Chorotegans

Chorotegans, a Central American people of Nicaragua, south-east of Fonseca Bay, forming a separate group with the Dirians and Nagrandans of Leon, the Orotinans of Guanacaste, and the Cholutecas of Honduras. They have been affiliated both to the Chiapanecs of East Mexico and to the Mayas of Yucatan, expelled from Cholula in pre-Aztec times. The Chorotegans had attained a considerable degree of culture under Aztec influences, nearly all traces of which were destroyed by the Spanish conquerors. In 1524 the missionaries of Managua made a huge bonfire of all their religious and historical paintings, calendars, maps, and other documents, while their temples were razed to the ground, their idols overthrown, and their graves desecrated. But numerous remains still exist in the islands of Lake Nicaragua, where Squier saw over fifty colossal basalt monoliths of human figures somewhat like those of Easter Island, Polynesia.