Chorotegas: The First Guanacastecans

Guanacaste is often called the Chorotega region, named for the original inhabitants
of this region. The Chorotega, whose name means “people surrounded by enemies”
were driven by warfare from Mexico to the southern boundary of Central
America’s dry Pacific lowland tropical forests, settling in Southern Nicaragua,
Liberia and the Nicoya Peninsula. The Chorotega spoke a dialect of Nahuatl, an
Uto-Aztecan language from Central Mexico. Many of the place names in our area,
including “Guanacaste” (which means ear tree for the seed´s resemblance to a
human ear) are Chorotegan. At the time of the conquest, the Chorotega were the
largest and most technologically advanced tribe in the entire territory of Costa
Rica.

The Chorotega lived in towns, some small and some as large as 20,000 inhabitants,
all built around a central plaza. Their houses were rectangular, built of wood, with
straw roofs. Towns also included religious temples and the Chorotega maintained a
strong and influential caste of priests who presided at religious rituals as well as
being competent astronomers and mathematicians. The Chorotega religion
included human sacrifice, especially of enemies captured in battle, and they also
practiced ritual cannibalism. The Chorotega had books made of deerskin, where
they recorded the most important aspects of their way of life. Unfortunately none
of these documents has been passed down to us; we know about them from the
Spanish chronicles of the conquest.
The Chorotegan pottery is famous in Costa Rica, and is still being made in our
canton in the towns of Guaitil and San Vicente. It is fascinating to visit these
towns, to learn about how the pottery is made, and about the symbols passed down
from their ancestors. Other remnants of the Chorotega empire include the cuisine
of Guanacaste. Corn was enormously important in this cultural zone, and affected
Chorotegan agriculture, customs, artistic forms and religious beliefs. It was also
the basis of their diet, together with beans, squash, cacao, meat and fish. The
Chorotega had an active economic life, with intense commerce and markets for the
exchange and sale of numerous articles. Cacao beans served as currency, and even
were counterfeited by emptying beans of the precious powder and refilling with
dirt.