Miskito Bible History (3)

**List: Miskito Ministry the Bible ( the Bible ) Miskito... MOSQUITO. "THE Mosquito shore lies between lat 16° 10' and 10° 45' N., and between long. 83° 15' and 86° W. The western extremity is Cape Honduras, lat 16°, and the southern boundary is the San Juan or Nicaragua River.   The Mosquito Indians, now very few in number, are the principal occupants of this territory, but many negroes and half-castes are also found within its limits.   The Indians lead an unsettled, almost a nomadic life, having no permanent towns or villages, but shifting their settlements from place to place.   The people dwelling along the coast from Blewfields northwards to Cape Gracias á Dios, and thence to Truxillo, form the most numerous portion of the inhabitants of this region.   They live principally by fishing; but a little maize and some vegetables are cultivated by the women.   The only arts practised by them are the making of canoes, bows, arrows, cotton turtle-lines, and turtle harpoons.   They also manufacture waist-wrappers of bark fibre, cloaks, nets, and net-bags. Some of them occasionally visit the British settlements of Belize, and find employment in the mahogany works.   Their coast is much frequented by British and American traders, for whom they collect sarsaparilla, tortoise-shell, green turtle, and deer-skins; receiving in exchange rum, knives, fire-arms, iron pots, beads, and other articles.    In person the Mosquito Indians are tall and bony, and of an ashy black complexion.   They are much addicted to polygamy and drunkenness, and are regarded as the most degraded nation of Central America.   They have not in their language even a name for the Supreme Being: their religion chiefly consists in efforts to placate an evil spirit called the Wulasha, and a water spirit called Li-waia. Evidences of the want of natural affection, so common in all heathen tribes, are not wanting among this nation: a child born with a natural defect is put to death by its parents, and the aged and diseased are abandoned.   The ancestors of the Mosquitos were never subjugated by the white settlers upon this portion of the American continent, and remained throughout independent of Spanish rule.   Upon this fact has been based the Mosquito claim (much agitated within recent years) to rank as an independent nation, under a kind of protectorate exercised in their behalf by the British government.   In truth, however, the great majority of the inhabitants of the Mosquito coast in the present day are not of Indian blood, but the mixed offspring of Indians and negroes; and the so- called king of the Mosquito nation is a mere tool in the hands of the few white residents within this swampy and pestilential region. The pure Indians, few in number, are chiefly found within the forests of the interior.    The Mosquito Indians are divided into three tribes, the Waikna, Poyer, and Towkcas, the first of which is the most powerful.   They all speak the same language, though with a few dialectic varieties. This language is devoid of harsh gutturals, and some of its etymological permutations appear to be conducted on the strictest principles of euphony.   It has adopted many English and a few Spanish words.   The cases of nouns are indicated by means of suffixed prepositions; and in the conjugation of verbs, the elements both of time and person are denoted by the various parts of the auxiliary verb Kaia.   The various forms of this auxiliary are, however, not only appended as sufformatives to verbs, but also to adverbs and adjectives.   The language was first reduced to writing and grammatical principles by the Rev. Alexander Henderson, of Belize, a Baptist my.   He acquired his knowledge of the language through the medium of English and French traders who resided on the Mosquito shore, and occasionally visited Belize.   His progress was necessarily slow and difficult; yet, having in view the translation of the Scriptures into Mosquito, he persevered through apparently insurmountable obstacles; and, after the labour of years, he succeeded in drawing up a grammar, which was privately printed, in New York, in 1846.   He has likewise translated one of the Gospels; but it does not appear that any portion of the version has been committed to the press."--The Bible of Every Land. (1860, Second Edition)   Samuel Bagster   [Info only] MOSQUITO.--1860   S. Bagster   [Info only: n.d. THE LORD'S PRAYER unknown.] MOSQUITO.   INTRODUCTION TO THE COMMANDMENTS.--1860   S. Bagster   [Info only: n.d. Exodus 20 unknown.]

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