HARTMAN : ARCHEOLOGICAL RESEARCHES ON THE PACIFIC COAST OF COSTA RICA 5 
In the interior they had small benches called ‘‘duhos.” They used canoes and 
rafts of poles on the Gulf, making their living to a great extent by fishing. Oysters 
and other shell-fish were among their principal foods. The large flat shells of the 
pearl-oysters were inserted in double rows as oarblades and were also used as shov- 
els for work in the fields. They were great hunters, principally killing deer and 
wild hogs. They planted corn and beans of various kinds, and had large planta- 
tions of cacao and other fruit-trees. Cacao was copiously used at their feasts, being 
colored with the red seeds of the achiote, or arnotto (Bixa orellana Linneeus), so 
that it resembled blood. At the festivals an intoxicating beer of corn was also 
copiously used and the rolled leaves of tobacco were smoked. On the island of 
Chira it is especially mentioned that the Indians made ‘very fine pottery, as 
pitchers and plates, cups, vases, and other vessels, all beautifully shaped, black 
as fine velvet, highly polished, of jet lustre, well worthy to be used as gifts for 
princes.” 
All their villages in the middle had squares, or market-places, for the sale of 
commodities. On the squares near the sacrificial mound were erected their temples 
and small houses for the idols, of which they had a great number, made either of 
clay or wood. They set apart for their gods special festival-days, celebrated with 
dances and songs especially during the time of the cacao- and bean-harvests. In 
Nicoya, three times a year, on days considered as great festival-days, the cacique of 
Nicoya, his principal chiefs, and most of the people, both men and women, decked 
out with a great display of feathers, and adorned and painted in their peculiar 
fashion, performed a dance consisting of counter-paces in a circle. The women 
grasping each other by the hands, or hooking arms, formed a circle around the sac- 
rificial mound and at an interval of four or five steps the men formed another cir- 
cle around them. In the aisle thus formed between them other Indians walked 
back and forth serving the dancers with drinks. Both men and women made 
swaying motions with their bodies and heads and drank the beer without stopping 
the motion of their feet. This dance was continued for four hours or more in front 
of their great temple on the principal square. At its conclusion the man or woman 
previously chosen for sacrifice was led to the top of the mound, his left side opened, 
his heart was torn out and the first drops of the blood were sacrificed to the sun. 
Immediately afterwards the victim and four or five others were beheaded on a stone 
placed on the top of the mound and their blood offered up to the idols and gods. 
The priests or executioners then anointed their lower lips and faces with the blood. 
Finally the bodies were thrown down fhe slope of the mound, and afterwards taken 
up and eaten as sacred and very precious food. At the moment the sacrifice was 
