Pre-Columbian History of Costa Rica - Intermediate Area

Intermediate Area

In the 16th century, the present-day territory of Costa Rica – with the exception of the Nicoya Peninsula, its eponymous gulf and the Nahuan enclaves – formed the cultural region known as the Intermediate Area. In addition, this included the Atlantic regions of Nicaragua, Panama and Colombia, as well as parts of Venezuela and the Pacific coast of Ecuador. It is possible that in earlier eras, the Nicoyan region had formed part of this area, and that its original settlers had been displaced by Mesoamerican groups arriving from the north.

The Intermediate Area of Costa Rica, upon the arrival of the Spaniards, featured much less cultural unity than the Mesoamerican Area. Numerous communities with different languages and customs lived there, though most languages spoken there belonged to the Macro-Chibcha language family. The culture of some of these groups, especially on the Atlantic side, had many elements similar to those of the Caribbean islands; but in other groups a South American influence was discernible. For example, in 1562 the town hall of the recently founded city of Castillo de Garcimuñoz, located in the Central Valley, wrote to King Philip II that the natives of Costa Rica imitated Peruvian dress and contracting practices. In the 17th century, some natives of Talamanca still preserved the practice of counting numbers of people on ropes with different types of knots, analogous to the use of knotted straps by the Incan empire. Similarities can also be found between the customs of certain communities and those of Panamanian and Colombian native peoples.

There were commercial ties, vassalages and alliances between many of the communities in the Intermediate Area of Costa Rica, but there was no sole authority in the entire territory; rather, a multitude of societies with different levels of complexity. In Spanish documents appear mention of a great number of native groups: Aoyaque, Burica, Cabécar, Catapa, Chome, Corobicí, Coto, Guaymí, Huetar, Pococi, Quepo, Suerre, Tariaca, Térraba, Tice, Turucaca, Urinama, Viceita, Voto. However, references in this regard are too brief and imprecise to clearly identify the various ethnic groups or their specific characteristics. The names of locations and of the chiefs are also problematic, since they sometimes use two or more names for the same place or person, or the same name for a place and a chieftain. It is even suggested that this may have been due to a custom of changing the name of a place whenever a chieftain died, conferring upon it the name of the deceased.

The Europeans took special note of the great linguistic diversity; even today, the indigenous languages that survive in Costa Rica have very different characteristics. There possibly also existed a great multiplicity of codes of conduct. However, the territory of the Intermediate Area was not visited by chroniclers such as Fernández de Oviedo and missionaries such as Bobadilla, and the data that exists regarding these peoples' religious and judicial lives is exceptionally scant, isolated and fragmentary.

In the 16th century, it appears in the Intermediate Area that a scattered type of settlement prevailed, defined by the existence of hamlets composed of two or three very large, communal ranches, whose inhabitants cultivated the enclosed fields. Some sources indicate that in each dwelling lived "an entire family, clan or lineage." Although in certain places like Guayabo there remain archeological testaments to the existence of larger settlements, there appears to have been a lesser tendency for communities to urbanize than in the Nicoyan region, perhaps because nomadic and seminomadic cultivation compelled these groups to slowly move around. In contrast to what occurred in other places in Central America, the Spaniards did not manage to find any population center large enough to qualify as a city.