page_title: Pech people
section_title: Pre-Colonial Period
hierarchical_section_title: Pech people / History / Pre-Colonial Period
caption_attribution_description: English: Flag of Honduras from the government website. English: Bandera de Honduras en el sitio web de la Presidencia.
context_page_description: The Pech people, previously known as the Paya, are an indigenous ethnic group in north-eastern Honduras. According to a 2007 census conducted by indigenous organisations, 6, 024 people self-identified as being of Pech descent. This indigenous group primarily speak in their native tongue, the Pech language, which is a member of the Macro-Chibchan languages. Although, in recent developments, the language is mainly spoken by older generations and is in danger of being extinct in the relative near future.
  The Pech people reside in the north-eastern territories of Honduras, particularly in the areas of Colon, Gracias a Dios and Olancho. Since their migration to these areas, believed to have migrated from the southern areas of modern-day Colombia, the Pech people have undergone reduction to their land ownership and rights. The regions where the Pech people live were originally densely forested, however, has recently undergone deforestation. Many of the Pech's agricultural practices had to undergo reform, although, some traditional practices are still in place today.
context_section_description: Social complexity began among the Pech or probable Pech speakers as long ago as 300 CE. The earlier Pech cultures may have been developed independently of the Maya, their near neighbours, or they may have been influenced by the Maya, a hypothesis that has been corroborated to some extent by the discovery of Mayan loan-words in the Pech language. 
  Before the colonial period in the sixteenth century, the Pech people migrated from the south to inhabit a large territory close to the border of Nicaragua. The Pech Indians occupied a large portion of north-eastern Honduran land, which anthropologists define as "lower Central America." According to anthropologists, this lower sector of Central America was considered to be a part of the "lesser-developed intermediate area of Honduras." This land that the Pech people occupied was greatly reduced following conflicts with neighbouring community, the Miskito.
caption: Official flag of Honduras
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