496 BRINTON — ETHNIC AFFINITIES OF THE GUETARES. [Dec. 3, 



THE ETHNIC AFFINITIES OF THE GUETARES OF 

 COSTA RICA. 



BY DANIEL G. BRINTQN, M.D. 



{Read December 3, 1897 ) 



The Guetares, or Huetares, of Costa Rica, included various 

 tribes speaking related dialects now believed to be wholly extinct. 

 They dwelt on the lofty plateau of the interior, in the vicinity of 

 Cartago and San Jose de Costa Rica, and for that reason received 

 their name from their Nahuatl neighbors, which is a corruption of 

 the Nahuatl uei tlalli, great land (Peralta). 



They were a people of no mean culture, as the fine examples of 

 worked gold ornaments and deftly carved stones obtained from 

 their sepulchres and exhibited at the Madrid and Chicago exhibi- 

 tions testify. Many of the best specimens now in the Museum of 

 Costa Rica were collected from these interments by the director, 

 Senor Anastasio Alfaro. 



These remains justify the description of Juan Vasquez de Coro- 

 nado, who was among them in 1562. He depicts them as of active 

 intelligence, war-like in disposition, tall and well built, wearing 

 cotton clothes skillfully woven, and having in their possession much 

 gold. From other sources we learn that they were celebrated among 

 the surrounding nations for their mitotes, sacred songs and dances ; 

 and that they were accustomed to make human sacrifices at the 

 burial of important individuals.^ 



But where the Guetares belonged in the linguistic classification of 

 American tribes has up to the present been an unsolved problem. 



Writing in 1890, M. Alphonse Pinart asks: ''In Costa Rica, 

 those tribes called Guetares, who dwelt at first on the southern 

 declivity of the Sierra and were driven thence by the invading 

 Nahuas, were they not related to the Carib family of the southern 

 continent?"^ And in 1893, Manuel de Peralta, in his excellent study 

 of Costa Rican ethnography, observes, ''It is almost impossible to 

 ascertain the ethnic affinities of the Guetares, since no vocabulary of 

 their language has been found ; but archaeology shows that if they 



1 See M. de Peralta, Costa Rica, Nicaragua y Panama en el Siglo xvi, pp. 762^ 

 770 (Madrid, 1883). 



'^ Pinart, Limite des Civilizaiions dans l' hthme A?nericain (Paris, 1S90). 



