§ 1. _The Nahuas and Mangues of Nicaragua._
Among the outlying colonies of that important people whose chief
seat was in the Valley of Mexico, and who are variously known as
Aztecs, Mexicans or Nahuas, were several in Central America. "One of
these," writes Mr. Squier, "occupied the principal islands in the
Lake of Nicaragua, the narrow isthmus which intervenes between that
lake and the Pacific, and probably a portion of the country to the
southward, as far as the gulf of Nicoya. Their country was less than
a hundred miles long, by twenty-five broad; yet here they preserved
the same language and institutions, and practiced the same religious
rites, with the people of the same stock who dwelt more than two
thousand miles distant, on the plateau of Anahuac, from whom they
were separated by numerous powerful nations, speaking different
languages, and having distinct organizations."[1]
This Nahuatl tribe gave the name to the Province, _Nicaragua_, this
being, according to some early authorities, the personal appellation
of their chief at the epoch of their discovery, in 1522, and,
according to others, their national name.[2] For no sufficient
reasons, Mr. Squier applied to them the term _Niquirans_, and Dr.
Berendt _Nicaraos_, but it seems better to retain, as distinctive
for them, the name _Nicaraguans_, or, more specifically, "the Nahuas
of Nicaragua." "Nicaragua" is undoubtedly a Nahuatl word, but, as
the letter _r_ is not found in that language, the precise original
form is uncertain. Father Francisco Vasquez explained it as a
compound of the Nahuatl _nican_, "here," and _anahuacos_, "here
dwell those from Anahuac;"[3] or it may be from _nican_ and _nahua_
(plural form of _nahuatl_), "here dwell those speaking the Nahuatl
tongue;" or, as a personal name of a chief, it may be _ni
calaquiya_, "I entered into, or took possession."
How it happened that this fragment of the Aztec nation had become
detached from the main body and resident so far from its central
seat, has not been clearly explained. Mr. Squier and some others
have maintained the hypothesis that the migration of all the Aztec
tribes was from south to north, and that their scattered members in
Central America were bands which had stopped on the road.[4] This
opinion, however, is refuted by the evidence of language, and also
by the unanimous traditions of the Aztecs themselves, both in
Nicaragua and in Mexico.
The Nicaraguans had a very positive recollection that their
ancestors came from Mexico, driven forth by scarcity of food, and
that they wandered along the Pacific shore to the locality in which
the Spaniards found them.[5] They remembered the names of their
ancient home, or, rather, of their ancient kindred, and gave them as
_Ticomega_ and _Maguateca_, locating them toward the west ("hacia
donde se pone el sol"). It is easy to recognize in these words the
Aztec terminations signifying _gens_ or tribe, _mecatl_ and
_tecatl_, which in the plural drop the _tl_. Nor can we be far wrong
in identifying _magua_ with the Aztec _maque_, upper, above, and
_tico_ with _tiachcauh_, elder brother, and in translating these
names, the one as "the upper people," _i. e._, the dwellers on the
lofty interior plateau, and "our elder brothers," _i. e._, the
senior and ranking clans of their tribe, who remained in Anahuac.[6]
Besides these traditions, the Nicaraguans showed their close
relationship to the Aztecs by a substantial identity of language,
mythology, religious rites, calendars, manners and customs. We have,
fortunately, an unusual mass of information about them, from an
examination of their leading men by the chaplain Francisco de
Bobadilla, in 1528, who took down their replies with as much
accuracy as we could expect, and whose narrative has been preserved
by the historian Oviedo. They also had retained a knowledge of the
Mexican hieroglyphics, and wrote, in books of paper and parchment,
their laws and ritual, their calendars and the boundaries of their
lands.[7]
While this Aztec band thus acknowledged themselves to be intruders,
such appears not to have been the case with their immediate
neighbors to the northeast and southwest. These were of one blood
and language, and called themselves _mánkeme_, rulers, masters,
which the Spaniards corrupted into _Mangues_.[8] The invading Aztecs
appear to have split this ancient tribe into two fractions, the one
driven toward the south, about the Gulf of Nicoya, the other
northward, on and near Lake Managua, and beyond it on Fonseca
Bay.[9] Probably in memory of this victory, the Nicaraguans applied
to them the opprobrious name _Chololteca_, "those driven out," from
the Nahuatl verb _choloa_, and the suffix _tecatl_, which was
corrupted by the Spanish to _Chorotecas_.[10]
The name does not by any means intimate that the Mangues came from
Cholula in Mexico, as some ancient, and some modern, writers have
hastily supposed;[11] nor is it a proof that they spoke an Aztec
dialect, as Ternaux Compans has asserted.[12] So far is this from
being the case, the Mangue has no sort of affinity with the Nahuatl,
and must stand wholly asunder from it in the classification of
American tongues. It has, indeed, a relative to the north, and a
close one, the Chapanec or Chiapenec,[13] spoken by the inhabitants
of three small villages in Chiapas, the largest of which has given
its name to the province. These Chapanecs, by their traditions,
still clearly remembered at the time of the Conquest, and preserved
by the historian Remesal, migrated from Nicaragua to their more
northern home. As they had no connection with the Aztecs, so, also,
they were wholly without affinities with the great Maya stock, which
extended far and wide over Central America, although the contrary
has been recently stated.[14] In fact, among the five different
languages which were spoken in the present province of Nicaragua at
the time of the discovery, not one belonged to any branch of the
Maya group.[15]
My present theme does not extend to a discussion of these various
tongues, nor take me further into the ethnology of their locality.
It has to do solely with these two nations, the Nicaraguans and the
Mangues. The culture-level of the former was nearly as high as that
found in the Valley of Mexico. They had a settled government,
constructed edifices of stone, sculptured idols, utensils and
ornaments out of the same material, were skilled in ceramics, deft
in weaving cotton cloth and reed or grass mats, able in war, and
thoughtful enough to puzzle their first European visitors with
questions as to the stars and the earth, the beginning and the end
of things.[16] Careful archaeologists in our own day have searched
the territory they inhabited, and many museums contain specimens of
what they accomplished in the direction of the arts, and testify to
a respectable degree of intellectual advancement.[17]
We know less about the Mangues. They are mentioned as differing in
religious rites from the Nicaraguans, and the impression is conveyed
that they were in a more primitive condition, but yet with fair
claims to be ranked among the cultivated nations of the new world.
Among them, in fact, Dr. Berendt located one of the "centres of
ancient American civilization," and considered the definite solution
of their affiliations as one of the problems of the first order in
the ethnology of America.[18] The Spanish historians relate that
they had hieroglyphic books, like the Mexicans; that they were
rather light in color, careful in dress, setting much store by their
long hair, which they sedulously combed, and had an autocratic
military government. Their country was thickly peopled, especially
that portion of it between the lakes. The district of Managua was
almost like a continuous town, so closely were the native houses
placed together for nearly ten miles. In fact, it was called one
city by the earliest explorers, and Oviedo, who takes pains to
criticise these for their tendency to exaggeration, estimated the
population of this limited district, at the time of the Conquest, at
forty thousand souls.[19]
At present, scarcely any pure-blood remnants of either of these
nations can be found, and both languages are practically extinct.
When Mr. Squier visited Nicaragua, in 1850, he obtained, with great
difficulty, a short vocabulary of the Nahuatl dialect, spoken on the
island of Ometepec, in Lake Nicaragua; and, in 1874, Dr. Berendt,
only at the cost of repeated efforts, succeeded in securing from a
few survivors of advanced ages a moderately full collection of
Mangue words and sentences.[20]
[Illustration: MAP OF THE LOCATION OF THE NAHUAS OF NICARAGUA AND
THEIR NEIGHBORS.]
To illustrate the practical identity of the Nahuatl of Nicaragua
with that of Anahuac, and the Mangue of Nicaragua with that of
Chiapas, I will insert two short lists of common words with their
equivalents in those four dialects. The first is from Mr. Squier's
works above referred to, the second from the manuscripts of Dr.
Berendt now in my possession.
_Comparison of the Nahuatl of Nicaragua and of Mexico._