36 COLUMBIAN HISTORICAL EXPOSITION AT MADRID. 



Guatemala, they were far superior to the wild hunting hordes who 

 roamed the district between Lake Nicaragua and the ocean to the 

 north. They manufactured pottery of fine character, and were skillful 

 in the art of polishing, boring, and chipping stone. Their hoiises were 

 usually of wood thatched with straw ; they apparently had none built 

 of stone and were unacquainted with metals. 



Their neighbors, the Nicaraos, whose chief seat was upon the ^orth- 

 ern neck of land between Lake Nicaragua and the Pacific Ocean, and 

 who also occupied several islands in the lake, were of Nahuatl descent, 

 and spoke a language which was a quite pure dialect of the tongue of 

 the Aztecs in the Valley of Mexico. 



As will be mentioned under the Republic of Costa Eica, their arrival 

 in this part of Central America was probably not more than a century 

 before the Spaniards reached the same district. The Nicaraos brought 

 with them the developed culture of the Aztecs, and erected an impor 

 tant temple on one of the islands in the lake in which they set up the 

 stone images of their ancestral gods. A restoration of this temple is 

 referred to in this report under the Swedish department. 



Keverting to the objects exhibited by the Republic of Nicaragua, we 

 find among them an extensive series of articles in pottery in the form 

 of urns, dishes, plates, cups, whistles, flutes, figures of men and animals, 

 symbolic and fantastic representations, and many fragments of handles 

 and feet indicative of their artistic character. Many of these speci 

 mens of Nicaraguan pottery offer a facing of white clay adorned with 

 figures in red and black. The ornamentation is frequently elaborate 

 and the paintings often disclose considerable spirit. Quite a number 

 have three feet in the form of the human head or that of animals, hollow, 

 and containing a small ball of clay, dried and loose, so that in moving 

 the vessel, it emits a slight sound. 



The funerary urns from this part of the continent are noticeable from 

 their abundance, their size, and their peculiar shape. On account of 

 the latter they are usually known as &quot; shoe-shaped&quot; urns, their form 

 being vaguely similar to that of a shoe or gaiter. In these receptacles 

 the bones were placed after the body had been destroyed by fire, or by 

 exposure for a considerable time in moist earth. The urn is sometimes 

 molded to represent the head of an animal, as in Nos. 48, 344, and 432 of 

 this collection, and others. 



A series of human figures in various colors (often rather rudely out 

 lined, representing both sexes), in the collection of Mr. Gavinet, would 

 appear to have been for religious purposes, probably gods of the house 

 hold. 



Industry in stone is displayed by arrow and lance heads, chisels, axes, 

 pounders, clubs, millstones, mortars, arid rude figures. One of these 

 objects, No. 1162, is what has been called a &quot; pulp-pounder,&quot; and by 

 some is supposed to have been employed in the manufacture of pottery. 

 A further description of these somewhat puzzling implements is given 

 in Science, referred to on p. 31 . 



