A COMEDY BALLET

in the

Nahuatl-Spanish Dialect of Nicaragua

EDITED BY

DANIEL G. BRINTON

AMS PRESS NEW YORK

Copyright, D. G. BRINTON. 1883.

LIBRARY OF Aboriginal American Literature. No. III. EDITED BY D. G. BRINTON, M.D. PHILADELPHIA: 1883.

[ii]

PREFACE.

The play which is presented in this volume is the only specimen known to me of the native American comedy. It is of comparatively recent origin, and is composed in a mixed dialect, a jargon of low Spanish and corrupt Aztec (Nahuatl); but, both in its history and spirit, it bears so many marks of native composition, and is so characteristic of the sort of humor popular with the tribes from whom it was obtained, that it fairly merits a place in this series of publications.

The text was obtained in Nicaragua, by the late Dr. Carl Hermann Berendt. But no translation of any part of it and no notes upon it were found among his papers. The responsibility for the rendering rests, therefore, with myself. It has presented extreme difficulty, owing to the imperfect condition of the text, the deterioration of the Nahuatl words and forms, the antiquated and provincial senses of the Spanish words, and the obscure local references introduced. I would rather speak of my work as a loose paraphrase, aimed to give the general sense and humorous tone of the original, than as a faithful translation.

The text has been printed precisely as in the manuscript, even obvious errors in spelling and punctuation having been preserved. Suggestions with reference to these are made in the notes.

For assistance in translating the Spanish text, I would acknowledge my indebtedness to Professor Adolfo Pierra, of Philadelphia, and Dr. F. C. Valentine, of New York, both of whom have passed considerable periods in Central America.

Philadelphia, November, 1883.

[iii]

CONTENTS.

[iv]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE

Frontispiece. A Mangue Indian Reciting a Loga. From an original sketch by Dr. Berendt.

Map of the location of the Nahuas of Nicaragua and their Neighbors.xii

Ancient Dance in Nicaragua.xxii From Oviedo's Historia.

A Marimba Player and his Instrument.xxix From Von Tempsky's Mitla.

Ancient Aztec Musician.xxx From Duran's Historia.

Nicaraguan Indians Playing on the Drum.xxxii From an original sketch by Dr. Berendt.

Earthenware Musical Jar from Nicaragua.xxxiii From a drawing by Dr. Berendt.

Earthenware Whistle from Nicaragua.xxxiii From a drawing by Dr. Berendt.

Native Flute Melodies.xxxiv From MS. of Dr. Berendt.

Whistles from Nicaraguan Burial Mounds.xxxv From Report of Dr. J. F. Bransford.

The Quijongo of Nicaragua.xxxvi Original Drawing from description.

Aztec Mourner Singing and Playing.xxxvii From Aztec Codex in the Aubin Collection.

Air of Malinche.xxxviii From Morelet's Voyage.

Melodies from Güegüence.xl Original furnished by Dr. E. Flint.

Earthenware Cup from Nicaragua.lxxviii From a sketch by Dr. Berendt.

A Nicaraguan Plough.lxxx From Squier's Nicaragua.

A Machete.lxxxi From an original sketch.

[v]

INTRODUCTION.

§ 1. The Nahuas and Mangues of Nicaragua.

Among the outlying colonies of that important people whose chief seat was in the Valley of Mexico, and who are variously known as Aztecs, Mexicans or Nahuas, were several in Central America. "One of these," writes Mr. Squier, "occupied the principal islands in the Lake of Nicaragua, the narrow isthmus which intervenes between that lake and the Pacific, and probably a portion of the country to the southward, as far as the gulf of Nicoya. Their country was less than a hundred miles long, by twenty-five broad; yet here they preserved the same language and institutions, and practiced the same religious rites, with the people of the same stock who dwelt more than two thousand miles distant, on the plateau of Anahuac, from whom they were separated by numerous powerful nations, speaking different languages, and having distinct organizations."[1]

This Nahuatl tribe gave the name to the Province, Nicaragua, this being, according to some early authorities, the personal appellation of their chief at the epoch of their discovery, in 1522, and, according to others, their national name.[2] For no sufficient reasons, Mr. Squier applied to them the term Niquirans, and Dr. Berendt Nicaraos, but it seems better to retain, as distinctive for them, the name Nicaraguans, or, more specifically, "the Nahuas of Nicaragua." "Nicaragua" is [vi] undoubtedly a Nahuatl word, but, as the letter r is not found in that language, the precise original form is uncertain. Father Francisco Vasquez explained it as a compound of the Nahuatl nican, "here," and anahuacos, "here dwell those from Anahuac;"[3] or it may be from nican and nahua (plural form of nahuatl), "here dwell those speaking the Nahuatl tongue;" or, as a personal name of a chief, it may be ni calaquiya, "I entered into, or took possession."

How it happened that this fragment of the Aztec nation had become detached from the main body and resident so far from its central seat, has not been clearly explained. Mr. Squier and some others have maintained the hypothesis that the migration of all the Aztec tribes was from south to north, and that their scattered members in Central America were bands which had stopped on the road.[4] This opinion, however, is refuted by the evidence of language, and also by the unanimous traditions of the Aztecs themselves, both in Nicaragua and in Mexico.

The Nicaraguans had a very positive recollection that their ancestors came from Mexico, driven forth by scarcity of food, and that they wandered along the Pacific shore to the locality [vii] in which the Spaniards found them.[5] They remembered the names of their ancient home, or, rather, of their ancient kindred, and gave them as Ticomega and Maguateca, locating them toward the west ("hacia donde se pone el sol"). It is easy to recognize in these words the Aztec terminations signifying gens or tribe, mecatl and tecatl, which in the plural drop the tl. Nor can we be far wrong in identifying magua with the Aztec maque, upper, above, and tico with tiachcauh, elder brother, and in translating these names, the one as "the upper people," i. e., the dwellers on the lofty interior plateau, and "our elder brothers," i. e., the senior and ranking clans of their tribe, who remained in Anahuac.[6]

Besides these traditions, the Nicaraguans showed their close relationship to the Aztecs by a substantial identity of language, mythology, religious rites, calendars, manners and customs. We have, fortunately, an unusual mass of information about them, from an examination of their leading men by the chaplain Francisco de Bobadilla, in 1528, who took down their replies with as much accuracy as we could expect, and whose narrative has been preserved by the historian Oviedo. They also had retained a knowledge of the Mexican hieroglyphics, [viii] and wrote, in books of paper and parchment, their laws and ritual, their calendars and the boundaries of their lands.[7]

While this Aztec band thus acknowledged themselves to be intruders, such appears not to have been the case with their immediate neighbors to the northeast and southwest. These were of one blood and language, and called themselves mánkeme, rulers, masters, which the Spaniards corrupted into Mangues.[8] The invading Aztecs appear to have split this ancient tribe into two fractions, the one driven toward the south, about the Gulf of Nicoya, the other northward, on and near Lake Managua, and beyond it on Fonseca Bay.[9] Probably in memory of this victory, the Nicaraguans applied to them the opprobrious name Chololteca, "those driven out," from the Nahuatl verb choloa, and the suffix tecatl, which was corrupted by the Spanish to Chorotecas.[10]

The name does not by any means intimate that the Mangues came from Cholula in Mexico, as some ancient, and some [ix] modern, writers have hastily supposed;[11] nor is it a proof that they spoke an Aztec dialect, as Ternaux Compans has asserted.[12] So far is this from being the case, the Mangue has no sort of affinity with the Nahuatl, and must stand wholly asunder from it in the classification of American tongues. It has, indeed, a relative to the north, and a close one, the Chapanec or Chiapenec,[13] spoken by the inhabitants of three small villages in Chiapas, the largest of which has given its name to the province. These Chapanecs, by their traditions, still clearly remembered at the time of the Conquest, and preserved by the historian Remesal, migrated from Nicaragua to their more northern home. As they had no connection with the Aztecs, so, also, they were wholly without affinities with the great Maya stock, which extended far and wide over Central America, although the contrary has been recently stated.[14] In fact, among the five different languages which

were spoken in the present province of Nicaragua at the time of the discovery, not one belonged to any branch of the Maya group.[15]

[x]

My present theme does not extend to a discussion of these various tongues, nor take me further into the ethnology of their locality. It has to do solely with these two nations, the Nicaraguans and the Mangues. The culture-level of the former was nearly as high as that found in the Valley of Mexico. They had a settled government, constructed edifices of stone, sculptured idols, utensils and ornaments out of the same material, were skilled in ceramics, deft in weaving cotton cloth and reed or grass mats, able in war, and thoughtful enough to puzzle their first European visitors with questions as to the stars and the earth, the beginning and the end of things.[16] Careful archaeologists in our own day have searched the territory they inhabited, and many museums contain specimens of what they accomplished in the direction of the arts, and testify to a respectable degree of intellectual advancement.[17]

We know less about the Mangues. They are mentioned as differing in religious rites from the Nicaraguans, and the impression is conveyed that they were in a more primitive condition, but yet with fair claims to be ranked among the cultivated nations of the new world. Among them, in fact, Dr. Berendt located one of the "centres of ancient American civilization," and considered the definite solution of their [xi] affiliations as one of the problems of the first order in the ethnology of America.[18] The Spanish historians relate that they had hieroglyphic books, like the Mexicans; that they were rather light in color, careful in dress, setting much store by their long hair, which they sedulously combed, and had an autocratic military government. Their country was thickly peopled, especially that portion of it between the lakes. The district of Managua was almost like a continuous town, so closely were the native houses placed together for nearly ten miles. In fact, it was called one city by the earliest explorers, and Oviedo, who takes pains to criticise these for their

tendency to exaggeration, estimated the population of this limited district, at the time of the Conquest, at forty thousand souls.[19]

At present, scarcely any pure-blood remnants of either of these nations can be found, and both languages are practically extinct. When Mr. Squier visited Nicaragua, in 1850, he obtained, with great difficulty, a short vocabulary of the Nahuatl dialect, spoken on the island of Ometepec, in Lake Nicaragua; and, in 1874, Dr. Berendt, only at the cost of repeated efforts, succeeded in securing from a few survivors of advanced ages a moderately full collection of Mangue words and sentences.[20]

[xii]

[xiii]

To illustrate the practical identity of the Nahuatl of Nicaragua with that of Anahuac, and the Mangue of Nicaragua with that of Chiapas, I will insert two short lists of common words with their equivalents in those four dialects. The first is from Mr. Squier's works above referred to, the second from the manuscripts of Dr. Berendt now in my possession.

Comparison of the Nahuatl of Nicaragua and of Mexico.

Comparison of the Mangue with the Chapanec.

It needs but a cursory glance at these lists to see that, while there is scarcely a dialectic difference between the two Nahuatl columns, and again between the two Mangue columns, there is absolutely no point of contact between Mangue and Nahuatl.

The chief differences between Nicaraguan and pure Nahuatl were, that the former changed the double consonant tl into t, or dropped it altogether; that the c, ch and q were confounded; that, in the conjugation, they dropped the prefix tla, which in pure Nahuatl is employed to indicate that the inanimate object of the verb is not expressed; that certain terminal consonants, as x, were dropped; and apparently that the sounds of s and r, not known to the tongue in its purity, were introduced.

[xv]

The linguistic relations of the Mangue or Chapanec tongue have never been ascertained. I have compared it with the principal stocks in the northern continent, as well as with the great Tupi-Guarani stem, which has extensive affiliations in Central America, but without discovering any analogies of value. It does appear, however, to have a certain, though far from close, relationship to the Aymara tongue, spoken in the Peruvian Andes, and especially in the vicinity of Lake Titicaca, the celebrated site of a remarkable ancient civilization. The following list of common words seems to indicate this. The Aymara is taken from the dictionary of that tongue, by Father Ludovico Bertonio, while the dialects of the Mangue are discriminated by N, for Nicaraguan, and C, for Chapanec.

Comparison of the Mangue, or Chapanec, of Central America, with the Aymara, of Peru.

[xvi]

There are also various grammatical similarities between the two tongues. Both are highly synthetic; in both the division of nouns is "vitalistic," that is, into animate and inanimate; the numeral system is in both the decimal; in both the possessive pronoun follows the noun; both possess the inclusive and exclusive plural; and others could be mentioned.

It is known that the Aymara partakes largely of the elements of the Qquichua, and by some is classified merely as a dialect of that tongue. Such similarities as appear to exist between Mangue and Aymara are, however, less with the words and forms common to these two Peruvian idioms, but rather more with those wherein the Aymara differs from the Qquichua.

With the trenchant differences above indicated, between the Nahuatl and the Mangue, it is the more singular to observe how the Nahuatl obtained the preponderance. We may attribute this to the superior fighting power of the Aztec invaders; to the fact that many of the native allies of the Spanish could speak that tongue and not the Mangue; that the early missionaries came from Mexico; or, that the Nahuatl was promptly reduced to writing, while the Mangue was not; or to all these causes combined.[21] Certain it is, that at an early date a mixed dialect came into vogue, both in the Mangue districts of Nicaragua and elsewhere in Central America, composed of a broken-down Nahuatl and a corrupt Spanish, which, at first, served as a means of communication between the conquerors and their subjects, and later became, to some degree, the usual tongue of the latter. The Aztecs of pure blood spoke contemptuously of this jargon as in macehuallatolli, the language of slaves, and Father Carochi, writing little more than a century after the conquest, condemned [xvii]

it as a hodge-podge of Spanish and Aztec, unintelligible in either tongue.[22]

This jargon was carried into the various nations who came into contact with the Spaniards and half-breeds, and hence we may find scattered words traceable to it in many of their tongues, and sometimes formulas of a religious, social or business character.[23] This is strikingly exemplified among the Mangues, and the fact is one of considerable interest in connection with the literary production which is the main topic of this volume. Even to a recent day, in remote haciendas of the Province of Masaya, among the descendants of the Mangues, the traveler might hear the grace before meals, and other short formulas of the Church, spoken in this mixed patois.

The following is a specimen:—

Jesu Criste no tecuase + tunanse Santa Maria + el Apostol Santa Clara nos bendiga esta comida que tienen parte y poder. Amen.

Here, no tecuase is the Nahuatl no tecuyotzin, Our Lord, and tunanse is for tonantzin, Our Lady, or Mother.

Another specimen is:—

Marias te cuasti + Marias ticuisti guanse Dios + y Espiritu Santo.

The correct reading of which should probably be—

Maria tocihuatzin, Maria toquitznitli, yhuan in Dios, yhuan in Espiritu Santo.

[xviii]

This Nahuatl-Spanish jargon became the lingua franca of large districts of Central America and Mexico. It was the current tongue of the half-breeds, and to this day is the patois of the muleteers who carry on the sparse commerce of the interior mountainous regions. Many of its Spanish elements are ungrammatical, and others are long since obsolete in the classical tongue. It is interlarded with words and whole phrases borrowed from the Aztec, but with such mutilations that they are scarcely, or not at all, recognizable. Words from other native languages have crept in, which adds to the difficulty of its lexicography. As for the construction, it became looser and looser, until, in some phrases, all inflectional elements disappear, and there is a naked juxtaposition of nominal and verbal roots, the relation of which must be guessed simply from their sequence.

Probably in none of the Spanish provinces has the Castilian suffered more from such admixture than in Nicaragua. The foreign words are there so numerous that the country patois becomes nearly unintelligible to one acquainted only with the Spanish of the Academy. Here is the verse of a song, for example, in that dialect, which will illustrate how far the amalgamation with the native tongues has gone. The words in italic are either Nahuatl or Mangue:—

"Casahuyano, mi amor, Por vos esté payaneado. No seas tilinte, mi bien." "Se selegue, dueño amado."

"My love, between girlhood and womanhood, My heart is breaking for you. Do not be severe, my loved one." "I am yet unripe, my beloved master."[24]

[xix]

Another song, in which the lover expresses the strength of his devotion with more force than elegance, has the following verse:—

"O fuera yo carángano, En tus cojines me metería Para servirte todo el dia. Te ama este zángano."

Which may be freely rendered—

"Were I a little louse, I'd go In your puffed and plaited hair; With you all your toil I'd share; This lazy fellow loves you so."

The carángano is the name of a species of louse, and the cojines are the little pads or cushions which women wear in their hair.

In this dialect several satirical and political songs have been composed, and, indeed, the licentiate Geronimo Perez, of Masaya, is stated to have printed in it a political pamphlet, which I regret not to have been able to obtain.

Such is the jargon in which the Güegüence is written, and although this medley of tongues can claim no position of dignity in the hierarchy of languages, it has its own peculiar points of interest, as illustrating the laws of the degradation—which is but another term for the evolution and progress—of human speech. To understand its origin and position as a literary effort, we must review the development of scenic representations in that part of the New World.

§ 2. The Bailes, or Dramatic Dances of Nicaragua.