ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCHES IN NICARAGUA. 81 



Attempts at the painting of natural objects are not noticed except in the rude 

 faces and the monkey-like figures. Considering the activity and enterprise of 

 the Mexican merchants, it is probable that the art of contemporary people in 

 Nicaragua was influenced by the styles in vogue in Anahuac. The lack of this 

 influence on the Luna ware is, therefore, evidence that it was more ancient than 

 the Nahua civilization. The use of green stone increased as the Spaniards went 

 south into Colombia. The gold image from the burial urn is of the peculiar 

 workmanship found in Panama and Bogota, but, so far as I know, not seen north 

 of Nicaragua. Dr. Bcrendt informed me that the shoe-shaped urns were dis- 

 covered in Guatemala and in the interior of the United States of Colombia by 

 Professor Bastian, of Berlin. Burial in urns was a custom prevalent to a certain 

 extent throughout the northern portion of South America and the region drained 

 by the Amazon.* 



These facts, taken in connection with the absence of the enormous pyramids, 

 temples, and palaces, with the elaborate sculptures, picture-writing, and hiero- 

 glyphics of the north, indicate that, prior to the arrival of the Chorotegas in this 

 country, the people were more closely connected with the South Americans than 

 with the Nahuas and Mayas of Mexico and Guatemala. 



That the mounds were built prior to the time of the Aztecs of Santa Helena 

 and the Chorotegas is proved by the fact that they were found in the midst of 

 relics of these peoples, while the body of the mound, in each case, was free from 

 their remains. The shards of Santa Helena tcrra-cotta found in the mound at 

 Los Angeles were near the surface, and had evidently not been there prior to or 

 at the time of its erection. 



The pottery of the stone sepulchre was greatly inferior to that of the mounds. 



* Hartt in the American Naturalist. July, 1871. Page 259 et aeq. 



" D'Orbigny speaks of the large earthen vessels in which the dead of the tribe, Guaruyos, were buried," (in 

 Bolivia.) Notes on the Manufacture of Pottery among Savage Races, page 40. Ilartt. 



Franz Keller. The Madeira and the Amazon, page 40. 



Von Martius, in Beitragc zur Ethnographic und Sprachenkunde Amerikas, Vol. I, page 440, in speaking 

 of the Omaguas, says : " They also manufactured clay vessels of a large size, so that the corpses of their chiefs and 

 the heads of families could be buried in them in their huts. This belongs to those arts which cannot bo ascribed 

 to all tribes. Fragments of such burial vessels have been exhumed near Manaos (formerly Villa do Barro do 

 Rio Negro,) Fontaboa, Sapa on the Rio das Trombetas, and other localities along the principal streams.' 

 Page 177 : " The Tupis have no funeral monuments. They used to bury erect, in a sitting or squatting posture 

 thighs against the abdomen hands crossed under the chin over the breast, the bodies unencumbered, or in earthen 

 vessels. They raised no tumuli, and had no common burial places. The urns were quite simple and without 

 ornament, and were of baked reddish clay. They were buried shallow, and without special measures of 

 protection." 



In her work, " The Ceramic Art," Miss Young quotes Ewbauk on the burial urns ill Brazil, and figures one 



on page 414. 



Humboldl mentions burial urns in New Granada, in Vues des Cordillercs. 



In " Antiquities of the Southern Indians," page 456, Col. Chas. Jones describes the discovery of the bones 

 of a child in an earthen vessel in Georgia. 

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