Huastec people

There are approximately 66,000 Huastec speakers today, of which two-thirds are in San Luis Potosí and one-third in Veracruz,[1] although their population was probably much higher, as much as half a million, when the Spanish arrived in 1529.

Judging from archaeological remains, they are thought to date back to approximately the 10th century BCE, although their most productive period of civilization is usually considered to be the Postclassic era between the fall of Teotihuacan and the rise of the Aztec Empire.

The Pre-Columbian Huastecs constructed temples on step-pyramids, carved independently standing sculptures, and produced elaborately painted pottery.

[3] The first grammatical and lexical description of the Huastec language accessible to Europeans was by Fray Andrés de Olmos, who also wrote the first such grammars of Nahuatl and Totonac.

Linguist Morris Swadesh posited the later date as the latest possible time for this split to have occurred, and gave the Huastec/Chicomuceltec inik ("man") versus other-Maya winik as a typical contrast.

The Huastec people historically lived north of the Totonacs in the northeastern corner of Mesoamerica, which helped their influence with distinct style of art.

[14] (The Huastecs remained in Santa Luisa, located east of Papantla near the Gulf coast, until supplanted or absorbed by the Totonacs around AD 1000).

[17] Not all archaeological evidence agrees with this conclusion: there are older, unbroken ceramic traditions from Loltun Cave in Yucatán, as well as Cuello in Belize, which suggest alternative Maya homelands.

[19] 2000 BCE is a reasonable date for the Huastec/Maya split, and the slopes of the Cuchumatanes range as a reasonable location for the speakers of proto-Maya, it seems likely that the split occurred after these proto-Maya speakers (or a portion of them) began to migrate north, probably along the Usumacinta River, and before the two groups resulting from the split began to move in opposite directions: the proto-Huastec speakers moving northwest (and, soon thereafter, the proto-Chicomuceltec west into the Chiapas highlands), and the proto-Yucatec/other Maya-speakers spreading northeast (one branch of which became Chontal, presumed by many from its widespread loan words and hieroglyphic evidence to be the dominant language of the classic Peten Maya heartland) (see Fig.

One line of evidence that the Olmecs spoke Mixe–Zoque are the words that the proto-Huastecs borrowed from proto-Mixe–Zoque as they passed through the southern Gulf lowlands;[21] for example, ciw, meaning "squash.

"[22] Thus, there is some reason to ascribe the linguistic isolation of early Huastecs from other Maya speakers to proto-Olmecs speaking a Mixe–Zoque language, themselves recently arrived after migrating northward from the Soconusco region of the Pacific coast and across the isthmus of Tehuantepec.

[23] There is much stronger evidence that the push for the Huastecs’ further migration up the Gulf coast was caused by the active presence of the early Olmecs (c. 1400 to 1100 BCE) of San Lorenzo and associated sites.