Tarascan or Tarasca is an exonym and the popular name for the
Purépecha culture
The Purépecha (endonym pua, P'urhepecha ) are a group of indigenous people centered in the northwestern region of Michoacán, Mexico, mainly in the area of the cities of Cherán and Pátzcuaro.
They are also known by the pejorative " Tarascan ...
. It may refer to:
* the
Tarascan State
Tarascan or Tarasca is an exonym and the popular name for the Purépecha culture. It may refer to:
* the Tarascan State, a Mesoamerican empire until the Spanish conquest in the 1500s, located in (present-day) west-central Mexico
* the Purépecha ...
, a
Mesoamerican
Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica. Withi ...
empire until the Spanish conquest in the 1500s, located in (present-day) west-central Mexico
* the
Purépecha people
The Purépecha (endonym pua, P'urhepecha ) are a group of indigenous people centered in the northwestern region of Michoacán, Mexico, mainly in the area of the cities of Cherán and Pátzcuaro.
They are also known by the pejorative " Tarascan ...
* the
Purépecha language
Purépecha (also ''P'urhépecha'' , tsz, Phorhé or ''Phorhépecha''), often called Tarascan, which is a pejorative term coined by Spanish colonizers ( es, Tarasco), is a language isolate or small language family that is spoken by some 140,000 P ...
The term has pejorative connotations when it refers to the people or their language.
Etymology
The name "Tarascan" (and its Spanish-language equivalent, "tarasco") comes from the word "tarascue" in the Purépecha language, which means indistinctly "father-in-law" or "son-in-law". The Spanish took it as their name, for reasons that have been attributed to different, mostly legendary, stories.
The
Nahuatl name for the Purépecha was "Michhuàquê" ("those who have fish"), whence the name of the Mexican state of
Michoacán.
References
{{reflist
Exonyms
Purépecha
Ethnonyms