276 ‘The Naturalist in Nicaragua 
Pizarro would be execrated as a monster of cruelty, and 
even the fame of Cortez, immeasurably superior as he was 
to the rest of the conquerors, would be tarnished with 
innumerable deeds of violence, cruelty, and treachery. 
As has been already mentioned, the Pacific provinces 
of Nicaragua were inhabited by a people closely related 
to the Mexicans, and their language was nearly the same. 
According to Squier, who has more than any other traveller 
studied the different races, the Indians living at the island 
of Omutépec at the present time are of pure Mexican or 
Aztec stock. So many of the names of towns in the central 
provinces are also of Aztec origin, that they must have had 
a considerable footing there also. They called the older 
inhabitants, whom they had probably dispossessed and driven 
back to the interior, “ Chontalli,” ‘‘ barbarians,’”’ and hence 
the name of the province of Chontales, where these tribes 
still existed in considerable numbers at the time of the 
conquest. 
All these races, differing as they did in language and in 
the degree of civilisation at which they had arrived, were 
closely affiliated.1 The American archeologist, Mr. John 
D. Baldwin, is of opinion that they were the descendants 
of indigenes. That at some very remote period, before they 
had attained a high degree of civilisation, they separated 
into two branches, one of which occupied Peru, the other 
Central America and Mexico. Both branches advanced 
greatly in civilisation, and both afterwards deteriorated by 
being conquered by ruder but more warlike people belonging 
to the same stock. From Mexico the ancient people spread 
northward and southward. The northern emigrants peopled 
the banks of the Mississippi, and were the mound-builders. 
The southern emigrants peopled Central America. Then 
came an immigration from the far north-west, of nomadic 
tribes from north-eastern Asia, who drove out the mound- 
builders. The latter retreated back to Mexico, that their 
fathers had left ages before, and were the ancient Toltecs. 
Later on, the Aztecs, who were the southern branch of the 
ancient Mexicans, invaded Mexico from the south, and 
1 According to Prescott the Aztecs and cognate races believed their 
ancestors came from the north-west, and were preceded by the real 
civilisers—the Toltecs. 
