But the English did bring Negroid slaves to the area, who over time shaped the Creole communities throughout the region. From there, some groups moved and settled at the Nicaraguan Miskito territory, forming small villages. During the birth of the independence of Nicaragua , the mountains in the north — once the territory of the Indian Matagalpas — were scarcely populated by Mestizos.
At the beginning of the twentieth century groups of Germans started to arrive at this region, starting the coffee production and contributing other genetic characteristics to the population. With only a few exceptions it is impossible to say whether or not a white-skinned person has some indigenous genes, or whether or not someone apparently indigenous has any European genes. Negroid genes could be present as well. Due to this mixture, there is no official recognition of the ancient Nahua, Chorotega, Subtiaba, or Matagalpa ethnical groups, who have inhabited the Pacific area and the center of Nicaragua.
Linguistically, the Chorotegan, Nauhuan y Matagalpan languages have disappeared since several generations. However, there still is a part of the population that identifies itself as indigenous.
These distinct characteristics, however, are on their way to extinction as a result of a cultural and demographic invasion of the area combined with a Mestizo government. In defense of their rights, the coastal populations have fought political battles and they won their autonomy less than 30 years ago. However, besides by the Spanish language the indigenous languages have also been threatened by the English Creole that it spoken massively throughout the region.
These celebrations are heavily criticized by proclaimed indigenous groups, and by people who consider the Hispanic colonization of Nicaragua and the rest of the Americas a negative development. However, this day is officially celebrated in Nicaragua. Below follows an overview of some of the activities. The election takes places at schools; first at municipal level, later at departmental level, and finally at national level. The winning candidates from every department gather and in front of a jury they give a presentation.
The presentations can include dances or plays of historical events. It is interesting to see the diversity of the presentations as well as the enthusiasm of the crowds that support their candidates. The election is held at the auditorium of the Ministry of Education, and it is open for the public.
Workers in this informal sector include tinsmiths, seamstresses, bakers, carpenters, and peddlers. In a family where the male works in this sector, the wife may take in laundry or sell food in the street to supplement the family income.
Classes and Castes. Nicaragua has always been a society of classes in indigenous cultures, the priests and nobles ruled over the laborers and slaves. This is what the Spanish found when they arrived, and their domination didn't do much to affect this class system.
For generations, there was no notion of social or economic mobility for Nicaraguans. Agricultural laborers were descendants of laborers, and expected their children to follow in this path. With few other options available, most did. Only with the revolution of the Sandinistas was there a widespread attempt to level the A man walks by a wall painted with political graffiti in Managua.
The revolution of the Sandinistas was an attempt to eliminate the class system. The Sandinistas deliberately took power and expropriated wealth from the rich and spread it evenly among the poor. The Sandinistas also began a national literacy campaign: they recruited young people from the upper classes to teach literacy skills to families in rural areas. Symbols of Social Stratification.
Land is the traditional basis of wealth and status in Nicaragua. Traditionally, landowners have prospered with the export of coffee, cotton, beef, and sugar, and land was concentrated in the hands of a few. Less than one-fifth of the population could be described as middle class or higher. Most Nicaraguans who have work still toil as migrants, following crops and working only during the harvest period. When the Sandinistas gained power, they seized the property of the Somoza family and instituted the Agrarian Reform Law, transferring land to peasant families and squatters on lands.
The telephone is another potent symbol of economic and social stratification, as evidenced by the number of telephones in the country and who has them. In there were approximately 60, telephones, only 1. Modeled on the democratic system of the United States, the Nicaraguan government is divided into three branches: the executive, the legislative, and the judicial. The executive branch is made up of a president, vice president, and an appointed cabinet.
The legislative branch, with a member National Assembly, enacts the country's laws. As in the United States, the judicial branch is comprised of a supreme court and lower, local courts.
Leadership and Political Officials. Established by the Law on Municipalities in by the Sandinista National Assembly, the first municipal governments were selected in An effort was made to decentralize the political power which had been so abused in Nicaragua for decades.
Under this system, citizens vote directly for council members in Nicaragua's nine regions; the number of members depends on the size of the city. The constitution details the responsibilities and powers of these municipal governments; they are primarily responsible for control of urban development, sanitation, environmental protection, construction and maintenance of roads, parks, and bridges, and the creation of museums and libraries.
Social Problems and Control. Poverty is the most pressing social problem in Nicaragua, and has been for decades. In the United Nations identified poverty and unemployment as the two reasons why Nicaraguans do not believe in the salve of democracy. The report asserted that 75 percent of Nicaraguan families live in poverty, and that unemployment hovered at 60 percent. Because of the uneven distribution of wealth, as well as the economic and political upheavals of recent decades, the poor have even suffered during periods of economic growth.
In the s, 30 percent of personal income flowed to the richest 5 percent of households. During the agricultural export growth in the Pacific lowlands and central highlands, many peasants were pushed off their land and ended up as low-wage migrant laborers.
The drug problem in Nicaragua was considered quite modest as of , despite the country's position along a drug transit route from South American to the United States. Military Activity. Nicaragua has a land force, a navy, and an air force. During the Sandinista regime, military service was mandatory but conscription was ended when Violeta Chamorro became president.
As the country stabilized, the armed forces were downsized. The police organization, together with the Customs Organization, is considered to be exceedingly corrupt. Favors can easily be bought for the cost of a bribe.
The bulk of social welfare programs coincided with the Sandinista triumph. Declaring the year of literacy, the Sandinista government successfully launched a volunteer literacy campaign, focused on the countryside, to teach anyone over ten years old to read. At that time, this meant about , people. Young people of the more privileged class volunteered with parental permission to spend several months living and working with peasants, teaching entire families to read.
The youth also taught political literacy based on Paulo Freire's concept of consciousness-raising. Nicaragua has long been dependent on foreign aid.
Principle donors have been the United States, the USSR, and Canada, all of whom have been concerned about stabilizing Nicaragua because of its geopolitical positioning. In the s, the United States Agency for International Development USAID funded local programs aimed at improving regional infrastructure, particularly improving highway routes that would assist industrial development by improving interregional trade routes.
After the earthquake, foreign aid poured in to Nicaragua. The corrupt Somoza regime, however, managed to extort a significant amount of that aid for themselves, rather than using it to rebuild the country.
USAID now has three program areas operating in Nicaragua: strengthening democracy, creating jobs for sustainable growth, and promoting primary education and nutrition classes for healthy families. In , Hurricane Mitch brought additional foreign aid dollars to Nicaragua to help deal with the damage from the worst national disaster in two centuries in the region.
Division of Labor by Gender. The roles of most men and women in Nicaragua are shaped by traditional Hispanic values. Women are most respected in the role of mother, but more women have been entering the workforce since the s. Men are typically not involved in childrearing. Relative Status of Women and Men. The status of men and women has changed since the revolution of the s. As the revolution sought to liberate poor Nicaraguans, it also managed to liberate women from their subordinate role in the Hispanic culture.
Women established neighborhood committees to organize urban resistance. Women gained the respect of male soldiers when they fought, and died, alongside them.
Estimates are that women comprised about 25 percent of the Sandinista Front of the National Liberation Army. The minority of couples who are not Roman Catholic, outside of the upper and middle classes, formalize their marriages through ceremonies officiated by another church or the state. Many common-law unions exist, but Roman Catholics abide by the church's emphasis on marriage. Because of poverty and a shortage of affordable housing, A woman teaches a man how to print letters as part of a literacy program in Nicaragua; the Sandinistas helped start these programs.
Domestic Unit. Like many Hispanic cultures, family relationships are highly valued and include relatives beyond the nuclear family unit. The word compadrazago, which literally means copaternity, indicates the bond among children, parents, grandparents, and godparents. With a high fertility rate, households are large—generally comprised of six to eight persons—and include grandparents and aunts and uncles.
In rural areas, large families are regarded as a blessing: parents have help with chores and farm work. In urban settings, large families with extended kin allow for creative ways in which to house entire families, despite the space constraints of city living.
Land is the lifeblood of Nicaraguan farmers. It is a source of pride and dignity for a farmer to own the land he cultivates. And land can be a means of escaping the poverty that plagues so many Nicaraguans. Inheritance of land in Nicaragua has been complicated by the fact that most of the land was in the hands of a few privileged families. The peasant families who farmed this land had no claims to land ownership. This changed with the Sandinista government as it awarded and distributed land to rural families.
Now, however, relatives and allies of the Somoza regime who emigrated in want to reclaim the thousands of acres they owned. Disputes over resettlements remain a controversial national issue, one that is being watched by the international community.
Kin Groups. Loyalty to kin is strong and extended families often reside together, sharing the childrearing duties as well as any resources of the household. The notion of kin may be extended to those not related by blood or marriage with the tradition of naming godparents.
Infant Care. Infants are raised principally by the mother with the help of extended kin. In agrarian communities, families tend to be large since more children increase the number of workers, thus raising the family's farming productivity. Infant mortality is high in Nicaragua.
This figure was reduced in from to 59 deaths per thousand, due to the Sandinista governments' increase in health clinics. Even the reduced infant mortality rate, though, is high when compared to that of neighboring countries. Child Rearing and Education. Nicaragua's education system is underfunded and inadequate; access to education improved in the s with the introduction of free education, but a large majority of the population had not completed primary schooling in Literacy was estimated at about 50 percent at the end of the Somoza regime, while a literacy campaign in the s reportedly raised the literacy rate to about 77 percent.
In , approximately 1, Cuban teachers were teaching in Nicaragua, and 1, Nicaraguan students were attending schools in Cuba. Schooling is now free and compulsory for children from ages seven to twelve, but only 70 percent of primary age students actually attend classes.
By law all schooling is in Spanish, even in the West where Spanish is not spoken in the home. Higher Education. The intellectual and cultural city of Leon gave birth to the country's first university. The National University of Nicaragua has approximately 7, students at campuses in Leon and Managua. The private Jesuit Universidad Centroamericana is also located in Managua.
Two separate independent institutions, Universidades Nacionales Autonomas de Nicaragua, also operate as an alternative to the leading universities. Nicaraguans share a sense of respect and personal distance, which is apparent in language exchanges. Nicaraguans rarely use the familiar tu form of address, even though most other Latin Americans use this casual exchange. However, the Nicaraguans routinely address one another using the informal and nonstandard pronoun vos. Religious Beliefs.
Officially, Nicaragua is a secular state. Roman Catholicism arrived in Nicaragua with the Spanish conquest in the sixteenth century and remained the established faith until Most Nicaraguans are Roman Catholic, but many blacks along the coast, belong to Protestant denominations. Practicing Roman Catholics, those who attend mass and receive the sacrament, tend to be women and members of the upper and middle classes residing in urban centers.
With a paucity of priests to reach more potential members, the Roman Catholic Church is relatively inactive in rural communities. Popular religion revolves around the saints, and prayers directed to them usually make requests for the saint's intervention in an illness or particular problem.
Along the coast, blacks largely belong to the Pentecostal and evangelical churches which have been growing in the s. Virtually all Miskito and many Creoles and Sumn are Moravians.
Religious Practitioners. Roman Catholic priests lead mass and deliver the sacrament. In the mids there was only one priest for every 7, Roman Catholic Nicaraguans, approximately; this is a lower rate than in any of the other Latin American countries.
The Roman Catholic bishops have sometimes offered tacit approval of the political leader, while at other times they allied themselves with the opposition.
While started by foreign missionaries, most Protestant congregations are now lead by local Nicaraguan ministers who operate autonomously while maintaining a connection to their sister churches in the United States. Rituals and Holy Places. As a predominantly devout Catholic country, Christian religious holidays are honored. Maundy Thursday marks the transition through death and into life as experienced on Good Friday and Easter. Holy Saint's days are celebrated regularly. Each city in Nicaragua has its own patron saint and some saints may be shared between towns.
The people give gifts to these saints in exchange for blessings such as healing, a good crop, or a husband. Even more important than the miracles that the Nicaraguans request of the saints are the annual celebrations, known as fiestas, which are held for each saint. These fiestas are times of great joy and everyone in the city joins in the celebration. Fiestas may begin with a parade in which the statue of the saint is carried into the city, followed by a daylong party of eating, drinking, and dancing.
Death and the Afterlife. Traditionally, the spouse of the deceased prepares the body for burial. The Nicaraguan children relax at their home in Managua. Households are generally comprised of six to eight persons, as an extended family.
Roman Catholics believe in the concept of heaven, and understand death as the passage to eternal life. During the s, health care improved as the Sandinista regime built public clinics in both urban and rural areas.
Nevertheless, the people of Nicaragua continue to suffer from malaria, poor diet, and unhealthy sanitary conditions caused by inadequate water and sewage systems. In the early s the life expectancy of a Nicaraguan was 62 years, among the lowest in Central America.
Enteritis and other diarrheal diseases were among the leading causes of death. Pneumonia, tetanus, and measles accounted for more than 10 percent of all deaths. A high incidence of infectious diseases remains, with malaria and tuberculosis being particularly endemic. The Somoza regime tried to curb population growth by making contraceptives available through public health clinics.
It is estimated that only about 5 percent of women of childbearing age use birth control devices. Santo Domingo, the patron saint of Managua, is celebrated in a festival held from 1 to 10 August. This festival combines church ceremonies with horse racing, bullfights, cockfights, and a spirited carnival.
Since the early s, the Ministry of Culture has worked to preserve folk art and train a new generation of artisans so that traditional crafts would not be lost. Until the s when the Sandinistas launched their literacy campaign, half of the Nicaraguan population was functionally illiterate. While few Nicaraguan writers have received international recognition, poet Ruben Dario is the noted exception.
Dario is the pseudonym of Felix Ruben Garcia Sarmiento whose modernist poetry began a new movement in Nicaraguan literature. A nineteenth century poet, Dario lived from to and produced " Azul, " or "Blue. Dario's birthplace has been renamed in his honor and is preserved as a national shrine. Amazing Animals.
Weird But True! Party Animals. Try This! Explore More. The Granada Cathedral towers above the red tile roofs of the city of Granada. Please be respectful of copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited. Map created by National Geographic Maps. The local people call themselves Nicas, but most outsiders refer the people as Nicaraguans. Their main crops are coffee, bananas, sugarcane, cotton, rice, corn, and sesame. For the past several decades, Nicaraguans have endured unrest, dictatorship, and two civil wars.
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