SOUTH AMERICAN TRIBES.

GENERAL REMARKS.

The linguistic classification of the South American tribes offers far greater difficulties than that of North America. Not only has it been studied less diligently, but the geographical character of the interior, the facilities with which tribes move along its extensive water-ways, and the less stable temperament of the white population have combined to obscure the relationship of the native tribes and to limit our knowledge about them.

The first serious attempt to take a comprehensive survey of the idioms of this portion of the continent was that of the Abbé Hervas in his general work on the languages of the globe.[218] Balbi and Adelung did scarcely more than pursue the lines he had traced in this portion of the field. So little had these obtained definite results that Alexander von Humboldt renounced as impracticable the arrangement of South American tribes by their languages, because “more than seven-eighths would have remained what the classifying botanists call incertæ sedis.”[219]

This eminent naturalist, however, overlooked no opportunity to collect material for the study of the native tongues, and on his return to Europe placed what he had secured in the hands of his distinguished brother for analysis. William von Humboldt, who was the profoundest linguist of his day, gave close attention to the subject, but rather from a purely critical than an ethnographic aspect. He based upon the South American languages many principles of his linguistic philosophy; but so little general attention was given the subject that his most valuable study was first given to the press by myself in 1885.[220]

Sixty years ago the French traveler, Alcide D’Orbigny, published his important work devoted to South American Ethnography, but confined to that portion of the continent he had visited, south of the parallel of 12° south latitude.[221] His classification was based partly on language, partly on physical traits, and as it seemed simple and clear, it has retained its popularity quite to the present day. He subsumes all the tribes in the area referred to under three “races,” subdivided into “branches” and “nations” as follows:—

1. Ando-Peruvian Race.

Branch. Nations.

1. Peruvian. Quichuas.

Aymaras.

Chancos.

Atacamas.

2. Andean. (Antisian.) Yuracares.

Mocetenes.

Tacanas.

Maropas.

Apolistas.

3. Araucanian. Aucas.

Fuegians.

2. Pampean Race.

Branch. Nations.

1. Pampean. Tehuelches.

Puelches.

Charruas.

Mbocobis.

Mataguayos.

Abipones.

Lenguas.

2. Chiquitean. Samucus.

Chiquitos.

Saravecas.

Otuquis.

Curuminacas.

Covarecas.

Curaves.

Tapiis.

Curucanecas.

Paiconecas.

Corabecas.

3. Moxean. Moxos.

Chapacuras.

Itonamas.

Canichanas.

Mobimas.

Cayuvavas.

Pacaguaras.

Itenes.

3. Brasilio-Guaranian Race.

Nations.

Guaranis.

Botocudos.

In this classification, the distinctions of “races” and “branches” are based exclusively on physical characteristics, and are at times in conflict with a linguistic arrangement. The Botocudos and Guaranis, for instance, are wholly dissimilar and should no more be classed together than the Peruvians and the Tupis; the Saravecas and Paiconecas speak Arawak dialects; and other examples could be cited. When D’Orbigny confined himself to the identification of related tribes by a close scrutiny of their idioms, he rendered valuable service by introducing order into the chaotic nomenclature of earlier writers, as he forcibly points out; but his physical discriminations are of little value.

About the middle of this century, two German travelers, Von Tschudi and Von Martius, gave close attention to the linguistic ethnology of the continent, Von Tschudi in Peru and Von Martius in Brazil. The former found the field so unoccupied that he did not hesitate to write in a work published less than ten years ago, “In fact, the knowledge of the languages of South America is to-day less than it was two hundred years ago.”[222] His own divisions of the linguistic regions (Sprachgebiete) of the continent is less satisfactory than we might expect. He describes three principal and seven minor districts, the former being, 1. The Pampo-Andean; 2. The inter-Andean; and 3. The Tupi-Guarani regions. The minor centers are, 1. The Arawak-Carib region; 2. That of Cundinamarca; 3. The Rio Meta; 4. The Rio Tolima; 5. The Rio Atrato; 6. The Rio Salado; 7. The Chaco; 8. That of the Moxos.

These are so far from meeting the requirements of our linguistic possessions at present that scarcely one of them can be accepted. Von Tschudi was an able and critical scholar in his particular field, that of the Kechua tongue, but he had not made a wide study of South American languages.

Von Martius was much more of a comparative linguist. His work on the ethnography and linguistics of South America[223] is a mine of general information, and indispensable to every student of the subject. Taking the numerous and confused dialects of Brazil, and the almost hopeless synonymy of its tribal names, he undertook a classification of them by establishing verbal and grammatical similarities. It is now generally recognized that he went too far in this direction. He maintained, for instance, that there is a demonstrable relationship between the Tupi, the Carib, and the Arawak stocks; later studies have not endorsed this, but have tended to show that they cannot be traced to any common mother-speech. What Martius called the “Guck” nations, which he brought into connection through the word of that sound used by them to designate the paternal uncle, are now considered to be without general relationship. The researches of Karl Von Den Steinen and Lucien Adam have overthrown this theory.

It is especially in studying the vast and largely unexplored regions watered by the upper streams of the mighty Amazon, that one is yet at a loss to bring the native inhabitants into ethnic order. Of the various explorers and travellers who have visited that territory, few have paid attention to the dialects of the natives, and of those few, several have left their collections unpublished. Thus, I have been unable to learn that Richard Spruce, who obtained numerous vocabularies along the Amazon and its branches, gave them to the press; and there were in the hands of Von Tschudi more than a hundred vocabularies collected by the German naturalist, Johannes Natterer, in the interior of Brazil,[224] most of which I learn are still in manuscript. In default of material such as this, the classification of the tribes of Brazil must remain imperfect.

It is also a matter of much regret that no copy can be found of the work of the celebrated missionary, Alonso de Barcena, Lexica et Precepta in quinque Indorum Linguis, published at Lima, in 1590—if, indeed, it was ever really printed. It contained grammars of the Kechua, Aymara, Yunca, Puquina and Katamareña, (spoken by the Calchaquis). Of the two last mentioned idioms no other grammar is known, which makes the complete disappearance of this early printed book particularly unfortunate. Another Jesuit, Father Guillaume D’Étré, wrote out the catechism and instructions for the sacraments in eighteen languages of eastern Peru and the upper Orinoco;[225] but this, too, seems lost.

Of late years no one has paid such fruitful attention to the relationship and classification of the South American tribes and languages as M. Lucien Adam. Although I have not in all points followed his nomenclature, and have not throughout felt in accordance with his grouping, I have always placed my main dependence on his work in the special fields he has selected—the three great South American families of the Amazon region, the Arawak (called by him the Maypure), the Carib, and the Tupi.[226]

The general plan which I shall adopt is rather for convenience of arranging the subject than for reasons based on similarities either of language or physical habitus. It is that which allows the presentation of the various stocks most in accordance with their geographic distribution and their historic associations.

It is as follows:

I. The South Pacific group.

1. The Columbian region.

2. The Peruvian region.

II. The South Atlantic group.

1. The Amazonian region.

2. The Pampean region.

I. THE SOUTH PACIFIC GROUP.

1. THE COLUMBIAN REGION.

This region includes the mountainous district in northwestern South America, west of the basin of the Orinoco and north of the equator—but without rigid adherence to these lines. The character of its culture differed considerably from that found in the Atlantic regions and was much more closely assimilated to that of Peru. Three lofty mountain chains traverse New Granada from north to south, the intervening valleys being beds of powerful rivers, rich in fish and with fertile banks. This configuration of the soil has exerted a profound influence on the life and migrations of the native inhabitants, severing them from the fellow-members of their race to the east and directing their rovings in a north and south direction.

The productive valleys were no doubt densely populated; though we must regard as a wild extravagance the estimate of a modern writer that at the conquest the native inhabitants of New Granada reached “six to eight millions”[227]; and I hope that the historian Herrera was far beyond the truth when he asserted that in Popayan alone, in a single year fifty thousand of the Indians died of starvation, five thousand were killed and eaten by the famishing multitude, and a hundred thousand perished from pestilence![228]

1. Tribes of the Isthmus and Adjacent Coast.

At the discovery, the Isthmus of Panama was in the possession of the Cunas tribe, as they call themselves. They are the same to whom were applied later the names Darien Indians (Wafer), Tules, Cunacunas, Cuevas, Coybas, Mandingas, Bayanos, Irriacos, San Blas Indians, Chucunacos, Tucutis, etc.

They extended from the Gulf of Uraba and the river Atrato on the east to the river Chagres on the west. In that direction they were contiguous to the Guaymis, while on the right bank of the Atrato their neighbors were the Chocos.

The Cunas are slightly undersized (about 1.50), but symmetrical and vigorous. Their color is light, and individuals with chestnut or reddish hair and grey eyes have always been noted among them, and have erroneously been supposed to be albinos. Their skulls are markedly brachycephalic (88) and their faces broad.

In spite of the severe measures of the Spaniards, they have never been thoroughly reduced, and still manifest an unconquerable love of freedom and a wild life. When first met they lived in small villages composed of communal houses, raised maize and cotton, working the latter into garments for the women, and possessed some gold, which they obtained from the mountain streams and by working auriferous veins. The men usually appeared naked and used poisoned arrows.

The Cuna language does not seem to be positively connected with any other stock, nor have dialects of it been discovered elsewhere. A number of verbal similarities have been pointed out with the Chibcha, and it has also a certain similarity to the Carib;[229] but with our present knowledge it would be hasty to class it along with any other.

The Changuina or Dorasque tribes of the Isthmus lived latterly on the River Puan, a branch of the Telorio, and are said to have numbered 5000 persons, though but a few miserable remnants are surviving. They are lighter in color than the Guaymis, with whom they were in a constant state of quarreling. In earlier times they were bold warriors, lived by hunting, and were less cultured than their neighbors; yet a remarkable megalithic monument in the pueblo of Meza is attributed to them.[230] At the period of the conquest they dwelt in the high Sierras back of the volcano of Chiriqui and extended to the northern coast near Chiriqui Lagoon, where the River Changuina-Aula (aula, in the Mosquito language, means river), still preserves their name. They were an independent warlike tribe, and gave the Spaniards much trouble. Finally, these broils led to their practical extinction. The last member of the Dorasque branch died in 1882, and few others remain.

CHANGUINA LINGUISTIC STOCK.

Chalivas, on upper Changuina-Aula.

Changuinas, near Bugaba.

Chumulus, near Caldera.

Dorasques, on the Rio Puan.

Gualacas, near San Francisco de Dolega.

Teluskies, near Rio Puan.

The Chocos were the first nation encountered in South America on passing beyond the territory of the Cunas. They occupied the eastern shore of the Gulf of Uraba, and much of the lower valley of the Atrato. Thence they extended westerly across the Sierra to the Pacific coast, which they probably occupied from the Gulf of San Miguel, in north latitude 8°, where some of them still live under the name of Sambos, down to the mouth of the San Juan River, about north latitude 4°, on the affluents of which stream are the Tados and Noanamas, speaking well-marked dialects of the tongue. To the east they reached the valley of the Cauca, in the province of Antioquia. The Tucuras, at the junction of the Sinu and the Rio Verde, are probably their easternmost branch.[231]

Anthropologically, they resemble the Cunas, having brachycephalic skulls, with large faces, but are rather taller and of darker color. Here the resemblance ceases, for they are widely dissimilar in language, in customs and in temperament. Instead of being warlike and quarrelsome, they are mild and peaceable; they lived less in villages and communal houses than in single isolated huts. Most of them are now Catholics and cultivate the soil. They have little energy and live miserably. At the time of the conquest they were a trafficking people, obtaining salt from the saline springs and gold from the quartz lodes, which they exchanged with the tribes of the interior. Some of them were skilful in working the metal, and fine specimens of their products have been obtained from their ancestral tombs.

CHOCO LINGUISTIC STOCK.

Angaguedas, west of province of Cauca.

Cañasgordas, west of province of Cauca.

Caramantas, west of province of Cauca.

Chocos, on Rio Atrato.

Chamis, near Marmato.

Chiamus or Chocamus, on the Pacific.

Citaraes, on Rio Buei and Rio Buchado.

Murindoes.

Necodades.

Noanamas, on head-waters of Rio San Juan.

Paparos, between rivers Sapa and Puero.

Patoes.

Rio Verdes, on the Rio Verde.

Sambos, on Rio Sambo, south of Gulf of San Miguel.

Tados, head-waters of Rio San Juan.

Tucuras, on Rio Senu.

It is worth while recording the names and positions of the other native tribes along the northern coast at the time of the discovery, even if we are unable to identify their linguistic connections. An official report made in 1546 furnishes a part of this information.[232] At that time and previously the eastern shore of Venezuela was peopled by the Chirigotos, who are probably the Chagaragotos of later authors.[233] Their western neighbors were the Caracas, near the present city of that name. They were warlike, wove hamacs, poisoned their arrows, and wore ornaments of gold. The whole coast from Caracas to Lake Maracaibo was in possession of the Caquetios, who also wove hamacs, and dwelt in stationary villages. They were of milder disposition and friendly, and as a consequence were early enslaved and destroyed by the Spaniards. Even at the date of the Relation they had disappeared from the shore. It is possible that they fled far inland, and gave their name in later days to the river Caqueta.

Along the eastern border of Lake Maracaibo were the Onotes, “The Lords of the Lagoon,” Señores de la Laguna, a fine race, whose women were the handsomest along the shore.[234] They lived in houses built on piles in the lake, and fished in its waters with nets and hooks. They traded their fish for maize and yuca to the Bobures. These dwelt on the southern shore of the lake, and are distinguished as erecting temples, mesquites adoratorios, for their religious rites.[235] The Sierra on the west of the lake was the home of the warlike Coromochos.

These warriors probably belonged to the Goajiros, who then, as now, occupied the peninsula on the northwest of Lake Maracaibo.

It is not easy to say who were the Tirripis and Turbacos, who lived about the mouth of the Magdalena River, though the names remind us of the Chibcha stock. Approaching the Gulf of Darien from the east, we find the highlands and shores on its west peopled by the Caimanes. These undoubtedly belonged to the Cunas, as is proved by the words collected among them in 1820 by Joaquin Acosta.[236] The earliest linguistic evidence about their extension dates from a report in 1515,[237] in which the writer says that all along this coast, up to and beyond San Blas, the natives call a man uma and a woman ira, which are words from the Cuna dialects.

In the mountainous district of Mérida, south of the plains in the interior from Lake Maracaibo, there still dwell the remains of a number of small bands speaking dialects of a stock which has been called from one of its principal members, the Timote. It has been asserted to display a relationship to the Chibcha, but the comparisons I have made do not reveal such connection. It seems to stand alone, as an independent tongue.

All the Timotes paid attention to agriculture, raising maize, pepper and esculent roots of the potato character. Those who lived in the warm regions painted their bodies red and went naked; while those in the uplands threw around them a square cotton blanket fastened at the waist. Some of them buried their dead in caves, as the Quindoraes on the banks of the Motatan. With them they placed small figures in terra cotta. The Mocochies, living where caves are rare, built underground vaults for their dead, closing the entrance with a great stone.[238]

From the writings of Lares and Ernst I make the following list of the members of the

TIMOTE LINGUISTIC STOCK.

Aricaguas.

Aviamos.

Bailadores.

Canaguaes.

Chamas.

Escagueyes.

Guaraques.

Guaquis.

Iguiños.

Insumubies.

Jajies.

Miguries.

Mirripuyas.

Mocochies.

Mocotos.

Mocombos.

Mombunes.

Mucuchaies.

Mucunchies.

Mucurabaes.

Mucutuyes.

Quindoraes.

Quinos.

Quiroraes.

Tabayones.

Taparros.

Tatuyes.

Tiguinos.

Tricaguas.

Few of these names are found in the older writers. In the Taparros we recognize the “Zaparas,” who, in the last century, lived in contiguity to the Goajiros of the adjacent peninsula.[239] The Mucuchis gave their name to an early settlement of that name in the province of Mérida.[240] The prefix muco or moco, which is very common in place-names of that region, is believed by Lares to have a locative significance. Such names give approximately the extent of the dialects at the settlement of the country.

In the highlands near the present city of Caracas, and in the fertile valleys which surround the beautiful inland lake of Valencia to the southeast, were at the discovery a number of tribes whose names, Arbacos, Mariches, Merigotos, etc., give us no information as to their affinities. They are now extinct, and nothing of their languages has been preserved. All the more store do we set by the archæology of the district, about which valuable information has been contributed by Dr. G. Marcano.[241] He opened a number of burial mounds where the bones of the dead, after having been denuded of flesh, were interred, together with ornaments and utensils. These were in stone, bone and terra cotta, the only metal being gold in small quantity. The character of the work showed the existence of a culture belonging to the highest stage of polished stone. Many of the skulls were artificially deformed to a high degree, the frontal obliquity in some cases being double the normal. Add to this that there was present an almost unexampled prognathism, and we have crania quite without similars in other parts of the continent. When not deformed they were brachycephalic, and both series gave a respectable capacity, 1470 c. c.

2. The Chibchas.

Most of the writers on the Chibchas have spoken of them as a nation standing almost civilized in the midst of barbarous hordes, and without affinities to any other. Both of these statements are erroneous. The Chibchas proper, or Muyscas, are but one member of a numerous family of tribes which extended in both directions from the Isthmus of Panama, and thus had representatives in North as well as South America. The Chibcha language was much more widely disseminated throughout New Granada at the time of the discovery than later writers have appreciated. It was the general tongue of nearly all the provinces, and occupied the same position with reference to the other idioms that the Kechua did in Peru.[242] Indeed, most of the tribes in New Granada were recognized as members of this stock.[243] Nor were they so much above their neighbors in culture. Many of these also were tillers of the soil, weavers and spinners of cotton, diggers of gold in the quartz lodes, skilled in moulding and hammering it into artistic shapes, and known widely as energetic merchants.

No doubt the Chibchas had carried this culture to the highest point of all the family. Their home was on the southern confines of the stock, in the valleys of Bogota and Tunja, where their land extended from the fourth to the sixth degree of north latitude, about the head-waters of the Sogamoso branch of the Magdalena. Near the mouth of this river on its eastern shore, rises the Sierra of Santa Marta, overlooking the open sea, and continuing to the neck of the peninsula of Goajira. These mountains were the home time out of mind of the Aroacos, a tribe in a condition of barbarism, but not distantly related in language to the Chibchas.

When the Spaniards first undertook the conquest of this Sierra, they met with stubborn resistance from the Tayronas and Chimilas, who lived among these hills. They were energetic tribes, cultivating fields of maize, yucca, beans and cotton, which latter they wove and dyed for clothing. Not only were they versed in stratagems, but they knew some deadly poison for their arrows.[244]

In later generations the Tayronas disappear entirely from history, but I think the suggestion is well founded that they merely became merged with the Chimilas, with whom they were always associated, and who still survive in the same locality as a civilized tribe. We have some information about their language.[245] It shows sufficient affinity with the Chibcha to justify me in classing the Tayronas and Chimilas in that group.

An imperfect vocabulary of the native residents of Siquisique in the state of Lara, formerly the province of Barquisimetro, inclines me to unite them with the Aroac branch of this stock, though their dialect is evidently a mixed one.[246]

A still more interesting extension of this stock was that which it appears to have had at one time in the northern continent. A number of tribes beyond the straits, in the states of Panama and Costa Rica, were either filially connected or deeply influenced by the outposts of the Chibcha nation. These were the Guaymis in Veraguas, who possessed the soil from ocean to ocean, and the Talamancas of Costa Rica, who in a number of small sub-tribes extended quite to the boundaries of the present state of Nicaragua. It has been recently shown, and I think on satisfactory evidence, that their idioms contain a large number of Chibcha words, and of such a class that they could scarcely have been merely borrowed, but point to a prolonged admixture of stocks.[247] Along with these terms are others pointing to a different family of languages, perhaps, as has long been suspected, to some of the Carib dialects; but up to the present time they must be said not to have been identified.

Thus Lucien Adam has pointed out that the two groups of the Guaymi dialects differ as widely, as follows:

MUOI-MUR-IRE-SAVANERO. VALIENTE-GUAYMI-NORTENO.

Sun, cui, nono, noana.

Moon, dai, so, go.

Water, ci, ca, ño, ñu.

Man, cuia, ni-togua.

Woman, moima, ni-uire.

Eye, guagava, ogua.

Nose, se, chegua, ni-doñ, domo.

Foot, sera, n-goto.

Dr. Max Uhle, in a late essay, has collected numerous verbal identities between the various Guaymi and Talamanca dialects on the one hand, and the Aroac and Chibcha on the other, including most of the simple numerals and many words besides those which would be likely to be introduced by commerce. Not stopping with this, he has successfully developed a variety of laws of vowel and consonant changes in the dialects, which bring the resemblance of the two groups into strong relief and do away with much of their seeming diversity. Moreover, he points out that the terminations of the present and imperative are identical, and the placement of words in the sentence alike in both. These and his other arguments are sufficient, I think, to establish his thesis; and I am at greater pains to set it forth, as I regard it as one of unusual importance in its bearing on the relations which existed in pre-historic times between tribes along the boundary of the two continents.

As to the course of migration, I do not think that the discussion of the dialectic changes leaves any room for doubt. They all indicate attrition and loss of the original form as we trace them from South into North America; evidently the wandering hordes moved into the latter from the southern continent. So far, there is no evidence that any North American tribe migrated into South America.

To illustrate these points I quote from Uhle’s tables the following:

Comparison of the Chibcha with the Costa Rican Dialects.

(T. = Talamanca. G. = Guaymi.)

CHIBCHA. COSTA RICA.

Head, zysqui, dzekung, T., thokua, G.

Ear, cuhuca, kuku, T.

Tongue, pcua, ku, T.

Breasts, chue, tsu, T.

Navel, mue, mbwo, T.

Foot, quihyca, ketscha, T.

Bird, sue, du, T., nukua, G.

Fish, gua, gua, G.

Snake, tacbi, thekebe, G.

Ant, ize, tsa, T.

Maize, aba, ep, T.

Stone, hyca, hak, T.

Water, sie, di, T., chi, G.

Sun, sua, chui, G.

House, güe, hu, T., xu, G.

Comb, cuza, kasch, T.

One, ata, et, T., ti, G.

Two, boza, bu, T., bu, G.

Three, mica, mia, T., mai, G.

The numerous relics which since 1859 have been disinterred from the ancient sepulchres of Chiriqui may be attributed to the members of this stock; perhaps, as M. Pinart has suggested, to the ancestors of the Guaymis, or, as Dr. Berendt thought, to the Cunas or Coibas.[248] These graves are scattered in small groups or cemeteries, rarely more than ten acres in extent, over the Pacific slope of the province of Chiriqui. The similarity of the culture of their makers to that of the Chibchas has not failed to impress archæological experts. Thus, W. H. Holmes remarks in his admirable article on the “Art of Chiriqui.” “In their burial customs, in the lack of enduring houses or temples, and in their use of gold, they were like the ancient peoples of middle and southern New Granada.”[249]

These relics are in stone, in pottery of many varieties and forms, and in the metals gold, copper, silver and tin in various alloys. So large was the quantity of gold that from a single cemetery over fifty thousand dollars in value have been extracted. No wonder that Columbus and his companions gave to this region the appellation Castillo del Oro, Golden Castilé.

Such a condition of civilization is in accord with the earliest descriptions of the Chiriqui tribes. When in 1521 Francisco Compañon overran their country, he found the Borucas and their neighbors living in villages surrounded with high wooden palisades, the posts firmly lashed together, making a solid wall of defence.[250]

The culture of the Chibchas has been portrayed by numerous writers, and it deserves to rank as next to that of the Nahuas and Kechuas, though in many respects inferior to both of these. Their chiefs held by succession through the female side, the matriarchal system prevailing throughout their tribes. Agriculture was diligently pursued, the products being maize, potatoes, yucca and cotton. Artificial irrigation by means of ditches was in extended use. Salt was prepared on a large scale by evaporation, and their skill in the manufacture of cotton cloth was notable. Copper and bronze were unknown, and all their tools and weapons were of wood and stone. In this respect they were in arrears of their not distant neighbors, the Kechuas. Gold, however, they had in quantity, and knew how to smelt it and to work it into vases and ornaments of actual beauty. The use of stone for building was unknown, and their finest structures were with wooden walls coated with clay and roofed with straw.

In spite of what has sometimes been brought forward, it is not likely that they had any method of writing, and much that has been advanced about their calendar is of doubtful correctness. They had neither the quipos of the Peruvians nor the picture writing of the Mexicans. The carved stones which have sometimes been produced as a species of calendar were probably merely moulds for hammering gold into shape.

Quite a body of their mythologic legends have been preserved, replete with interest to the student of the religious sentiment of this race. They indicate an active imagination and may be regarded as quite authentic.

The Chibchas proper, as well as the Aroacos, were meso- or brachycephalic, the cephalic index ranging above 80. They were of moderate stature, dark in color, the face broad, the eyes dark and often slightly oblique, the cheek-bones prominent and the general appearance not handsome.

CHIBCHA LINGUISTIC STOCK.

Aruacs (Aroacos), in Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and on Rio Paramo.

Bintucuas, a sub-tribe of the Aruacs.

Borucas, sub-tribe of Talamancas.

Bribris, sub-tribe of Talamancas.

Bruncas, see Borucas.

Cabecars, sub-tribe of Talamancas.

Chibchas, on upper Rio Magdalena, near Bogota.

Chicamochas, about 4° N. lat.

Chimilas, in the sierra of Santa Marta.

Chitas or Chiscas, near Sierra de Morcote.

Duits, near Duitama.

Guacicas, east of Bogota, on the head-waters of Rio Meta.

Guamacas, a sub-tribe of Aruacs.

Guaymis, on both slopes of the Cordillera, in Veraguas.

Köggabas, a sub-tribe of the Aruacs.

Morcotes, near San Juan de los Llanos.

Muois, a sub-tribe of the Guaymis.

Murires, a sub-tribe of the Guaymis.

Muyscas, see Chibchas.

Sinsigas, in the sierra near Tunja.

Talamancas, in the sierra in Costa Rica.

Tayronas, in the Sierra de Santa Marta.

Terrabas, a sub-tribe of Talamancas.

Tirribis, a sub-tribe of Talamancas.

Tucurriques, a sub-tribe of the Talamancas.

Tunebos, in the sierra east of Bogota.

Valientes, a sub-tribe of the Guaymis.

3. The Paniquitas and Paezes.

A number of tribes living to the north and west of the Chibchas seem to have belonged to one stock. They are mentioned by the older historians as acting in alliance, as in constant war with the Chibchas, and several of them as speaking dialects of a tongue wholly different from the Chibchas. Their stage of culture was lower, but they were acquainted with the bow, the sling and the war-club, and had fixed habitations. I give the list of these presumably related tribes, and apply to the stock the name of one of the modern tribes which retain the language.[251]

PANIQUITA LINGUISTIC STOCK.

Canapeis, sub-tribe of Colimas (Herrera).

Colimas, on the right bank of Magdalena, adjacent to the Musos.

Manipos, adjacent to the Pijoas.

Musos, on right bank of the Magdalena, adjacent and north of the Muyscas.

Nauras, on the Rio Carari.

Paezes, on the central Cordillera.

Panches, on the east bank of Magdalena, near Tocayma.

Paniquitas, between upper waters of the Magdalena and Cauca.

Pantagoros, on both shores of the Magdalena and in province of Quimbaya.

Pijaos, in Popayan, on the Cauca and Neyva.

My reasons for identifying the modern Paniquitas and Paezes with the ancient tribes named are, first, the identity of the location, and secondly, the presence of the initial syllable pan in the names of two of the principal extinct peoples, a word which in Paniquita means “mountain,” and clearly refers to the position of their villages in the sierra, between the head-waters of the Cauca and Magdalena Rivers.

Among the references in the older writers, I may mention that Herrera states that the language of the Panches was one of the most extended in that part of the country, and that the tribes speaking it almost surrounded the Muyscas;[252] and Piedrahita specifically adds that the Pijaos, the most powerful tribe in Popayan, whose territory extended from Cartago to the city of Popayan, along the valley of the Neyva, and quite to San Juan de los Llanos, belonged to the same stock as the Pantagoros.

Some fragments have been preserved from the mythology of the Musos, who lived about 24 leagues northwest of Santa Fé, on the right bank of the Magdalena. Their legends pointed for the home of their ancestors to the left or western side of the river. Here dwelt, lying in a position of eternal repose, the Creator, a shadow whose name was Are. Ages ago he carved for his amusement two figures in wood, a man and a woman, and threw them into the river. They rose from its waters as living beings, and marrying, became the ancestors of the human species.[253]

Most of these tribes are reported to have flattened artificially their heads, and to have burned the bodies of their dead, or, in Popoyan, to have mummified them by long exposure to a slow fire.

The Paezes live on both slopes of the central Cordillera, across the valley of the Magdalena from Bogota, some two thousand in number, in twenty-one villages. They prefer the high altitudes, and are a hardy set of hunters and mountaineers. In spite of the cold they go nearly naked, but what is rare among native Americans, they wear a hat of reeds or bark, resembling in this some Peruvian tribes. Nor are they devoid of skill in hammering gold into ornaments, and weaving fibres of the maguey into mats and cloths. One of their peculiar customs is to burn down a house whenever a birth or a death takes place in it. The harsh dialect they speak has been rendered accessible by a publication of Señor Uricoechea. Its practical identity with the Panequita is obvious from the following comparison:[254]

PANEQUITA. PAEZ.

Eye, yafi, yafi.

Hand, kousseh, cose.

House, iat, yath.

Man, pitsto, piz petam.

Tongue, tunneh, toné.

Tooth, kit, quith.

Two, hendsta, enz.

Three, tejta, tec.

Four, pansta, panz.

4. South Columbian Tribes, Natives of Cauca, Coconucos, Barbacoas, Andaquis, Mocoas, Cañaris.

In the states of Cauca and Antioquia there are scarcely any full-blood natives remaining, and the tribes after the conquest were so shifted about that it is difficult to know to which of them we should attribute the abundant remains of ancient art which are scattered profusely over this region. There are numerous sepulchral tumuli, especially in the Frontino and Dabeiba districts, which yield a rich harvest to the antiquary. They contain gold figures, vases and ornaments, stone implements of uncommon perfection, mirrors of polished pyrites, and small images in stone and terra cotta. There are also remarkable ruins in the valley of the Rio de la Plata, an affluent of the upper Magdalena. They consist in colossal statues rudely carved from stone, and edifices of the same material, partly underground, the walls of large slabs, and the roof supported by cylindrical carved pillars. A few of these still remain intact, but the majority have been wrecked by the earthquakes and by the vandalism of treasure-hunters.[255]

In an attempt to restore the ancient ethnography of this region, Dr. Posada-Arango thinks the former tribes can be classed under three principal nations:[256]

1. The Catios, west of the river Cauca.

2. The Nutabes, on the right bank of the Cauca, in its central course.

3. The Tahamies, toward the east and south.

In addition to these, there are the Yamacies, near the present city of Saragossa.

According to the early records, these tribes lived in fixed habitations constructed of wood and roofed with thatch. They were cultivators of the soil, skilled in the manufacture of pottery and stone implements, and had as domestic animals parrots and a small species of dog (perros de monte). Their clothing was of cotton, and they were much given to wearing ornaments, many of which were of gold.

From the unfortunate absence of linguistic material, I am unable to classify these interesting peoples.

In the valleys of the Sierra south of the Paezes dwelt the Guanucos, described by the first explorers as a warlike people in an advanced stage of culture. Their houses were of stone, roofed with straw. The sun was worshipped with elaborate ceremonies, including choruses of virgins and the ministration of thousands of priests.[257] The dead were buried and the funeral solemnities associated with human sacrifice. At present the neighbors of the Paezes on the western slope of the Cordillera are the Moguexes or Guambianos, partially civilized and carrying on a rude agriculture. They are much given to dissolute dances to the sound of the marimba, and to stupefying themselves with stramonium, which they also use to catch fish.[258]

The informant of the Abbé Hervas, Señor Velasco, asserted that the Guanucos were a branch of the Coconucos, who dwelt near the foot of the mountain of that name in Popayan, and figure considerably in some of the older histories.[259] Bollaert learned that some of them still survive, and obtained a few words of their language, which he was also told was the same as that of the Pubenanos.[260] I have found by comparison that it is identical with that of the Moguexes and Totoros,[261] and I am therefore enabled to present the following group as members of what I shall call the

COCONUCA LINGUISTIC STOCK.

Coconucos, at the sources of the Rio Purase.

Guanucos, in the Sierra.

Guambianos, see Moguexes.

Moguexes, on the western slope of the Cordillera.

Pubenanos, adjacent to the Coconucos.

Mosqueras, sub-tribe of Moguexes.

Polindaras, head-waters of Rio Cauca.

Totoros, in the Sierra between the Magdalena and Cauca.

To these should probably be added the Conchucos and Guaycos, who appear to have been adjacent tribes speaking the same tongue, although also being familiar with the Kechua language.[262]

In the upper valleys of the rivers Daule, Chone and Tachi, there still survive some families of the “painted Indians,” who were referred to by Cieza de Leon as Manivis, now usually called Colorados, but whose own name is Sacchas, men or people. They are naturally of a light yellow hue, some with light hair and eyes, but are accustomed to go naked and cover their skin with a reddish vegetable pigment, which on the face is laid on in decorative lines. Their language,[263] with which we have some acquaintance, appears to belong to the same family as that of the Barbacoas, to whom the Jesuit Father Luca della Cueva went as missionary in 1640, and that of the Iscuandes and the Telembis, all residing in the forests near the coast, between 1° and 2° north latitude. These are described by M. André, who visited them in 1880, as of mixed blood and reduced to a few hundreds, but still retaining something of their ancient tongue, of which he obtained a vocabulary of 23 words. The Cuaiqueres he reports as also speaking this idiom.[264]

Velasco mentions that the Barbacoas, Telembis and Iscuandes formed a confederation governed by a council of nine members chosen equally from the three tribes.

To the south of the Telembis and adjoining the Kechua-speaking Malabas in the district of La Tola were the Cayapas, of whom some remnants remain, still preserving their native tongue. A vocabulary of it, obtained by H. Wilcszynski, has recently been published.[265] On comparing it with the Colorado vocabulary secured by Bishop Thiel and edited by Dr. Seler, it is clear that they are dialects of the same stock, as will be seen from these examples:[266]

CAYAPA. COLORADA.

Head, mishpuca, michu.

Hair, achua, apichu.

Eye, capucua, caco.

Fingers, fia-misho, té-michu.

Fire, nin-guma, ni.

Water, pi, pi.

Rain, shua, chua-ptana.

Tree, chi, chi-tue.

Night, quepe, quepe.

Sister, in-socki, soque.

House, ia, ya.

White, fiba, fibaga.

To sleep, casto, catzoza.

To drink, pi-cushno, cuchi.

The Cayapas are described as well-built, with oval faces and roman noses.[267]

As the Barbacoas were the first known and probably the most numerous member of this family, I shall select their name to apply to them all, and classify the group as follows:

BARBACOA LINGUISTIC STOCK.

Barbacoas, on Upper Patia and Telembi.

Cayapas, on coast near La Tola.

Colorados, on Daule, Chone and Tachi Rivers.

Cuaiqueres, on the coast about 1° N. Lat.

Iscuandes, on Rio Patia.

Manivis, head-waters of Rio Telembi.

Sacchas, see Colorados.

Telembis, on Rio Telembi.

I have, in obedience to a sense of caution, treated of this stock as separate from the Cocanuca; but the fragmentary vocabularies at my command offer a number of resemblances between the two, and I expect that ampler material will show increased analogies, probably to the extent of proving them branches of the same family tree.

In the roughest part of the Eastern Cordillera, about the head-waters of the two rivers Fragua, (between 1° and 2° north latitude), live the Andaquis. They are wild and warlike, and are the alleged guardians of the legendary Indeguau, “House of the Sun,” a cavern in which, according to local tradition, lies piled the untold gold of the ancient peoples.[268] At the time of the conquest their ancestors are said to have occupied the fertile lands between the Magdalena and Suaza rivers, especially the valley of San Augustin, where they constructed mysterious cyclopean edifices and subterranean temples, and carved colossal statues from the living rock. These have been described and portrayed by intelligent travelers, and give us a high opinion of the skill and intelligence of their builders.[269]

The only specimen I have found of the Andaqui language is the vocabulary collected by the Presbyter Albis. Its words show slight similarities to the Paniquita and the Chibcha,[270] but apparently it is at bottom an independent stock. The nation was divided into many sub-tribes, living in and along the eastern Cordillera, and on the banks of the rivers Orteguasa, Bodoquera, Pescado, Fragua and San Pedro, all tributaries of the Caqueta.

The home of the Mocoas is between 1° and 2° north lat. along the Rio de los Engaños or Yari, (whence they are sometimes called Engaños or Inganos), and other tributaries of the Caqueta.[271] They are partially civilized, and have seven or more villages near the town of Mocoa. They are the first natives encountered in descending the eastern slope of the Cordillera. Unfortunately, we have a very imperfect knowledge of their language, a few words reported by the Presbyter Albis being all I have seen. So many of them are borrowed from the Kechua, that I have no means of deciding whether the following list of the stock is correct or not:

MOCOA LINGUISTIC STOCK.

Almaguereños.

Engaños or Inganos.

Mesayas.

Mocoas.

Pastuzos.

Patias (?)

Sebondoyes.

Of these, the Patias dwelt on the lofty and sterile plain between the two chains of the Cordilleras in Popayan. The Sebondoyes had a village on the Putumayo, five leagues south of the Lake of Mocoa (Coleti).

The region around the Gulf of Guayaquil was conquered by the Inca Tupac Yupanqui about 1450.[272] The accounts say that it had previously been occupied by some five-and-twenty independent tribes, all of whom were brought under the dominion of the Kechuas and adopted their language. The most prominent of these were the Cañaris, whose homes were in the hot valleys near the coast. Before the arrival of the Incas they had a certain degree of cultivation, being skilled in the moulding of copper, which they worked with a different technique from the Kechuas. Many of their copper axes are ornamented with strange figures, perhaps totemic, cut into the metal. As much as five or six hundred pounds’ weight of these axes has been taken from one of their tombs.[273] Some of the most beautiful gold work from the Peruvian territory has been found in modern times in this province, but was perhaps the work of Kechua rather than of Cañari artists.[274]

The original language of the Cañaris, if it was other than the Kechua, appears to have been lost.

2. THE PERUVIAN REGION.

The difficulty of a linguistic classification of the tribes of the Peruvian region is presented in very formidable terms by the old writers. Cieza de Leon said of this portion of the continent: “They have such a variety of languages that there is almost a new language at every league in all parts of the country;”[275] and Garcilasso de la Vega complains of the “confusion and multitude of languages,” which gave the Incas so much trouble, and later so much impeded the labors of the missionaries.[276] An authority is quoted by Bollaert to the effect that in the vice-royalty of Quito alone there were more than forty distinct tongues, spoken in upwards of three hundred different dialects.[277]

Like most such statements, these are gross exaggerations. In fact, from all the evidence which I have been able to find, the tribes in the inter-Andean valley, and on the coast, all the way from Quito, under the equator, to the desert of Atacama in 25° south latitude, belonged to probably four or at most five linguistic stocks. These are the Kechua, the Aymara, the Puquina, the Yunca, and the Atacameño. Of these, the first three were known in the early days of the conquest, as “the three general languages”—lenguas generales—of Peru, on account of their wide distribution. But it is quite likely, as I shall show later, that the Aymara was a dialect, and not an independent stock.

1. The Kechuas.

The Kechua in its various dialects, was spoken by an unbroken chain of tribes for nearly two thousand miles from north to south; that is, from 3° north of the equator to 32° south latitude. Its influence can be traced over a far wider area. In the dialects of Popayan in Ecuador, in those on the Rio Putumayo and Rio Napo, in those on the Ucayali and still further east, on the banks of the Beni and Mamore, in the Moxa of the Bolivian highlands, and southeast quite to the languages of the Pampas, do we find numerous words clearly borrowed from this widespread stock.

This dissemination was due much more to culture than to conquest. It was a tribute to the intellectual superiority, the higher civilization, of this remarkable people, as is evident by the character of the words borrowed. It is a historic error to suppose that the extension of the Kechua was the result of the victories of the Incas. These occurred but a few centuries before the arrival of the Spaniards, and their influence was not great on the native tongues, as even the panegyrist of the Incas, Garcilasso de la Vega, confesses.[278] The opinion of Von Tschudi was so positive on this point that he says: “With a few unimportant exceptions, wherever the Kechua was spoken at the time of the conquest, it had been spoken thousands of years before the Inca dynasty began.”[279] The assertion of Garcilasso de la Vega, that the Inca gens had a language of its own, has been shown to be an error.[280]

Where should we look for the starting-point, the “cradle,” of the far-spread Kechua stock? The traditions of the Incas pointed to the shores and islands of Lake Titicaca as the birth-place of their remotest ancestors; but as Markham has abundantly shown, this was a pure myth. He himself is decidedly of the opinion that we must search for the cradle of the stock in the district of Cuzco, perhaps not far from Paucartambo, “The House of the Dawning,” to which other venerable Incarian legends assigned the scene of the creation of their common ancestors.[281]

But there are many reasons, and to me satisfactory ones, for believing that the first Kechuas appeared in South America at the extreme north of the region they later occupied, and that the course of their migration was constantly from north to south. This was also the opinion of the learned Von Tschudi. He traces the early wandering of the Kechua tribes from the vicinity of Quito to the district between the Andes and the upper Marañon, thence in the direction of Huaraz, and so gradually southward, following the inter-Andean plateau, to the northern shore of Lake Titicaca. There they encountered warlike tribes who put a stop to their further progress in that direction until the rise of the Inca dynasty, who pushed their conquests toward the south and west.

The grounds for this opinion are largely linguistic.[282] In his exhaustive analysis of the Kechua language, Von Tschudi found its most archaic forms in the extreme north, in the dialects of Quito and Chinchasuyu. This is also my own impression from the comparison of the northern and southern dialects. For instance, in the Chinchaya (northern), the word for water is yacu, while the southern dialects employ yacu in the sense of “flowing water,” or river, and for water in general adopted the word unu, apparently from the Arawak stock. Now, as Karl von den Steinen argues in a similar instance, we can understand how a river could be called “water,” but not how drinking water could be called “river;” and therefore we must assume that the original sense of yacu was simply “water,” and that the tribes who retained this meaning had the more archaic vocabulary.[283]

Mr. Markham indeed says: “In my opinion there is no sufficient evidence that the people of Quito did speak Quichua previous to the Inca conquest;” and he quotes Cieza de Leon to the effect that at the time of the Spanish conquest they had a tongue of their own.[284] I have, however, shown how untrustworthy Cieza de Leon’s statements are on such subjects; and what is conclusive, there were Kechua-speaking tribes living at the north who never were subjugated by the Incas. Such for instance were the Malabas, whom Stevenson, when visiting that region in 1815, found living in a wild state on San Miguel river, a branch of the Esmeraldas.[285] This is also true, according to the observations of Stübel, of the natives of Tucas de Santiago in the province of Pasto in Ecuador.[286]

This opinion is further supported by a strong consensus of ancient tradition, which, in spite of its vagueness, certainly carries some weight. Many of the southern Kechua tribes referred for their origin to the extreme northwest as known to them, to the ancient city of Lambayeque on the Pacific coast, a locality which, according to Bastian,[287] held a place in their traditions equivalent to that of Culiacan, “the Home of the Ancestors,” in the legendary lore of the Aztecs.

The legends of the ancient Quitus have been preserved in the work of Juan de Velasco, and although they are dismissed with small respect by Markham, I am myself of the opinion that there is both external and internal evidence to justify us in accepting them as at least genuine native productions. They relate that at a remote epoch two Kechua-speaking tribes, the Mantas on the south, and the Caras on the north, occupied the coast from the Gulf of Guayaquil to the Esmeraldas River. The Caras were the elder, and its ancestors had reached that part of the coast in rafts and canoes from some more northern home. For many generations they remained a maritime people, but at length followed up the Esmeraldas and its affluents until they reached the vicinity of Quito, where they developed into a powerful nation under the rule of their scyri, or chiefs. Of these they claimed a dynasty of nineteen previous to the conquest of their territory by the Inca Huayna Capac. They inherited in the male line, and were monogamous to the extent that the issue of only one of their wives could be regarded as legal heirs.[288] They did not bury their dead, as did the southern Kechuas, but placed them on the surface of the soil and constructed a stone mound or tomb, called tola, over the remains, resembling in this the Aymaras.

The extent of the Kechua tongue to the north has not been accurately defined. Under the name Yumbos, or Yumbos de Guerra, the old Relations included various tribes in the Quito region who had not been reduced by the Spanish Conquistadores.[289] A recent traveler, M. André, states that the Yumbos belong to the family of the Quitus, and include the tribes of the Cayapas, Colorados and Mangaches.[290] Of these, the Cayapas and Colorados, as I have shown, belong to the Barbacoa stock, though the term Colorados “painted,” is applied to so many tribes that it is not clear which is meant. The geographer Villavicencio observes that “the Napos, Canelos, Intags, Nanegales and Gualeas, collectively called Yumbos, all speak dialects of the Kechua.” The modern Canelos he describes as a cross between the ancient Yumbos and the Jivaros, to whom they are now neighbors, while the modern Quitos adjoin the Zaparos. Their language, however, he asserts, has retained its purity.[291]

Whether we should include in this stock the Macas, who dwell on the eastern slope of the Andes a few degrees south of the equator, is not clear, as I have found no vocabularies. Velasco refers to them as a part of the Scyra stock, and they are in the Kechua region. Mr. Buckley, who visited them a few years ago, describes them as divided into small tribes, constantly at war with each other. Their weapons are spears and blow-pipes with poisoned arrows. Hunting is their principal business, but they also raise some maize, yucca and tobacco. Polygamy prevails along with the patriarchal system, the son inheriting the property of his father. Some rude pottery is manufactured, and their huts of palm leaves are neatly constructed. Like the Jivaros, they prepare the heads of the dead, and sometimes a man will kill one of his wives if he takes a fancy that her head would look particularly ornamental thus preserved.[292]

The southern limit of the Kechua tongue, before the Spanish conquest, has been variously put by different writers; but I think we can safely adopt Coquimbo, in south latitude 30°, as practically the boundary of the stock. We are informed that in 1593 the priests addressed their congregations in Kechua at this place,[293] and in the same generation the missionary Valdivia names it as the northern limit of the Araucanian.[294] Doubtless, however, it was spoken by outlying colonies as far south as the river Maule, in south latitude 35°, which other writers assign as the limit of the conquests of the Incas.

Cieza de Leon and other early Spanish writers frequently refer to the general physical sameness of the Peruvian tribes. They found all of them somewhat undersized, brown in color, beardless, and of but moderate muscular force.

The craniology of Peru offers peculiar difficulties. It was the policy of the rulers to remove large numbers of conquered tribes to distant portions of the realm in order to render the population more homogeneous. This led to a constant blending of physical traits. Furthermore, nowhere on the continent do we find skulls presenting more grotesque artificial deformities, which render it difficult to decide upon their normal form. When the latter element is carefully excluded, we still find a conflicting diversity in the results of measurements. Of 245 Peruvian crania in the collection of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, 168 are brachycephalic, 50 are dolichocephalic, and 27 mesocephalic. Of 13 from near Arica, all but one are dolichocephalic. Of 104 from Pachacamac, 93 are brachycephalic and none dolichocephalic. It is evident that along the coast there lived tribes of contrasted skull forms. From the material at hand I should say that the dividing line was near Pisco, those south of that point having elongated, those north of it rounded heads. The true Kechuas and Aymaras are meso or brachycephalic. The crania from the celebrated cemetery of Ancon, which is situated on the coast near Lima, are mostly deformed, but when obtained in natural form prove the population to have been mesocephalic, with rounded orbits (megasemes) and narrow prominent noses (leptorhines). An average of six specimens yielded a cubical capacity of 1335 cub. cent.[295]

The cubical capacity of the Peruvian skulls from the coast generally averages remarkably low—lower than that of the Bushmen or Hottentots. Careful measurements give the capacity at 1230 cubic centimeters.[296] They almost reach the borders of microcephaly, which Broca placed at 1150 cubic centimeters.

Although the Spanish writers speak of the Inca as an autocratic despot, a careful analysis of the social organization of ancient Peru places it in the light of a government by a council of the gentes, quite in accordance with the system so familiar elsewhere on the continent. The Inca was a war-chief, elected by the council as an executive officer to carry out its decision, and had practically no initiative of his own. Associated with him, and nearly equal in power, was the huillac huma, or “speaking head,” who acted as president of the tribal council, and was the executive officer in the Inca’s absence. The totemic system still controlled the social life of the people, although it is evident that the idea of the family had begun to assert itself. The land continued to be owned by the gens or ayllu, and not by individuals.[297]

Agriculture had reached its highest level in Peru among the native tribes. The soil was artificially enriched with manure and guano brought from the islands; extensive systems of irrigation were carried out, and implements of bronze, as spades and hoes, took the place of the ruder tools of stone or wood. The crops were maize, potatoes both white and sweet, yucca, peppers, tobacco and cotton. Of domestic animals the llama and paco were bred for their hair, for sacrifices and as beasts of burden, but not for draft, for riding nor for milking.[298] The herds often numbered many thousands. The Inca dog was a descendant of the wolf,[299] and monkeys, birds and guinea pigs were common pets.

Cotton and hair of the various species of the llama were spun and woven into a large variety of fabrics, often ornamented with geometric designs in color. The pottery was exceedingly varied in forms. Natural objects were imitated in clay with fidelity and expression, and when a desirable model was not at hand, the potter was an adept in moulding curious trick-jars that would not empty their contents in the expected direction, or would emit a strange note from the gurgling fluid, or such as could be used as whistles, or he could turn out terra-cotta flutes and the like. Not less adroit were the artists in metal, especially in bronze and in gold and silver. The early writers are filled with expressions of astonishment at the amount, variety and beauty of the Incarian gold work. Its amount we may well credit when we are told that the value of the precious metals shipped to Spain within twenty-five years after the conquest was four hundred million ducats of gold. There are specimens enough remaining to judge of its artistic designs. They are quite ingenious and show dexterous manipulation, but rarely hint at a sense of the beautiful.

Peruvian architecture was peculiar and imposing. It showed no trace of an inspiration from Yucatan or Mexico. Its special features were cyclopean walls of huge stones fitted together without mortar; structures of several stories in height, not erected upon tumuli or pyramids; the doors narrowing in breadth toward the top; the absence of pillars or arches; the avoidance of exterior and mural decoration; the artistic disposition of niches in the walls; and the extreme solidity of the foundations. These points show that Inca architecture was not derived from that north of the isthmus of Panama. In the decorative effects of the art they were deficient; neither their sculpture in stone nor their mural paintings at all equalled those of Yucatan.

The only plan they had devised to record or to recall ideas was by means of knotted strings of various colors and sizes, called quipus. These could have been nothing more than mere mnemonic aids, highly artificial and limited in their application.

The official religion was a worship of the sun; but along with it were carried the myths of Viracocha, the national hero-god, whom it is not difficult to identify with the personifications of light so common in American religions. The ceremonies of the cult were elaborate, and were not associated with the bloody sacrifices frequent in Yucatan and Mexico. Their mythology was rich, and many legends were current of the white and bearded Viracocha, the culture hero, who gave them their civilization, and of his emergence from the “house of the dawn.” According to some authorities which appear to be trustworthy, the more intelligent of the Kechuas appear to have risen above object-worship, and to have advocated the belief in a single and incorporeal divinity.

A variety of ancestral worship also prevailed, that of the pacarina, or forefather of the ayllu or gens, idealized as the soul or essence of his descendants. The emblem worshipped was the actual body, called malqui, which was mummied and preserved with reverential care in sacred underground temples.

The morality of the Peruvians stood low. Their art relics abound in obscene devices and the portraiture of unnatural passions. We can scarcely err in seeing in them a nation which had been deteriorated by a long indulgence in debasing tastes.

The Kechua language is one of harsh phonetics, especially in the southern dialects, but of considerable linguistic development. The modifications of the theme are by means of suffixes, which are so numerous as to give it a flexibility and power of conveying slight shades of meaning rare in American tongues, and which Friedrich Müller compares to that of the Osmanli Turks.[300] Its literature was by no means despicable. In spite of the absence of a method of writing, there was a large body of songs, legends and dramas preserved by oral communication and the quipus. A number of these have been published. Among them the drama of Ollanta is the most noteworthy. It appears to be a genuine aboriginal production, committed to writing soon after the conquest, and bears the marks of an appreciation of literary form higher than we might have expected.[301] The poems or yaraveys, usually turn on love for a theme, and often contain sentiments of force and delicacy.[302] Several excellent grammatical studies of the Kechua have appeared in recent years.[303]

KECHUA LINGUISTIC STOCK.

Ayahucas, south of Quitu.

Canas, east of the Vilcañeta Pass.

Caras, on the coast from Charapoto to Cape San Francisco.

Casamarcas, on the head-waters of the Marañon.

Chachapuyas, on the right bank of the Marañon.

Chancas, near Huanta, in department Ayacucho.

Chichasuyus, in the inter-Andean valley, from Loxa to Cerro de Pasco.

Conchucos, near Huaraz.

Huacrachucus, on both banks of the gorge of the Marañon.

Huamachucus, on the upper Marañon.

Huancapampas, near Juan de Bracamoros.

Huancas, in the valley of Sausa.

Huancavillcas, on and near the river Guayaquil.

Huanucus, near Tiahuanuco.

Incas, between Rio Apurimac and Paucartambo.

Iquichanos, near Huanta.

Kechuas, from Lake Apurimac to the Pampas.

Lamanos or Lamistas, about Truxillo.

Malabas, on Rio San Miguel (a branch of the Esmeraldas).

Mantas, on the coast north of the Gulf of Guayaquil.

Morochucos, in the department of Ayacucho.

Omapachas, adjacent to the Rucanas.

Quitus, near Quito.

Rucanas, near the coast, about lat. 15°.

Yauyos, near Cañete.[304]

2. The Aymaras.

I have thought it best to treat of the Aymara as a distinct linguistic stock, although the evidence is steadily accumulating that it is, if not merely a dialect of the Kechua, then a jargon made up of the Kechua and other stocks. In the first place, the name “Aymara” appears to have been a misnomer, or, as Markham strongly puts it, a “deplorable blunder,” of the Jesuit missionaries stationed at Juli.[305] The true Aymaras were an unimportant ayllu or gens of the Kechuas, and lived in the valley of the Abancay, hundreds of miles from Juli. A number of them had been transported to Juli to work in the mines, and there had intermarried with women of the Colla and Lupaca tribes, native to that locality. The corrupt dialect of the children of these Aymara colonists was that to which the Jesuit, Ludovico Bertonio, gave the name Aymara, and in it, Markham claims, he wrote his grammar and dictionary.[306]

Its grammar and phonetics are closely analogous to those of the southern Kechua dialects, and about one-fourth of its vocabulary is clearly traceable to Kechua radicals. Moreover, the Colla, Lupaca, Pacasa and allied dialects of that region are considered by various authorities as derived from the Kechua. For these reasons, Markham, Von Tschudi, and later, Professor Steinthal, have pronounced in favor of the opinion that the so-called Aymara is a member of the Kechua linguistic stock.[307]

On the other hand, the decided majority of its radicals have no affinity with Kechua, and betray a preponderating influence of some other stock. What this may have been must be left for future investigation. It does not seem to have been the Puquina; for although that tongue borrowed from both the Aymara and the pure Kechua dialects, its numerals indicate a stock radically apart from either of them.

The Aymara was spoken with the greatest purity and precision by the Pacasas; and next to these, by the Lupacas; and it was especially on these two dialects that Bertonio founded his Grammar, and not upon the mongrel dialect of the imported laborers, as Markham would have us believe.[308]

The physical traits of the Aymara Indians offer some peculiarities. These consist mainly in an unusual length of the trunk in proportion to the height, in a surprising development of the chest, and short extremities. The proportion of the thigh to the leg in length is under the average. The leg and calf are well developed, and the general muscular force good. The hands and feet are smaller even than is common in the American race. The skull has a tendency to dolichocephaly.[309] The unusual thoracic development is plainly attributable to the tenuity of the atmosphere breathed by these residents of heights varying from 4,000 to 17,000 feet above sea level. Making allowances for the results of this exposure, they do not differ materially from the general physical habits of the Kechuas.

The location they occupied was generally to the south and east of the Kechuas, upon the plateau and western slopes of the Andes, from south latitude 15° to 20°, and through about six degrees of longitude. It may be said roughly to have been three hundred miles from north to south, and four hundred from east to west. The total native population of this area to-day is about six hundred thousand, two-thirds of whom are of pure blood, and the remainder mixed. Some of them dwell along the sea coast, but the majority are on the Bolivian plateau, the average altitude of which is more than twelve thousand feet above sea level.

The old writers furnish us very little information about the Aymaras. At the time of the discovery they were subject to the Kechuas and had long been thus dependent. Many, however, believe that they were the creators or inspirers of the civilization which the Kechuas extended so widely over the western coast. Certain it is that the traditions of the latter relate that their first king and the founder of their higher culture, Manco Capac, journeyed northward from his home on the shores of Lake Titicaca, which was situated in Aymara territory. From the white foam of this inland sea rose the Kechua culture-hero Viracocha, who brought them the knowledge of useful arts and the mysteries of their cult.

On the cold plain, higher than the summit of the Jungfrau, which borders this elevated sea are also found the enigmatical ruins of Tiahuanuco, much the most remarkable of any in America. They are the remains of imposing edifices of stone, the cyclopean blocks polished and adjusted so nicely one to the other that a knife-blade cannot be inserted in the joint.[310] In architectural character they differ widely from the remains of Incarian structures. The walls are decorated with bas-reliefs, there are remains of columns, the doors have parallel and not sloping sides, all angles are right angles, and large statues in basalt were part of the ornamentation. In these respects we recognize a different inspiration from that which governed the architecture of the Kechuas.[311]

No tradition records the builders of these strange structures. No one occupied them at the time of the conquest. When first heard of, they were lonely ruins as they are to-day, whose designers and whose purposes were alike unknown. The sepulchral structures of the Aymaras also differed from those of the Incas. They were not underground vaults, but stone structures erected on the surface, with small doors through which the corpse was placed in the tomb. They were called chulpas, and in construction resembled the tolas of the Quitus. Sometimes they are in large groups, as the Pataca Chulpa, “field of a hundred tombs,” in the province of Carancas.[312]

AYMARA LINGUISTIC STOCK.

Canas, in the Sierra of the province so-called, east of Cuzco.

Canchis, in the lowlands of the province of Canas.

Carancas, south of Lake Titicaca.

Charcas, between Lakes Aullaga and Paria.

Collas, or Collaguas, north of Lake Titicaca.

Lupacas, west of Lake Titicaca, extending to Rio Desaguadero.

Pacasas, occupied the eastern shore of Lake Titicaca.

Quillaguas, on part of the southern shore of Lake Titicaca.

3. The Puquinas.

The Puquinas are also known under the names Urus or Uros, Hunos and Ochozomas. They formerly lived on the islands and shores of Lake Titicaca, in the neighborhood of Pucarini, and in several villages of the diocese of Lima. Oliva avers that some of them were found on the coast near Lambayeque.[313] If this is correct, they had doubtless been transported there by either the Incas or the Spanish authorities. They are uniformly spoken of as low in culture, shy of strangers and dull in intelligence. Acosta pretends that they were so brutish that they did not claim to be men.[314] Garcilasso de la Vega calls them rude and stupid.[315] Alcedo, writing in the latter half of the eighteenth century, states that those on the islands had, against their will, been removed to the mainland, where they dwelt in gloomy caves and in holes in the ground covered with reeds, and depended on fishing for a subsistence.

They are alleged to have been jealous about their language, and unwilling for any stranger to learn it. Their religious exercises were conducted in Kechua, with which they were all more or less acquainted. The only specimen of their tongue in modern treatises is the Lord’s Prayer, printed by Hervas and copied by Adelung.[316] On it Hervas based the opinion that the Puquina was an independent stock. The editors of the “Mithridates” seemed to incline to the belief that it was related to the Aymara, and this opinion was fully adopted by Clement L. Markham, who pronounced it “a very rude dialect of the Lupaca,”[317] in which he was followed by the learned Von Tschudi.[318]

None of these authorities had other material than the Pater Noster referred to. Hervas credits it to a work of the missionary Geronimo de Ore, which it is evident that neither he nor any of the other writers named had ever seen, as they all speak of the specimen as the only printed example of the tongue. This work is the Rituale seu Manuale Peruanum, published at Naples in 1607. It contains about thirty pages in the Puquina tongue, with translations into Aymara, Kechua, Spanish and Latin, and thus forms a mine of material for the student. Though rare, a copy of it is in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, and is thus readily accessible. I have published a number of extracts from its Puquina renderings in the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society for 1890. They are sufficient to show that while this language borrowed many terms, especially those referring to religion and culture, from the neighboring Kechua and Aymara dialects, these were but additions to a primitive stock fundamentally different from either of them.

The dissimilarity of the three tongues is well seen in their numerals, which are as follows:

KECHUA. AYMARA. PUQUINA.

One, huc, mayni, pesc.

Two, iscay, pani, so.

Three, quimsa, quimsa, capa.

Four, tahua, pusi, sper.

Five, pichka, pisca, tacpa.

Six, soccta, chocta, chichun.

Seven, canchis, pa-callco, stu.

Eight, pusacc, quimsa-callco, quina.

Nine, iscon, llalla-tunca, checa.

Ten, chunca, tunca, scata.

In these lists the Aymara numerals, one, two and four are independent; three, five, six and ten are taken from the Kechua; and the remaining three are compound, pa-callco, being 2+5; quimsa-callco, 3+5; and llalla-tunca meaning “less than ten.” Callco is derived from the word for “foot,” the counting being with the toes. On the other hand, there is not a single numeral in the Puquina which can be derived from either Kechua or Aymara; and what is more remarkable, there is apparently not one which is compounded.

It remains puzzling to me why the Puquina, which seems to have been spoken only by a few wretched villagers about Lake Titicaca, should have been classed by writers in the sixteenth century as one of the lenguas generales of Peru. Not only does Ore refer to it by this term, but in one of the official Relaciones Geograficas written in 1582, it is mentioned as “one of the three general languages of this kingdom.”[319] This would seem to indicate that at that period it had a wider extension than we can now trace.

4. The Yuncas.

The Yuncas occupied the hot valleys near the sea between south latitude 5° and 10°, their capital being in the vicinity of the present city of Truxillo. Their tongue belongs to an entirely different stock from the Kechua, and was not influenced by it. It still survives in a few sequestered valleys. The extreme difficulty of its phonetics aided to prevent its extension.[320]

There is little doubt but that the Yuncas immigrated to their locality at some not very distant period before the conquest. According to their own traditions their ancestors journeyed down the coast in their canoes from a home to the north, until they reached the port of Truxillo.[321] Here they settled and in later years constructed the enormous palace known as the Gran Chimu, whose massive brick walls, spacious terraces, vast galleries and fronts decorated with bas-reliefs and rich frescoes, are still the wonder and admiration of travelers.[322]

Near by, in the valley of Chicama and vicinity, they constructed capacious reservoirs and canals for irrigation which watered their well-tilled fields, and were so solidly constructed that some of them have been utilized by enterprising planters in this generation. Doubtless some of these were the work of the Incas after their conquest of this valley by the Inca Pachacutec, as is related by Garcilasso de la Vega,[323] but the fact that the Chimus were even before that date famed for their expertness in the working of metals and the fashioning of jewels and vases in silver and gold,[324] proves that they did not owe their culture to the instruction of the Quichuas.

The term yunca-cuna is a generic one in the Kechua language, and means simply “dwellers in the warm country,” the tierra caliente, near the sea coast. It was more particularly applied to the Chimus near Truxillo, but included a number of other tribes, all of whom, it is said, spoke related dialects. Of the list which I append we are sure of the Mochicas or Chinchas, as the Yunca portion of Geronimo de Ore’s work is in this dialect;[325] of the Estenes, Bastian has printed quite a full vocabulary which is nearly identical with the Yunca of Carrera;[326] Mr. Spruce obtained in 1863 a vocabulary of forty words from the Sechuras, proving them to belong to this stock;[327] but the dialects of the Colanes and Catacoas are said by the same authority to be now extinct. According to the information obtained by the Abbé Hervas, the “Colorados of Angamarca” also spoke a Yunca dialect,[328] but I have been unable to identify this particular tribe of “painted” Indians.

The location of the stock at the conquest may be said to have been from south lat. 4° to 10°; and to have included the three departments of modern Peru called Ancachs, Libertad, and Piura.

YUNCA LINGUISTIC STOCK.

Catacoas, on the upper Rio Piura.

Chancos, on the coast south of the Mochicas.

Chimus, near Truxillo.

Chinchas, see Mochicas.

Colanes, on Rio Chiura, north of Payta.

Etenes, in the valleys south of Lambayeque.

Mochicas, at Mochi, near Truxillo.

Morropes, north of Lambayeque.

Sechuras, on Rio Piura.

5. The Atacameños and Changos.

In the valley of the river Loa, about 20°-23° south latitude, and in the vicinity of Atacama, there still survive remnants of a tribe called Atacameños by the Spaniards, but by themselves Lican-Antais, people of the villages. Their language appears to be of an independent stock, equally remote from that of the Kechuas and the Aymaras. Vocabularies of it have been preserved by various travelers, and the outlines of its grammar have been recently published by San-Roman.[329] From two of its numerals and some other indications Dr. Darapsky has connected it with the Aymara, which is also spoken in that vicinity.[330] The relationship, however, cannot be considered established, and the latest researches tend to sharpen the contrast between the Cunza, as it is sometimes called, and the Aymara.

The Lican-antais are fishermen and live in a condition of destitution. The aridity of the climate is unfavorable to agriculture. In physical habitus they are short, with dark complexions, flat broad noses and low foreheads.

D’Orbigny identifies the Lican-Antais with the Olipes, Lipes or Llipis of the older writers[331] (Garcilasso, etc). This, however, is open to doubt. Von Tschudi hazarded the opinion that the Atacameños were a remnant of the Calchaquis of Tucuman, who had sought refuge from the Spaniards in this remote oasis on the coast.[332] I can find no positive support for this view, as we have no specimens of the language of the Calchaquis.

Immediately to the south of the Atacameños, bordering upon the sterile sands of the desert of Atacama, between south latitude 22° and 24°, are the Changos. In their country it never rains, and for food they depend entirely on the yield of the sea, fish, crustacea and edible algae. Like the Bushmen of the Kalihari desert, and doubtless for the same reason of insufficient nutrition, they are undersized, as a tribe perhaps of the shortest stature of any on the continent. The average of the males is four feet nine inches, and very few reach five feet.[333] They are, however, solidly built and vigorous. The color is dark, the nose straight and the eyes horizontal.

Nothing satisfactory is reported about their language, which is asserted to be different from the Aymara or any other stock. The tribe has been confounded by some writers with the Atacameños, and the Spaniards apparently included both under the term Changos; which is at present used as a term of depreciation. But both in location and appearance they are diverse. Whether this extends also to language, as is alleged, I have not the material to determine, and probably the tongue is extinct.[334]

II. THE SOUTH ATLANTIC GROUP.

1. THE AMAZONIAN REGION.

Those two mighty rivers, the Amazon and the Orinoco, belong to one hydrographic system, the upper affluents of the latter pouring their waters for six months of the year into the majestic expanse of the former. Together they drain over three million square miles of land,[335] clothed throughout with lush tropical vegetation and seamed by innumerable streams, offering natural and facile paths of intercommunication. It is not surprising, therefore, that we find linguistic stocks extended most widely over this vast area, each counting numerous members. Of them the most widely disseminated were the Tupi, the Tapuya, the Carib and the Arawak families, and to these I shall first give attention.

1. The Tupis.

Along the coast of Brazil and up the Amazon there is current a more or less corrupted native tongue called the “common language,” lingua geral. It is derived mainly from the idiom of the Tupis, whose villages were found by the first discoverers along the seaboard, from the mouth of the La Plata to the Amazon and far up the stream of the latter. According to their traditions, which are supported by a comparison of their dialects, the Tupis wandered up the coast from the south. Their earlier home was between the Parana river and the Atlantic. There they called themselves Carai, the astute, a term they afterwards applied to the Spaniards, but later were given the name Guaranis, meaning warriors, by which they are generally known. They must have been very numerous, as a careful estimate made in 1612 computed those then living in the modern states of Corrientes and Uruguay at 365,000; a census which could not have been much exaggerated, as about a century later the Jesuits claimed to have over three hundred thousand Christianized and living in their “reductions;”[336] even to-day ninety per cent. of the population of Uruguay have Guarani blood in their veins.

The inroads of the Spaniards from the south and of the kidnapping Portuguese from the east, reduced their number greatly, and many bands sought safety in distant removals; thus the Chiriguanos moved far to the west and settled on the highlands of Bolivia, where they have increased their stock from four or five thousand to triple that number,[337] extending as far south as the Pilcomayo river. On the upper waters of the Parana were the Tapes, a nation so called from the name of their principal village. It is another form of Tupi, and means “town.” They received the early missionaries willingly, and are complimented by these as being the most docile and intelligent of any of the nations of South America.[338]

The Tupi tribes did not extend north of the immediate banks of the Amazon, nor south of the Rio de la Plata. It would appear not improbable that they started from the central highlands where the Tapajoz on the north and the Paraguay on the south have their sources. Their main body followed the latter to the Atlantic, where the Tupis proper separated and moved up the coast of Brazil. This latter migration is believed to have been as late as a few hundred years before the discovery.[339]

Like the Tapuyas, the Tupis have a tendency to dolicocephaly, but it is less pronounced. They are less prognathic, the forehead is fuller and the color of the skin brighter. The hair is generally straight, but Pöppig saw many among the Cocamas of pure blood with wavy and even curly hair.[340]

I have no hesitation in including in the Tupi family the Mundurucus, or Paris, on the upper Tapajoz. Their relationship was fully recognized by Professor Hartt, who was well acquainted with both dialects.[341] They are a superior stamp of men, tall, of athletic figures, light in color, their naked bodies artistically tattooed. Their women are skilled in weaving cotton hammocks, and the men pursue some agriculture, and manufacture handsome feather ornaments.

To the same family belong the Muras and Turas, in the swampy valley of the Madeira in its middle course, “an amphibious race of ichthyophagi,” as they are called by Martius, savage and hostile, and depraved by the use of the parica, a narcotic, intoxicating snuff prepared from the dried seeds of the Mimosa acacioides. At the beginning of this century they were estimated at 12,000 bowmen; but this was doubtless a great exaggeration. Though their dialect differs widely from the lingua geral, the majority of their words are from Tupi roots.[342] Others are related to the language of the Moxos, and in the last century certain of their tribes lived in the immediate vicinity of these, and were brought into the “reductions” of the Moxos Indians by the Jesuit missionaries.[343] The tendency of their migrations has been down the Madeira.

The tribes of this lineage in the extreme south of Brazil were numerous. The Guachaguis, corresponding apparently to the modern Guachis, are said by Lozano to speak a corrupt Guarani.[344] Vocabularies have been obtained by Castelnau and Natterer, which indicate only a remote resemblance. According to their own tradition, they migrated from near the Moxos in the Bolivian highlands.

The Gualachos, who spread from the river Iguaza to the sea coast, spoke a Guarani dialect in which the sounds of f, j and l were present, which, in pure Guarani, are absent. They built thatched houses divided into several rooms, and raised abundant harvests.[345]

The Omaguas and Cocamas, the most western of the Tupis, dwelling within the limits of Ecuador, had evidently profited by their contiguity to the civilization of Peru, as they are described by early travelers as familiar with gold, silver and copper, living in permanent villages connected by good roads, and cultivating large fields of cotton, maize and various food-plants. The art-forms which they produced and the prevalence of sun-worship, with rites similar to those of Peru, indicate the source of their more advanced culture. By some authors the Omaguas are stated to have migrated down the Rio Yupura from Popayan in New Granada, where a tribe speaking their dialect, the Mesayas are alleged still to reside.[346] The peculiar “mitred” skulls of the Omaguas are an artificial deformity prized by them as a beauty.

The Tupi is rich in mythological tales which have been collected by several competent students of their tongue. (Hartt, Magalhaes, etc.) Their religion is a simple animistic nature-worship.

The dead were buried in large urns, usually in localities set aside for the purpose. One such on the island Maraho, near the mouth of the Amazon, has yielded a rich harvest to archæologists.

The general culture of the Tupis was superior to that of any other Brazilian tribes, but much inferior to that of the Incas. They were to a slight extent agricultural, raising maize, manioc, tobacco, which they smoked in pipes, and several vegetables. Some fowls, monkeys and peccaries were tamed and used as food. Their houses were of straw, lattice work and leaves, sometimes plastered with mud. The communal system prevailed, twenty or thirty families occupying one residence. A number of such houses would be erected on some favorable site and surrounded by a palisade of strong poles. These towns were, however, not permanent, and nearly half the year was spent in hunting and fishing expeditions along the streams. They went entirely naked, but wove excellent hammocks from the bark of trees and other vegetable fibres. Devoid of a knowledge of metals, they were in the height of the age of polished stone, many of their products in this direction being celebrated for symmetry and delicacy.[347] The art of the potter was also well developed, and the vases from the Amazon, called igasauas, rank both in symmetry, decoration and fine workmanship among the most creditable specimens of American ceramics.

The language which characterizes this widely distributed stock is polysynthetic and incorporating, with the flexibility peculiar to this class of tongues. It has been the subject of a number of works, but still lacks a thorough comparative treatment. The Jesuit missionaries adopted the Guarani dialect throughout their extensive “reductions,” and translated into it a variety of works for the instruction of their acolytes, some of which have been printed.

TUPI LINGUISTIC STOCK.

Ababas, in Bolivia.

Amazonas, on lower Amazon.

Anambes, on Rio Tocantins.

Apiacas, near Rio Arinos and upper Tapajoz.

Araguagus, on lower Paru.

Bororos, near Rio Paraguay.

Camaguras, in province Matogrosso.

Cambevas, see Omaguas.

Cambocas, mouth of Rio Tocantin.

Caracatas, on upper Uruguay and Parana.

Cayovas, on Rio Tapajoz.

Chaneses, in Bolivia.

Chiriguanos, in Bolivia.

Chogurus, on Rio Pajehu.

Cocamas, near Rio Nauta (upper Amazon) and Rio Ucayali.

Cocamillas, near the Cocamas.

Cuchiuaras, on Rio Tocantins.

Guaranis, in Uruguay.

Guarayos, in Bolivia.

Guayanas, in Uruguay.

Gujajaras, on Rio Maranhao.

Jacundas, on Rio Tocantins.

Jamudas, in province Pará.

Maues, on the Amazon.

Mbeguas, on Rio Parana.

Manitsauas, on upper Schingu.

Mitandues, near Rio Tapajoz.

Mundurucus, on Rio Tapajoz.

Muras, on Rio Madeira.

Omaguas, on lower Iça.

Oyampis, on upper Oyapok.

Pacajas, on lower Amazon.

Parentintims, in province Amazonas.

Paris, see Mundurucus.

Piturunas, on Rio Curitiba.

Sirionos, on Rio Paray, Bolivia.

Tamoyos, near San Vincente, Brazil (extinct).

Tapaunas, on Rio Tocantins.

Tapirapes, in province Goyaz.

Tapes, on Rio Uruguay.

Turas, on lower Rio Madeira.

Uyapas, on Rio Arinos.

Yurunas, on Rio Schingu, from 4° to 8°.

2. The Tapuyas.

The Tapuya stock is at once the most ancient and the most extensive now living on the soil of Brazil. Its various tribes are found from s. lat. 5° to s. lat. 20°, and from the Atlantic to the Schingu river. The name Tapuya was applied to them by the Tupis, and means “enemies” or “strangers”—two ideas which are always synonymous in primitive life. They are also called Crens or Guerens, the Old Ones or Ancient People. This seems to have reference to their possession of the coast before the arrival of the Tupi hordes from the south.

By some writers they are believed to have been the earliest constructors of the sambaquis, the shell-heaps or kitchen-middens, which are of great size and numerous, along the Atlantic and its bays. These are supposed to indicate an antiquity of 2,000 years;[348] but the Tapuyas can lay claim to a title to their land far older than that. The skulls and human bones which were discovered by Dr. Lund in the caves of Lagoa Santa in immediate juxtaposition to those of animals now extinct, came from a region occupied by the Tapuyas, and are in all respects parallel to those of the tribe to-day. This would assign them a residence on the spot far back in the present geologic period.

Their appearance is that of an antique race of men. They are of middle height, with long upper and short lower extremities. The face is broad, the eyes small and under prominent ridges, the forehead low and retreating; the sutures are simple, the face prognathic, and the skull decidedly dolichocephalic (73), but of good capacity (1470 cub. cent.), and leptorhinic; the mouth is large and the nose prominent. In color they present a variety of shades of reddish-brown, and their hair, which is coarse, verges rather on the dark-brown than the black.[349] They are not ugly, and the expression of the face, especially in the young, is often attractive. Those of them, however, who distend the lower lip with the large labret or botoque (from which the Botocudos derive their name), cannot be other than hideous to European eyes.

In culture the Tapuyas are reported to stand on the lowest scale. When free in their native woods they go absolutely naked; they have no other houses than temporary shelters of leaves and branches; they manufacture no pottery, build no canoes, and do not know how to swim. When first in contact with the whites they had no dogs, knew nothing of the use of tobacco or salt, and were common cannibals. They have no tribal organizations and no definite religious rites.

To counterbalance all these negatives, I hasten to add that they are hunters of singular skill, using strong bows with long arrows, manufacture polished stone axes and weave baskets of reeds, and, what is rare among the Indians, use tapers made from wild bees-wax and bark fibre.[350] Their marriages are monogamous, though rarely permanent, and they are not devoid of family affection.[351] Though lacking definite religious ideas, they are careful to bury the dead, and have a belief that the spirit of the departed survives and wanders about at night, for which reason they are loth to move in the dark. The soul of a chief may take the form of a jaguar. During a thunder storm they shake a burning brand and shoot arrows toward the sky, to appease by imitation the powers of the storm; and they are much given to semi-religious dances, in which their motions are to the sound of a native flute, which is played with the nose.[352]

Their language is difficult in its phonetics, and presents a contrast to most American tongues by its tendency toward the isolating form, with slight agglutination. A carefully prepared vocabulary of it has recently been published by Dr. Paul Ehrenreich,[353] whose studies on this stock have been peculiarly valuable.

TAPUYA LINGUISTIC STOCK.

Apina-gês, north of Rio Tocantins.

Aponegi-crens, in south of province Maranhao.

Acroas, near Rio Tocantins.

Aimores, see Botocudos.

Botocudos, in Sierra dos Aimures.

Carahos, on Rio Tocantins.

Camacans, near Rio Pardo.

Cayapos, north of Rio Pardo.

Chavantes, near Rio Maranhao.

Cherentes, near Rio Tocantins.

Chicriabas, near Rio de San Francisco.

Coretus, on Rio Yupura.

Cotoxos, near Rio Doce.

Cumanachos, in province Goyaz.

Crens, see Botocudos.

Gês, in province Goyaz.

Goyotacas, in province Goyaz (see below).

Malalalis, near Rio Doce.

Malalis, in province Goyaz.

Masacaras, in province Goyaz.

Pancas, on Rio das Pancas.

Potés (Poton), on upper Mucuri.

Puris, near Rio Paraiba.

Suyas, on upper Schingu.

The Goyotacas in the province of Goyaz and the regions adjacent include a large number of tribes which Von Martius has shown to have sufficient linguistic affinity among themselves to unite in one group, and connections enough with the Tapuya stem to be regarded as one of its sub-stocks.[354]

GOYOTACA SUB-STOCK.

Capochos, in the sierra between Minas Geraes and Porto Seguro.

Coropos, on the Rio da Pomba.

Cumanachos, adjacent to the Capochos.

Machacalis, on and near Rio Mucury.

Macunis, between Minas Geraes and Porto Seguro.

Monoxos, adjacent to the Macunis.

Panhames, on head-waters of Rio Mucury.

Patachos, on head-waters of Rio de Porto Seguro.

Another group believed by Martius to be a mixed off-shoot of the Tapuya family belong to what I may call the

TUCANO SUB-STOCK.

Cobeus, on Rio Uaupes.

Dace, on Rio Uaupes.

Jupua, on upper Yupura.

Jauna, on Rio Uaupes.

Tucano, on Rio Uaupes.

All these tribes are found in the vicinity of the river Uaupes, and are distinguished by three vertical lines tattooed or incised on the cheeks. They take their name, as do some other Brazilian tribes not related to them, from the beautiful toucan bird, which is frequently held sacred among them, and is sometimes chosen as the totem of a gens.

I also attach to this stock the Carnijos or Fornio, a vocabulary of whose language has been published by Professor John C. Branner, and which hitherto has not been identified.[355] The following comparison between it and the Tapuya dialects will show the affinity:

CARNIJOS. TAPUYA.

Fire, tŏch, tiaköh.

Eye, i-to, ainthó, kitho.

Nose, d-ereta, d’asigri.

Tooth, i-axi, aiquá, daguoi.

3. The Arawaks.

The Arawak stock of languages is the most widely disseminated of any in South America. It begins at the south with the Guanas, on the head-waters of the river Paraguay, and with the Baures and Moxos on the highlands of southern Bolivia, and thence extends almost in continuity to the Goajiros peninsula, the most northern land of the continent. Nor did it cease there. All the Antilles, both Greater and Less, were originally occupied by its members, and so were the Bahama Islands,[356] thus extending its dialects to within a short distance of the mainland of the northern continent, and over forty-five degrees of latitude. Its tribes probably at one time occupied the most of the lowlands of Venezuela, whence they were driven not long before the discovery by the Caribs, as they also were from many of the southern islands of the West Indian archipelago. The latter event was then of such recent occurrence that the women of the Island Caribs, most of whom had been captured from the Arawaks, still spoke that tongue.

They were thus the first of the natives of the New World to receive the visitors from European climes, and the words picked up by Columbus and his successors on the Bahamas, Cuba and Hayti, are readily explained by the modern dialects of this stock. No other nation was found on any part of the archipelago except the two I have mentioned. The whole of the coast between the mouths of the Orinoco and Amazon appears to have been in their possession at or a short time before the epoch of the discovery.