The love of dramatic performances was not crushed out in the natives by
the Conquest. In fact, in the Spanish countries, it was turned to
account and cultivated by the missionaries as a means of instructing
their converts in religion, by "miracle plays" or _autos
sacramentales_, as they are called. It was even permitted to the more
intelligent natives to compose the text of plays. One such, manifestly,
I think, the work of a native author, in the mixed Nahuatl-Spanish
dialect of Nicaragua, I have prepared for publication. The original was
found by Dr. Berendt in Masaya, and his copy, without note or
translation, came into my hands.

The play is a light comedy, and is called "The Ballet of the Gueegueence
or the Macho-Raton." The characters are a wily old rascal, Gueegueence,
and his two sons, the one a chip of the old block, the other a bitter
commentator on the family failings. They are brought before the Governor
for entering his province without a permit; but by bragging and promises
the foxy old man succeeds both in escaping punishment and in effecting a
marriage between his scapegrace son and the Governor's daughter. The
interest is not in the plot, which is trivial, but in the constant play
on words, and in the humor, often highly Rabelaisian, of the anything
but venerable parent.

The "Zacicoxol," or Drama of Cortes and Montezuma, written in Kiche, of
which I have a copy, may possibly be the work of an Indian, but is
probably largely that of one of the Spanish curas, and appears to have
little in it of interest.

Another and peculiar form of dramatic recitation is what are called the
Loas or _Logas_, of Central America. In these, a single individual
appears in some quaint costume, in a little theatre erected for the