The last or fourth of the tribes inhabiting Nicaragua was los Niquiranos. The territory occupied by this people was the smallest of all, viz.; the narrow isthmus between Lake Nicaragua and the Pacific, together with the large islands, Ometepec and [Zapatera], in [Lake Nicaragua]. But although comparatively small in extent this territory was perhaps the most richly blessed of all in this country, the darling one of nature. According to the concurrent testimonies of the old chroniclers the Niquirans were a Mexican people settled in the country at a comparatively late period. It is not clear whether they were Toltecs or Aztecs, and this question cannot probably be decided until the ancient remains, surely very numerous, that they have left behind them, shall have been accurately studied and compared with the better known Mexican antiquities. For my own part I incline to the opinion that they were Aztecs, and had immigrated into the country rather late, perhaps little more than a hundred years before the Spanish invasion. They lived in a state of permanent hostility with the Chorotegans and had probably, on their irruption, expelled the Orotinas, who were thus cut off from the main stock of the Chorotegans. The intelligent and well built Indians on the island of Ometepec are doubtless the descendants of the Niquirans; this is corroborated by their language, which the successful investigations of Squier have shown to be of Mexican origin and presenting a very close similarity to the pure Aztec tongue. They are now a laborious and peaceful race, somewhat shy of strangers; in general they speak Spanish, but may be heard occasionally to talk Indian dialect with one another; with regard to this dialect they are, however, extremely unwilling to afford any explanations, generally answering «es muy antiguo» «no sé nada». The Indians of Belen and the surrounding region remind one of the Ometepec Indians, but are evidently intermixed with foreign elements.
According to Oviedo, Torquemada, and Cerezeda, the last one of whom accompanied Gil Gonzales de Avila in his expedition 1522, and thus is able to speak, like Oviedo, from his own personal observations, the Niquirans had reached a higher degree of civilization than their neighbours. However, the Chorotegans were also pretty far advanced in culture.
Indeed, reading the scanty descriptions of the last days of these nations, one feels tempted to assert that in harmonic development of the mental faculties they were superior to that nation, which, by its crowds of rapacious and sanguinary adventurers, honoured in history with the name of «los Conquistadores», has fixed upon itself the heavy responsibility for the annihilation of this civilization. For indeed so swift and radical was this annihilation, through the fanatical vandalism of «christian» priests and the bloody crimes of a greedy soldatesca, that history knows of no similar example. Thus the investigator of the comparatively modern culture of Central America is obliged to travel by more toilsome and doubtful roads than the student of the ancient forms of civilization of Egypt and India, although these were dead several thousands of years ago.
So much, however, has come to the knowledge of our time, as suffices to prove that the nations of Central America were very far advanced in political and social development as well as in science and art. But no other way is left to us of gaining an insight in this culture, than to search the country perseveringly for the purpose of disclosing the monuments, hidden in the ground or enviously concealed by the primeval vegetation, that now reigns alone in many of those places, which were formerly occupied by populous and flourishing cities, and artistically ornamented temples.
By comparing these monuments with those of Mexican culture, somewhat better known in certain respects, we may hope finally to arrive at the solution of some of the intricate problems concerning the ancient nations of Central America and their history.
The antiquities figured by me were found for the greatest part in the [island of Zapatera], the rock-carvings in the islet of Ceiba close to Zapatera, only some few ceramic objects are from the island of Ometepec. All these localities are contained within the territory occupied by the Niquirans, and on this account may probably be considered as specimens of Aztec art, or of an art very closely related to this. Those few statues that I have seen in the neighbourhood of Granada and in Las Isletas immediately off Granada, as well as the statues and high-reliefs in the little volcanic island of Momotombito in Lake Managua, the former belonging probably to los Dirianos, the latter to los Nagrandanos, appear to me to be much more rudely executed, without any attempt to copy the human body; whereas many of the statues of Zapatera testify to a pretty accurate study of the human body, often presenting faithfully elaborated muscle portions etc., so as to make it probable that the Niquiran artists used models. There certainly are found rather fantastic figures even among these statues, but in general their originators prove to be artists of a more realistic conception, and at the same time of more developed technics than the Chorotegan artists. From the monuments etc. found farther northwards at Copan, Quiriguá, Uxmal, Palenque, and other places in Central America, the works here described differ most considerably, indeed so much that it is not easy to point out more than a few common artistic features.
With the exception of the meagre notices, communicated by Oviedo and Cerezeda and their compilers, the source of our knowledge of Nicaraguan antiquities is E. G. Squier’s interesting work «Nicaragua: its people, scenery, monuments and the proposed interoceanic canal». After Squier some other American investigators have followed in the road opened by him; Dr. Earl Flint of Rivas has during many years searched for and collected antiquities, partly in the Department of Rivas, partly in the island of Ometepec. I am obliged to Dr. Flint for much valuable information on the present subject, kindly communicated to me, when I had the pleasure of meeting with him at Rivas in January 1883. He has sent the collections gradually brought together by himself, to the Smithsonian Institution. In «Archæological researches in Nicaragua»[4] Dr. J. F. Bransford gives a highly interesting description of his researches in Ometepec, where he made a large collection of grave-urns, other vessels of pottery, and smaller relics of stone and metal. He occupied himself principally in investigating burying-places on the west side of the island and he has thrown a new light on this part of Niquiran archæology. His very large collection, of 788 numeros, is deposited in the collections of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. He has also figured several rock-carvings from Ometepec; these seem to be a little ruder and less complicated than those delineated by me from the island of Ceiba. Dr. Bransford also describes several ancient relics from Talmac, San Juan del Sur in the department of Rivas, and some localities in Nicoya, in the republic of Costa Rica. From a linguistic point of view Dr. Berendt[5] has given very valuable contributions to our knowledge of the ancient civilisation of Nicaragua by his sharp-sighted and successful investigations into the Indian idioms of that country and into those of Mexico and of the northern parts of Central America.
In the night of the New-Year’s-eve 1882-1883 I arrived at Ometepec from Granada, and took up my head-quarters at the little borough of Muyogalpa, in the north-west corner of the island. From this point excursions were made in different directions, and, although my time was pretty severely taxed by zoological researches, I found however some opportunities of undertaking archæological diggings.
Hardly one kilometer to the west of the burying-place examined by Dr. Bransford, a symmetrical mound, rising one meter and a half above the ground, was dug through (Station 1). It contained a little bowl, pieces of a larger urn of an unusual thickness, feet and fragments of a tripod vase, and a little bronze figure of a saint, the last one evidently a foreign guest among the other objects. At Los Angeles (Stat. 2) two statues, both very badly frayed, were measured and sketched; some insignificant fragments of pottery were digged out. At a bay (Stat. 3) on the north side, between Muyogalpa and Alta Gracia, in a place said by the Indians to have formerly been a town, fragments of divers small pottery, two stone chisels, one «molidor», and perforated and polished shells of a species of Oliva and a species of Voluta, from the neighboring coast of the Pacific, were dug out. In a valley, or rather ravine (Stat. 4), near Alta Gracia, where a heap of pretty large, partly cut stones seemed to indicate the site of a large building, several fragments of pottery were found together with a cup of earthen ware, and a well preserved little sitting image of painted terra cotta, pretty similar to that figured by Bransford, l. c., p. 59. At a height of nearly 350 m. above the level of the lake on the west side of the majestically beautiful volcanic cone (Stat. 5), while digging in a rather extensive stone-mound, a very pretty, vaulted earthen urn with lid, painted in three colours, was found, and, besides, a great many fragments of pottery. I made excavations also at six other places in Ometepec, for inst. in the isthmus between Ometepec and Madera, but without any results worthy of record.
I stayed in this charming double-island for more than a month, roving through it on horse-back and on foot in all directions, ascending the volcano, rowing and sailing over the delightful lagoons and bays, that border its shores, and amongst which I shall late forget that very paradise for the hunter, Laguna de Santa Rosa and Charco Verde. Having left Ometepec about the beginning of February, my next visit was to «tierra firme», where I made some easily executed, but not very successful excavations, immediately to the north of San Jorge. From Departemento de Rivas’ I sailed to Las Isletas, also called Los Corales, an extremely beautiful little archipelago, just southwards of Granada. The whole group owes its existence to the volcano Mombacho, which towers high above it, the islands consisting exclusively of the remains of one or more eruptions of Mombacho. But the vegetation here is so powerful and luxuriant, that it has changed those piles of black stones into smiling islands, which the traveller is never tired of admiring. Only on the outside of the archipelago, where the often angry lake of Nicaragua has checked the development of the verdant cover, the black, gloomy basalt is still open to the view, lashed by white-foaming waves. In several of the islets statues were measured and delineated, but unfortunately the photographic apparatus could not be used on this occasion. After a stay of some days among Las Isletas and a short visit to Granada for the purpose of completing my photographic outfit, I set sail for Zapatera. On my arrival I encamped for a long time on the playa of Bahia de Chiquero. Along the playa of the semi-circular bay there are now five houses, the homes of as many families, being the only inhabitants at the present time of this large and fertile island, which was, no doubt, formerly populated by many thousands of Niquirans, possessing rich towns and splendid temples. The islet of Ceiba is situated off Bahia de Chiquero (see map 2). According to my opinion, Zapatera is certainly a volcanic island, but in this manner, that its north-western part is the summit of a sunken volcanic cone, Bahia de Chiquero being the crater itself, the narrow, elevated mountain ridge which surrounds the bay, forming the edge of the crater and the islet of Ceiba the continuation of this edge, Laguna de Apoyo, situated scarcely one kilometer from the shore, may then be regarded as a side-crater.