The Nahuas (/ˈnɑːwɑːz/) are a group of the indigenous people of Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. They comprise the largest indigenous group in Mexico and second largest in El Salvador. The Mexica (Aztecs) were of Nahua ethnicity, and the Toltecs are often thought to have been as well, though in the pre-Columbian period Nahuas were subdivided into many groups that did not necessarily share a common identity. Their Nahuan languages, or Nahuatl, consist of many variants, several of which are mutually unintelligible. About 1.5 million Nahuas speak Nahuatl and another million speak only Spanish. Fewer than 1,000 native speakers of Nahuatl remain in El Salvador. It is suggested that the Nahua peoples originated near Aridoamerica, in regions of the present day Mexican states of Durango and Nayarit or the Bajío region. They split off from the other Uto-Aztecan speaking peoples and migrated into central Mexico around 500 CE. The Nahua then settled in and around the Basin of Mexico and spread out to become the dominant people in central Mexico. However, Nahuatl-speaking populations were present in smaller populations throughout Mesoamerica. [NATIVE AMERICAN]
Nahua, Middle American Indian population of central Mexico, of which the Aztecs (see Aztec) of pre-Conquest Mexico are probably the best known members. The language of the Aztecs, Nahua, is spoken by all the Nahua peoples in a variety of dialects. The modern Nahua are an agricultural people; their staple crops are corn (maize), beans, chili peppers, tomatoes, and squash. Also common are maguey (the Mexican century plant), sugarcane, rice, and coffee. The primary farming tools are the wooden plow, hoe, and digging stick. Groups of three or four men may cultivate corn, beans, and squash collectively, using slash-and-burn techniques to clear new land. Chickens and turkeys are also raised, and pigs, goats, and donkeys are often kept. Settlements consist of central villages divided into four sections (barrios) grouped around a central church; each barrio recruits compulsory labour to work village common lands in addition to private farming.
The Nahua people, also academically referred to as Pipil, are an indigenous group of Mesoamerican people inhabiting the western and central areas of present-day El Salvador. Although very few speakers are now left, they speak the Nawat language, which belongs to the Nahuan language branch. Indigenous accounts recorded by Spanish chronicler Gonzalo Francisco de Oviedo suggest that the Nahuas of El Salvador migrated from present-day Mexico to their current locations beginning around the 8th century A.D. As they settled in the area, they founded the city-state of Kuskatan, which was already home to various groups including the Lenca, Xinca, Ch’orti‘, and Poqomam. Nahua cosmology is related to that of the Toltec, Mayan and Lenca. The term Nahua is a cultural and ethnic term used by Mesoamerican natives for Nahuan-speaking groups. The name Pipil is the most commonly encountered term in the anthropological and linguistic literature. This exonym derives from the closely related Nahuatl word pil (meaning “boy”). The Spanish translated the term pipil as “childish” because of the simple form of Nahuatl spoken, compared to the language of the Tlaxcala and Mexica people from central Mexico. However, the Nahuas do not refer to themselves in this term.
Today, Spanish is the dominant language of Mexico and most central and South American countries. There was a time, however, when Nahuatl, a language spoken by the indigenous inhabitants of the Valley of Mexico, was the language of art, science, religion, and high culture in the part of Mesoamerica ruled by the Aztec Empire. Despite colonization by the Spaniards, Nahuatl remains a spoken language with numerous dialects and currently 1.6 million speakers. In regions with large indigenous Nahua populations, it enjoys a status equivalent to Spanish. It also has become a language that has helped to strengthen the identity of the Nahua people. Classical Nahuatl was the lingua franca, the common language of all the differing peoples that came together under the Aztec civilization. Nahuatl is part of the Uto-Aztecan language family, a family of languages spoken in the western United States and Mexico. The Uto-Aztecan family also includes languages such as the Shoshoni language spoken in the American west. The branch of Uto-Aztecan which includes Nahuatl is Southern Uto-Aztecan. Nahuatl has many different dialects, not all of which are mutually intelligible. The variety within Nahuatl is great enough that it can be divided into western and eastern variants. The dialects of Nahuatl within the Valley of Mexico most closely resemble Classical Nahuatl.
The Náhuatl people are the single largest indigenous group in Hidalgo and in the entire Mexican Republic. Although Nahuas live in all the states of the Mexican Republic, each of the 28 or so Náhuatl languages and dialects has developed unique characteristics depending on its environmental conditions. It is believed that the earliest Nahua speakers arrived in Hidalgo area as early as the Twelfth Century. At the time of the Spanish contact, Náhuatl-speaking Indians inhabited several regions of Hidalgo, largely due to the fact that the Aztec Empire ruled over a considerable part of the region. Second, we know there were many survivors because they, together with Spanish and Africans, were the parents of modern Mexicans, and to this day Mesoamerican foodways, dances, worldview, and way of life survive in the lives of most Mexicans. Can we claim that modern Mexicans prove the survival of the culture? Probably not. Most Mexicans today speak Spanish, a significant cultural difference Furthermore, neither Mexicans nor modern Nahuatl-speaking groups recognize each other as part of the same group, although they do recognize the origin of most Mexicans customs as Native. Still, the existence of the modern Mexican mestizo is an indirect proof of how, at the very least, Native cultures survived beyond 1521.
The Nahua tribe was a group of people in Mexico, now living in Central America. The invasion of Spanish explorers and soldiers largely eliminated the Nahua’s culture and lifestyle. Although many parts of their culture have disappeared, their language, Nahuatl, has survived for more than 5,000 years and is still spoken by over a million people in South America. The Nahua tribe had major achievements related to innovations in agriculture, and their performance and decorative arts are also noteworthy. The Nahua people were a distinct tribe of Native Americans who gradually developed their own culture over a period of thousands of years. They settled throughout Central America and are the ancestors of virtually all current inhabitants of that region. After they came to the Americas from East Asia, the Nahua tribe first settled in what is now the central area of Mexico. Among the Nahua people were the Aztecs, who established an empire throughout the entire northern region of Mesoamerica. Another notable group of Nahua were the Mexica, who also established several major settlements. During this stage of their existence, their culture had significant alterations and developments. They developed a unique religion, performance art style, and material culture characteristics.
Nahuas, a people bound together by a shared culture and language (Nahuatl) dominated central Mesoamerica in 1519. The best-known members of this group are the Mexicas of Tenochtitlán (popularly referred to as Aztecs), but there were a large number of individual Nahua states in the Basin of Mexico and adjacent areas, including Texcoco, Cholula, and Tlaxcala. The Nahuas were originally non- or perhaps semi-sedentary people, collectively known as Chichimecs, who entered central Mexico in waves from a northern region known in legend as Aztlán. Each succeeding ethnic group learned sedentary ways from the center’s native inhabitants; the Mexicas claimed descent of this sort from the Toltec. Over time, the Nahuas developed a complex polity, whose basic corporate building blocks were the Altepetl (regional states), the Calpulli or Tlaxilacalli (altepetl subdivision), and the family. Society was heavily stratified, from the altepetl ruler (Tlatoani) and nobility (Pipiltín) to the commoners (Macehualli), who were internally ranked from the relatively wealthy Pochteca (merchants) to slaves. Most commoners fell in between, and owed tribute in goods and services to the state, formed the rank and file of armies, and received access to land by virtue of calpulli membership.
Pocho. In its simplest sense, pocho (literally meaning “faded”) describes an Americanized Mexican. It’s not a compliment, but like any Mexican slur, it gets equal use as an insult and as a term of endearment. In Latinx spaces, especially online, there’s a growing consensus arguing that knowledge of the Spanish language isn’t a prerequisite for Latinx identity. It’s sometimes spilled into the wider public. Last fall, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spoke candidly about her nerves speaking Spanish in front of an audience. (After the congresswoman’s recent conversation with the Puerto Rican rapper Residente, one Latina journalist commented on Twitter, “Her pocha Spanish is so relatable to me.”) And in the most recent Democratic primary, after TV pundits repeatedly questioned Julián Castro’s identity because he didn’t speak Spanish, the former San Antonio mayor lamented that the media treated it as “the only variable as to whether somebody is Latino or not, which is completely out of line with reality.” The ability to speak Spanish, he told The Washington Post, “is just one part of the overall connection to the Latino community.”
Indigenous Peoples Literature 
