Lake Ilopango

Lake Ilopango (Xilopango) like many other sources of its kind, it’s surrounded by incredible nature and not so far volcanoes like the Chinchontepec. Without a doubt, for these reasons and many more, it was primitively consecrated to the genies of the waters.

The ancient Toltec Empire, whose remains are dispersed all across the Americas and the world, in the twelfth century, brought here their civilization. Mainly, their numerous deities to whom it rendered a superstitious cult.

Everyone in Ilopango worshiped Tlaloc, he represented the God of Lightning and Tempest and preceded the fertilizing rain. His wife Xochiquetzal was called in Tlaxcala, the Lady of the Blue Dress, and participated in all honors related to her husband. She was extremely beautiful and benevolent and was considered the patroness of waters, pregnancy, and childbirth. Hence in multiple Central American regions, she was particularly venerated and admired.

Each year at the time when the cornfields were ready for ripening, the Indians sacrificed four young women chosen to Tlaloc's second wife, Goddess Chalchiuhtlicue from among the noblest families of the region. They dressed in festive garments, crowned them with rare flowers, and escorted them around the shore of the sacred waters, where the tribe sacrificed them.

Times changed, and in Ilopango, the tribe didn’t sacrifice the four young women to the Goddess Chalchiuhtlicue any longer. However, everyone knows that yearly, at the time mentioned, an unbaptized child was offered.

No one is sure if the Indians threw the kid into the water, but it is believed they put him in a grotto over the lake. Later, the Goddess came out of the waves in the shape of an attractive woman with a snake body, and at that moment, the people recited:

Ne gátka ne cuxculéteket sexsé síuit gipalciuíat sé ni munamiktixtíuti: kuák yáuit gipíat im imattsin áctu.

“In the past, the old men paid much attention to the newlyweds: They had to know when their first child was going to be born.”

Yáxa ne ginégit, palyáuit yasxkáuat, kan némit ne tepéua, ne gíkuit ne kúnet.

“The firstborn was the one they needed, to take him where the Rain Boys lived, there they took him, and they sat him down.”

One day, a man full of curiosity went to the shores of the lake (figure 1). He took a canoe, which was attached to the trunk of a tree, and two Indians helped him reach the lake. While we were walking, the man invited them to a glass of aguardiente and asked the Indians about their country’s traditions.

Figure 1. Lake Ilopango.

After a couple of glasses of aguardiente, they sighed, looked at him, and shook their heads because he asked them about the one related to the Snake Woman. He wanted to know if they actually offered a kid to the Goddess yearly.

“Why not?” They replied angrily.

For them, this was the sole way to obtain crops, and the last one had been excellent!

In 1857, there was huge hunger in El Salvador, and the people attributed it to Snake Woman or the Lady of the Lake.

Inspired by La Prensa Grafica’s version of 1972.