Cuacha

[Joanna M. Sanchez]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Frye, David" <dfrye at UMICH.EDU>
To: <NAHUAT-L at LISTS.UMN.EDU>
Sent: Friday, May 21, 2004 10:05 AM
Subject: Re: Cuacha


On the other hand, 'cuachalote' doesn't appear to be used anywhere except
Mexico City and point north, which does tend to point to a Nahuatl
connection.

    Sadly, other Nahua culture areas have been largely neglected by North
American anthropology.  The regional Nahuatl dialect of the multiethnic
pre-contact border regions of Jalisco (Zapotiltic, Cd. Tuxpan, Teotitlan,
Tamazula, Tonila), which appears to have been influenced by Popoluca, Chocho
and P'urehpecha (perhaps explaining the variant 'cuacholote' pronunciation),
is fast expiring but still very much present in colloquialisms.  This, too,
would also support a Nahuatl origin for the term.
    There is at present a government-inspired language revitalization
movement in Tuxpan specifically, interestingly opposed by local purists who
resent the Huasteca Nahuatl of instruction as an idiom foreign to the  local
form.  Tuxpan was missionized by Juan de Padilla in 1530 shortly before his
death in Quiriva, and never underwent recongregacion (see work on
multiethnic identity by Jose Lameiras).  In the 40's, the parish priest Sr.
Cura Melquiades Ruvalcaba compiled a gramatica of the dialect, and J. Ma.
Arreola a vocabulario, for those who might be interested.   Joanna