Poqom

The Poqom are the Maya peoples speaking the related Poqomam and Poqomchi languages of Guatemala. Their name goes back to a word meaning the harvesting of beehives, and beekeeping and milpa farming were their traditional livelihoods.

Their settlements once stretched to the Pacific coast of El Salvador, but in the eleventh century migrating Pipil groups overran the easternmost communities. The people divided into the Poqomchi in the northern hills of Verapaz and the Poqomam farther south-east, whose village confederacy was centred on Chinautla Viejo.

Around 1470 the confederacy was conquered by the expanding K'iche kingdom. The Poqomam briefly recovered independence when K'iche power weakened, but the Spanish arrived in the early sixteenth century and overcame their chiefdoms. War and disease reduced the population, while mission resettlements and loss of communal lands confined survivors to small districts.