Idols of Zapatero.—Fig. 5.
Idols of Zapatero.—Fig. 6.
Fig. 5 represents a statue which, with its pedestal, is over twelve feet high. The well-carved head of a monster, two feet eight inches broad, surmounts the head of a seated human form, a common device in the fashioning of Nicaraguan gods. A peculiarity of this monument is that the arms are detached from the sides at the elbows; free-sculptured limbs being of rare occurrence in American aboriginal carvings. Fig. 6 is a slab three by five feet, bearing a human figure cut in high relief, the only sculpture of this kind discovered in Nicaragua. The tongue appears to hang upon the breast, and the eyes are merely two round holes. Fig. 7, on the following page, represents a crouching human form, on whose back is a tiger or other wild beast grasping the head in its jaws, a favorite method among these southern Nahua nations of representing in stone and clay the characteristics of what are presumably intended as beings to be worshiped. The expression of the features in the human face is described by Mr Squier as differing from any of the others found in this group. This idol and the following, with many other curious monuments of antiquity obtained by the same explorer, are now in the museum of the Smithsonian Institution at Washington.
Idols of Zapatero.—Fig. 7.
Fig. 8 is carved on a slab five feet long and eighteen inches wide, representing a person who holds to his abdomen what seems to be a mask or a human face.
Fig. 9 is of very rude execution and seemingly represents a human figure wearing an animal mask, which is itself surmounted by another human face. Two small cup-shaped smoothly cut holes are also noted in the head-dress. Fig. 10 is a stone three feet and a half high, but slightly modified by the sculptor's art, which gave some semblance of the human form.