Between Two Fires: Mayangna Indians in Post-Revolutionary Nicaragua, 1979-1990

The predominant Mayangna narrative of the Nicaraguan Civil Warholds that the Miskitu tricked them into joining the conflict. However, Iargue here that the Mayangna leadership and the Sandinista governmentwere also responsible, as Sandinista denial of the importance of ethnicdifference in Nicaragua allowed Miskitu nationalists, using the languageof religion, to co-opt Mayangna leaders, while subsequent Sandinistaviolence turned Mayangna civilians against the revolution. Accusationsof trickery stem from later Mayangna disillusion with the war and fromproblems with the autonomous political system set up in its wake, whichencourages the Mayangna to underplay the role of their own leaders andthe Sandinista government in embroiling them in the conflict. This one-sided narrative, however, increasingly defines Mayangna interpretationsof their very identity as a people