The Battle and the Ruins of Cintla — Reading Companion

Cortes had about five hundred men including some Cuban Indians. The main detachment proceeded on foot by the high road, the cavalry along a path in the woods, and another detachment by a third route. The country was swampy and cut with canals, offering serious obstacles to the horses. It was not until the infantry had been for some time closely engaged with the enemy on the plain of Cintla, and rather severely handled, that the cavalry reached the spot. Their appearance, together with the noise and fatal effect of the musketry, soon struck terror to the hearts of the natives--their ranks broke and they fled. Gomara estimates that there were about three hundred of them killed, which is likely enough; while Bishop De las Casas puts the slain at thirty thousand![5-1]

Such was the battle of Cintla. It broke the spirits of the natives, and soon their chieftain, named Tabasco, from whom the river and the province were later called, came in, and offered his submission. Cortes took possession of the land in the name of the King of Spain, and erected a large cross in the chief temple of Potonchan. He remained there several days longer before proceeding on his voyage.

_The Name Cintla._--Of the contemporary authorities, only two give the name of the place at or near which the battle was fought.

One of these is Bernal Diaz, who writes it twice, spelling it both times _Cintia_.[5-2] The other is Gomara, who gives _Cintla_, the form which I believe to be correct. Through following some less reliable authorities a number of writers, among them Prescott and his editor Mr. J. F. Kirk, Orozco y Berra, etc., and their copyists, have deformed this word into _Ceutla_.

The most obvious derivation of Cintla is from the Nahuatl language, in which _Cintla_ means a dried ear of maize; _Cintlan_, a place where dried ears are, a cornfield. Most of the places in Tabasco became known to the Spaniards under their Nahuatl appellatives through interpreters in that tongue, and because most of the territory had been subjected to the powerful sway of the Montezumas.

Still, Cintla may also be a Mayan word. It may be a nominal form from the verb _tzen-tah_, and would then have the signification, "a built-up place," or one well stocked with provisions; or, it may be a patronymic from the Tzentals, the tribe which occupied this region at the time, as I shall proceed to show.

_The Native Tribe._--There is no question but that the native tribe which took part in this combat belonged to the Mayan stock. All the accounts agree that Aguilar, the Spaniard whom Cortes found in Yucatan as a captive, and who had learned to speak the Mayan tongue, communicated with the natives without difficulty. This is conclusive as to their ethnic position.

Further evidence, if needed, is offered by the native names and words preserved in the accounts. The term for their large canoes, _tahucup_, is from the Maya _tahal_, to swim, and _kop_, that which is hollow, or hollowed out. The name _potonchan_, Aguilar translated as, "the place that stinks" (lugar que hiede). He evidently understood it as derived from the Maya verb _tunhal_, to stink, with the intensive prefix _pot_ (which is not unusual in the tongue, as _pot-hokan_, very evident, etc.). The historian Herrera, on some authority not known to me, further explains this term as one of contempt applied to the people there, meaning rude and barbarous;[6-1] as we should say, using the same metaphor, "stinkards."

_Tabasco_ is said by Bernal Diaz to have been the name of the principal chief of the eight provinces or tribes, who together opposed the Spaniards. For this reason I would reject the derivation from the Nahuatl, proposed by Rovirosa,--_tlalli_, earth, _paltic_, wet or swampy, _co_, in,[6-2]--however appropriate it would be geographically; and also that from the Maya, _tazcoob_, "deceived," referring to the deceptions practiced on the Spaniards,--which is defended by Orozco y Berra[6-3]; and I should accept that which I find suggested by Dr. Berendt in his manuscript work on Mayan geographical names. He reads _Tabasco_ as a slightly corrupt form of the Maya _T'ah-uaxac-coh_, "our (or the) master of the eight lions," referring to the eight districts or gentes of the tribe. This is significant and appropriate, the jaguar, the American lion, being a very common emblem in the ruins of Cintla.