunos hay que llevan el rigor localista hasta el extremo de calificar con aquel apodo á los habitantes de los barrios de esta ciudad”.
Jil also mentions in that same writing the pejorative meaning of the nickname, since Guanaco was used by the chapines to refer to any silly person, without culture, rustic, especially those coming from the countryside to the city.
“… This article refers only to the provincial or ultrapacin guanaco;Leaving perhaps for again the anatomy of the departmental guanaco, if I can express myself like this.What the Portuguese for Spanish is the Guanaco for the vulgar chapín.There is no ridiculous anecdote that he does not attribute to that;And if it is a new Bayunco, it is well known that he has to say about him to kneel the apothecies, he takes by altars;that he pray to the mast of the mail;that he asks in the hot water to warm ice cream;that he is amazed that the chapines built the city in this Pedrero, having near so beautiful plains;that he asks if the cathedral is made here and other similar occurrences, that prove less bad will, than desire to teach and have fun. ”
The "ultrapacino guanaco" to which Jil refers is one that lives beyond the Paz River;That is, the rest of Central America.To illustrate the meaning of Guanaco, Jil tells an anecdote about his encounter with a guanaco that fits his definition perfectly, "Don Marcos Morolica, natural and neighbor of a town of four or five thousand souls, located there inside Nicaragua".It is a Nicaraguan Guanaco, which now sounds contradictory, but demonstrates the general use of the appellation at the time for all non -Guatemalans.Jil strives to show us the ridiculous and outdated of his clothing.Guanaco was recognized not only for his way of speaking, but also for his way of dressing, his way of behaving and his patent ignorance about the modern and civilized world - as Guatemalans considered themselves: modern and civilized.
Finally, Jil tells us that after being absent from Guatemala for five years he returned and found a metamorphosed Morolica, turned into Marco Antonio Morolika, a true gentleman who had learned the ways of the Guatemalan upper class, so Jillo qualifies asa "exguanaco".
Another Guatemalan, Don Antonio Batres Juáregui (1847-1929), gives a different definition of Guanaco's metaphorical meaning, according to a dictionary of Chileanisms to which he had access.In his work of language and provincialisms of Guatemala, he defines it as follows:
"Guanaco.Of Quechua Huanano, is called Guanaco (Auchenia Guanaco) to the most corpulent of the indigenous quadrupeds of Chile;And metaphorically they say there Guanaco, both in the male and female termination, of the person who by his continent, gesture, long neck and thin legs, somewhat resembles the guanacos, according to the author of the Dictionary of Chileanisms. ”
This definition of Guanaco is not pejorative like those of other authors.
For his part, Lorenzo Montúfar (1823-1898), also Guatemalan, collects in his autobiographical memoirs (1898) the same interpretation that Jil makes of the term Guanaco.He mentions Montúfar that there was a circle of ultraconservative Guatemalans, within which was Archbishop Bernardo Piñol and Aycinena (1806-1881), who was also a bishop of Nicaragua, who despised everything that existed in Central America outside Guatemala.
“Dr. Piñol is one of those Guatemalans who believe that in central-America nobody thinks more than them;No one knows anything or is worth anything in any circumstances more than them.Piñol belongs to the circle that despises everything that in Centro-América exists outside the garitas of Guatemala City or rather, outside the main apples surrounding the capital of the capital.This is not exaggeration.They call Guanaco not only what is in central-America outside the Republic of Guatemala but to everything that is out of the same city. ”
The oldest historical evidence that I have found about the Guanaco appellation applied to Salvadorans dates from 1823, when Mexican general Vicente Filísola marched at the head of 2000 men from Guatemala to San Salvador to reduce the Salvadoran rebels to the immediate obedience to the Salvadoran rebels toThey opposed the annexation of Central America to the Mexican Empire, as narrated by the Nicaraguan historian José Dolores Gámez (1851-1918) in his history of Nicaragua (1889).
“The city of San Salvador resisted bravely until February 7, 1823, in which Filísola seized her alive force;perishing in combat as 88 Salvadorans between dead and seriously injured.The rest of the Salvadoran troops that retired to Honduras, capitulated in Gualcince, when he had news of the clemency with which Filísola treated the defeated.In this way the entire province was subject to Mexico. ”
The resistance of Salvadorans beat many enemies in Mexico and Guatemala, including influential members of the Catholic Church.Salvadorans were considered rebels.
From this rivalry between Salvadorans and Guatemalan, according to Gámez, the nicknames Chapín and Guanaco emerged.
"From the political and religious disputes between Guatemalans and Salvadorans, that dire rivalry that is preserved until the day, and the denominations of chapines and guanacos was born."
Then, in a footnote, Gámez explains the origin of these nicknames, based on a manuscript that he says he has had in his hands in Quezaltenango.
“According to an ancient manuscript that the author saw in Quezaltenango, the word Chapín, which applied to a boot heel form, served to designate the oppressors;and the word Guanaco, name of a kind of deer, for the victims of that oppression, who was supposed to rustic and mountain. ”
To the definitions of Guanaco in use in the nineteenth century that give Guatemalans and Nicaraguans, we have to add that of the Honduran lexicologist Alberto Membreño (1859-1921), who in his Honduran Dictionary (1897) confirms this meanness of Guanaco: “Guanaco is forEl Chapín All Central American who was not born in Guatemala City. ”
The only Salvadoran author of the time that refers to the term Guanaco is Salomón Salazar García, who, following the purist and prescriptive line of his Central American colleagues, includes in his dictionary of provincialism and central-American barbarisms (1910) the word "Guanaco"Like a Guatemalan barbarism, which must be corrected with the words "Gaznápiro, Silly, Bobo, Paparo, Lelo, etc."and "peace, simple, that everything is admired."It is important to note that Salazar, at the beginning of the last century, does not define Guanaco as Salvadoran.
Already in the twentieth century, the Nobel Prize for Literature Miguel Ángel Asturias (1899–1974), in his most famous work, Mr. President (1948), also refers to the term Guanaco in a pejorative sense, referring to anyone who reachesThe city of the countryside.The next fragment of the dialogue of one of his characters, Fedina Rivas, exemplifies it:
“What do they take to the general?Well, for that he is a man and imprisoned he stays.But they carry with the lady ... Blood of Christ!The Tiznon has no remedy.And my head will bet that these are things of some salty and shameless guanaco, of those who come to the city with the tricks of the mountain. ”
Exclusive use of "guanaco" for Salvadorans
It seems that, at least until the mid -twentieth century, the term Guanaco did not define us as Salvadorans, as evidenced by the term that Asturias makes in the president.
The 1960s could be crucial to configure the Guanaco hypocoristic as exclusive of Salvadorans.In that decade, El Salvador and Honduras entered into a political and commercial conflict when they carried out a massive migration of Salvadoran peasants and workers to Honduras seeking better employment opportunities.In that decade, the Government of Honduras set up a campaign of discredit against Salvadorans.Sara Gordon summarizes it as follows in political crisis and war in El Salvador (1989):
"When families settled in the national land began to be expelled, the propaganda campaign that the Honduran government had initiated to achieve greater consumption of local items, became an excessive and virulent campaign of accusations against Salvadorans ... the notices that notices that notices that notices that notices that noticesThey urged the population to acquire national products, gave the place to the complaints about the poor quality of Salvadoran products, and they left their own statements about the dishonesty that characterized the inhabitants of the neighboring country. ”
Thomas Anderson in ThewarofthedissseSSEd: HondurasandelSalvador, 1969 (1981) exemplifies this campaign with the following appointment taken from a local newspaper.
"Guanaco (Salvadoran): If you believe you decent, then have the decency to leave Honduras. If you are like most Salvadorans, thief, drunk, coward, scammer or ruffian, do not stay in Honduras. Go out or wait the punishment...".
This campaign culminated in the 1969 war between the two countries, known as the 100 -hour War and popularized by the Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski as the Football War (1969), for coinciding with the qualifiers to the World Cup Mexico Mexico 70.
In this context of the hatred campaign between the two countries, the Hondurans referred to Salvadorans such as "Guanacos", in the pejorative historical sense used by Guatemalans to refer to all peasants and provincials outside the city of Guatemala.
Everything seems to indicate that, after the war with Honduras, the identity of Salvadorans was related to the nickname "guanaco", adopting it as an unofficial gentilicio and, in the process, separating it from its historical origin and meaning to relate it exclusively to Salvadorans.At present, in all Central America and the rest of the world are known as Salvadorans as Guanacos.
Evidence of this late appropriation of Guanaco for Salvadorans is the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy, which includes among the meanings of "Guanaco" a reference to Salvadorans even in its fourth edition, in 2001:
“Guanaco: 4. m.El Salv., Hond.and nic.Salvadoran (‖ natural person of El Salvador) ”.
The foregoing indicates that, in the previous editions, neither the Salvadoran Academy of the Language nor any of the academies of the Central American Language had proposed the definition of Guanaco before the 2001 edition of the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy.
Some popular hypotheses
The previous discussion introduces us to the pejorative meaning of the word Guanaco, but tells us nothing about its etymology.Next, the arguments raised by the most popular hypotheses about the origin of the word are discussed, trying to determine its validity.
Among the many hypotheses that I have found about the origin of the Guanaco hypocoristic, a very close attention when referring to Christopher Columbus himself as a source of his origin. On Friday, October 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus landed on an Caribbean island called Guanahani, in the Taíno language, which Columbus baptized as San Salvador. In a letter from Columbus written in Spanish and directed to the Ration Notary of the Crown of Aragon, Luis de Santángel and published in Barcelona on April 29, 1493 - and then in Latin in Rome - manifiesta that “to the first one that I failed I named Sant Salvador, commemoration of his high magestad, which wonderfully all this has given. The Yndios call her Guanabam. " (Guanahin in the Latin version). The natives of this island were called Guanahicos. According to this version, when the town of San Salvador is founded in the lordship of Cuscatlán during the conquest, they began to call them, by analogy, the natives of this Villa Guanahicos, since the island From Guanahani, San Salvador had also been appointed. Eventually, with the use, the word was simplified or apocceded "Guanaco." Under this analysis, the word "Guanaco" is the result of the truncation of the taíno word "Guanahico". The lack of historical evidence confirming this statement on the Taíno origin of Guanaco does not allow it to be considered more than a case of homophony. If some documents of the XVI of the Villa de San Salvador mention this nickname, this hypothesis could be confirmed.
The most commonly accepted origin about the etymology of the Guanaco term refers to the name in Quechua, Wanaku, of the South American camelid Lama Guanicoe. This animal is known for its great resistance to work and because, when it is threatened, it spits. The most romantic version that we all wanted to believe why we nicknamed Guanacos to Salvadorans argue that it was because of our working character. According to this same version, this baptism could have occurred during the initial construction and the subsequent expansion of the Panama Canal in which many Salvadorans who enrolled in the ranks of workers who built and then expanded the Panama Canal participated. The South Americans who also worked on the construction of the channel noticed the dedication to the work and resistance of the Salvadorans. By analogy, then, the South Americans called the Salvadorans Guanacos, as resistant and workers, just like the South American camelid. This interpretation does not appear in any of the primary sources consulted for this article. Nor does he explain why, already in the 19th century, long before the construction of the Panama Canal, the term Guanaco was used in Guanaco in a pejorative sense.
This hypothesis argues that during the war against the Filibustero Yanqui William Walker (1856-57), Salvadorans used to gather under the shadow of a Guanacaste to "parliament."Due to this practice, according to this hypothesis, the Guatemalans called them "guanacos."Those who support this hypothesis argue that Guanacaste means "brotherhood" in Lenca language and indigenous councils were performed precisely under a guanacaste.From there, the origin of the hypocoristic.
The previous hypothesis has two serious problems.First, the word Guanacaste or Conacaste comes from the Nahuatl and not from the Lenca.The Conacaste tree gives a fruit that has an ear shape, so its name in Nahuatl is a name composed of the words Cuahuitl "tree" and Nacasti "ear", cuanasti, which Spanish pronounced Guanacaste or Conacaste.The second problem is that there is no primary source that confirms this hypothesis, so it is also rejected.
Possible Nahuatl Origin of Guanaco
The most credible origin of the Guanaco term can be closer to home than we believe, and it may be less romantic. Propongo, as an alternative hypothesis, that the word guanaco derives from the word Nahuatl or Mexica Quanaca, which means rooster or chicken,As it appears in several Nahua writings, including the Güegüense, a Nicaraguan colonial play.The adoption of this and other words of Nahuatl origin in the region was due to a nahuatlization process of the Central American peoples, which was already initiated at the arrival of the Spaniards and that continued during the colony.Given the use of Nahuatl as a free language of the region, many Nahuatl source words joined Spanish and other Central American indigenous languages.
Likewise, indigenous languages incorporated Castilian words that referred to objects or animals that did not exist in the region and that had been imported by the Spaniards (direct loans).In other cases, they related an existing animal in the area due to their resemblance to the foreigner.For example, the cat called Miztontli (small Puma) and the Ichcatl (cotton) sheep.In this way, the Mexicans called the Spanish chicken quanaca (quanácatl = cresta of calleilla of Castilla).They also called the Gallina Castillan Totolin, or Spanish turkey (Totolin = turkey), since the turkey was the American bird closest to the Spanish roosters and chickens.
Another source that confirms the use of the word Nahuatl Quanaca or Guanaco to refer to a silly person is the Nicaraguan colonial play El Güegüense or Macón Macho. This is the first play (music and dance) bilingual (Nahuatl and Spanish)of colonial origin known in Central America.According to Daniel G. Brinton, who first transcribed the work (The Güegünce; Simedyballetinthenhuatl-Spanishdialectofnicaragua, 1883), it has its origin in the XVI and had been transmitted orally for more than three centuries until he transcribed and transcribed it and transcribed itTo the English language in the 19th century.In the glossary that accompanies the work, Brinton gives Guanaco's following definition: “Guanco, sp. Prov.For Guanacos, Foolish, Silly Persons. "
The Nicaraguan writer and linguist Carlos Mantica, who has conducted extensive studies by Agraünce (scrutinizing the Güegünce, 2007), transcribes the following dialogue between the old man (Huehuetzin) and the governor (Tlatonani):
“Oh, Murate Me, Lord Governor Tlatoani!… Let's not be guanacos.Let's be friends, and maybe once we negotiate my bundles of clothing. ”
Mantica also includes in his vocabulary of El Güegüence the following definition of Guanaco.
“Guanacos: fools, slugs.Word still in use in Nicaragua.Of the Nahuatl: quaitl, head, and nacatl, meat or fleshy.Name that was given to the chickens (Quanaca) and other poultry of corral that like Jolota, female of the chompipe, had a reputation of idiots. "
The Caribbean guanajo
In the same colonial era, the Spanish language incorporates the word guanajo to refer to the domestic turkey, which already appears in the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy of 1884 with the meaning of turkey, as a second meaning, but also with the meaning of "Boba person, dumb ”, as the first.The RAE maintains, in its 2001 dictionary, that the word Guanajo is a linguistic loan of the word Arahuaca Wanašu, which means turkey, but also fools, silly.Several Caribbean linguists, however, have rejected this etymological origin.Both meanings are currently maintained in the Caribbean Spanish, especially in Cuba.
Everything seems to indicate in this etymological analysis, which both ‘guanajo’ and ‘Guanaco’ derive from the same Nahuatl word and mean the same, in the Caribbean and in Mesoamerica;They refer to both turkey and the Castilian hen.Likewise, in a pejorative sense, in both dialects (Caribbean and Mesoamerican), it is used to refer to a silly, silly person.This pejorative use coincides with the meaning that the chapines gave to ‘Guanaco’, as described at the beginning of this article.
conclusion
The historical sources consulted make us reach three important conclusions about the origin and evolution of Guanaco hypocoristic.First, the sources show us that the use of this gentilicio nickname did not originally refer to Salvadorans exclusively, but to all that Central American who was not originally from Guatemala City.
Second, the homophony of the word Guanaco with the words GuanahicThe metaphorical meaning of that word.These theories are very attractive and even romantic and, over time, they have become popular truths.However, they do not resist diachronic linguistic analysis.
Finally, an alternative hypothesis has been raised that maintains that the word Guanaco comes from the Nahuatl or Mexica, the language that functioned as a frank language in Mesoamerica upon the arrival of the Spaniards.The word Nahuatl Quanaca was used by the Aztecs in the time of the colony to refer to the people who were like chickens (dumb, winds, clumsy).The colonial play "El Güegüense" exemplifies the use of this word with that meaning.In addition, in the Caribbean, the word guanajo is used, also derived from the Nahuatl Quanaca, with the same pejorative meaning.That the word Guanaco comes from the Nahuatl and not Quechua makes more historical and linguistic sense.
*Jorge E. Lemus is a research professor at Don Bosco University and deputy director of the Salvadoran Academy of Language. This delivery of El Faro Academico is based on his article published in ECA Magazine Vol. 74 # 757, pp.283-304.
