Lower Central America

Abstract

Abstract The Indian peoples of Panama, Costa Rica, and the eastern regions of Nicaragua and Honduras are generally considered to have more in common with South America than with the AztecMaya, or Mesoamerican, area. Traits that might be mentioned would include the use of blowguns, hammocks, canoes, sweet manioc, and bark cloth, also a preference for hunting and fishing rather than agriculture. All these features, however, are found among at least some groups in Guatemala and southern Mexico. More distinctively South American are the low wooden stools carved with animal faces and the large, multifamily houses, often circular or oval in plan, with high, nearly conical thatched roofs. The stools are still in use, and although the houses, now single family, are not as large as they once were, the round or oval plan is still occasionally found.