ABSTRACT
The largest of the Central American republics at 130,000 square kilometers, Nicaragua is bounded by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the south and west. It has two broadly defined cultural regions: the eastern Caribbean coastal region (known as the Atlantic Coast) and the Pacific Coast. This geographic division provides the organizational structure of this essay. Sparsely populated, the Atlantic Coast is the home of native Americans (Miskitu, Rama, Sumu), the Garífuna, and some Creoles and mestizos. The national population is estimated at more than 4 million. Nearly 90 percent of the people live on the Pacific Coast and are overwhelmingly mestizo. Virtually all archaeological and historical documentation of music within Nicaragua has been limited to the Pacific Coast. The following sections are drawn from that material; references available on the music of groups on the Atlantic Coast are included in the sections devoted to those groups.
