Capital and provincial settlements of Dzuluinicob towards the 16th cent. / in present-day Belize / some locations uncertain / 2022 map following map 2 in Jones 1989 / via Commons[c]
a.^ Per Jones 1989, p. 98, Graham 2011, p. 55. b.^ Per Jones 1989, p. 98, Morris et al. 2010, pp. 90–91. c.^ See sec. 'Legacy' subsec. 'Scholarly' in this article for debate regarding inclusion or exclusion of various provincial settlements (eg Lamanai).
Dzuluinicob encompassed, at least, most of the Belize River drainage basin.[1][2] Some scholars further locate the drainage basins of the New, Sibun, and Sittee Rivers within the province.[1]
With few notable exceptions, the ninth and tenth centuries of the Classic Maya collapse are thought to have been a period of gradual but marked political and demographic collapse in city-states within what would later become Dzuluinicob.[5][6] Though scarce little is known of the province's pre-Columbian history, given the aforementioned population glut, it has been suggested that Dzuluinicob emerged after a significant wave of immigration into the region.[7][8] It has been further noted that such demographic influx may have been similar and coincident with that which gave rise to the Peten Itza Kingdom, i.e. settlement by northerly aristocratic mayors and their households upon the collapse of Mayapan and consequent disintegration of the regional council of provincial governors.[9][10][note 2] The burgeoning province is thought to have grown much closer to its western neighbours in Peten, given the observed similarity of their pre-Columbian material cultures, than to its northern neighbour, Chetumal, given the observed dissimilarity of their material cultures.[11]
The province is thought to have been 'a major player in [southern Lowlands] cacao cultivation and trade.'[13] It is further thought to have housed Muzul Maya residents, at least in the capital.[13]
Legacy
Scholarly
None of Dzuluinicob's records are extant. Consequently, all scholarship on the province has relied on later Spanish records and modern archaeology. The province was first brought to attention by Grant D. Jones's 1989 Maya Resistance to Spanish Rule, based on 1982–1983 archival research at the General Archive of the Indies.[14][15][16]
The northern half of Belize, which under the Spanish became the greater part of the Bacalar province, was indigenously a province of Yucatec-speakers known as Dzuluinicob. [...] Earlier writers were unaware of the existence of Dzuluinicob and attributed far more influence to the province of Chetumal than it now appears to have had. / Because the sole direct reference to Dzuluinicob as a provincial entity is in a unique early version of Melchor Pacheco's probanza, it would be foolhardy to venture specific claims regarding its territorial limits. I have nonetheless argued throughout this study that Tipu was the political centre of this apparently extensive province, which must have included territory all the way from the Sibun River north to the lower New River.
— Grant D. Jones in 1989 Maya Resistance.[17][note 3]
Aspects of the province as originally delineated have since come into question. For instance, while Jones placed Lamanai within Dzuluinicob, recent literature has noted that pre-Columbian material recovered from Lamanai 'is without any doubt distinctive from that [recovered] at Tipu,' such that 'it is hard to see them [Lamanai and Tipu] as part of a single "provincial" unit.'[18][note 4] Similarly, while Jones originally glossed ts’ul winiko’ob as ‘foreign people,’ in keeping with scholarly consensus then, recent literature has noted that the term might rather mean ‘gentlemen’ or ‘members of the Ts’ul lineage.’[19][20][21][note 5]
The Yucatec Mayan orthography in this article follows that of Barrera Vásquez 1980, pp. 41a–44a, except for established names like Dzuluinicob. The province's name is nonetheless spelt Dzuluinikob in Meissner 2014, p. i, and Tz'ul Winikob' in Jones 1998, p. 3.
Various discordant periodisations of pre-Columbian Maya history are employed in literature (see Periodisation of the history of Belize § Pre-Columbian for relevant background). This article uses Postclassic for AD 900–1500, and Classic for AD 250–900. Earlier periods are not referenced by name.
Dzuluinicob has been called a chiefdom in lay literature. A distinction has been made, however, between chiefdoms and states, the latter being characterised by more complex forms of sociopolitical organisation than the former (Sharer & Traxler 2006, p. 73, Rice 2004, pp. 4–7). Accordingly, the province is herein designated a state, and not a chiefdom.
^Morris et al. 2010, pp. 85, 90–92, however, suggest a much earlier founding date of circa AD 750–900 for the province, given province-wide dispersal of Ik’hubil-style ceramics during that period.
^Rather than excluding the New River drainage basin, and thereby excluding Lamanai, from Dzuluinicob, the aforementioned Lamanai–Tipu cultural dissimilarity has led some scholars to exclude the upper portion of the Belize River drainage basin from the province, thereby excluding Tipu as well (Morris et al. 2010, pp. 86, 90).
^The traditional interpretation of ts’ul winiko’ob has been taken to imply that (a) residents of Dzuluinicob were not local to or not culturally similar to those of the northern Maya Lowlands provinces, or (b) they were not under the political or economic influence of the same northern provinces (Jones 1989, pp. 9–12, Walker 2016, pp. 22, 94). The novel interpretations of the term may imply that the province rather housed wealthy or powerful individuals, or that it was ruled by members of the Ts'ul family (Walker 2016, p. 94).
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