﻿136 FIELD AND FOREST. 



Fig. 5 is that from which the design, Fig. 3, is copied. The tumid 

 legs of this vessel are hollow and contain small pebbles, making a 

 rattling sound. The elongated handles were often made into whistles, 

 with three or more apertures for varying {he sound. 



The stratum of graves nearest the surface, regarded as that of the 

 third period, commences previous to the Spanish invasion, and con- 

 tinued down to quite a recent time. It is strongly marked by greater 

 and more refined works of buildings, sculptures, inscriptions, pottery, 

 metal ornaments chiefly of gold, and glass beads, the latter being a 

 proof of intercourse with foreign nations. The great pyramidal 

 mounds, encased with stone, belong to this period ; also the hiero- 

 glyphic inscriptions, as yet undeciphered, the life-size images or idols, 

 sculptured in hard vesicular lava, well glazed and ornamental pottery, 

 traces ot plaited or textile fabrics, copper beads, supposed to have been 

 molded, small idols of gold wire made by soldering into a sort of filagree 

 work, and showing much artistic skill and social refinement. The 

 glass beads are of a very ancient pattern, being made of concentric 

 layers of red, blue and white enamel, a cross section of which exhibits 

 a star shaped figure ; as far as we are advised they are not now man- 

 ufactured. The stone beads are of turquoise or of a greenish shade, and 

 are made by rubbing down the stone into rounded pellets, and perfor- 

 ating them for stringing by an art, which, considering the means at 

 their command, has not been discovered. Clay beads, of three-fourths 

 of an inch long were made by rolling the material around a thread and 

 when burned, lefi ?he neeessary bore for the string. The handles and 

 legs or other projecting parts of their fictile wares were molded to rep- 

 resent the animals of their country, monkey, parrot, tiger and others, 

 but often so grotesquely distorted that the design is undecipherable- 



The people who dwelt on the shores and islands of the Lake Nicar- 

 agua belonged to the nation of Chorotegas, and they set up a centre of 

 civilization which ramified for a long distance up and down the coast. 

 The Spanish writers learned from existing traditions that they were 

 closely related to the Chiapas, occupying one of the more northern 

 states of Mexico, from the table lands of which they emigrated. One 

 of their names, Chapanecas, would seem to confirm this, being so- 

 called after a bird held sacred among them, the chapa or macaw. A 

 portion of them were derived from the ancient city of Cholula, which 

 gave them the name of Cholutecas, easily corrupted into Chorotegas, 



