[11] Torquemada appears to have been the first to make this guess; and it has recently been advocated by Dr. Valentini, The Olmecas and the Tultecas, p. 20 (Worcester, 1883), and was also sanctioned by Dr. Berendt.
[12] In a note to his translation of Oviedo's Nicaragua.
[13] The proper spelling is "Chapanec." It is not an Aztec word, but from the Mangue tongue, in which Chapa means the ara, or red macaw, their sacred bird. The name was derived from that of the lofty peak on which their principal town in Chiapas was situated—chapa niiu, the ara of fire.
[14] In Mr. Bancroft's Native Races of the Pacific States, Vol. V, p. 659.
[15] The contrary of this has been very positively stated by Dr. Valentini (ubi supra). The only evidence he brings forward is the word calachuni, for chieftain, applied by Gil Gonzalez to one of the rulers in Nicaragua. This is, no doubt, the Maya halach uinic, holy man, but Gonzalez wrote in 1522, and this word was adopted by the Spaniards in 1518, during Grijalva's expedition to Yucatan, as the accounts show, and was promiscuously applied, just as cacique, canoe, etc., from the Haytian dialect. A careful analysis of all the native words in Oviedo's account of Nicaragua does not show a single Maya affinity.
[16] The chief asked Gonzalez if, at the end of the world, the earth would be overturned, or would the sky fall? How large are the stars, why they move, and what keeps them in their courses? When, and how do the sun and moon change their brightness? Why is the night dark and the winter cold, since light and warmth are so much better? (Herrera, Decad. III, Lib. IV, cap. V.)
[17] The leading authorities on the antiquities of Nicaragua are E. G. Squier, Nicaragua, Its People, Scenery and Monuments, together with his numerous other works pertaining to Central America; and the reports of Dr. Earl Flint and Dr. J. F. Bransford, to the Smithsonian Institution. Dr. Habel and Dr. Berendt also made numerous investigations, but their reports have not appeared in adequate detail.
[18] See his essay, Remarks on the Centres of Ancient American Civilization in Central America, and their Geographical Distribution, in the Bulletin of the American Geog. Soc. No. 2, 1876.
[19] Historia General de las Indias, Lib. XLII, cap. V.
[20] The older writers have left scant information about these idioms. Oviedo preserved thirty or forty Nahuatl words, most of which have been analyzed by Buschman; and Benzoni, in a brief passage, notes the identity of the Nicaraguan and Mexican. "Chiamano li Signori Tutruane, il pane tascal, and le galline totoli, and occomaia tanto vuol dire como aspetta un poco e al infirmita mococoua and al ballare mitote." La Historia del Mondo Nuovo, p. 103. It is said that a Doctrina was printed in the Mangue; but the only work on that tongue I know of is the Apuntamientos de la Lengua Mangue, by Don Juan Eligio de la Rocha (MS. Masaya, 1842) a fragment of which is in my possession.