Nahuas
The Nahuas (/ˈnɑːwɑːz/ NAH-wahz) are a group of the indigenous people of Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. They comprise the largest indigenous group in Mexico and second largest in El Salvador. They are a Mesoamerican ethnicity. 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.
Nahua children in traditional clothes | |
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 2,694,189 (likely larger) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Mexico Oaxaca, Morelos, Puebla, Hidalgo, Michoacán, Veracruz, Jalisco, Estado de México, Distrito l, Tlaxcala, Chihuahua, Durango, San Luis Potosi and Guerrero El Salvador Rivas, Matagalpa, Jinotega | |
| Languages | |
| Nahuatl, Nawat and Spanish | |
| Religion | |
| Christianity (Predominantly Roman Catholic with pre-colombia influence), Aztec religion | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Pipil, Nicarao, Mexicaneros, Indigenous people of the Americas and Mestizo, Mexica |
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.