Greater Nicoya on
Stamps
Frederick W. Lange¹ /The Journal
I started collecting stamps when I was a
kid. My Dad’s father had been a county judge
in Wisconsin and he had required the
secretaries in the court-house to clip the
stamps off the corners of all the mail, and
drop them in a box in his office as they
left each day.
From the revenue stamps I learned early on
about taxation and from the commemorative or
picture stamps I learned a lot of what I
know about United States history and world
geography (I also learned about geopolitics
as nationally the number of states went from
48 to 50 along the way, and internationally
a lot of former colonies became independent
countries).
When I went to Graduate School at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison my wife had
a job at the Land Tenure Library, which got
a lot of mail from Latin America. Since
there were no other collectors, she was
allowed to clip the stamps and to bring them
home. I noticed that many of the countries
in Latin America, proud of their native
heritage and also trying to promote tourism,
featured archaeological artifacts on some of
their stamps. Mexico, for example, put out a
quantity of special issues for the 1968
Olympics that combined the splendors of the
past with the sports politics of the
present. Guatemala in one issue highlighted
Tikal, while Peru promoted Machu Picchu,
Honduras featured Copan, and Colombia
promoted the fabulous gold artifact
collection from the vaults of the central
bank.
As the pair of stamps that illustrate this
article show, both Costa Rica and Nicaragua
have participated in the promotion of their
heritage via postal issues. The two stamps I
selected to use here, one from Nicaragua and
one from Costa Rica show the same kind of
pottery (these examples with a white slip or
background and bright orange-red and black
paint are what archaeologists call “Papagayo
Polychrome”, manufactured between 800 and
1,250 years ago) from each country. The
presence of Papagayo Polychrome in both
countries is because the modern political
boundary that is most easily seen at Peñas
Blancas-Sapoa divides a region that in
prehistoric times was one: what
archaeologists call Greater Nicoya. Although
there were some differences (more obsidian
in Nicaragua, more jade in Costa Rica; large
coastal sites in Costa Rica, large inland
sites in Nicaragua) the pottery shows
significant unity. There was also
substantial unity of this area in historic
times. The modern boundary between Mexico
and the United States is a similar
artificial divider in the middle of what
historically and prehistorically was a
single unit.
In Costa Rica and Nicaragua, a proposed
Route of Greater Nicoya that would be
similar to Route 66 in the U.S. and link the
great cultural, historical, and natural
riches of the region has been proposed. Are
the two stamps there are illustrated here
symbolic of a unified future for tourism and
development of southern Pacific Nicaragua
and northwestern Pacific Costa Rica?
Frederick R. Mayer, a noted philanthropist
and world class collector of art, coins,
currency, and stamps died in Denver,
Colorado on February 14, 2007 from
complications following heart surgery. In a
Memoriam written by stamp dealer Richard
Frajola, he quoted Mr. Mayer as having said
that “This interest in Costa Rica manifested
itself fully when we began to build an
important collection of Costa Rican
Pre-Columbian art which has been donated to
the Denver Art Museum….the seed was the
stamp collection” (a collection, including
Costa Rican stamps that Mr. Mayer had been
given as a child).
The “seed was the stamp collection”----what
a concept: little squares, rectangles, and
triangles of paper, gummed and ungummed,
used and mint, perforated and un-perforated,
that portray images and carry messages that
change the world.
The readers who are either students of
Central American history, or collectors of
Central American stamps, will remember a
famous incident in which early in the 20th
century, an enterprising congressional
lobbyist placed a copy of a Nicaraguan stamp
showing the Concepcion Volcano erupting on
the desk of each member of the U.S.
Congress. This was enough to convince the
U.S. Congress of the day to build a sea
level canal through Panama, and not through
Nicaragua!
The seed was a stamp collection. Maybe, if
the idea of the route of Greater Nicoya
continues to gather steam, the Post Office
in Nicaragua and the Post Office in Costa
Rica might coordinate or collaborate on a
single set of stamps that celebrate the
history and prehistory of the area and could
be issued simultaneously by each country.
¹Fred Lange earned his doctorate in
anthropology from the University of
Wisconsin-Madison (1971). He is the author
of "Before Guanacaste"(2006), a popular
account of the first 10,000 years of the
province. BG is available in Libreria
Internacional bookstores throughout Costa
Rica, at the Jaime Peligro book store in
Tamarindo, and in the Cafe Britt store at
Peninsula de Papagayo. Fred’s e-mail is
hormiga_1999@yahoo.com |
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