V.
THE ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS.
Colonel George Earl Church says in regard to the Indians: “There are many indications that Costa Rica was once the debatable ground between the powerful Mexican invader and the warlike Caribs of northern South America.”
“The Caribs were a tall, muscular, copper colored race who, when the New World was discovered, occupied the coast from the mouth of the River Orinoco to that of the River Amazon, and stretched inland over all the half-drowned districts and far up the valley of the Orinoco. Their nomadic spirit led them to the conquest of many of the Windward Islands, and, I am disposed to believe, urged them to invade all the countries bordering the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico having estuaries and rivers which could be penetrated by their war canoes. These carried from twenty-five to one hundred men each and were of sufficient size to make long voyages.”
Along all the Caribbean coast districts of Yucatan, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Chiriqui, and throughout the province of Panamá, the Carib has left traces of his presence.
It is evident that an offshoot of the highland Mexican race pressed south and east from Chiapas, Mexico, into and through the long strip of the Pacific coast occupied by the Chorotegas or Mangues, followed the Pacific slope of the Cordilleras and the narrow space between Lake Nicaragua and the Ocean, penetrated into northwestern Costa Rica, settled and helped the Mangues to develop a considerable civilization in the district of Guanacaste and Nicoya, and in part subdued all the volcanic region lying north and west of the valley of the River Reventazon.
It is notable that inhabitants of volcanic countries crowd around the slopes of its volcanoes, due probably to the fertilizing quality of the ejected ash.
The Mexicans have left abundant traces of their language in Costa Rica, especially throughout its northern half. Many of their words are now in common use and incorporated into the Spanish spoken there. Notably such words occur in the names of plants, animals and geographical localities.
In 1569 the Adelantado Peráfan de Rivera made an elaborate detailed enumeration of the Indians and found their total number to be 25,000.
Mr. M. de Peralta says the Nahuas (Aztecs) and Mangues (Chorotegas), Güetares, Viceitas, Térrabas, Changuenes, Guaymies, Quepos, Cotos and Borucas were the principal people who occupied the territory of Costa Rica at the time of the conquest. The Nahuas came from the north, and if the Mangues did not go from Chiapas, it is necessary to infer that from the Gulf of Nicoya and the shores of the lakes of Nicaragua and Managua they extended to the south of Mexico, where, up to a few years ago, their language was spoken at Acalá.
The Mangues, or Chorotegas, at the time of the Mexican invasion, occupied the peninsula of Nicoya and all the lands surrounding the gulf of that name. They were then, no doubt, the most powerful and advanced people in Costa Rica, and carried some of their arts, such as pottery, sculpture, weaving, and tilling the ground, to greater perfection than any people occupying the region between their territory and that of the Chibcas on the table-land of Colombia. In their graves are found gold ornaments and specimens of the ceramic art showing taste in design superior to any that the present civilized Costa Rican Indian can manufacture. These graves also contain beautiful specimens of obsidian, greenstone and even finely wrought jade tools and jade ornaments, knives, axes, arrowheads, amulets, rings and a multitude of stone idols, seats, etc. The Mangues appear to have manufactured gold extensively into jewelry.