THE TOLUPAN EXHIBITS

The remote ancestors of the Tolupan came to what is now Honduras from North America some 5000 years ago, long before the rise of the Maya civilization. Linguistic data confirms the antiquity of this tribe - it was, in fact, the carrier of one of the early cultures of the Americas. At their territorial zenith, the Tolupan occupied a relatively vast expanse - along the Atlantic coast from the Ulua River in the west to the site of the present town of Trujillo in the east, and inland as far south as the Sulaco River. For long a semi-sedentary society, they depended heavily on hunting, fishing, and gathering and only later and secondarily on the planting of edible tubers, fruits, and, very likely, maize. Their principal hunting tools were the bow and arrow, used without poisons, and a one-piece blowgun for propelling clay pellets. Interestingly, a Maya 'port of trade' as well as an enclave of long-distance Aztec traders, the Pochteca, peacefully co-existed on Tolupan territory in pre-Columbian times.

Anne Chapman at the 1994 Tolupan Exhibit at the Research Institute for the Study of Man (RISM) in New York

With the European discovery of the Americas came military conquest, economic exploitation, and religious proselytization, all of which wrought incalculable damage to a Tolupan way of life. Violence and disruption lasting throughout much of the post-Columbian era inevitably forced remnants of this culture to withdraw into the densely forested, almost inaccessible mountains and high valleys of central Honduras. And over the years, this process marginalized traditional Tolupan society and transformed its culture into one better suited for refuge and isolation. Certainly as late as the 1860s, the Tolupan, by then disparagingly referred to as the Jicaque, were fleeing the dangers of the low-lying, more fertile regions for the safety of the "raw" mountains of the interior. At that time, three families, seeking refuge in the highlands, founded the community of La Montaña de la Flor, the site selected in 1955 by the anthropologist Anne Chapman for recording and analyzing the oral tradition of the contemporary Tolupan. Now a community of some 600 inhabitants, it has preserved the native language and tantalizing elements from a rich cultural past.

Anne Chapman and Carman Julia Fajardo, Assistant Director of Insituto Hondureño de Anthropologia e Historia, at the Tolupan and Lenca Exhibit at the former Presidential Mansion in Tegucipalpa, Honduras 2005.

In the La Montaña de la Flor of 1955, a clear division of labor prevailed in all economic activities save the harvesting of garden produce and the gathering of wild plants, tasks which could be carried out by both men and women. Men were the farmers, the hunters, and the builders of homes; some were adept at weaving the sturdy baskets and small hammocks favored by the Tolupan. Women cared for the children, guarded the farm animals, fetched water, spun thread on wooden spindles, washed clothes and, most importantly, prepared tortillas and beans, the staple foods. The Tolupan now cultivate and trade coffee and maize. When these crops fail, which given the vagaries of weather and a rudimentary technology is often the case, Tolupan males must seek employment as laborers on neighboring non-Tolupan farms. In general, sterile soils and continuing deforestation caused by lumber companies have led to declining agricultural productivity. Serious health problems exist, particularly tuberculosis and other illness due to malnutrition. Medical services in this community, as one might expect, have remained rudimentary.

A viable Tolupan oral tradition allows these people to respect as well as to retain far-reaching principles of reciprocity and cooperation. Most fundamental to this tradition is the tenet that all living things have masters and that these masters protect and perpetuate those that they sponsor. Linked to this is the corollary that all must respect one another because all live in the one world. The ideal is an egalitarian society with living an integral part of nature. In Tolupan mythology nature actively interacts with culture. Individuals - plant, animal or human - establish contracts and forge relationships of mutual dependency, which permit them to live but also condemn them to die. Consequently, the Tolupan see themselves, and all humanity, as Children of Death who contract with Mother Earth to pay for their life on earth with their life in death. It is a reciprocal arrangement - they nourish Her as She has nourished them. It is this perpetual interaction, this unceasing rhythm, which weaves the Tolupan fabric of existence.

The exhibit was first presented in January 1994 at the Research Institute for the Study of Man (RISM) in New York with the support of Interamericas Society/ Society of Arts and Letter and RISM. It was recently presented from Februrary 18 - March 21, 2005 under the auspices of the Insituto Hondureño de Anthropologia e Historia in the former Presidential Mansion in Tegucipalpa.