Water and ethnic identity in Izalco, República de El Salvador

Abstract

In El Salvador, the project for mixing races (mestizaje) which was driven since the end of the 19th Century and was concentrated on a policy that sought to exterminate indigenous people, physically as well as culturally, had its culminating point with the massacre of the
rebel indigenous population in 1932. However, in order to sustain
and legitimize the process of mixing races, the State built some
bridges that provided limited spaces, but which were taken advantage of by indigenous people, to reproduce their culture. Such was the case of Izalco, in the southwestern region of the country. This population had a history of autonomy thanks to its fertile irrigation lands; the Liberal Reform at the end of the 19th Century took the lands away from them, but not their consuetudinary water rights,
so that water continued to be the basis of their organization and
culture. But the indigenous groups lost these rights to water in the years after the rebellion, and although they continued reproducing their culture, it had lost unity and above all its  organizational capacity, so that with the advance of modernity the organization tended to be
drastically weakened. Currently, among the indigenous groups of
Izalco, there have been efforts to recuperate their identity and
historical memory, but they are not clear as to what it means to be indigenous, they seek for answers in culture, but even if it is true that historically this legacy is found in culture, it is more firmly
rooted in politics, which is why, in order to reinterpret their legacy