Mayangna

The Mayangna, long called Sumu by their Miskito rivals, were a Misumalpan-speaking people of the Mosquito Coast in eastern Nicaragua and Honduras. Before Oto-Manguean and Nahua migrants reached the Pacific side of Nicaragua from the ninth century, Misumalpan languages were probably spoken across most of the country.

When the English appeared on the Caribbean coast in the 1630s, the Mayangna were divided among at least nine sub-tribes. The English-armed Miskito broke their predominance: raiders seized Mayangna captives for Jamaican plantations, a trade flourishing when the English crowned the Miskito chief Oldman in 1660.

Through the eighteenth century the Mayangna retreated toward the headwaters of the Coco, Bocay and other rivers, while coastal communities paid tribute to the Miskito king. Isolated villages supplied the hardwood canoes used by the raiders who preyed on them.