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Coca people

The Coca people are part of one of the oldest indigenous groups who live in what is now the state of Jalisco, Mexico.

History

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The Caxcan, an ethnic group in southernmost Zacatecas, northern Jalisco, and part of Aguascalientes, south to Lake Chapala and to the Río Grande de Santiago. The Caxcan proper were in the northern part of this territory, the Tecuexe in the southern part, and the Coca in west of Lake Chapala.[1]

Coca people inhabited parts of central Jalisco, near Guadalajara and Lake Chapala. When Spain invaded, their leader Tzitlali, moved them away to a small valley surrounded by high mountains, a place they named "Cocolan."[2]

Coca people[3] live in an area known today as Cocula, Jalisco.[4][5]

Unreferenced

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The ancestral group were the Concheros, who first settled in coves on the Pacific coast of Nayarit, and made houses out of sea shells. Their Gods were the ocean and the wind. They became known in the passing years as the shaft tomb culture, because of cylindrical tombs spread throughout Nayarit and Jalisco, spreading down the west side of Lake Chapala all the way to Colima.

They later centered themselves in Ixtlan del Rio, Nayarit, and created beautiful and elaborate round temple to their wind god, and other municipal buildings. Their obsidian trade was a source of wealth, as it was abundant there. (Ixtlan means obsidian). Eventually they were invaded by the Nahua people who were moving south from the land of the Yaquis on what is now the north Mexican border. The aggressive Nahuatl invaders imposed a Lordship over the inhabitants of Ixtlan del Rio in approximately 1100 to 1200 CE (current era). The Nahuatl Lords established an even wider obsidian trade, and tended to view the Coca people as servants (The Nahuatl word "coca" means servants.)

In 1310 a group of Coca tribe were led by "Big Eyes" to a safer place in a valley with steep mountains by the largest lake in central highlands. Chief Big Eyes had probably traveled past the west end of Lake Chapala before, or at least heard of it from the generations of Shaft Tomb culture in that area. From the west end of Lake Chapala, it looks like an inland sea, and always has a wind. This would have been a good omen for these people, who had said when the Nahuatl people had invaded that "The Wind God" had turned his face from them". Lake Chapala had a good wind and so many fish that they believed it had its own goddess, Michi Cihualli, sometimes used with the Nahuatl term "Teo' or Goddess, becoming "Teo Michi Cihualli" Woman or female goddess of the fish. Because there were steep mountains between them and the Nahua in Ixtlan del Rio they felt safe. It is possible that their chief was also privy to the Lordships plan to move toward the east above or North of those mountains, toward the area now known as Mexico City, and this branch of Cocas was safely positioned on the south side of that double mountain range running from west to east. The lake had many fish and good farmland. They called it Cuitzlan. They had no written language, so later in the about 1525 when the Spanish came across the lake from the southern shore and the Spanish thought the Coca were calling this only well-developed village on the north shore Cosala. It became known thereafter as es:San Juan Cosalá, since, of course, the Spanish missionaries converted them to Catholicism and gave them at saint's name. The Spanish also took some of their people 5 miles to the east to build a chapel in the even smaller fishing area now called Ajijic. Stories are told of how the Spanish also took some of the Coca tribe and much of the rock from the mountainside above them down to the west end of the lake, now known as Jocotepec, to build a chapel there also.

To this day the Coca people have a well-organized pueblo and a nearly circular 2 floor central gazebo with museum on first floor, that is very reminiscent of the architecture and city planning of Ixtlán del Río.

Land Dispute

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In September 2018, Coca people hoped to recover[6] their seized lands in es:Mezcala (Jalisco), the target of large-scale real estate projects for U.S. immigrants, resulting in many Indigenous lands being illegally seized, after 19 years struggling against a Guillermo Moreno Ibarra.[7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]

Further reading

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  • Bak-Geller, Sarah (28 July 2022). "Patrimonio alimentario y ciudadanía indígena. El caso coca de Mezcala, Jalisco (México)". In Rebaï, Nasser; Bilhaut, Anne-Gaël; de Suremain, Charles-Édouard; Katz, Esther; Paredes, Myriam (eds.). Patrimonios alimentarios en América Latina : Recursos locales, actores y globalización (in Spanish). IRD Éditions. pp. 191–214. ISBN 978-2-7099-2943-1. Retrieved 27 April 2023 – via Centre pour l'Édition Électronique Ouverte. Introducción

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Swanton, John R. "Mexico". The Indian Tribes of North America. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin, Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved 27 April 2023 – via hiddenhistory.com.
  2. ^ Schmal, John P. "Sixteenth Century Indigenous Jalisco". History of Mexico. Houston Institute for Culture. Archived from the original on 2020-11-11. Retrieved 27 April 2023.
  3. ^ Bastos, Santiago (October 2018). "Mezcala: hacer comunidad en tiempos de despojo" (PDF). Revista del Instituto de Estudios Interétnicos. 29 (29). Instituto de Estudios Interétnicos, Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala. ISSN 2415-0703. Retrieved 27 April 2023.
  4. ^ Mendoza-Garcia, Gabriela (2013). "Bodily Renderings of the Jarabe Tapatío in Early Twentieth-Century Mexico and the Millennial United States: Race, Nation, Class, and Gender" (PDF). Dissertations. University of California, Riverside. Retrieved 27 April 2023.
  5. ^ Pedelty, Mark (3 June 2009). "14. Ranchera during the 14 Postrevolutionary Era and at Mid-Century". Musical Ritual in Mexico City: 225–237. doi:10.7560/702318-016. Retrieved 27 April 2023.
  6. ^ Alonso, Jorge (October 2008). "Mezcala: un espejo y un corazón". Revista Envío. Retrieved 27 April 2023.
  7. ^ "Lake Chapala, Coca de Mezcala community is still waiting for justice -". Mexico Daily Post. 19 January 2021. Retrieved 27 April 2023.
  8. ^ Lettieri, Michael (14 April 2015). "The Underclass: A Triumph in Mezcala, Mexico - by Gloria Muñoz Ramírez (LA JORNADA)". Trans-Border Freedom of Expression Project. University of San Diego. Retrieved 27 April 2023.
  9. ^ Tucker, Duncan (4 April 2017). "The American expats breaking up indigenous communities on the Mexican 'Riviera'". The Guardian. Retrieved 27 April 2023.
  10. ^ Jacobo, Manuel. "Mezcala: una lucha ganada". Magis (in Mexican Spanish). Retrieved 27 April 2023.
  11. ^ "Victoria del pueblo coca: tribunal ordena restitución de tierras invadidas en Mezcala". Desinformémonos (in Spanish). Retrieved 27 April 2023.
  12. ^ Velazquez Pañeda, Jose Merced. "Mezcala, comunidad indígena del Lago de Chapala, expulsa al invasor y recuperará sus tierras luego de 23 años de lucha". Desinformémonos (in Spanish). Retrieved 27 April 2023.
  13. ^ "Justicia para Mezcala". Radio Zapatista (in Mexican Spanish). Retrieved 27 April 2023.
  14. ^ "¡La tierra no se vende! El sabor amargo del triunfo en Mezcala tras 21 años de lucha". Zona Docs (in Mexican Spanish). November 3, 2021. Retrieved 27 April 2023.
  15. ^ Chávez, Víctor (5 October 2022). "Mezcala recupera 10 hectáreas frente al Lago de Chapala, después de 23 años". El Occidental (in Spanish). Retrieved 27 April 2023.
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