Santa Catarina Ixtahuacan is a
municipality
A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate.
The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...
in the
Sololá department
Sololá is a department in the west of Guatemala. The capital is the city of Sololá. Lake Atitlan is a key feature surrounded by a number of the municipalities.
Municipalities
# Concepción
# Nahualá
# Panajachel
# San Andrés Semetaba ...
of
Guatemala
Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by H ...
. It is located at about in altitude in the steep mountains of the
Sierra Madre
Sierra Madre (Spanish, 'mother mountain range') may refer to:
Places and mountains Mexico
*Sierra Madre Occidental, a mountain range in northwestern Mexico and southern Arizona
*Sierra Madre Oriental, a mountain range in northeastern Mexico
*S ...
range, descending from the western highlands to the southern coastal plain. The indigenous language is
Kʼicheʼ. The town experienced large landslides during
hurricane Mitch
Hurricane Mitch is the second-deadliest Atlantic hurricane on record, causing over 11,000 fatalities in Central America in 1998, including approximately 7,000 in Honduras and 3,800 in Nicaragua due to cataclysmic flooding from the slow motion ...
(1998); a year after this catastrophe, many residents moved to higher ground and founded the village of
Nueva Santa Catarina Ixtahuacan, in territory called Chwi Pataan or “above the responsibility/duty,”within the independent township of
Nahualá
Nahualá () is a municipality in the Sololá department of Guatemala. The town is sometimes known as Santa Catalina Nahualá in honor of the town's patron saint, Saint Catherine of Alexandria, but the official name is just "Nahualá". Formerly, ...
, and with private land plots owned principally by Nahualeños prior to 2005.
Ixtahuacanecos have claimed since at least 2000 that they had only re-settled highland territory that Ixtahuacan had owned since time immemorial, and where they claim Ixtahuacaneco ancestors had lived prior to the Spanish Invasion. Nonetheless, the Título Cristobal Ramirez, a land title written in Totonicapan in the 16th century, makes clear that the entire highland area south of Totonicapan, including Chwi Pataan, belonged to the "navalak tak vinak" (or "spirited / magical people") of Nahualá, who are identified as Kaqoj Tamub’ sub-nation of the Kʼicheʼ. The Kaqoj () belonged to a different parcialidad from that which controlled Viejo Ixtahuacan prior to the Spanish invasion, according to paragraph 39 of the
Annals of the Cakchiquels
The ''Annals of the Cakchiquels'' (in es, Anales de los Cakchiqueles, also known by the alternative Spanish titles, ''Anales de los Xahil'', ''Memorial de Tecpán-Atitlán'' or ''Memorial de Sololá'') is a manuscript written in Kaqchikel by Fra ...
, which identifies the people living bear the mountain Kaqix Kan, which rises above Ixtahuacan Viejo, as "Iqomaq'i'", a name that surely corresponds to the Ekomaq' Tamub' sub-nation, who lived in the valley south of Nahualá, among other places.
External links
*
Project Info Ixtahuacan
Municipalities of the Sololá Department
{{Guatemala-geo-stub