LANGUAGES OF THE ORINOCO BASIN
The Opone and the Carare have evidently been subjected to foreign influences, but still retain the characteristics of the Carib dialects.
The Peba and the Yahua are not attached to the Carib family. They, however, reveal the traces of its influence, and appear to have adopted many words from it. Probably they are largely jargons, and between themselves indicate a rather close relationship.
Of the Saliva, which seems to stand alone, the materials are inadequate. Some texts, with an effort at a grammatical analysis, are given in the Mithridates, III., s. 625.
LANGUAGES OF THE ORINOCO BASIN.—(Continued.)
The above four lengue matrice were among the most important on the Orinoco. The Guaraouna or Warrau was, and continues to be, spoken by the tribes of the delta, who are numerous and intelligent, when they have a fair chance to live undisturbed.
Of the Otomaca only the merest fragments have been published, and my vocabulary is nearly empty.
Several recent travelers have brought back information about the Piaroa and Guahiba, some of which may be found in the eighth volume of the Bibliothèque Linguistique Américaine (Paris, 1882), with observations by M. Adam. C. refers to Chaffanjon.
LANGUAGES OF THE ORINOCO BASIN.—(Continued.)
The Omagua is a well-marked Tupi dialect. Adam has shown the grammatical concordances clearly (Compte-Rendu du Cong. des Amer., 1888, p. 496).
The Yarura and Betoya reveal faint resemblances in the words for “sun” and “tongue”; but not enough to justify assuming a relationship. Their grammars are quite unlike, that of the Yarura preceding by suffixes, that of the Betoya by prefixes (see Müller, Sprachwissenschaft, Bd. II., Ab. I., s. 361).
The Correguaje shows less analogy to the Betoya in the above vocabulary than in a more extended comparison. The word for water, ocŏ, reappears in a number of dialects not akin to this stock, and is perhaps allied to the Chinchasuyu yacu (see anté, p. 205).
DIALECTS OF THE UPPER AMAZONIAN BASIN
The grammatical and phonetic relations of the Pano stock have been judiciously analyzed by M. Raoul de la Grasserie (Compte-Rendu du Cong. des Amer., 1888, p. 438, sq.). The Pano and Culino are seen to be closely connected, those who use the one doubtless understanding the other.
The Baré, which is an Arawak dialect, I have inserted here for the sake of convenience.
The Puinavi is unclassified (see anté, p. 278). In the few words above given, those for “sun,” “water,” and “foot” appear to have affinities to the Baré.
DIALECTS OF THE UPPER AMAZONIAN BASIN.—(Continued.)
The Catoquina and Ticuna are mixed dialects or jargons, but clearly related to each other. Martius hesitated whether to assign them to his “Guck” or his “Gês” stem. They both contain elements of the Arawak, probably by borrowing. Locally they are neighbors. The vocabulary of Ticuna is from Paul Marcoy’s work.
The Tucano, which is in the form obtained by Coudreau, shows elements of Betoya and Arawak. Its relationship to the Tapuya is not fully established.
The Zaparo from the Putumayo is from the collection of Osculati. It does not seem in any way related to the great stocks of the Amazonian region.
DIALECTS OF THE UPPER AMAZONIAN BASIN.—(Continued.)
The interesting group of the Tacana stock is illustrated above by three of its dialects. I regret that the recent publication on the Arauna by Rev. Nicolas Armentia (Navegacion del Rio Madre de Dios) has not been accessible to me.
The scanty vocabulary of the Araua does not permit any extended study of its relations.
I call attention to the numerals of the Sapibocona and Cayubaba as given above and on page 360. Prof. Fr. Müller has transposed the two in his lists of examples (Sprachwissenschaft, II., I., p. 438. Compare Mithridates, III., p. 576).
LANGUAGES OF THE BOLIVIAN HIGHLANDS
The variety of stocks on the Bolivian highlands is clearly shown by the vocabularies on this and the following page. I have taken them from the D’Orbigny MSS., in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, the collections of Hervas, and the papers of E. Heath in the Kansas City Review, 1883. I have not been able to connect any one of the eight tongues with any other, although each has some words which have been borrowed from others or from some common stock. Thus, the Yurucare suñe, man, Mosetena zoñi, Chiquito ñoñich, are too similar not to be from the same radical. It must be remembered that the Chiquito was adopted by the missionaries as the general language for instruction, and other tribes were persuaded to learn it whenever possible. Thus some of its words came to be substituted for those originally familiar to the speakers.
The Chiquito and the Yurucare are the only tongues of the eight given of which I have found satisfactory grammatical notices; and that of the latter is still unpublished (see anté, p. 297).
LANGUAGES OF THE BOLIVIAN HIGHLANDS.—(Continued.)
LANGUAGES OF THE CHACO TRIBES
The three dialects of the Guaycuru stock above given show considerable diversity. The first is from Castelnau, the second from Fontana, the third (Toba) from Carranza and de Angelis. The Payagua is also from Fontana (Revista de la Soc. Geog. Argentina, 1887, p. 352, sq.).
All the Chaco tribes are singularly defective in numeration. Pelleschi says that intelligent chiefs among them cannot count the fingers of one hand. Above the two numerals are generally compound words and have not fixed forms.
LANGUAGES OF THE CHACO TRIBES.—(Continued.)
The near relationship of the Lule, Vilela and Chunupi appears clear from the above comparison. The Chunupi words are taken from Fontana (ubi suprá), the Vilela from the vocabulary of Gilii’s Storia Americana, and the Lule from Machoni’s Grammar.
The Mataco is also from Fontana, and represents the dialect as spoken to-day. The words marked D. are from the D’Orbigny MSS.
LANGUAGES OF THE LA PLATA BASIN AND PAMPAS
The vocabularies of the Guachis, Guatos and Carajas are from the collections of Castelnau (Expédition, Tome V., Appendix); that of the Araucanian from Febres’ Diccionario.
The Guachis are classed as belonging to the Guaranis (Tupi stock), and by tradition came from the west (see anté, p. 233). A comparison with the Samucu vocabulary (page 359) seems to me to suggest several resemblances which would be worth further study on more extended material.
The Guatos may be a mixed off-shoot of the Tapuya stock, as has been suggested (anté, p. 318). Of the Caraja, we must await the publication of the abundant material collected by Dr. Paul Ehrenreich.
PATAGONIAN AND FUEGIAN STOCKS
The vocabularies of the Tsoneca, Tehuelhet or Patagonian differ considerably in the various writers. No. 1 is from Von Martius, completed from D’Orbigny’s lists. No. 2 is based on Lt. Muster’s examples, supplemented from the vocabularies in Ramon Lista’s Exploraciones.
The Yahgan and Alikuluf pass for independent stocks. Yet in a number of words they resemble each other, and in a few, for example, those for “eye,” “woman,” “moon,” “man,” there seems more than a chance similarity.
ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS
P. 24. Auriferous Gravels of California. The principal reference is J. D. Whitney, The Auriferous Gravels of the Sierra Nevada of California, pp. 258-288 (Cambridge, Mass., 1879). Professor Whitney believes that the evidence is sufficient to attribute the mortars, pestles, beads, etc., found in the auriferous gravels to late pliocene man. But Dr. Joseph Leidy describes equine skulls, molars, incisors, etc., found in these gravels, thirty-five to forty feet below the surface, “not differing in any respect from those of the modern horse,” and “unchanged in texture” (see ibid., p. 257). Dr. Leidy informs me personally that for such reasons he gravely doubts the antiquity of the formation, and distrusts the great age of the human relics it contains.
P. 27. Palæolithic Implements. Reports of the discovery of very large numbers of supposed palæolithic implements in various parts of the United States have been collected and published by Mr. Thomas Wilson in the Report of the U. S. National Museum, 1887-88, pp. 677-702. These implements, however, are called palæolithic from their form and workmanship only, and not from the stratigraphic relations in which they were found. As palæolithic forms often survived in the riper culture of the neolithic age, the only positive proof of their older origin must be that they are found in undisturbed relation to older strata.
P. 33. Remains of Man in the Equus Beds. What American geologists call the Equus Beds are those which yield in abundance the bones of various species of fossil horse, as E. major, occidentalis, excelsus, barcenæi, fraternus, crenidens, etc., most of which have been determined by Dr. Joseph Leidy and Prof. E. D. Cope. The principal localities of these beds are: 1. The Oregon Desert; 2. The country of the Nueces, in southwestern Texas; and 3. The valley of Mexico. The horizon to which these beds should be referred was considered by Prof. King to be the Upper Pliocene; but by Prof. G. K. Gilbert, Dr. Joseph Leidy, and I think, by Prof. Cope, it is rather held to be pleistocene or early quaternary, probably as old as the great glacial phenomena of the Continent. According to Cope and Gilbert, rude stone implements have undoubtedly been found in place in the Equus beds of Nevada, California and Southwestern Texas. See the American Naturalist, 1889, p. 165; Proc. Acad. Nat. Sciences, Phila., 1883, p. 134, sq.
Pp. 106, 108. Kwakiutl and Nootka Stocks. After the pages referred to had been printed, I received, through the kindness of Mr. Horatio Hale, advance sheets of the Sixth Annual Report of the Committee of the British Association on the tribes of the Northwest Coast, prepared by Dr. Franz Boas, with an introduction by Mr. Hale, and including eighteen vocabularies. Dr. Boas’ researches furnish clear evidence of a connection between the Kwakiutl and the Nootka tongues, and there is little doubt that they are distantly related. An instructive article on the physical characteristics of the Indians of the North Pacific coast is contributed by Dr. Boas to the American Anthropologist for January, 1891. His conclusion is: “Each tribe appears composed of many types, but in each we find a marked prevalence of a certain type.”
P. 123. Supposed Connection of Sonoran Languages with the Maya Stock. In his Etudes Aztèques, published in the Museon, 1890, p. 506, M. W. Baligny endeavors to show a connection between the vocabularies of Sonoran languages and the Maya dialects. His strong points are some of the numerals and the personal pronouns of the first and second person. I have elsewhere given good reasons for not depending on these pronominal analogies in American languages (see Essays of an Americanist, p. 396). And as to the numerals, “dont la ressemblance est évidente” (according to him), when the Sonoran tongues disagree with the Nahuatl, they have almost always clearly borrowed from the Yuma stem, as in “two,” guoca, kuak (see Vocabs., anté, pp. 335, 336).
P. 163. Language of the Ramas. Since my negative observations about the Ramas were in type, I have received a short vocabulary of their language from the Rev. W. Siebärger, Moravian missionary on the Musquito coast. The orthography is German.
My informant writes me that the Ramas are about 250 in number, and are all Christians and able to speak and write English, except a few very old persons. Their language will probably be extinct in a few years. They are confined to their island in Blewfield Lagoon. It is particularly interesting, therefore, to fix their affinities before the opportunity passes. From the above vocabulary I think there is little doubt but that they are a branch of the Changuina or Dorasque stock, described pp. 174, 175. The following words attest this, the Changuina forms being from A. L. Pinart’s Vocabulario Castellano-Dorasque, Dialectos Chumulu, Gualaca y Changuina (Paris, 1890):
The numerals for “two” and “three,” puk sak, pang sak, are doubtless the Cuna pocua, pagua. The Ramas, therefore, belong to the Isthmian tribes, and formed the vanguard of the South American immigration into North America. What time they moved northward and possessed themselves of their small island is unknown, but it was probably after the conquest. Mr. Siebärger writes me: “They were always kept under, even ill-treated, by the Musquito Indians, and are still very submissive and teachable.”
The following errata should be noted:
P. 69, line 3; for Nehaunies read Nahaunies.
Pp. 89, 95, 98 and 101, the numbers of the sections should read 7, 8, 9, 10, instead of 5, 6, 7, 8.
P. 169, line 17, for maternal read paternal.
P. 197, for Morropas read Malabas.
P. 251, line 11, for Wapiana read Woyawoi.