The Golden Lizard – Tales and Legends of Honduras
We bring you the following legend that is part of the oral and written tradition of the municipality of El Corpus, Choluteca.
According to the elders, when the Spanish soldiers arrived at the prosperous lands where it is today, the laborious and attractive municipality of El Corpus found on the surface of the earth, enormous amounts of gold in the shape and size of a tamarind fruit, such a finding It caused them an excessive ambition to such a degree that without losing time they proceeded to exploit the precious mineral, in the place they called «Clave Rico».
They began with the construction of a long tunnel, to the east of the current city of El Corpus, the tunnel crossed the hill from end to end in a length of approximately 3 km.
The Spanish conquerors, who were terrible executioners of our poor race, forced the natives to work day and night in the exploitation of the rich mineral.
One Holy Thursday, the excavation reached the exact point where today the highest church is located, where they found a large lagoon of green waters with an unknown depth, to everyone’s astonishment, in the center of the waters rested a huge gold lizard , the Indians were horrified to see that magnificent beast that showed them its powerful jaws that represent the symbol of death.
The surprise was so great that one of those unfortunate men fell to the bottom of the waters crying for help to his companions, who, making great sacrifices, saved him from the teeth of death.
When the Spanish executioner became aware of the presence of this strange lizard, he yelled at his slaves: “What are you unfortunate and cowardly Indians afraid of? «, all of you must jump into the water and capture that precious animal, whoever disobeys my orders will be punished by hanging, our mother Spain does not forgive cowards, even the Lord himself has to come from heaven to help us capture this precious animal -.
He had not finished pronouncing those blasphemies, when a succession of tremors began. It was the voice of God, who ordered the earth to sink all those treasures to punish the pride and ambition of the conquerors, that day, all those souls were buried.
In the course of time, in the silence of the night, the screams and cries were heard in the place, they were the souls that asked God’s forgiveness for their sin. For this reason, the construction of a church was ordered with the recommendation that the main altar remain in the exact place where the lagoon used to be. Only in this way did the cries of those lost souls disappear.
