3. The Patagonians and Fuegians
The Patagonians call themselves Chonek or Tzoneca, or Inaken (men, people), and by their Pampean neighbors are referred to as Tehuel-Che, southerners. They do not, however, belong to the Aucanian stock, nor do they resemble the Pampeans physically. They are celebrated for their stature, many of them reaching from six to six feet four inches in height, and built in proportion.542 In color they are a reddish brown, and have aquiline noses and good foreheads. They care little for a sedentary life, and roam the coast as far north as the Rio Negro. They are not without some religious rites, and are accustomed to salute the new moon, and at the beginning of any solemn undertaking to puff the smoke of their pipes to the four cardinal points, just as did the Algonquins and Iroquois.543
Their language differs wholly from the Araucanian, though it has borrowed many words from it. An interesting fact illustrating its stability in spite of their roving life has been brought out by Ramon Lista. He has compared its present form with the vocabulary of it given by Pigafetta in his voyage in 1520, and shows that in the intervening generations it has undergone scarcely any change.544
Von Martius believed that a connection between the Patagonian and the Tapuya stocks could be shown, and gives a tabular comparison of the two.545 I have extended this by means of Ramon Lista’s vocabulary of the former and Dr. Ehrenreich’s corrected forms of the Tapuya, and conclude that the resemblances are illusory, depending on incorrect orthography of the sounds.
About the beginning of the last century the tribes known as Poyas (Pey-yuy) and Reyes (Rey-yuy) were collected at a Mission established on Lake Nahuelhuapi, about south latitude 42°. Hervas reports them as speaking a language radically different from the Araucanian, and probably they should be classed with the Tzonecas.546
On the inhospitable shores of Tierra del Fuego there dwell three nations of diverse stock, but on about the same plane of culture. One of these is the Yahgans or Yapoos, on the Beagle canal; the second is the Onas or Aonik, to the north and east of these; and the third the Alikulufs, to the north and west.
Of these the Yahgans are the best known, through the efforts of the English missionaries who have reduced their language to writing. It is a polysyllabic, agglutinative tongue, with both pre- and suffixes, and is extremely rich in expressions for the ordinary needs of their life. The verb has four numbers, a singular, dual, trial and plural. It does not seem in any way related to the Aucanian stock.547
The tongue of the Onas, who are known as the Yakanna-Cunni, is apparently connected with the Tsoneca or Patagonian, which people they also resemble in stature and physical traits.548
The Fuegians are generally quoted as a people on the lowest round of the ladder of culture; and so they are painted by many observers. They have no government, they can count only to three, ordinary family affection is not observable, and even mothers manifest a lack of love for their offspring. Their shelters are wretched, and they go almost naked in a climate which is both cold and damp.
On the other hand, they display singular ingenuity in their utensils for hunting and fishing; they use the sling, the club, the bow, the bola and the lance; the women weave reed baskets so firmly that they will hold water, and their bark canoes are light and seaworthy.
In hunting they have the service of a native dog which they have trained, and whose welfare they look after with sedulous attention. Though devoid of idols and external rites of worship, they manifest in many ways a sense of religion. Thus the relations of the sexes are surrounded with ceremonies of fasting and bathing, to neglect which would entail misfortunes, and the name of the dead is not pronounced out of superstitious awe. The songs and legends of the Yahgans show some imaginative power. Many of them relate to the marvelous achievements of the national hero, Umoara, who appears to be a wholly mythical individual. Their strongest passion would seem to be for personal adornment, and for this purpose shells, vegetable beads, bright pebbles and variegated feathers, are called into requisition.549
These traits are not those of an enfeebled intellect, and an examination of their physical powers supports a favorable opinion of their capacities. Some of them are unusually tall and strong, especially those on the east coast. Their skulls are mesocephalic and prognathic, and their brains, which have been examined most carefully by a German anatomist, show not a single point of inferiority to the average European brain.550
From examinations which have been carried on in the numerous shell-heaps which line the shores, there is no evidence that any other people ever occupied the islands. Skulls and relics are such as those of the present inhabitants.551 The total number of these is about 8000, nearly equally divided between the tribes named.
The classification of the smaller tribes under the above stocks is not yet complete. So far as I can make it out, it is as follows:
ALIKULUF LINGUISTIC STOCK
Alikulufs, on the western end of the Beagle Channel.
Karaikas, south of the Alikulufs.
ONA LINGUISTIC STOCK
Aoniks or Onas, on Magellan Strait, both shores.
Huemuls, near Skyring and Otway Bays.
Irees, see Pescherees.
Oensmen, see Aoniks.
Pescherees, on central portions of the Strait.
Yacanas, see Aoniks.
YAHGAN LINGUISTIC STOCK
Kennekas, see Takanikas.
Takanikas, on both shores of the Beagle Channel.
Yahgans, see Yapoos.
Yapoos, on the central Beagle Channel.
The opinion has been advanced by Dr. Deniker of Paris,552 that the Fuegians represent the oldest type or variety of the American race. He believes that at one time this type occupied the whole of South America south of the Amazon, and that the Tapuyas of Brazil and the Fuegians are its surviving members. This interesting theory demands still further evidence before it can be accepted. It is not confirmed by such linguistic comparisons as I have been able to institute.
LINGUISTIC APPENDIX
The linguistic classification of the American tribes is at present imperfect in many regions on account of the incomplete information about their tongues. A proper comparison of languages or dialects includes not merely the vocabulary, but the grammatical forms and the phonetic variations which the vocal elements undergo in passing from one form of speech to another. In some respects, the morphology is more indicative of relationship than the lexicon of tongues; and it is in these grammatical aspects that we are peculiarly poorly off when we approach American dialects. Yet it is also likely that the tendency of late years has been to underestimate the significance of merely lexical analogies. The vocabulary, after all, must be our main stand-by in such an undertaking.
For that reason I have thought it worth while to bring together a short list of common words and show their renderings in a number of American tongues. Inasmuch as the languages north of Mexico—those in the United States and Canada—have been frequently studied and are readily accessible in published books, I have confined my specimens to the tongues of the central and southern regions of the continent.
The words I have selected for the vocabulary are those which I think would be most likely to indicate relationship, when such existed. But as every comparative linguist is aware, neither these nor any words are free from the risk of ambiguity and equivocation. Thus, in many languages there are two or three different terms for “man,” as homo, vir or male; “woman” is wife or female; “sun” and “moon” are often merely descriptive terms or synonyms of day, light, night and darkness; the parts of the body have in American tongues the personal possessive noun prefixed or suffixed; what is worse, the terms for such may differ with the person, as in Kechua, where the word for “eye,” “arm,” etc., differ as it is my or thy eye, etc. “Hand” and “arm,” “foot” and “leg,” are frequently not discriminated, the corresponding words meaning properly “upper extremity,” “lower extremity,” etc.; and so on for almost every word that could be chosen.
The proper inference to draw from these facts is, not that a comparison of vocabularies is worthless or nearly so, but just the contrary. Where we find that a short vocabulary, imperfect for the above reasons, and still more so for the general ignorance of linguistics on the part of collectors, and the varying values they give to the alphabets employed, yet reveals identities with others, we are justly authorized to consider such analogies as highly significant and suggestive of profounder comparisons.
YUMA DIALECTS NEAR THE GULF OF CALIFORNIA
The above vocabularies illustrate the extension of the Yuma stock to the southward. The Cochimi and Guaicuru are remote dialects, but of positive affinities. The Yuma words which I have added for comparison are principally from the Mohave dialect, and are taken from the vocabularies published by the “U. S. Geographical Surveys west of the 100th Meridian.”
The Seri words are chiefly from the satisfactory vocabulary obtained by the late John Russell Bartlett. The relationship of the dialect to the Yuma stock is evident.
DIALECTS OF THE UTO-AZTECAN STOCK
The eight dialects which I give from the extensive Uto-Aztecan stock will illustrate the relationship of its members. The words marked M. in the Ute or Shoshonian vocabulary belong to the Moqui dialect, which appears to approach nearer the Aztecan branch than the speech of the northern tribes. The Tepehuana words are from the vocabulary obtained by M. Tarayre, and published in his Explorations (see anté, p. 136). I have placed the geographical extremes, the Nahuatl and the Ute, side by side, to illustrate the really striking similarity of these dialects, the one current on the Columbia river, the other extending to Chiriqui lagoon, near the Isthmus of Panama. Buschmann, in his works already referred to (anté, p. 119), cites numerous other examples.
DIALECTS OF THE UTO-AZTECAN STOCK.—(Continued.)
Still more substantial proof of the unity of this stock is furnished by the comparative grammar of its different members. These present various phases of morphological development, but always on the same lines. The Nahuatl is much the higher of them all, and in some of its forms attains to a truly inflectional character, as has been shown by Professor Steinthal.
CENTRAL STOCKS
The Totonaco is spoken in two diverse dialects by the inhabitants of the plains and the uplands. The difference is not so great as appears in the written tongue, as they are mutually intelligible.
A number of works on the Tarascan language have recently been edited or written by Dr. Nicolas Leon, of Morelia, Michoacan, so that there is abundant material for the study of the tongue.
The Otomi presents so many sounds unfamiliar to the European ear that the attempt to represent it by our alphabets can be only remotely accurate. I have a very extensive MS. dictionary of the tongue, based on the Vocabulario Mexicano of Molina.
CENTRAL STOCKS
In the above vocabularies the relation of the Zoque to the Mixe is more clearly shown than that of the Zapotec to the Mixtec. A more extended comparison of the two latter has been instituted by Pimentel in his work on the languages of Mexico, which appears to strengthen the belief that they belong to the same stock. Prof. Friedrich Müller, however, continues to regard them as separate stocks (Grundriss der Sprachwissenschaft, Bd. II., Ab. I., s. 298, sq.). The question is discussed with fullness in the introduction, by Dr. Nicholas Leon, to the Arte del Idioma Zapoteco, of Juan de Cordova (ed. Morelia, 1886), to which the student is referred. I think the evidence is sufficient to regard them as allied idioms. The Zapotec of the mountains, Zapoteco serrano, differs considerably from that which is given above.
CENTRAL STOCKS
The Chinantec is included in the Zapotec stock by Pimentel, who follows the dictum of Hervas, confessedly without examination (Lenguas Indigenas de Mexico, Tom. III., cap. 37). This was not the opinion of Dr. Berendt, who has compared both tongues, and a comparison of the short vocabularies which I give shows only one word, that for “foot,” which is identical in both.
The Huaves, who claim a migration from the south, do not reveal a connection in their language with any of the southern stocks.
The Maya of the Vocabulary is the pure tongue as spoken in Yucatan. Its various dialects have been carefully studied by Berendt, Stoll and others. The most corrupt is probably the Chaneabal of Chiapas, of which I gave a short analysis in the American Anthropologist, Jan., 1888.
INTER-ISTHMIAN STOCKS
The above four vocabularies are taken from MS. material in my possession collected by E. G. Squier and Dr. C. H. Berendt. They do not appear to indicate the slightest relationship either between themselves, or with any other known stocks. The careful researches of Lucien Adam on the Musquito grammar do not bring it into connection either with the Carib or the Chibcha families, with which it has sometimes been supposed to be affined.
The Lenca dialects, of four of which I have vocabularies, do not differ materially, but the exact distribution of the stock at the period of the conquest is uncertain.
INTER-ISTHMIAN STOCKS.—(Continued.)
The Guatuso is taken from the vocabularies collected by Bishop Thiel, and several times republished. The remaining three are from MS. materials collected by Dr. C. H. Berendt. The Xinca I have previously published, with a general discussion of the tribe, in the Proc. of the Amer. Philosoph. Soc., 1885.
The Matagalpan or “Chontal of Nicaragua” (see anté, p. 149), is from the vocabulary collected by the Rev. Victor Noguera. It appears to stand quite alone. A few remote resemblances to the Talamanca dialects of Costa Rica seem to exist, which, if real, would connect the Matagalpan with South American stocks.
COLUMBIAN STOCKS
The Cuna and the Changuina or Dorasque are from M. Alph. Pinart’s various publications on these dialects; the Andaqui from the collections of the Presbyter Albis; and the Tucura, a Choco dialect, from the report of Dr. A. Ernst (Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 1887, 302). The last mentioned was obtained on the upper Sinu river, near the junction of the Rio Verde. It is not of the San Blas (Cuna) family, but clearly Choco.
I have already referred (p. 200) to some slight similarity of the Andaqui to the Chibcha; but until we have more extensive material of the former, the question must be left open.
DIALECTS OF THE CHOCO STOCK
The Choco family had probably at one time a much wider extension than we are familiar with in historic times. I have suggested (anté, pp. 274, 275), that even the sparse material for comparison as yet available seems to indicate an affinity with the Betoya stock. As our knowledge of the Orinoco and the Columbian region extends, probably other tribes will be discovered speaking related dialects. The four vocabularies which I give above serve to illustrate the comparatively slight differences of the phonetics. Another dialect, the Tucará (see anté, p. 176, note), is given on the preceding page.
DIALECTS OF THE CHIBCHA STOCK
The relations of the Chibcha dialects are so important in their bearings on the question of the migrations from South into North America, that in addition to the specific comparisons on page 186, I here add vocabularies of six dialects; three, the Chibcha, Aroac and Chimila, from south of the Isthmus, and three, the Guaymi, Talamanca and Boruca, from north of it.
The Chibcha proper is a language of extremely difficult phonetics for a European, and doubtless the Spanish orthography, in which it is rendered, is far from accurate.
The fundamental identity of the dialects of the stock becomes much more apparent after a study of their laws of phonetic variation, as set forth by Dr. Max Uhle (anté, p. 185).
The Talamanca and Boruca are Chibcha dialects (see preceding page). The Paniquita (see anté, pp. 190-192) has no positive affinities with its neighbors. The grammatical character of its Paez dialect has been analyzed by Fr. Müller (Grundriss der Sprachwissenschaft, Bd. II., Ab. I., p. 356). He points out some similarity in the numerals to the Kechua and Goajiro. But this is not significant.
The various vocabularies of the Timote stock differ considerably, and none of them is at all complete.
A comparison of the above vocabularies will probably strengthen the supposition I have advanced (anté, p. 199), that these two stocks were originally branches of one and the same. The material on all the dialects is scanty, and for a proper grammatical collation is quite wanting. As they are yet living idioms, it is to be hoped that some energetic traveler will supply the facts to solve the question. The sources of the vocabularies are indicated in the text.
PERUVIAN STOCKS
The wide differences between the four main Peruvian stocks are seen in the above vocabularies. The Kechua and Aymara alone have anything in common. The Yunca is presented in the Mochica dialect, which is that adopted by Carrera in his Grammar. The vocabulary of the Etenes, as furnished by Bastian, differs from it only in the word for “eye,” tassack, and “head,” chätz, which is remarkable, considering the extreme difficulty of the Yunca phonetics. The grammars of these three tongues are carefully analyzed by Fr. Müller.
The Atacameño words are from the authorities quoted on p. 227. Of its grammar we have only the imperfect account furnished by San Roman, which seems to remove it from the character of the Kechua and Aymara.
SOUTH ATLANTIC LINGUISTIC STOCKS
The four chief stocks of the eastern Amazon region present a fundamental diversity both in vocabulary and grammar. The Arawak is shown as it is, as current in Guiana and along the northern affluents of the Amazon; the Tapuya is in the dialect of the Botocudos, as presented by Dr. Paul Ehrenreich; the Tupi is the “lingua geral” of Brazil; and the Kiriri is from the Arte of Mamiani.
In most of the South Atlantic stocks the numerals are imperfectly developed, all quantities above three being usually expressed by compound words.
DIALECTS OF THE ARAWAK STOCK
These four vocabularies of some dialects of the Arawak stock, from localities wide apart, disclose extensive variations from the standard tongue. They are, however, rather apparent than real, and often depend on either variations in orthography, or the substitution of synonymous or allied words. This is well seen in the comparative table of thirty-six Arawak dialects presented in tabular form by Karl von den Steinen in his Durch Central-Brasilien, s. 294. Neither he nor Adam includes the Chontaquiro in the Arawak stock, but a comparison of vocabularies leaves no doubt about it. The Chontaquiro prefix hue is the Piapoco gua, = “thy.”
DIALECTS OF THE CARIB STOCK
The oldest existing forms of the Carib stock are believed by Von den Steinen to be preserved in the Bakairi, which I have accordingly placed first in the vocabularies of this family.
The Motilone, wshich is placed beside it, is one of the most northwestern dialects, and shows singular tenacity of the radicals of the language.
The Guaque, which is substantially the same as the Carijona, is the extreme western member of the family, but presents unmistakably the physiognomy of the stock.
Of the Tamanaca I have seen but incomplete specimens, but on account of its former importance, I insert it in this connection.
DIALECTS OF THE CARIB STOCK.—Continued
The Roucouyenne and Macuchi are dialects on either slope of the sierra south of Guyana. Both appear to have been affected by their proximity to the Arawak stock.
The Maquiritare of the Orinoco and the Cumanagoto of the northern portion of Venezuela are comparatively closely related, and both present few foreign elements.
We may expect a thorough treatment of the comparative grammar of the Carib dialects from M. Lucien Adam, who is engaged in this study at the present time.
A large amount of material has been collected by Von den Steinen, of which but a small portion has been published. It relates principally to the southern Carib dialects.