Part 15

The Carib stock is one of the most extensively distributed in the southern continent. At the discovery its dialects were found on the Lesser Antilles, the Caribby Islands, and on the mainland from the mouth of the Essequibo River to the Gulf of Maracaibo. West of the latter it did not reach the coast, nor has any positive traces of its introduction above the straits of Panama earlier than the conquest been found, in spite of frequent assertions to the contrary. Inland from the Arawaks on the shore of Guiana are a number of Carib tribes, as the Macusi and Woyawoi, so numerous that this region has been thought by some to have been the original home of the stock; but the discovery by Dr. Karl von den Steinen of a tribe, the Bakairi, on the head-waters of the Schingu River, speaking a very pure form of the language,[373] and the recognition of the Carib affinities of the Palmellas on the Rio dos Baures, throw another light on the trend of Carib migrations, strongly supported by a series of other considerations. Thus, it has been satisfactorily shown by Im Thurn that the Caribs in Guiana wandered thither from the Orinoco district, some inland and some along the coast, and probably from the large islands adjacent to the coasts.[374]

These islands in turn were peopled from the mainland to the east, as I have already shown, their earlier population having been Arawak. All the Island, Orinoco and Guiana Caribs can thus be traced back to the mainland of northern Venezuela. In this vicinity was spoken the Cumanagoto dialect, in the province of Cumana or New Andalusia. According to the early missionaries, it was current along the coast for more than a hundred leagues, extending into the province of Caracas and beyond. The tribes who spoke it were the Chaymas, the Cores, the Cumanas, the Quacas, the Parias, the Palenques, the Varrigones, and others.[375] Other dialects to the west are the Opone and Carare, specimens of which were obtained by Lengerke in the vicinity of Bucaramanga, province of Santander.[376]

The sierra which divides the head-waters of the Caura from those of the Rio Branco and other streams flowing into the Rio Negro and Amazon, are peopled on both slopes by wandering tribes of the Carib stock. Near the sources of the Caura, Chaffanjon found the once formidable Guaharibos, now naked and wretched fugitives, fearing the white far more than they are feared by him.[377] On the southern slope, along the Rio Jauapery and neighboring streams, are bands of Crichanas, Ipurucotos (Purigotos), Macuchis, and Jauamerys (Waimiris), all speaking nearly related dialects of the Carib tongue. Dr. Barboza Rodrigues has given a touching picture of their recent struggles with the whites of the adjacent settlements, and the miserable condition to which they are reduced. We owe to the same sympathetic naturalist an interesting description of their customs and language.[378]

The hill tribes of French Guiana are known as Roucouyennes, from the _roucou_, a vegetable coloring matter with which they paint their skins. They exhale a peculiar odor like that of new leather, probably from the action of the tannin in the roucou on the skin. Naturally they are light in color, and at birth almost white.[379] Marriages of father and daughter, or brother and sister, are not rare among them.[380]

A connecting link between these Caribs of Guiana and the Bakairis of the south is supplied by the Apiacas of the Rio Tocantins, who speak a pure dialect of the stock, midway in character between those of the two extremes named.[381]

The Arubas, who occupied the island of that name off the coast of Venezuela, and whose mixed descendants now speak the Papamiento jargon, are no doubt correctly assigned to this stock by M. Pinart. They were skillful potters, and buried their dead in large urns. The numerous polychromatic petroglyphs they have left and their peculiar character are especially noteworthy.[382]

Sir Robert H. Schomburgk classifies the Carib stock in Guiana as follows, giving a short specimen of each dialect, which differ, he says, among themselves about as much as French and Italian.[383]

CARIB SUB-STOCK IN GUIANA.

_Accawai_. _Arecuna_. _Caribisi_. _Guianau_. _Macusi_. _Maiongkong_. _Mawakwa_. _Pianochotto_. _Soerigong_. _Tiverighotto_. _Waiyamara_. _Woyawoi_.

The Guaques, who live on the head-waters of the Caqueta or Yapura river, have not been heretofore identified as Caribs; but their dialect, as collected by Presbyter Manuel P. Albis in 1853, leaves no doubt as to its relationship. He describes them as intelligent and kindly, but incorrigible and dexterous thieves, skillful in the collection of wax and the preparation of poisons. Nowhere is the couvade with its associate superstitions more rigidly observed. No woman must be seen by men during her catamenia, and at childbirth she must separate from the household for three months. During all that time her husband strictly observes a diet and seclusion.[384]

The lower Orinoco basin was for a long time the center of distribution of the stock; they probably had driven from it nations of Arawak lineage, some of whom, as the Goajiros, they pushed to the west, where they were in contact with the Carib Motilones,[385] and others to the islands and the shores to the east. The Carijonas and Guaques on the head-waters of the Yapura or Caqueta are now their most western hordes, and the Pimenteiras on the Rio Paruahyba are their most eastern. We can thus trace their scattered bands over thirty-five degrees of latitude and thirty of longitude. The earliest center of distribution which best satisfies all the conditions of the problem would be located in the Bolivian highlands, not remote from that I have assigned to the Arawaks.

The physical features of the Caribs assimilate closely to those of the Arawaks. They are taller in the average and more vigorous, but their skulls are equally brachycephalic and orthognathic. They are beardless, and have the same variability in color of skin. As good specimens of the modern Caribs we may take the tribes of Venezuela. These are spoken of as “the strongest, handsomest and most intelligent of any of the natives in northern South America.”[386] They are tall, straight and symmetrical, the women not less muscular than the men. The hair is sometimes slightly wavy, as Von den Steinen saw among the Bakairi.

The Caribs have had a bad reputation as to culture on account of their anthropophagous tendencies. Indeed, the word _cannibal_ is a mispronunciation of their proper name, _Karina_. But they were quite on a par with their neighbors, the Arawaks, and in some respects superior to them. For instance, their canoes were larger and finer, and they had invented the device of the sail, which seems to have been unknown to all the other tribes on the continent. To some extent they were agricultural, and their pottery was of superior quality.

The beginnings of picture-writing were in use among them, and the remarkable rock inscriptions still visible on the Orinoco and the Essequibo are attributable to them, and were probably intended as conjurations to the supernatural powers, similar to others which remain in St. Vincent and other islands from the date of the Carib occupation.[387] Their family life was not usually communal, but each household occupied its own dwelling. In some parts, as in the deltas of the Essequibo and Orinoco, and even on the dry savannas, their huts were built on a substructure of piles which lifted them five or six feet from the ground or the water, as the case might be.

The religious rites they observed were often elaborate. Their principal divinities are said to have been the sun, moon and earth, the latter of which was spoken of as the mother of the race. They practiced the _couvade_, and their priests, called _piaye_, exercised unlimited power, and were correspondingly feared.

It was the opinion of Von Martius that the Carib, the Tupi-Guarani and the Arawak stocks are traceable to some very ancient common tongue. This view is at first sight strengthened by a wide comparison of vocabularies, but is weakened by an examination of the grammars of the three families, especially their pronominal elements. It is probable that the three ancestral tribes had early and close communication, but not original identity.

The seeming relationship has been rendered more prominent in certain instances by free later borrowings. M. Adam has shown that some of the northern dialects are in the condition of jargons, their grammar on the Carib model, their words drawn from various stocks. Such are the “Island Carib,” which is largely Arawak, and the Boni-Ouyana, described by Dr. Crévaux.[388]

CARIB LINGUISTIC STOCK.

_Akavais_, or _Accowoios_, in southern British Guiana. _Apalais_, on the lower Paru. _Apiacas_, on the lower Tocantins. _Arecunas_, on Rio Branco. _Aricoris_, see _Yaos_. _Bakairis_, on the Upper Schingu. _Caribisis_, in Guiana. _Carijonas_, head-waters of the Caqueta. _Cariniacos_, on lower Orinoco. _Chaimas_, in ancient province of Cumana. _Cumanagotos_, in ancient province of Cumana. _Galibis_, in French Guiana. _Guaques_, on the upper Caqueta. _Guaharibos_, on the upper Caura. _Guayqueris_, in province of Cumana. _Jauamerys_, on Rio Jauapery. _Macusis_, on Rio Negro. _Maqueritares_, on Rio Branco. _Motilones_, near R. Zulia in Venezuela. _Palmellas_, on Rio Paruahyba. _Paramonas_, sub-tribe of Akavais. _Paravilhanas_, on Rio Branco. _Pianagotos_, on Rio Branco. _Pimenteiras_, on Rio Paruahyba. _Purigotos_, on Rio Jauapery. _Roucouyennes_, in French Guiana. _Tamanacas_, on Rio Cuccivero. _Tiverighotto_, on Rio Branco. _Trios_, on upper Corentyn. _Vaiyamaras_, on Rio Branco. _Voyavois_, on Rio Branco. _Yaos_, in Guiana. _Zurumutas_, sub-tribe of Macusis. (The Orinoco sub-stock will be described later.)

_5. The Cariris._

In his enumeration of the tribes of Central Brazil, Von Martius brings together a large number who once dwelt in the provinces of Bahia and Pernambuco, under the general title, “the Guck or Coco stem,” so called from the word which in many of them means “the paternal uncle.”[389] This division has not been endorsed by later research, and it is evident that Von Martius included several quite different stocks under this appellation.

Among these, the most prominent were the _Cariris_ or Kiriri. They are now reduced to about 600 souls, but at one time were a powerful nation, and in 1699 the Jesuit Mamiani published a grammar and other works in their tongue.[390] They were among the more cultivated of the Brazilian tribes, given to agriculture, skilled in dyeing and weaving cotton, employing a primitive spindle and loom, with weapons of several kinds and of superior finish.

The Sabuyas, who dwell near them, speak a closely related dialect; but further affinities have not been verified. They have, indeed, many loan words from the Tupi, and some from the Carib stock, but the ground-work of these tongues is different. Von den Steinen offers some reasons for believing that they moved down the Amazon from a far western residence.[391]

_6. The Coroados, Carajas and others._

The Coroados derive their name from the Portuguese word _coroa_, a crown, the term “crowned” being applied to several native tribes who wore their hair in a peculiar manner. It is not at all an ethnic designation, and I use it to bring into relief the need of some term of greater precision. Thus, there are the Coroados who are neighbors and linguistically related to the Puris, dwelling on the Paruahyba river. By some they have been included among the Tapuyas as alleged relatives of the Botocudos. But not only is there no relationship of language, but physically they are widely apart. The Puris-Coroados are a dark yellow brown, with mesocephalic heads, dark brown oblique eyes, large mouths and thick lips--nowise the type of the Botocudo. They are moreover agricultural in habits, and farther advanced in the arts.[392]

There are other Coroados in the extreme south of Brazil, in the province of Rio Grande do Sul, whither they are said to have wandered from the north. These do not appear to be Botocudos either. They have round heads, dark brown eyes, low foreheads, and are of a light coffee color. They are noticeable for their clean and ornamental huts, and for their skill in hunting, in which they employ arrows five feet in length, with bone points. They pray to certain stars as protective divinities, and like some northern tribes, clean and preserve the bones of the dead.[393]

The _Carajas_ belong to a stock who dwell on the affluents of the river Araguay, in the province of Goyaz in southern Brazil. The traveler Castelnau[394] penetrated to them, and was our earliest source of information about them. They are wild and warlike, with a bad reputation among their neighbors. He was told they had no religion and no rites, but also that they were strictly monogamous and singularly firm moralists, punishing libertinage with the death of both parties; statements which do not accord. Their method of burial was curious. The corpse was interred in an upright position, the head out of the ground. An ample stock of bananas and other food was placed near it, and renewed from time to time. This clearly indicates a belief in life after death. The pure Carajas are markedly dolichocephalic.

The Caraja language is known too imperfectly to permit a proper study of its relationship. It is complex and difficult, and spoken differently by the men and the women. From the scant material at hand I perceive lexical relationship in some important words to the Tapuya stock,[395] but a wide divergence in phonetics and apparently in construction. Its members are as follows:

CARAJA LINGUISTIC STOCK.

_Carajahis_, about Salinas. _Carajas_, on the Rio Araguay. _Chimbioas_, on the eastern affluents of lower Araguay. _Javahais_, on upper Araguay and island of Bananal. _Ximbioas_, see _Chimbioas_.

A certain number of vocabularies have been obtained by travelers in Brazil from mixed-blood tribes, who spoke dialects sometimes compounded of several native tongues, sometimes of these mingled with Portuguese or negro elements. Such is the dialect of the _Meniens_, who lived in eastern Brazil near the Villa Belmonte, whose speech was a jargon of the Tapuya and negro languages; and that of the _Cames_ in the interior of San Paulo, who also made use of a barbarous dialect, compounded of the African idioms of runaway slaves, and that of the Botocudos. The Catoquina, a specimen of which was obtained by Spix from a band on the affluent of the Jurua, and the Catoxa or Cotoxo of the Rio Parda, are other examples.[396]

_7. The Orinoco Basin; Carib Sub-Stock; Salivas; Arawak Sub-Stock; Otomacos; Guamas; Guayoas; Garuoas; Guaraunos; Betoyas; Piaroas, etc._

The Llanos of Venezuela coincide with the former “Territory of Caqueta,” and embrace a region about forty thousand square miles in extent, covered either with grass and rushes or with dense forests. In the wet season it is a vast marsh, in the dry it is scorched by a burning sun, raising the thermometer daily to over 100° in the shade. Yet the Llanos are but a part of the vast upper water-shed of the northern affluents of the Amazon and those of the Orinoco, which together drain a country larger than the whole of France.

This wide expanse is thinly populated with bands of savages, gaining their subsistence chiefly from the rivers, few of them brought within the range of civilized influences. Linguistically the majority belong to the Arawak and the Carib stocks; but there are numbers of tribes whose affinities are uncertain, or who are apparently of quite another lineage. Scores of names are found in the records of the missions and on the pages of travelers, of peoples who have disappeared or are now known by other designations. Alexander von Humboldt named and located 186 tribes on the Orinoco and its affluents alone; but renounced as hopeless the attempt to give them a linguistic classification.[397] I shall not attempt to unravel the tangled ethnography of this region farther than to mention those tribes concerning whom specimens of language or the statements of European visitors permit a reasonable guess as to their affinities.

Something over a century ago, when Father Gilii wrote, largely from personal knowledge, his description of the tribes on the Orinoco and its affluents, he believed they could be included in nine linguistic stocks,[398] as follows:

1. The _Carib_ in a number of dialects, as the Tamanaca, the Paiura, the Quiri-Quiripa, the Mapuya, the Guanero, the Guayquira, the Palenque, the Maquiritare, the Oje, the Mucuru, and others.

2. The _Saliva_, to which he assigned the dialects Ature, Piaroa and Quaqua.

3. The _Maipure_ (Arawak), in its dialects Avane, Meepure, Cavere, Parene, Guipunave, and Chirupa.

4. The _Otomaca_, with one dialect, the Tarapita.

5. The _Guama_, with its dialect, the Quaquaro.

6. The _Guayba_, related to the Chiricoa.

7. The _Jaruri_ (_Yarura_).

8. The _Guaraunos_.

9. The _Aruaca_.

This classification can stand as only approximately accurate, but it serves as an excellent starting point.

Beginning with the Carib stock, and basing my list on the works of Codazzi and more recent travelers, especially Crévaux, Coudreau and Chaffanjon, I offer the following as the tribes which may be definitely located as its members:

CARIB SUB-STOCK IN THE ORINOCO REGION.

_Amarizonas_ (_Amarisanes_), near the Rio Guaviare and Rios Etari and Ayrico. _Arecunas_, on head-waters of the Rio Caroni. _Ariguas_, near the Rio Tauca. _Cabiunes_, on the Rio Apoporis. _Carataimas_, on the Rio Cauca. _Chaymas_, on the Rio Guarapiche. _Cucciveros_, on the Rio Cauca. _Cuneguaras_, on the Rio Maturin. _Enaguas_, on the Rio Agua Branca. _Guarives_, on the Rio Uñare. _Maquiritares_, on the Orinoco, near Lake Carida and Rio Ventuari. _Matanos_, on Rio Caura. _Mucos_, on Rio Apoporis. _Panares_, on Rio Caura. _Parecas_, on the lower Orinoco. _Paudacotos_, near the Rio Caura. _Quiri-Quiripas_, on the lower Orinoco. _Quivas_, on the Orinoco near the confluence of the Meta. _Tamanacas_, on lower Orinoco. _Tuapocos_, on the Rio Maturin. _Vayamanos_, on the Rio Paragua. _Yaos_, on the Rio de la Trinidad. _Yocunos_, on the Rio Apoporis.

Even when Codazzi collected his material, more than half a century ago, the once powerful Tamanacas had entirely disappeared, and no tribe of the name existed in the region.[399] The process of dissolution and destruction has gone on since his day with increasing rapidity, so that when Chaffanjon visited the Orinoco and Caura in 1884, he found that immense and fertile region almost uninhabited, the ancient tribes scattered and disappeared, or existing only in wretched remnants, _misérables débris_, of their former selves.[400] The opportunity is forever lost, therefore, to define the ethnography of this region by original observation, and we are thrown back on the collections and statements of former observers.

The Maquiritares, however, still remain as one of the handsomest peoples on the Orinoco, and remarkable for the skill with which they manufacture canoes sixty or seventy feet long from the trunk of a single tree.[401]

On the river Uaupes, an affluent of the Rio Negro M. Coudreau encountered various tribes, such as the Tarianos or Javis and the Nnehengatus, of whose tongues he obtained brief vocabularies. They indicate a distant influence of the Carib stock, especially the latter, but they seem mixed largely with elements from other sources.[402] They dwell adjacent to the Tucanos, to whom I have already referred as assigned by some to the Tapuyas. (See above, p. 240.)

Gilii’s second group, the _Salivas_, offers difficulties. There appears to be none of them under that name at present on the Orinoco. Chaffanjon states that the Atures have become extinct.[403] The Piaroas survive, but the tribe so-called to-day speak a tongue wholly unlike the Saliva, and unconnected, apparently, with any other stock;[404] and the modern Quaquas (Guagues) speak a dialect of the Arawak. Yet a hundred and fifty years ago the missionaries estimated the Salivas at four thousand souls. They lived principally on the river Cinareuco, below the Meta, and also on the Rio Etari, where they were in contact with the Carib Amarisanes. They are described as of a kindly and gentle disposition, well-made in body and willing scholars of their spiritual masters. In their heathendom they had the unique custom of disinterring the bones of their dead after the expiration of a year, burning them, and then collecting the ashes to mix with their drinking water.[405] Their language, which was vocalic and nasal, has been preserved in sufficient specimens to serve for comparison. According to Vergara y Vergara, it is still spoken on the banks of the Meta,[406] and Hartmann includes in those who employ it, the Quevacus and Maritzis, at the head of the Ventuari, and the Mayongcong on the Merevari.[407]

The Arawak stock, which Gilii calls the _Maipure_, had numerous branches in this region. They occupied much of the Orinoco in its middle and upper course, as well as the valleys of its affluents. Gumilla speaks of one of its members, the Caveres, as savage and inhuman warriors, but as the only nation which had been able to repulse the attacks of the down-river Caribs, who were accustomed to ascend the stream in fleets of eighty to a hundred canoes, destroying every village on its banks.[408]

The same authority mentions the Achaguas as possessing the most agreeable and cultured dialect, though he is in doubt whether it is strictly related to the Maipure. This nation, quite prominent in the older annals, still existed in the middle of this century to the number of five hundred on the Rio Muco. They were not civilized, and practiced the customs of polyandry and the destruction of female infants.[409] Cassani refers to them as on the river Ele, and describes them as tattooed and painted, with well-formed bodies and taking great pride in preserving and dressing their magnificent hair.[410]

From a variety of sources at my disposition I have prepared the following list of the

ARAWAK SUB-STOCK IN THE ORINOCO REGION.

_Achaguas_, on Rio Ele and Rio Muco. _Amoruas_, on Rio Vichada. _Avanenis_, on Rio Guainia. _Banivas_, see _Manivas_. _Barés_, on Rios Baria and Guainia. _Cabacabas_, between Rios Yapura and Apoporis. _Cafuanas_, on Rio Yapura. _Carusanas_, on the Guainia and Inirida. _Cauiris_, right bank of Rio Guaviare. _Caveres_ (_Cabres_), on Rio Zama and Orinoco near it. _Chirupas_, on the Rio Zama. _Guaripenis_, on Rio Guainia. _Guaypunavis_ (_Guipunavis_), on Lake Inirida. _Macuenis_, on Rio Guainia. _Manivas_ (_Banivas_, _Manitivas_), on Rio Guaviare and Rio Negro and their affluents. _Maipures_, on middle Orinoco. _Moroquenis_, on Rio Yapura. _Mituas_, on Lake Inirida. _Moruas_, on Rio Yapura. _Parenes_, on middle Orinoco. _Piapocos_, near mouth of Rio Guaviare. _Uaupes_, on Rio Uaupes (?). _Yaviteris_, on Rio Atabapo.