Headhunters of Lake Cocibolca, Nicaragua

Geoffrey and Sharisse McCafferty Chacmool Conference

2012

“Diego de Loaysa baptico a un cacique senor de la placa e gente de Ayatega … que son de la lengua de Nicaragua. Este cacique algun tiempo antes tuvo guerra con otros indios de la lengua de los Chondales, e le degollaron e dexaron por muerto: locual se le parescia bien en la garganta rompida e parescia que estaba con muchas costuras e senales de la degolladura por la cual el decia que se le salia lo qe comia.”

In the early 1500s, chronicler Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdes wrote: “Diego de Loaysa baptized an indigenous lord of the place and people of Ayatega … who [is] of the language of Nicaragua [Nahuatl]. This lord sometime earlier had made war with other Indians of the Chontal language, and they beheaded him and left him for dead; the same [man] seemed to have a broken throat with many stitches and signs of having been beheaded, to the extent that the food he ate seeped out…”

“E parece ser que, aunque le cortaron la garganta, sus indios recobraron su cuerpo por fuerca darmas e le llevaron quassi muerto a la dicha su placa: e quitada la corteca en un pie o tronco de un ciruelo destos, rascaron aquello que entre la flor o la yema, e de aquellas raspaduras le echaron en la heridia e con ello soldo e sano”

The story continues, however: “Although they cut his throat, his people recovered his body through force of arms and brought him mostly dead to his town, and cut the bark from a jocote tree, mixed it with flowers and buds, and placed the mixture in the wounds, leaving him healthy and whole”

Santa Isabel

Macuahuitl or macana

Sawfish rostra

El Rayo

Conclusions: While the ethnohistorical evidence suggests endemic warfare between ethnic polities, archaeological evidence from Pacific Nicaragua remains ambiguous: possible evidence of weapons, examples of possible trophy heads. Isolated crania from El Rayo may relate to ritual decapitation, with possible ties to contemporary rituals from Mesoamerica. Alternatively, these may relate to a long tradition of trophy heads among Chibchan populations of Costa Rica and Panama. And…

As Miracle Max says: “Jocote is a wonder drug!”

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