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78 



APPENDIX No II. 



New York, December 2, 1850. 



My Dear Sir: The ship " Brewster" has just arrived from the Pacific, 

 bringing six monuments in addition to those which I shipped via. San Juan 

 de Nicaragua, for the Institution, and which I have directed to be imme- 

 diately forwarded to Washington. I shall avail myself of the opportunity 

 afforded by my proposed visit to the Capital in January next, to number 

 and catalogue both these and the other Central American relics which I 

 have already sent. In the meantime, I am unable to refer to the indi- 

 vidual figures and objects in an intelligible manner. I may nevertheless 

 observe that the finer specimens of Aboriginal Art, which I discovered in 

 Nicaragua, were of too large size to be removed under present circum- 

 stances. Should the steamers which have been sent out succeed in ascend- 

 ing the San Juan, and entering lake Nicaragua, some of the monuments 

 which exist on the islands in that lake, might be obtained without much 

 difiSculty, and would constitute very interesting and important features in 

 the proposed Smithsonian collection of American antiquities. Two of the 

 statues which I have sent to the Institution, one from the island of Zapa- 

 tero, in lake Nicaragua, w^here once existed one of the most imposing 

 aboriginal temples of the country. Here, amongst the ruins of the teocalli 

 or high places of the former inhabitants, I found fifteen entire statues, be- 

 sides the fragments of many others ; several broken sacrificial stones, &c. 

 I was unable to remove but two of the smallest and rudest, but I have ac- 

 curate drawings of all. The largest statue amongst those which I have 

 sent you, and which is carved in black basalt, was obtained from the 

 island of Momotombita, in lake Managua, where there seems also to have 

 been a temple or sacred place. The figure with the sphynx like head dress 

 is also from the same locality, whence a great number of sculptures have 

 been taken at various times, and planted at the corners of the streets in the 

 towns, or sent abroad. Within the recollection of persons now living, 

 there were some twenty or thirty of these figures existing at one place on 

 the island, arranged in the form of a square, the faces looking inward. 

 One or two of the other statues were dug up for me by the Indians of the 

 Pueblo of Subtiaba near Leon, having been buried for a great number of 

 years, and the locality carefully concealed. They are somewhat mutilated, 

 showing in their broken features, the zeal of the priests who followed in the 

 armies of Gil Gonzalez de Avila and Cordova. A small group of these 

 monuments exists in the depths of the forest midway between Leon and 

 the Pacific, which is still secretly visited by the Indians, for the perform- 

 ance of dances and other rites pertaining to their primitive religion. 



These monuments, but particularly those which exist in and around lake 

 Nicaragua, and which, as works of art, are superior to those found else- 

 where, are of high value in an archreological point of view, because they 

 furnish conclusive collateral evidence of the truth of the statement of 

 Oviedo, (who visited Nicaragua in 1529,) that a large part of the inhabi- 

 tants of the country were Mexicans, i. e. of the same stock with the 

 Aztecs and the other nations inhabiting the valley of Anahuac. I was 



