Book on Honduran Moskitia by a Miskito Indian Author Published

Book on Honduran Moskitia by a Miskito Indian Author Published

By Wendy Griffin

Relatively little work has been done on the oralhistory of the Honduran Mosquitia because to research it, the researcher would have to speak Miskito. Yet the Honduran government and Honduran historians have included little about the Moskitia in their written records. So without oral history, much of the past of the Department of Gracias a Dios (La Mosquitia) remains a mystery.

To fill this void, Honduran Miskito teacher Scott Wood Ronas has written a book to make the history and culture of the Honduran Mosquitia accesible. La Moskitia Desde adentro Aspetos Historicos, Antropológicos, y Culturales (The Mosquitia from the Inside Historical, Anthropological, and Cultural Aspects) was published in 2013 by SCAD (Secretaría de Cultura, Artes y Deportes), better known as the Ministry of Culture of the Honduran government.

It was such an innovation that the Honduran Ministry of Culture would publish a book about the Moskitia by a Honduran Miskito Indian that the book presentation was held as part of the historic meeting of Honduran President Pepe Lobo and his Council of Ministers in Puerto Lempira, departmental capital  of the Honduran Mosquitia. The book was published together with another book by a Miskito Indian author “La LenguaMiskitu Un primer studio grammatical complete y etimológico de la Lengua Miskitu en Honduras” by Erasmo Ordoñes Claros. The book begins with a forward by the Minister of Culture Dr. Tulio Mariano Gonzalez, a Garifuna.

Scott Wood includes many interesting aspects of the Miskito culture in this book. For example, he has drawings of the Miskito crafts and their name in Miskito.  He also explains the different kinds ofhealers among theMiskitos and how they diagnose and treat illnesses.

He also explains Miskito beliefs about the soul, death, and what happens after death among Miskito Indians. The ceremonies done by the sukya or shaman and the Miskito people at the time of illness, death and afterwards are also explained.

He tries to include the names and years  of Miskito kings, even kings historians have not usually included. For example  from oralhistory he recovered the story of King Andreu and the reason President Zelaya of Nicaragua was so angry at the Miskitos that he invaded the Mosquitia and incorporated it into Nicaragua as the Department of Zelaya. Scott Wood has photographs of the Miskito kings taken from the Miskito language history of theMosquitia by Capuchin priest Father Gregorio Smutko.

For most people studying the Mosquitia, they include the Miskitos as a unitary group. Scott Wood explains the divisions among the Miskitos like the Tawira or unmixed Miskitos, the Sambos, and the Mam.

He also tells what the Miskitos remember about another people in the Mosquitia—the Rah. These were very warlike Indians who are famous for having eaten people. In the story of a mixed Miskito-Rah couple the Rah grandparents eat their mixed Rah-Miskito grandchild. The couple escapes. The Miskito king chooses to punish the Rah and sends a vine that is poisonous to poison the water supply of the Rah town near Raiti Tara. The Rah of that community died except the couple and the Rah are buried at Raiti Tara (Big Cementary in Miskito). Erasmo Ordóñes traces his origins back to that mixed Rah Miskito couple that escaped. There were other Rah communities and some Miskitos are of mixed Rah-Miskito descent. Scott Wood includes 4 Rah words with Spanish translation and a description of a Rah father of a mixed Rah-Miskito man.  

At the end of the book, he includes information on the industries which have existed in the Mosquitia like logging, bananas, mining, animal skins, shrimp fishing and lobster diving. Lobster diving is particularly painful as he notes how many dead and paralyzed divers there are and how many Miskitos work in the industry. Although the fishing boats and lobster boats often fish off the Coast of the Mosquitia, they do not pay any taxes in the Mosquitia. The fees they pay for fishing licenses are paid in the Bay Islands. Attempts by the Honduran Miskitos to get lobster diving included in the Honduran Labor Code (Codigo de Trabajo) have failed.

He ends the book noting that the Mosquitia has the qualities where it would make sense to grant autonomy to the Mosquitia. He hopes that MASTA, the ethnic federation of the Miskitos will fight for autonomy. The Honduran government has reacted negatively when in the past the Miskitos have mentioned the possibility of autonomy for the Honduran Mosquitia.

The author of the book has worked in bilingual intercultural education for Miskitos since before the first pilot project was approved in 1992. He is currently the sub-director of the Sub-Direction of Bilingual Multicultural education of the Ministry of Education in Tegucigalpa. He is the author of other books like Modules to learn the Miskito language and the first grade book for learning to read and write in Miskito Yabul Raya.

In an interview Scott Wood said that he had read the chapter about the Miskitos in Salvadoran anthropologist Ramon Rivas’s book and it made him angry because of erroneous information. He asked how he could refute the wrong information in the book. He was counselled that instead of trying to refute Rivas’s book, the most widely distributed book on Honduran Indians and Garifunas, he should write his own book with more correct information. So he did and the well written, informative, interesting book La Moskitia Desde adentro is the result.

According to WorldCat, no US or Canadian university libraries currently own this book.