Altagracia is a municipality

Municipality

A municipality is essentially an urban administrative division having corporate status and usually powers of self-government. It can also be used to mean the governing body of a municipality. A municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district...

 in the Rivas Department of Nicaragua

Nicaragua

Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...

. It is the second largest city on the island of Ometepe

Ometepe

Ometepe is an island formed by two volcanoes rising from Lake Nicaragua in the Republic of Nicaragua. Its name derives from the Nahuatl words ome and tepetl , meaning two mountains...

. Its original name was Astagalpa, meaning ‘house of the herons’ in Nahuatl

Nahuatl

Nahuatl is thought to mean "a good, clear sound" This language name has several spellings, among them náhuatl , Naoatl, Nauatl, Nahuatl, Nawatl. In a back formation from the name of the language, the ethnic group of Nahuatl speakers are called Nahua...

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History

Altagracia is home to a cathedral which was built in 1924. The city has recently installed a sculpture park next to the cathedral that contains important pre-Columbian art made from basalt

Basalt

Basalt is a common extrusive volcanic rock. It is usually grey to black and fine-grained due to rapid cooling of lava at the surface of a planet. It may be porphyritic containing larger crystals in a fine matrix, or vesicular, or frothy scoria. Unweathered basalt is black or grey...

 rock. The figures are of great size, and represent human figures and their alter egos, mainly the eagle

Eagle

Eagles are members of the bird family Accipitridae, and belong to several genera which are not necessarily closely related to each other. Most of the more than 60 species occur in Eurasia and Africa. Outside this area, just two species can be found in the United States and Canada, nine more in...

 and jaguar

Jaguar

The jaguar is a big cat, a feline in the Panthera genus, and is the only Panthera species found in the Americas. The jaguar is the third-largest feline after the tiger and the lion, and the largest in the Western Hemisphere. The jaguar's present range extends from Southern United States and Mexico...

.

Also present in Altagracia is the Museum of Ometepe (Museo de Ometepe) with a large archaeological and ethnographic collection.

Tradition

The city patron is San Diego de Alcalá and his festival, Fiesta de San Diego, is celebrated from November 12-18. The traditional dance called baile del Zompopo is performed on the 17th of November. This tradition is mixed with the celebration of Xolotl

Xolotl

In Aztec mythology, Xolotl was the god with associations to both lightning and death.Although often depicted in relation to the underworld, Xolotl was not a psychopomp in the Western sense. Xolotl did, however, aid the dead on their journey to Mictlan, the afterlife in some myths.Xolotl was also...

, who inhabited Nicaragua in pre-Columbian

Pre-Columbian

The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during...

 times before the Spaniards arrived. When the Franciscan

Franciscan

Most Franciscans are members of Roman Catholic religious orders founded by Saint Francis of Assisi. Besides Roman Catholic communities, there are also Old Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, ecumenical and Non-denominational Franciscan communities....

arrived in Ometepe in 1613, this tradition was already existent, although they brought with themselves an image of San Diego de Alcalá and with time they obtained his figure and replaced Xolotl.