SWEDISH SOCIETY OF ANTHROPOLOGY
AND GEOGRAPHY
NICARAGUAN ANTIQUITIES
BY
CARL BOVALLIUS
STOCKHOLM, 1886
KONGL. BOKTRYCKERIET
P. A. NORSTEDT & SÖNER
TO
THE ROYAL ANTIQUARY OF SWEDEN
Dr. HANS HILDEBRAND
THIS WORK,
THE PUBLICATION OF WHICH HAS BEEN POSSIBLE
ONLY BY HIS KIND EXERTIONS,
IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED
BY THE AUTHOR.
Nicaraguais a very rich field for research to the student of AmericanArchæology, and so I found it during my two years stay in CentralAmerica. I had there the good fortune several times to meet withlocalities more or less rich in remains from the prehistoric orrather pre-spanish period. Not very much being known about CentralAmerican antiquities, and the literature on this subject being verypoor, especially with regard to the Nicaraguan ones, I purposehere to describe briefly and to figure the more important statues,rock-carvings, ceramic objects etc., found by me in Nicaragua andpartly delineated or photographed on the spot, partly brought hometo Sweden. Unfortunately I wanted the means of carrying home any ofthe statues; but my Nicaraguan collections contain a number of moreeasily transportable relics, mostly examples of pottery. These arenow deposited in the ethnographic collection of the R. Swedish StateMuseum. The accompanying plates are all executed after my originalsketches or photographs taken on the spot. Most of the statues havenever before been figured or described; some of them are mentioned andfigured by E. G. Squier[1]in his splendid work on Nicaragua. As it turned out, however, on[Pg 2]comparisons being made by me on the spot, that some of Squier’sfigures do not quite agree with the originals, I have thought fit topublish also my own drawings of these previously figured statues, 6 innumber.
Although this sketch is certainly not the place for an account ofthe history of Central America or Nicaragua, yet I may be permittedto give a brief statement of those few and disconnected notices thatwe possess with regard to the nations inhabiting Nicaragua at thatperiod, when the antiquities here spoken of were probably executed.The sources of our knowledge of these people and their culture are,besides the above quoted work of Squier, the old Spanishchroniclers, Oviedo, Torquemada,Herrera, and Guarros,the memoirs of Las Casas and Peter Martyr,the relation of Thomas Gage, and scatterednotices in the works of Gomara,Ixtlilxochitl, Dampier a. o.
At the time of the Spanish invasion under the commandof Don Gil Gonzales de Avila in the years 1521 and1522, the region now occupied by the republic of Nicaragua and the north-easternpart of the republic of Costa Rica,