Another lava boulder similarly incised found in the parish of San Miguel is pronounced by Mr Squier, from the examination of a drawing, to resemble stones seen by him in other parts of Central America. I copy Seemann's cuts of several of the characters.[II-4] The second class includes a few stone columns, some of them ten or twelve feet high, found at David and in Veragua as well. These seem never to have been seen in situ, but scattered and sometimes used for building purposes by the present inhabitants. Their peculiarity is that the characters engraved on their surface are entirely different from those of the Piedra Pintal, being smaller and cut in low relief. Drawings of these possibly hieroglyphic signs, by which to compare them with those of Copan, Palenque, and Yucatan, are not extant. The third class comprises the huacas, or tombs, a large number of which have been opened, and a variety of deposited articles brought to light. The tombs themselves are of two kinds. Those of the first kind are mere pebble-heaps, or mounds, three or four feet high, and the only articles taken from them are three-legged stones for grinding corn, known in all Spanish America as metates. The other graves have rude boxes or coffins of flat stones, with, in a few instances, rude stone posts several feet in height. Graves of this class are found to contain golden ornaments, with trinkets and implements of stone and burned clay. In most of them no traces of human remains are met; and when human bones do occur, they usually crumble to dust on exposure to the air, one skull, however, described as broad in the middle and flat behind, having been secured, and a plaster cast exhibited to the American Ethnological Society.[II-5]
POTTERY OF CHIRIQUÍ.
The golden ornaments taken from the huacas of Chiriquí amount to many thousands of dollars in value. They are of small size, never exceeding a few inches in either dimension, are all cast and never soldered, and take the shape of men, animals, or birds. One represents a man holding a bird in each hand, with another on his forehead. The gold is described by Dr Davis as being from ten to twenty carats fine, with some copper alloy; but by another party the alloy is pronounced silver.[II-6] Of stone are found ornaments, such as round agates pierced in the middle; weapons, including axes, chisel-heads, and arrow-heads, the latter of peculiar make, being pyramidal in form, with four cutting edges converging to a point, and in some instances apparently intended to fit loosely into a socket on the shaft; images, perhaps idols, in the shape of animals or men, but these are of comparatively rare occurrence;[II-7] and various articles of unknown use. One of the latter dug up at Bugabita is described as a "horizontal tablet, supported on ornamented legs, and terminating in the head of a monster—all neatly carved from a single stone," being twenty inches long, eight inches high, and weighing twenty-five pounds. Another was conjectured to have served for grinding paints.[II-8] Articles of burned clay are more numerous in the huacas than those of other material. Small vases, jars, and tripods, some of the latter having their three legs hollow and containing small earthen balls which rattle when the vessels are moved, with musical instruments, compose this class of relics. The earthen ware has no indication of the use of the potter's wheel; is found both glazed and unglazed; is painted in various colors, which, however, are not burned in, but are easily rubbed off when moist; and many of the articles are wholly uninjured by time. The specimens, or some part of each, are almost invariably molded to imitate some natural object, and the fashioning is often graceful and true to nature. Perhaps the most remarkable of these earthen specimens, and indeed of all the Chiriquí antiquities, are the musical wind-instruments, or whistles. These are of small dimensions, rarely exceeding four inches in length or diameter, with generally two but sometimes three or four finger-holes, producing from two to six notes of the octave. No two are exactly alike in form, but most take the shape of an animal or man, the mouth-hole being in the tail of the tiger and bird, in the foot of the peccary, in the elbow of the human figure. Some have several air-cavities with corresponding holes to produce the different notes, but in most, the holes lead to one cavity. One had a loose ball in its interior, whose motion varied the sounds. Several are blown like fifes, and nearly all have a hole apparently intended for suspending the instrument by a string.[II-9] Other antiquities are reported to exist at various points of the Isthmus, which white men have never seen; instance a rocking stone in the mountains of Veragua.[II-10]
I close my somewhat scanty information concerning the antiquities of Chiriquí with the general remarks which their examination has elicited from different writers. Whiting and Shuman speak of the sculptured columns of Muerto Island as being similar to those in Yucatan described by Stephens;[II-11] but it is hardly probable that this opinion rests on an actual comparison of the hieroglyphics. Dr Merritt deems the axe or chisel heads almost identical in form as well as material with specimens dug up in Suffolk County, England; some of the same implements resemble those seen by Mr Squier in actual use among the natives of other parts of Central America; while the arrow-heads and musical instruments are pronounced different in some respects from any others known, either ancient or modern. The incised characters represented in the cut on [page 17], together with many others, if we may believe Mr Seemann, have a striking resemblance to those of Northumberland, England, as shown by Mr Tate.[II-12] In some of the terra cottas, a likeness to vessels of Roman, Grecian, and Etruscan origin has been noted; the golden figures, in the opinion of Messrs Squier and May, being like those found further south in the country of the ancient Muiscas.[II-13]
One point bearing on the antiquity of the Chiriquí relics is the wearing away by the weather of the incised sculptures, which appear to Mr Seemann to belong to a more ancient, less advanced civilization than those in low relief.[II-14] Another is the disappearance as a rule of human remains, which, however, as Dr Torrey remarks,[II-15] cannot in this climate and soil be regarded as an indication of great age; and, moreover, against the theory of a remote origin of these relics, and in favor of the supposition that all may be the work of the not distant ancestors of the people found by the Spaniards in possession of the country, we have the fact that gold figures similar to those found in the huacas were made, worn, and traded by the natives of the Isthmus at the time of its discovery and conquest;[II-16] that the animals so universally imitated in all objects whether of gold, stone, or clay, are all native to the country, with no trace of any effort to copy anything foreign; and that similar clay is still employed in the manufacture of rude pottery.[II-17]
COSTA RICAN RELICS.
Costa Rica, adjoining Chiriquí on the west, is the first or most southern of the states which belong politically to North America, all the Isthmus provinces forming a part of Colombia, a state of the southern continent. Stretching from ocean to ocean with an average width of ninety miles, it extends north-westward in general terms some two hundred miles from the Boca del Drago and Golfo Dulce to the Rio de San Juan and the southern shores of Lake Nicaragua in 11° north latitude. Few as are the aboriginal monuments reported to exist within these limits, still fewer are those actually examined by travelers.
Terra Cottas from the Graves of Costa Rica.