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Matthew Patay's
Note of the Month
May 2007
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Map and flag images provided by Graphic Maps
This month's featured note
is from Honduras.
The denomination is 1 Lempira and the Standard Catalog of World Paper Money
(SCWPM) Number is P-84.
The note is dated 2000.
(front)
The banknote is dark red on multicolored underprint. Lempira (? - 1537)
war captain of the Lencas of western Honduras in Central America during the
1530s is at right. Honduran coat-of-arms are at left.
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The following information
was obtained from:
Wikipedia
the online Encyclopedia
Lempira
(?-1537)
(For the full article, please refer to
the link above.)
Lempira (d. 1537) was a war captain of the Lencas of western Honduras in Central America during the 1530s, when he led resistance to Francisco de Montejo's attempts to conquer and incorporate the region into the province of Honduras.
There are two very different historical accounts of Lempira. The first, by Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas (appearing in Historia general de los hechos de los castellanos...., published in 1626 in Sevilla, Spain) identifies Lempira as a war captain appointed by Entipica, leader of the Cares, a named subgroup of the Lenca. Herrera reports that Lempira, whose name means something like "Lord of the Mountains" in Lenca, commanded over 30,000 soldiers from over 200 different Lenca towns. In 1537, there are widespread indigenous uprisings in Honduras, and the Cares were one group that revolted against Spanish rule. The Spanish, on instruction from their Governor, Francisco de Montejo, attacked him at Cerquin, near Gracias a Dios. Lempira, according to Herrera, retreated to a fortified hill top where he resisted the Spanish for many months. Finally, the Spanish lured him out to talk, and a concealed Spanish soldier with an arquebus shot and killed him. On seeing this, Herrera reports, the Lenca surrendered. This is essentially the story as taught to Honduran children in school.In the 1980s, the Honduran historian Mario Felipe Martínez Castillo discovered a very different account of Lempira in a document entitled Meritos y Servicios: Rodrigo Ruiz, Nueva España written in 1558 in Mexico City, and and located in the Archivo General de Indias in Sevilla, Spain. That document, Patronato 69 R.5, tells the story of Rodrigo Ruiz and his service in the conquest of Honduras under Francisco Montejo. It includes his account of killing Lempira. The document is in the form of a series of questions, answered by witnesses to the services Rodrigo Ruiz gave to the Spanish King. Its purpose is to get a pension. Ruiz wrote the questions, some of which are translated, in part here.
"Question 3: Having arrived at the town of Siguatepeque, the Governor and Captain Francisco de Montejo, who conquered these provinces for your Magesty, sent me, Rodrigo Ruiz, and other Spaniards to the fortified place called Cerquin to call the people there to peace with us. We arrived calling them to peace, and asking them to come out and give obedience to your Magesty. Over 2000 armed men came at us and killed Francisco de Mesa and Garparin, and we left, beat up and wounded. Have them (the witnesses) tell what they know about this and what they saw."
"Question 5: Ask them what they know, etc. .....that we covered that land many times, cutting off their water and making war because they would not come out and make peace and give obedience to Your Magesty. And us Spaniards, were wanting, especially for food, because they had taken it all with them into their strongholds...and an indian captain of said forces, called El Empira, got them all worked up and said there would be no peace until we were dead. There were four of us Spaniards, and we had no shoes, arms, or anywhere to go, so in the middle of the night I got the idea to withdraw back to Siguatepeque, where we had left from, to join up with the other Spaniards there. Ask them if its true that the said captain, El Empira, came out of his stronghold with many warriors and burned and looted the Spanish town (Gracias?) and dug up the bodies of Francisco de Mesa and Gasparin, whom he had earlier killed, and hung their bodies in the pine trees...
"Question 7: Ask them if they know what I Rodrigo Ruiz de and if they knew that I was sent by the General, and that we, the Spanish, were in great danger because it was well known that the native peoples were leaving their towns do fight with us, coming from all over, and we had to retreat from our towns to Siguatepeque....Many of us were wounded, and others so sick that they could not fight, and it was a great disservice to our God and your Magesty that that captain, called El Empira" dishonred the Spanish people. And he sent them against us in an uprising, and I, Rodrigo Ruiz, giving service to Your Magesty, and at great personal risk, undertook to infiltrate their forces with my sword and shield, and went to the place where the captain called El Empira was animating his troops by telling them they would kill us. He was dressed in the clothes and carrying the weapons of the Spaniards he had dug up. I fought with him and killed him, cutting off his head and managed to get out of there and return to the General with the head in my hand, although I was sorely wounded. Ask them to swear to what happened, and if this is the truth."
"Question 8: ....after I cut off his head, they retreated and within 4 days we controlled all of their towns, and they gave obiedience to your Magesty as they were obligated to do....and later we founded the town of Gracias a Dios. Ask them to say what they know and if its true that I served in said war, all the time it lasted, serving with myself, my weapons, my horse, at my cost, and was not rewarded for it."
Rodrigo Ruiz goes on to detail other service to the Spanish Crown, but questions 3 through 8 are about El Empira. The many witnesses in this 100 page document agree that Rodrigo Ruiz fairly outlined his service and told the truth. Ruiz asked for a pension of 1000 pesos for his service.
Interestingly, the modern Honduran Lenca preserved in their oral tradition elements that match the Ruiz story, Lempira's belief that wearing Spanish clothing made him impervious to Spanish bullets, and that Lempira died in combat, not through ambush.
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(back)
The ruins of Copan are at Center.
The following information
was obtained from:
Minnesota State University - Mankato
The Ruins of Copan
(For the full article, please refer to
the link above.)
The ancient ruins of Copan lie in the Motagua on the Rio Copan near Guatemala. They lie on the far southern frontier of the Maya expansion. In this fertile valley now lies a city of about 3000, a small airport, and a winding road. The ancient ruins of Copan lie a mile east of the present town (Copan).
Copan is considered a classic Maya center with ruins covering about forty acres including an acropolis with five plazas. The Maya of the Copan Valley are said to have occupied the valley starting in the Preclassic Period (1300- 900 BC). They lived there until the time of the Spanish Conquest. From the beginning, Copan was geographically, economically and culturally distinct from other Maya lowland sites.
The Maya started building Copan during the fifth century. The first dated monument at Copan is 465 AD. During the next 200 years, the valley underwent drastic changes. Their economy transformed from hunting and fishing to farming. In 667 AD, the Astronomical City was built. This is where most of the temples and other structures were located. During the next few decades, all efforts went into building the Astronomical City and Old Copan was put on hold.
By the 5th century, it is believed that Copan society was ruled by a chiefdom . Elite citizens lived in plaster coated, dressed masonry structures near major public buildings. They had access to fine imported goods, such as ceramic and shell. The rest of Copan's population lived further away in cobblestone constructions. These people were buried with relatively modest ceramic offerings. However, there is clear evidence of institutionalized rulership (or chiefdom organization) in the form of the early hieroglyphic monuments; and in the public architecture of the earliest ball court.
The largest known source of jade in Mesoamerica is within three day's walk of Copan, located in the Middle Motagua Valley, Guatemala. It was used to make tools. It has been found in virtually all ancient households in the valley. The green volcanic tuff (jade), used in dressed stone for buildings and sculptures, is found throughout the valley. Granite from the eastern part of the valley was used to make the grinding stones for processing maize into flour. Kaolin, from north of the valley, was used in manufacturing and decorating pottery. There were several small limestone deposits from which lime could be produced. The river brought other useful kinds of stones, including flint, used for producing chipped stone tools. These stones came from areas upstream in the mountains.
In 725 AD, Copan underwent another drastic change. The pottery had changed style. This marked the end of the Middle Period and the beginning of the Great Period of Copan. During this time, Copan became the most brilliant city both in architecture and sculpture, if not the most powerful in the Old Empire. Copan became second only to Tikal in accuracy of astronomical calculations and in the number of hieroglyphic inscriptions. Trade increased with the Guatemalan Highlands, Salvador and the Peten-British Honduran region.
Copan was abandoned and as of yet, we still do not know for what reason. On May 26, 800 AD, the last hieroglyphic was recorded at Copan. The priests left and most of the people followed them. They are believed to have taken most of their riches with them because few were ever found. There was no sign of war or any other reason for them to leave. Some people did remain, however. Findings have found that small camps around the city still remained but the majority of the population left with the priests.
Don Diego Garcia de Palacio rediscovered Copan. He wrote to the King of Spain about his findings on March 8, 1576. The first scientific expedition into Copan was in 1834 by Colonel Juan Galindo. In 1839, John Lloyd Stevens purchased the site for fifty dollars. Until a century ago, Copan was buried in a deep tropical jungle. The forest was then cut down at the end of the nineteenth century to plant tobacco and corn. This was said to please the gods because according to legend, they were all heavy smokers (Robicsek).
The site now consists of a level plain eight miles long and two miles wide enclosed by the hills of the Rio Copan. On the plain are stone houses, drainage ditches, and burial mounds. On the hills are fallen columns and altars. In the center of the valley are the main clusters of ruins called the Main Group or the Astronomical City. This is composed of pyramids, courts, temples and other structures. One of the structures is the Hieroglyphic Stairway. This stairway is composed of 2500 hieroglyphics. However, their meaning is not yet known because an earthquake caused the steps to tumble down.
Another interesting site is the Copan ball court. It is two parallel buildings framing a carefully dimensioned rectangle. Here they played a competitive game known to the Maya for centuries. There are also many other statues and columns that are contained in the Archeological City (Hellmuth).
No one knows for sure why the priests left Copan at the height of its history. All we know is that at its peak, Copan was one of the most powerful cities in the Maya nation.
References:
“Copan.” Honduras.Net http://.www.honduras.net/copan/ruins/mainplaza.html 11 Oct 1999.
Hellmuth, Nicholas M. Tikal-Copan Travel Guide. Robicsek, Francis. Copan: Home of the Mayan Gods. Washburn Press Inc., 1972.
Written by: Adam Risius, et al.
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For more information about Honduras visit:
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