[Aztlan] Name origins and changes

[Jorge Pérez de Lara]

Regading (David Gray's?) question:

> Hi all,
>         I have two questions to ask today. what was the original name  
> of the uscamascinta (sp) river . I have heard that it was possibly  
> called the Xoc. Secondly it seems that Palanque has and two names over  
> its history  originally called Lakam Ha but was then changed to Bak.  
> Does anyone know the reason for the change and the approximate period  
> that the change happened. Thanx in advance for your help

The best source for recent investigation on the Usumacinta and its  
region is "River Among the Ruins: The Usumacinta,", by Ronald L.  
Canter. Regarding the origins of the river's name, Canter states the  
following:

Usumacinta, written phonetically as “Usumatsintla” by Teobert Maler (  
90 ), is a compound place name formed from the Nahuatl roots osomahtli  
“monkey,” -tzin “small” or “revered,” and -tlan “place where X abounds”  
(Herrera 2004; Karttunnen 983). Thus, osomahtzintla(n) can be literally  
translated as “Place of Many Sacred (or Small) Monkeys,” though it is  
usually given more broadly as “River of the Sacred Monkey.” It was also  
the name of a Postclassic town on the river near Balancan. Spanish  
expeditions referred to the upper Usumacinta as the Sacapulas. One  
source gives the Postclassic name of the Usumacinta above the canyons  
as Xocolha (Jones 985), and Scholes and Roys ( 968) give the name as  
Tanochel at Tenosique. Xocolha means either “Shark River,” or simply  
“The River” in Chontal. A text from Pomona suggests that Pipa’ denoted  
the Usumacinta locally in the Classic.

The article can be found at Mesoweb, at the following address:

http://www.mesoweb.com/pari/publications/journal/703/Usumacinta.html

An indispensable complement for the above article is "Border Problems:  
Recent Archaeological Research along the Usumacinta River" by Charles  
Golden and Andrew Scherer. It can also be found at Mesoweb, at:

http://www.mesoweb.com/pari/publications/journal/702/ 
border_problems.html

As for the Classic-era name for Palenque, it can be summed up like  
this: in the late Classic period (roughly from the VII Century onward),  
Lakam-ha (literally "Big Water") was the name of the capital city of  
the kingdom, while Bak ("bone") was the name used for referring to the  
broader kingdom. Palenque's Emblem Glyph uses the name Bak and never  
Lakam Ha, although there are instances in which Bak appears to be  
almost interchangeable with yet another name "Matwiil," which is  
currently understood to be the (mythological) place where Palenque's  
patron gods were born and also where the ruling lineage was  
established. It should be noted that early mentions of the capital  
refer to it as Tok Tan, so it is thought that there could have been  
either a physical move of the old capital or a refoundation of some  
sort (roughly at the end of the Early Classic), which brought about the  
change of the capital's name.

Hope the above helps,

Jorge