Three basic Indian groups inhabited early Costa Rica
The Chorotegas, the Huetars and the Bruncas

BY VERNY QUIROS

For thousands of years, the region we know today as Costa Rica was home to primitive tribes of hunters and gatherers dependent on the natural bounty of nature.

The idea of growing plants for food and domestic use took centuries to develop, but once established, it opened a new way of life.

Around 2000 B.C., groups started to leave the nomadic life to settle down and allow their crops to mature. Agriculture attached men to a more specific location, and life dealt more and more with finding different ways to get the most from the soil, considering planting and harvest times, water needs and plant care. From those plants grown for food, they also made fibers to weave nets, hammocks and clothing.
Others gave them medicines, such as disinfectants and pain relievers. They molded the clay into vases, plates and ornaments and began to carve, engrave and polish stones and metals. Stone served to make metates (grinding stones) to crush corn or as sacrificial altars devoted to pleasing gods and asking them for a better life. Others worked metals to make weapons or jewelry.

Around 400 A.D., these early people of Costa Rica began to use copper and gold to make ornaments for great occasions and as amulets of good fortune. Costa Rica was then inhabited by three tribes that differed in origin, beliefs, customs and language.

They were the Chorotegas, the Huetars, and the Bruncas.

THE CHOROTEGAS

Lived in Guanacaste and on islands in the Nicoya Gulf. They were part of a great family that populated the region from Mexico through Guanacaste, an area anthropologists call Mesoamerica.The Niquiricanos, from Nicaragua, and Quiches and Nahuas from Mexico and Guatemala were all part of the family. The Nahuas used corn and tortillas as a main staple, which explains why the flat, cornmeal pancake you find in Mexico is similar to those for sale at “Mas X Menos” in San José.

THE HUETARS

Occupied the center of the country, the Northeast and the Caribbean coast of Honduras.While the Huetars ate corn, it wasn’t as important for their diet or economy as it was to the Chorotegas. Tubers, such as yucca and sweet potatoes, pejibaye and cocoa were also prominent in their diet, and they usually moved only to a better spot when the soil was exhausted.

THE BRUNCAS

Lived on the Southern Pacific Coast and were totally different from the other tribes. They were mainly hunters and fishers, though they cultivated corn, beans and tubers. Bruncas descended from Colombia’s Chibchas.

The three Indian tribes warred often, feeling quite apart from one another, because each represented a different branch of the culture that would develop in Central and South America.