5
to ascribe a Mexican origin to the Orotinas and lastly Dr. Berendt[1] suggests that the whole Chorotegan stock may be considered as a Toltecan offspring, the name Choroteganos being only a corruption of Cholutecas.
The last or fourth of the tribes inhabiting Nicaragua was los Niquiranos. The territory occupied by this people was the smallest of all, viz; the narrow isthmus between Lake Nicaragua and the Pacific, together with the large islands, Ometepec and Zapatera, in Lake Nicaragua. But although comparatively small in extent this territory was perhaps the most richly blessed of all in this country, the darling one of nature. According to the concurrent testimonies of the old chroniclers the Niquirans were a Mexican people settled in the country at a comparatively late period. It is not clear whether they were Toltecs or Aztecs, and this question cannot probably be decided until the ancient remains, surely very numerous, that they have left behind them, shall have been accurately studied and compared with the better known Mexican antiquities. For my own part I incline to the opinion that they were Aztecs, and had immigrated into the country rather late, perhaps little more than a hundred years before the Spanish invasion. They lived in a state of permanent hostility with the Chorotegans and had probably, on their irruption, expelled the Oratinas, who were thus cut off from the main stock of the Chorotegans. The intelligent and well built Indians on the island of Ometepec are doubtless the descendants of the Niquirans; this is corroborated by their language, which the successful investigations of Squier have shown to be of Mexican origin and presenting a very close similarity to the pure Aztec tongue. They are now a laborious and peaceful race, some-
- ↑ Geographical Distribution of the Ancient Central American Civilisations, in Journal of the American Geographical Society of New York, vol. 8, 1870, p. 142.
