The Pipils are descended from people who migrated south from southern Mexico at least a thousand years ago and settled in various parts of Central America. The Spanish encountered an important bastion of Nawat language and Pipil identity in and around the area they called Cuzcatlán (Kuskatan in modern Nawat) in western El Salvador.

Sadly, the Pipils have been victims of massacres and upheavals due to wars and persecution well into the twentieth century. In El Salvador today there is little awareness of the distinct identity of the country's indigenous peoples, and Pipils themselves have been conditioned by decades of living in fear to keep quiet and go unnoticed.

Today there are signs that this may finally be changing, as a nascent language and identity movement develops. The Bible was never translated into Nawat before, and it is a privilege to have this opportunity to enrich Pipil literature.