Putun

The Putún, generally identified with the Chontal Maya who call themselves the Yokot'an, are a Maya people of the swampy Gulf coast in Tabasco, centered on the Usumacinta and Grijalva deltas and the Laguna de Términos. Canoe-borne merchants and seafarers, they controlled river and coastal trade routes around Yucatán from the Laguna de Términos to the Sula valley in Honduras in the Terminal Classic and Postclassic.

Their chief towns were Potonchán at the Grijalva mouth and Itzamkanac, capital of Acalan. After the Classic Maya collapse their migrations carried them across Yucatán, and some scholars link them to the Itza who built Chichén Itzá and Mayapán.

Juan de Grijalva met their warriors in 1518, and in 1519 Hernán Cortés landed at Potonchán, where the chief Tabscoob gave him the woman later known as La Malinche and the local lords became the first native vassals of New Spain.