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Chapter 2 1. Sources recorded the Miskito population to be approximately 1,500 in 1684 (Esquemelin [1684] 1951), 3,000 in 1711 (Peralta 1898), 7,000 by the late 1700s (White 1789), 15,000 by the 1920s (Conzemius 1932), 35,000 in 1969 (Nietschmann 1969), and 95,900 for the early 1980s (Davidson and Counce 1989: 38). Davidson and Counce estimated the Honduran Miskito population at 25,000 for the early 1980s. Although the 1988 Honduran census did not list population by ethnicity, I added the population of each Miskito village to arrive at an estimate of 31,478. The 2001 census reported 47,120 Miskito living in Gracias a Dios. 2. In 1960 the World Court ruled that the Coco River was the official boundary between Honduras and Nicaragua. This decision meant that land between the Coco and Kruta rivers became part of Honduras’s national territory. This area became known by Hondurans as the zona recuperada. Moravian congregations in this area changed from being under the jurisdiction of the Nicaraguan Moravian Church to Honduran control. Some congregations in the zona recuperada, such as those in Irlaya, Benk, Kruta, Pakwi, and Raya, were established in the early 1900s. 3. The Catholic Church organized the Honduran Mosquitia into two parishes divided by a boundary that mainly followed the Warunta River, one parish headquartered in Puerto Lempira, and the other based in the village of Barra Patuka. Chapter 3 1. Instituto Geográfico Nacional de Honduras, aerial photography, Department of Gracias a Dios series, 1:50,000 scale. Chapter 4 1. During my 1998 fieldwork, the Moravian Church provincial headquarters in Honduras would not release data on congregation size. Membership for each zone (a zone typically includes four or five congregations) in Honduras was available for 1995 from a publication by the Moravian Church in Nicaragua entitled Yua Banira Aisi Kaikaia Bila (Iglesia Morava, Nicaragua, 1997). Figures for each zone consisted of: Ahuas 1,852; Auka 565; Benk 901; Brus Lagoon 1,233; Cocobila 491; Kaurkira 656; Kruta 301; La Ceiba 207; Notes Mocorón 324; Nueva Jerusalén 609; Puerto Lempira 587; Rio Patuka 117; San José de la Punta 168; Sico 181; Uhi 213; Wampusirpi 491 (total = 8,896). Local pastors recited congregation membership numbers from memory, but these data were not always consistent, and their accuracy was questionable. Chapter 7 1. As is common in the Mosquitia, cattle are not fenced into a particular area for grazing but are allowed to roam and are therefore “fenced out” of areas such as private yards, plantations, church property, and individual graves. 2. I could not determine the exact date because relatives recently repaired the tomb, covering the epitaph with new concrete and a fresh coat of white paint. 3. In the past, Moravians divided their congregations into “choirs,” or groups according to age, sex, and marital status. Congregations contained groups for young boys and girls, older boys and older girls, single men and single women, married individuals, and widowers and widows. Moravian missionaries did not perpetuate their tradition of burying the dead in choirs in the Honduran Mosquitia (Fries 1962). Most individuals are typically buried alongside family members. 168 notes ...

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