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Studies

in

South American native jangjiag

3 1924 021 087 618

Cornell University
Library

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original of this

book

is in

the Cornell University Library.

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text.

http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924021087618

STUDIES
IN-

South American Native


Languages.

FROM MSS. AND RARE PRINTED SOURCES.

BY DANIEL

G.

BRINTON, A.M., M.D., LL.D.,

Professor of American Archaeology and Linguistics in the

University of Pennsylvania.

PHILADELPHIA
MacCalla & Company, Printers,

237-9

& 0C K

Street.

fZ'X-l'f-

Prefatory Note.

The papers which


ings

of the

follow were contributed to the Proceed-

American Philosophical Society

in

the early

Most of them are based upon unpublished

months of 1892.

manuscripts in European and American Libraries, which I

have had the opportunity of examining within the

They include

last year.

material on at least four linguistic stocks, hitherto

wholly unknown

to students

of this interesting branch of

anthropologic science.
T have added

two

South

American

isolated

among

all

studies of

affinities,

Mexican languages, one with

the other

apparently standing

American languages and

in construction.
Philadelphia, April, 1892.

strikingly simple

CONTENTS.

I.

Prefatory Note

Contents

The Tacana Language and

its

Dialects

The Jivaro Language

21

III.

The Cholona Language

30

IV.

The Leca Language

36

II.

V.
VI.

A Text in

The Bonari

Manao

Dialect

38

Dialect of the Carib Stock

44

the

The Hongote Language and

VII.

The

VIII.

IX.

X.

Dialects

Affinities of

On

and

the Patagonian Dialects

45

Kechua Language

52

Affinities of the

South and North American Languages

the Dialects of the Betoyas and Tucanos

58
62

APPENDIX.

I.

On

the Chinantec Language

II.

On

the Mazatec Language

3
11

Introductory.
It is

not too

much

to say that the languages of the native tribes

of South America are the least

known

The

of any on the globe.

problems they present in their grammatical character and affinities


remain the furthest from solution, and the materials to undertake
such a task are the scantiest from any equal area on the earth's
surface.

In spite of the labors of such earnest workers as

Steinen, Ehrenreich,
others, there are

Adam,

Ernst,

Von den

Darapsky, Middendorff and

numerous tongues of which we know absolutely

nothing, or have but bare and imperfect vocabularies.

In the present series of studies

I present

a variety of material

from either unpublished or rare works, accompanied by such suggestions as to its character and relations as have occurred to me in
its preparation, and by some observations on the ethnography of
the tribes mentioned.
As I am convinced that the only ethnographic classification possible of the native tribes of America

based on language,

do not

hesitate

to

is

that

apply this whenever

possible.
I.

THE TACANA LANGUAGE AND


In

my work on The American

classification of this

group

Race,*

ITS DIALECTS.
I

offered the following

Tacana Linguistic Stock.


Araonas,

Tacana, in spite of some assertions to the contrary by Spanish


writers.

Other

which should probably be added to this list, as they


maps within Tacana territory and have Tacana

tribes

located on old

are

names, are
Carangues, on

left

bank of Rio Tarabeni.

Chumanos, north of Lake Roguaguado.


Poromonas, on the lower Rio Beni (or Poro).
Samachuanes, on Rio Coroico.
Uchupiamonas, on the Rio Uchupiamona.

Yubamonas, on the Rio Yuba.


termination monas to several of these names is the Spanish
form of the Tac. manu, river, the tribes being named from
the streams along which they lived.
In addition to the above I have found that the tribe known as

The

plural

"Guarizas"is
texts

to

be included among the Tacanas.

in their language, comprising the Pater,

Credo, was found

among

the

series of

Ave and

the

the papers of Cardinal Mezzofanti, and

has been published by Prof. Emilio Teza in his Saggi inediti di

Lingue Americane

(Pisa, 1868).

endeavors to identify

his

or affinities of the tribe,

this

The learned

editor states that

all

language, or to ascertain the location

had been

fruitless.

comparison of the

Guariza Pater with that in the Tacana, both of which I give on a


later page, will

D'Orbigny
but the
last

prove the very close relationship of the two

asserts that

name of the

"Tacana"

language.

is

not the name of a

It is called

century the " Maracani,"* which

is

by Spanish

tribes.

tribe,

writers of the

apparently not the same as

Macarani of the mission of Santiago among the Chiquitos.


The earliest missionary explorer of the Rio Beni, Fray Francisco
de Rosario, wrote a report in 1677, in which he mentions a number
of tribes, now extinct, among them the Hucumanos and the
Torococyes, whose names indicate them to have belonged to the
Tacana stock, f
the

Location and Number.

The general location of the Tacana group may be described as


along the eastern slope of the Cordillera, where it descends to the
*

See D'Orbigny,

Peru

V Homme

Amiricain, Vol.

i,

p. 374

Descrip. de las Misiones del Alto

(1771).

f His report

was printed in

full in

Melendez, Tesoro Verdadero de

las Indias,

Tomo

iii.

9
valley of the river Beni (otherwise called the

Pilcopata and the Rio


latter

Madre de

on both banks, between South

the Tacana dialect proper

Isiamas

the

is

and

Dios),

and

12

lat.

Rio Poro, the Rio

in the valley of the


15.

Araona by the Araonas, who dwell on the banks of

the Beni and on those of

Manuripi,- Tahuamanu and


to the mission of Cavinas

western tributaries,

its

Uaicomanu
the Maropa

known

the Cavinefio

to the

is

the

as

confined

Maropes, in and near

the Pueblo de los Reyes, on the right bank of the

12

At present

spoken in the towns of Tumupasa and

Beni, about

30' S. lat., while the Sapis or Sapiboconas appear to have

been

the most eastern branch of the stock, as they were attached to the

Moxos

mission of the

in the province

of that

name on

the Rio

Mamore.
In 1831 the total number of persons speaking the dialects of
this stock

The majority

was about 6000 (D'Orbigny).

nominally Christians and have fixed habitations;

monas, who dwell between the

of these are

but the Toro-

Madidi and Beni, in i2-i3


and heathens; so, also, are the
Araonas, who are stated to be cannibals and idol worshipers. Their
idols are geometrically shaped pieces of polished wood and stone.
Their chief deity is " Baba Buada," whom they identify with the
wind, vutana, and whose home is in the air.
He is said to live
towards the south and to be the creator of heaven and earth. The
general term for divinity is edutzi, and there is a zia edutzi, god of
maize; an agave edutzi, god of health, etc. Each edutzi has his

South

lat.,

are

own yanacona,

still

rivers

uncivilized

or priest, to superintend the proper rites.*

Loan Words.
The Tacana-speaking

tribes

have

for generations adjoined

on the

west the once powerful and cultivated Aymaras, and on the north
the populous herds

of

the

The consequences on

Panos.

their

tongue have been quite marked. A number of words have been


borrowed from both sources ; but they are not so frequent nor of
such a character as to authorize the supposition of an original unity
with either of the stocks named.

Identities in

I give

list

of some of these

Aymara and Tacana.


Aymaba.

Arm,
Body,
* E.

Heath

in Kansas City Review, April, 1883

Nic. Armentia, Ezplor. del

Madre de

Dios.

Col. LabriS in Proc. Soy. Geog. Soc,

10

11

Banana, bondare and naja. The former is the Pano banara, panala, and
naja is the same word with the first syllable omitted banara is but a
corruption of banana, an Arawak word.
;

The color names appear to me irreducible, except


"green," which has been borrowed from the Aymara.
White,

that

for

12

To me,

13

The termination

ti

appears to be that of the reflexive verb

dama, to cover.
ja damali, to cover oneself.

The

neuter

is

changed

to the active signification

by the

suffix

me

manu, to die.
manuame, to kill.
ja manuamejiji,

Many
babe, to

who

lie

verbs are

know

The word

compounded by simple

quisa, to tell

babequisa, to teach,

which

has killed another.

i.

juxtaposition, as

whence
what one knows.
:

to tell

e.,

know, is itself a derivative from ba, to see,


compounds as diaba (from dia, to eat),
test or try a food (probar la comida); and

babe, to

also appears in such

to eat, seeing,

i. <?.,

to

batsuatique (tsuati=z above), to look upward.

Literature and Texts.

The

Tacanan dialects if I may apply this term


meagre material is widely scattered and difficult of access.
Ludewig, in his Literature of American Aboriginal Languages
literature of the

to such

(p. 206), speaks

of

as a dialect of the Yurucare, with

it

has not the slightest affinity.

bocona

as a dialect of the

which

it

The same author gives the SapiKechua (p. 1 68), and the Maropa as

related to the Yuracare.

Of

Tacana proper I have made use of three published


That given by H. A. Weddell, Voyage dans le
1.
Nord de la Bolivie (Paris, 1859). He gives forty words and six
numerals, obtained from a party of Tacanas from Ixiamas and
Tumupasa, whom he met at Guanay. 2. A vocabulary of one
hundred and fifty-seven words and six numerals, by Ur. E. R.
Heath, contributed by him to the Kansas City Review, April,
1883.
3. A vocabulary of forty-eight words and ten numerals,
accompanied by grammatical observations by the Rev. Nicholas
Armentia, published in his Exploracion del Rio Madre de Dios
(La Paz, 1889).
the

vocabularies:

The only printed

text I

pages, with the following

" Catecismo

de

la

have found
title

is

a small octavo of forty-one

Doctrina Christiana

en Idioma Tacana
|

14

por un Misionero del Colejio de Propaganda fide de la Paz de


Ayacucho
Imprenta de Vapor. Calle de la Aduana,
1859.
|

No. 36.

The

text

in Tacana, without

entirely

is

corresponding

the

Spanish, and embraces the Pater, Credo, Salve, Smaller Catechism,

Explanation of the Doctrine, the Via Sacra,

etc.

have been

unable to discover the author.


Further, Armentia gives also vocabularies of the Araona and
Cavineno dialects, and Dr. Heath supplies one of the Maropa.
For the Sapibocona, I have relied on that printed by Hervas in his

Vocabulario Poliglotto.

Dr. Heath refers to the great similarity between the Maropa and
Tacana dialects, and adds the remark: "The Maropas have
many words that have significations widely different; etra means
bone and also hair biya means a louse, a wasp and urine." Prob;

ably there

a difference in accent or inflection, which

is

is

not

apparent to the European ear, but which to the native indicates

which sense

The

is

intended.

version of the Lord's Prayer given below, as well as that of

the Creed, are taken from the Catecismo en Idioma Tacana, above
I have added an interlinear translation of the former,
and also a translation of the latter, as there is evidently some slight
change of the customary phraseology.

referred to.

Lord's Prayer in Tacana.


Ecuanasa lata evacuapachasu, mi canichanapajiji papu mique ebani,
Our
father
heaven in, thou
sacred
come thy name,
mique ewcuapacha ecuanasa papu, mique envme eni papu ye canasu,
thy
heaven
(to) us
come,
thy
wish
come
earth on,
evacuapachasu epuani nime viame.

heaven in
equita

body

come

(like to?).

Amen
Amen

tucheji jeave ecuanatiaque.

food

cuaja

bata

even

as

dajajameji

to

us.

ecuaneda eiehenubania

we

Jesus.

Pamapa

zinesu ecuanasa

Every day
our
Ecuanasa jucha cuana chenubaque,
Our
sins
forgive,
Jesus.

ecuanasa

manu

cuana,

ba ecuana

forgive

mi juchasu, inasiguaque pamapa madada cuanasu.


remove

all

evil

Amen

us from.

Jesus.

Alongside of

this I

quote the same in the Guariza dialect, from

Prof. Teza's work, already

mentioned

15

Lord's Prayer in Guariza.


Echeza tata evacuepacJtazu anigi mi, ibbubatagigicapapuini mige evani,
papu eyueaini mi reyno, agigieapapuini mige enime eubbazu
evacuepachazu battmja.
Ecama geabe chinezv, tiage eaheza jana pugi :
echebe jucha gigicuana ichenubage echeza jucha qetahu, tuevata ecama
echeza majaycuana eichenubbaza : ecama tucheme age veca par'ajaja
jutfiazu, chutemejubua ichenume cuanazu ecama mapenege.
echebe pezu

It

[is

evident that this

is

a version by a different hand into a

closely allied dialect.

Creed

in Tacana.

Father God, of all


Eama jei eania tata Dios pamapa
and on earth the aji, evacuapachasu ye eausu seguamaker I believe in the Lord Jesus meji jei eania tata Jesucristo tusa
Christ, His only Son
who was con- evacua peada quita bataji puida
ceived by the grace of the Holy Espiritu Santasa gracia eje putzu
Spirit, and was born of a virgin
etsesa cuara Virgen cuinaida ichehe suffered under the power of nuda
cuana vidinaida Pilatosa
emesu; tatajiji puida crususu; dapia
Pilate he was crucified he died
he wentdowntolimbo; fromamong manujiji puida, limbosu buteida
I believe in the

things in heaven
;

the dead he arose on the third day;

manujiji cuana dujusu nettianaida

he went up

quimieha zinesu

heaven

to

there he

is

soatida evacuapa-

hand of the cha, mesa tata pamapa aji bai eni


Father almighty; whence he shall bene cani, da jenettia epueicha
come to judge the living and the eideni cuana, manujiji cuana equidead I believe in the Holy Spirit, saba puji eania jei eania Espiritu
seated

on the

right

the holy Catholic church, the com-

Santosa,

munion of all the saints, the pardon


of sins, and that our bodies shall rise
again, and that life shall not end.

santo cuanasa aysaida jacti cuanasa

Vocabulary

jaditati,

santa Yglesia catolicasu,

jucha cuanasa perdon, ecua-

nasa

equila quita eydeyo pupebse

mave

eide cani.

English-Tacana

and Dialects.

T.= Tacana (T. W. Tacana of Weddell); M.= Maropa; S.= Sapiboona A.= Araona; C.= Cavinefio.
Orthography Spanish j
Eng. A; ^scarcely perceptible; s
Eng. th.
;

Alive,
All,

Always,

Arm,

T.

eicle'ja,

pamapa,

T.

escheveve,

M.

huana', M.

doja-piricha, T.

ebu'e, T.

embai, M. (probably

from ema, hand).


Arrow, pisa, T. pizi, M.
Ascend, to, tsuati, T.
;

Ashes, etimu, T., A. etiquimuru, C.


Aunt, nene, T., A., C.
Bad, mada'da, T.
emasa',
M.
(=ma-saida, not good).
;

Bark

(of tree),

eviti,

Beard, que 1 da, T.


Belly, etu, T.

ese>,

T.

euesa',

embiti,

M.

M.

M. edde,T. (W.)
;

16
Bird, dia, T.

M.

bu'ni,

Black, devena, T.

Duck,

M.

sebe'mi,

Blood, ami, T. and M.

Earth

Blue, danane, T.; mvame',

Body,

equita,

T.,

C.

M.

M.
M.;

ea'mi,

e'iro,

Bow,

a,

M.

T.; eira',

T.;

pisatri,

M.

(see

Man);

M.

pizalrue,

(see Arrow).
Boy, canane, edeave, T.

the diminu-

is

(= mammae), atra.T. and M.

(my elder),
T. &'<?*, M.
Brother (my younger),
Brother

quema-onici,

chintri,

quema-eou',

M.
jasm, msj,

C.

M.

echentru,

(breast bone? see Bone).

Cold, bruada, T.

ter hairs,"

vinna'ma, M.

my

Father,

(by daughter), rema-

T.

j>M0,

M.

apueya,

Far, uqueda, T.

huazumi, M.

tsia-tsia,

T.

je/aje,

M.

to, tiri-tiri,

T. and

M.

(imi-

(see Child and Ifo/nam).


Day, tri'ne, T. and M. chine,
Dead, manujiji, T. and M.
Deer, ba'que, T. batru'nu, M.
Die, to, manu, T.
Dog, c7w, T. pacw, M.
;

T.

emechuja,

of hand).

qua'ti, T.

M., S., A.
(W.) (compare

eua'ti,

tffegw,

C.j aire, T.

-4s7ies

and TPood).
M. see, T.

sisi,

Fly,

jas,

A.

vere-vere, T.; 6eW,

a,

Food, jana,

T., A.;

M.

(imi-

S.

eWwca, C.
M.; ebbachi,

evatri,

euatsi, A., C.

T.

Forest,

T.

hayjintru,

pwnave, M.
ebaeuna, C. (e :=

j'd,

see C/iiW,

Give,

A.;

jaisehitri,

M.

diminutive

M.
M.

epere'je,

Daughter

TPomewi).
to,

to,

to, T.

M.
and M.; pj, A.;

tia'na,

#'&", T.

cwa, C.

God,
;

tf/j'Je,

ebmzacua, A.

Go,

C.
to, idi, eicli,T.

emma'ta, M.

S.

Friend, apare'je, T.

and

ayeidi,

and

Girl, jrata, epunave, T.


S.

Drink,

(=head

Forehead, emali, T.

a,

ema,

Fingers,

Foot, equatri,T.

Daughter, my (by father and


mother), onibaquapuna, T.
quiembaqua, M.; ebacuepuna, A., C.

ej#,

enuqua, M. (com-

pare Hair).

tative).

tative).

Drink,

M.

qui-tata,

Flesh (see Meat, Body).

(imitative).

Dance,

eyebrows, eye-

e.,

i.

Face, embu, T. and M.


Father, my (by son), rema-tata,T.

Fish,

papw, T.
to,

M.

Child, ebacua, T.

to,

trinequa,

Eye, etradru'ndru, T. etaehundru,


M.; etuaehuru, S. (see Sister,
Elder and Hair ; apparently "sis-

Fire,

Chest, the, etredu, T.

Come,

M.

(see Z>a#).

Feathers, eina,T.

C.

Canoe, eua'bua,T.; cuamba', M., A.;


cuaba, C. (Aymara).
Charcoal, elide,, T. etesi, A. etirutseve,

ea, mczi, A.

Eat, to, dia-dia, T.; chancha,

tata, T.

Brother, zau, uitzecua, A.;

Cry,

S.

qui-tata,M.; tata, or checua, S. C.

T.

C,

lashes).

tive suffix).

Breasts

mechi,

dreja've,

toro,A..; ebacuapi,

C. (see Child; ve

M.
&, T. wier i,

(land), meeK,

M.

su'zi,

eshaeue'na,

Egg, e'ja, T. and M.


Evening, trineli'a, T.

ecuicha, A.

Bone,

T.

a, se'e,

Ear, edaja, T.

eruchi,

educhi, C.

S.

edttte*,

T., A.;

17
Good, saida, 'saipiave,T

'.

Grass, nutsa, T.;


Great, aida, T.

ea'ji,

jundra, M.

Hair, ecliu-ena, T.

eira,

Feather, Wing).

S. (see i?ead,

T.;

M.,

erne,

A.;

S.,

eme-tucu, C.

He

(pron.), to e^a, T.

M.
M. and

to-w,

echuja,

S.

eelma, A.; iyuca, U.

Heart, masu'mo, T.
emofobo, A.

Heaven,

C.

evacuepana,

S.

evacua-

paaha, T.; tecpo, T. (W.).


Here, upi'ca, T. msm', M.
a (or mountain), ernata,

emina, M.

T.

(probably from emu,

House,

ejtej.T.

M., A.; elare,C.

Husband, my, quemayavi, T.


astie, M.

m
e'me, M.

I (pron),

T.

Ice, ea'na,

Infant,

M.

ziniri-trime,

etai,

jmj-

(active form, ea'ma),

(see Soy);

Money, chipilo, T.
Moon, Sa'di, T., A., C;

eaa, S.

ischa'pupu, M.

olla), jutu,

T., A.; emari-

Musquito,

or

sasrci

My, quema, T.
Name, etoii, T.

T.

to, SaSe,

erne tichi,

m''ju, T.

drema', M.
and M. and S.
;

fe'za,

T.

apume', M.

No, 'te, T. and M.


Nose,

T.

m'-erei,

ecrt,

T.

e'si,

ess,

M. and

S.

M.
driani qua'na,

M.
Plantain (Sp. platano),
a?a, A. bondare, C.

nam,

T.;

T. and M.; eubihure, S.

Prairie, nutsa'ni, T.

Rain,

ydeba'li, T.; yaschi-bati,

ticm,

T. and M.

Rattlesnake,

Jacua

(totta,

T.

swot

bacua, M. (see Snake).

a,

Red, derena, T.

equena 1 M.
toa, T.
,

River,

iffl&e

Leg, etida'da, T.;

eta',

T. (W.).
Lie, to, bidumimi, T.;

(see Water).

Learn,

M.

<Zn,

Hand).

Our, ecuanasa, T.

Leaf,

M.

embani, M.

People, endrani, T.

to,

T.

cK,

ema-tichi, T.

Nails,

Neck,

M.;

equa'lra,

jim',

manuame, emanuani, T.
mane'me, M.
Knife, cuchilo, M. (Spanish).

Laugh,
M.

M.;

T. (W.).

eZ>6o,

Old,

to,

6ai,

lantri',

uaua-di, A.; cuaha', C.

aquatri, T.

Kettle, co'to, T.

Lake,

yaro,

Jan, S.
mai'ta, M.
Morning, matachu, T.
Mother, my (by son or daughter),
quicua, M.;
quema-qua'ra, T.;

Night,

caca, C.

Know,

M.

Never, niquielsunu.

M.

Island, edapu'pu, T.

Kill,

dru'je,

erami, C.

Near, narise, T.

T.

ejanana, M.

Jar (Sp.

ea'mi, M.;

(see

eanane-chidi, T.

Iron, peama',

T.

Mouth,

extremity, point, hand).

Hot, sina'da, T.

Many, yucua'da,
Meat, aieha, T.

reanci,

A.

dfja, ecuicha,

Hill,

A.

masumu', M.

?u/tt,

jili-jili,

Make, to (Sp. hacer), ha, T.


Man, de'ja,T., C; dreja, M.;
S.

Head, echu, T.

T.

tseru-tseru,

M. j'tepa, S.
Love, to, esbune'ba,
imbuT.
nimbu, M.
Maize, dt)'e, T. s/iye, M.; zta, A.
;

M.
M. echau,

schepiei,

Lightning,
;

haymi, M.

Green, china, T.

Hand, e'n,

M.

M.;

e,

eraa,

M.

rida, C. (em

Rivulet,
ea'raa,

T.

water).

utrume, M.
manu, A.; exeperea;

= water).

enabaque,

T.

(= child-

18
Eoad, edidi, T. edisi, A.; edigi, 0.
Run, to, judu'du,T.; vandrundu, M.
;

Salt,

banu, T.

Say,

to, quisa,

See, to, Ja, T.

A.

Sister, zatna,

M.

Thou, micla, T.

tatna, T.

M.
si,

jane, C.

my elder, quema-du'du, T.
drundru, M.
Sister, my younger, quematona, T.

Sister,

M.

is'iid,

M.

(in

eldest brother

says cani to his youngest sister).


Sit, to, aniu'ti,

T.

M.

animbotia,

M.
and M.

Sleep, to, taW, T.

T.

M.

andM.

(by father or mother),


qui-embaqua,
quema-embami, T.
M. ena, A.; ebacua, T. C. (see
CMd, Daughter).
^'i'ay, A.
2/astaSoul, enidu, T.
;

to,

mims^ T. and M.

eme-chuja,

T.

etiria'ni,

M.

Zj'r i,

To-morrow, maUa-puiclia, T.; 6anra, M. (see Yesterday).


equatri-ritrana,

Toes,
tiehi,

M.

Town,

T.

etairi-

#00* and Nails).

(see

eanas, T.,

Tortoise, dati, T.

M. and
dra'ti,

S.

M,

eju'de,T.; tjuntre', M.;

w,

C. (see House).

cjow,

andM.;

acw, A., C.

on which Martius founded


Guck "

origin,

his classification of the "

nations).

Walk,

T.

to, arease',

M.

aze,

Warrior, jamaji tipuji

Water,

Squash, a, je'nu, T. je'mi, M.


Stand, to, enutsinejenetsi, T.
;

eavi, T.

A.; ena, C.

ne'ti,

M.

(a quarrel-

M.

yu'vi,

euvi, S.,

ya'/n, T. (W.).

We, ecuana (dual form,


eeama M.
When, quietsunu, T.

eSsea) T.

Star, eru'jai or elubay, T.

buana'vi,

White, pasana, T.

etujay, A.; purari, C.

Steal, to,

Stone,

2si,

T.; in,

ftOTM,

T.,

Who,

M.

C, A. and

S.

tem a, M.
Strong, tuche'da, T.

Sun,

T.

some person), M.

ecuana, C.

Speak,

M.

m"e,

Uncle, juju, T., A.; cucu, C. (a celebrated word, probably of Carib

my

Son,

M.

Thunder,

Tree, a'jj, T.

batavi'chi,

Snake, baeua, T.

A.

acuisa,

Tobacco, umar'si, T.; umaza, M.


To-day, jecrae, T. and M.

A.;
chicli,

T.

Hand, Fingers, Head).

(see

Tongue,

Skin, ebbai, T. (W.).


Sky, bueyu'pa, T. embaquapac.ha'

Small,

adeba, C.

M.

Thumb, ema-chuai,

A.
za, M.

sepe,

satm, T.

to,

aquida,

A.

*y,

acuija, C.

jam-bati,
;

pi&a, T.

to,

This, #Ae, T.

Thorn,

T.

Silver, Sepg, T.

Sing,

M.

bano,

Think,

4>e'ft'

ifC^,

Teach,

or

tretremi,

wfej,

T.

is;'eW,

M.
M.

T.

etre, T. and M.;


(W.) (compare Bone).
That, 2/cto, T.; icAtt, M.

Teeth,

There, chupia, dapiavi, T.

M.

M.

quievane,

M.

Wind, fte'n*, T. and M. (from this


comes the name of the Rio Beni

Wind

river).

eche',

T.

Wish,

to,

Woman,

T.;

ennambai. M.

and
;

ichuzu,

Wood,

S.

(Span, querer), tsada, T.

epuna, a'no, T.; a'nu,


epuna, C, A.

ei'rea,

T.

cuati-manu,
;

Ao^se,

(see Feathers).

M.
They, yehu-cuana, T.

paza'me,

Wife, quema-equani,T.

Wing, enabay,

C.
to, babe-quisa,

ayde'ni, T.

tuna've,

M.

i%-e).

a' qui

A.;

(= tree),

cmj<,

C.

M.
M.;
(see

19
Work,
M.

Ye

to,

mudumudu,

or you, micuana,T.

T.

mundru,
M.

mica've,

Year, mara, S.

Yes, die, T. ee, M.


Yesterday, maita puieha, T.
;

maita,

M. (see To-morrow).
Young, edea-ve, T. dreja-veve, M.
(= young man).
;

Yellow, tidnia, T.

zahuami', M.

Numerals.
pea, peada, peara, T.

M. and

Seta, T.,

2,

pembive,

M.

pe

ij,

S.

equene, Cat.

S.

camischa, M. (Aymara).
and M. (Aymara).
pichica, T. and M. (Aymara).
sucuta, T. and M. (Aymara).
guimicha, T.

3,

pwsi, T.

4,
5,
G,

T. (Spanish).

7,

si'ete,

8,

oefto (Spanish).

9,

MMCTe (Spanish).

10,

tunea, M.

20,

beta tunca,

(Aymara); peara tunca, T.


M. (Aymara).

Tacana-English Vocabulary.
Aieha, meat,

flesh.

-4raj,

.A'tio,

sister (elder;.

Canane, a hoy.

blood.

Aniuti, to

Bueyupa, sky.

Budu,

4i<Za, great.

Can, sister (by brother)

sit.

woman,

wife.

Ohicli, small.

Apareje, friend.

China, green.

Aquatri, mouth,

Chipilo,

.dgzn, tree.

Ghupia, there.

Aquida, thorn.
Arease, to walk.

Coto, kettle.

-dnt,

mamma?.

Coj,

money.

younger brother.

Oaabua, canoe.

Aydeni, who.

Cuati,

i?a, to see.

Baja-piucha, always.

fire.

Babe, to know.

Banane, blue.

Babequisa,

Bapiave, there.

to teach.

Babe-tsua, to learn.

Data', tortoise.

Bacua, snake.
Bacua-dada, rattlesnake.
SatW, moon.

Depe, silver.

Bai, lake.

Bevena, black.

Banu,

Dto, bird.

salt.

Baque, a deer.
.Semi, wind.
Seto, two.

Bruada,

cold.

Beja, man.

Berena, red.

Bia-dia, to eat.

Dya, maize.
Kana, tongue.
Ea'na, ice.

20
Eavi, water.

Etiriani, thunder,

Ebani, name.

iftra driendru, the eye.

Ebbai, skin.

.Efre, tooth.

Ebue, arm.

Etredu, the chest.

Echu, head.
Echuena, hair.

.Efo-o,

a,

hone.
belly.

Ecli, old.

Etubay,

Ecuana, we.
Ecuanasa, our
Edeave, young.

Evacuepatlia, heaven.

i?fe',

Edidi, road, path.

.Has,

Edaja, the

iS*, to drink.

Edapupu,

star.

Evieni, nose.

ear.

island.

bark of a tree.
make.

to do, to

irfi,

sun.

Edeave, a hoy.

Jaraa, food.

Edna,

Jeai'0,

to-day.

Jctim,

squash.

earth, land.

Ehe, yes.
Eicleja, alive.

Judu'du, to run.

Ei'na, wood.

Ju/w, uncle.

Eina, feathers.

Jutu, jar.

Eja, an egg.

isa, night.

Ejije, forest.

Madada, bad.
Maeta puieha, to-morrow or yes-

Ejtej,

house.

Ejude, town.

Ema, or eama,

fc,

terday.
I.

hand, fingers.

Manu, to die.
Manuame, to

kill.

E'ma-cJiuai, thumb.

Manujiji, dead.

Emali, forehead.

Masumo,

Emata,

Malaclm, morning
Mate, no.

hill.

E'ma-tichi, nails.

Embami, son.
Embu, the face,

i/eaTi,

heart.

earth, land.

Micla, thou.

iifaa, river.

Micuana, you.

Enabay, wing.
Enidu, soul.
Epuna, woman, wife
Equani, wife.

Jftmt, to speak.
.fl/adM

mudu,

to

work.

JTa, rain.

Nari&e, near.

Equatri, foot.

Nasa, plantain.

Equatri-ritrana, toes

-ZVcng,

Equita, body.

Eruehi, god.

Niquieisuna, never.
Nutsa, grass.

Erujai,

Nutsani, prairie.

star.

Eshuneba, to love.
Etidada, the leg.

aunt.

Onibaquapuna, daughter.
Oniei, elder brother.

Etide, charcoal.

Pamapa,

Etimu, ashes.

Pea, one.

iWpj, neck.

Peama,

all.

iron.

21

Pichiea, five.

2on, sister (younger).


Trine, day.

Pisa, arrow.

Trinetia, evening.

Piba, to think.

Pisatri, a

bow.

Tsada, to wish.

Pue, to come.

Tseru-tseru, lightning.

-Pirn, four.

Tsi, to steal.

Puti, to go.

Tsia-tsia, to cry.

Pifta, girl.

Tsuati, to ascend.

Quara, mother.
Queda, beard.

Tueheda, strong.

Quema, my.
Quietsunu, when.

Tumu, a stone or rock.

Quimicha, three.

TJilzecua, brother.

Quisa, to say, to

Tu-eda, he.

7cAj,

a dog.

Umarsi, tobacco.

tell.

Saipiave, good.

Vpica, here.

Sani, musquito.

Uqueda,

Satsu, to sing.

Ttfre-oere,

a duck.

Se'e,

Fast,

far.

fly.

husband.

Sinada, hot.

Ychu, that.

jSm,

Ychucuana, those, they.

fish.

Sucuta, six.

Ydebati, to laugh.

Ta&i, to sleep.

37(6, this.

Tato, father.

Yucuada, many.

Tia, to give.

Zatna,

Tidnia, yellow.

Zau, brother.

Tiri-tiri, to

sister.

dance.
II.

THE JIVARO LANGUAGE.


The material which I have to present on this language is entirely
from unpublished sources, and is the more valuable as, so far as I
know, not even a vocabulary of this important idiom has ever been
printed.

The

Jivaros (Givaros, Xivaros,

Hibaros, Xeberos, etc.) are a

numerous and powerful nation, mostly

yet in a savage state,

who

dwell about the head waters of the rivers Paute, Morona, Santiago
and other upper affluents of the Maranon, between 2 and 4 30'

South latitude, where they occupy the eastern slope of the CordilI have described their general culture and history in my

leras.

work on The American Race, pp. 282-284.


They are said to present the peculiarity of unusual lightness in
These traits have
color, and features of a decidedly Aryan type.*
*

"Aujourd'hui le type caucasique y domine,'

V Annie Dominicaine, Paris, 1888.

says Father Joseph M. Magalli, in

22
been usually explained by a supposed extensive infusion of Spanish
blood when their ancestors captured the city of Logrofio in 1599

and carried

women

off the white

share, with the Yurucares,

More probably they

as wives.

Tacanas and other Andean nations, the

peculiarity of a complexion several shades lighter than that of the

Kechuas and Aymaras.

They have been

little

influenced by European visitors.

authority states that there are scarcely a hundred and

fifty

recent

Christian

whole of the immense province of Canelos, a part of


which they inhabit, and the area of which is more than 8000 square
families in the

leagues.*

The

sources which

have had at

Museum, the name of


remarks probably a German
British

command

are two

MSS.

the author not given, but from


Jesuit,

who was

in the

some

a missionary to the

tribe towards the close of the last century.

The

titles

are

" Vocabulario en
Small 8vo,

and

is

fol.

Lengua Castellana, la del Ynga, y Xebera."


The vocabulary embraces about 1300 words,

la

35.

apparently complete.

" Gramatica de la Lengua Xebera."


'

Same

size.

This MS.

is

imperfect, leaves being lacking both at the beginning and the end.

From

these

MSS.

have prepared the following sketch of

this

tongue.

Phonetics.

The sounds of

the language

European and fluctuating

are

described

in character.

The

as

difficult

indistinct

and

to

alter-

nating nature of certain phonetic elements appears in the Jivaro as


in so

many American

tongues.

In vowel sounds, the o

is often confounded with the u, the e with


and the e with the ce, which is like the German 0. The complex vowel sound represented by ou, as in poung, fire, is especially

the

i,

difficult for

a foreigner.

The vowels a and

0,

when followed by

i,

are often elided.

The consonants d, I, r and h are frequently alternated (that is,


may be used at will for the other), or an indistinct
sound is uttered, which may approach any one of them. The n is
the one sound

* So says Father Magalli, above quoted, but the knowledge of this writer
of what is requisite when he adds of the Jivaros and Japaros, "Ilsparlent
langue, le Quichua " (!).

falls far

short

touslameme

23
frequently omitted or uttered so slightly as to be scarcely audible.

In the syllables quec and qued the final consonants are rarely clear,
q' r .

and both often have the sound

In the vocabulary the

'6

and

German.

sch should be pronounced as in

Nouns.

The

relations of

Tana, the forest.


Tananquec, to the

suffixes, e.g.

forest, or, in the forest.

Tananela, from the

Some words

nouns are indicated by

forest.

indicate the genitive relation

by the termination

qui.

Nouns may be formed from


timinlec, I die; timipi,
suffix

asu,

as

The

dacotalec,

The

ashamed.

infix

verbals by the suffix ni or pi, as

the dead person, the corpse;

am ashamed

cuda has the same

instrumental sense

is

dacotasu,

also by the
one who is

effect.

conveyed by the termination

c,

which

the abbreviation of quec or quecla.

is

Seotic, knife.

Seotic quec,

with a knife.

" With,"

in the sense of

accompaniment,

is

expressed by

lee, as

Sadasulec, with a married man.

Paparulec, with

my

Direction from
or

father.
is

indicated

" instead of" by maleg,

as

by

the termination quecla;

"for"

Naiquimaleg, for or in place of another.

Pronouns.

The

personal pronouns are

Thou, quenma.
He or she, nana.

cuda, qummoa, mapoa.


You, quinma'ma.
They, nauba, nanalosa, nanadap'r-

This one, asu.

Those, asudap'rlosa.

I,

eoa, qua.

We,

losa.

The

possessives are

Mine, quaqui, ru, ca.


Thine, quenmaqui, palin, ma.
His, nanaqui.

Our, cudaqui, mapoa.


Tour, quenmamaqui, palenma.
Their, nanaqui.

24

The second forms above given


Sudani,

my

are suffixes or infixes, as

husband.

Sudapalin, thy husband.

my

Loantacasu,

desire.

Loantamasu, thy

desire.

Loantasu, his desire.

As

American languages, there

usual in

is

no

relative

pronoun,

its

place being supplied by participial constructions.

Number and Gender.


Names

of inanimate objects usually undergo no change in the

For persons the plural

plural.

is

formed by adding the

In possessives the plural suffix

or nanlosa.

is

often na, as

suffix losa
:

SucJia, a sin.

Huchaneng, his sin.


Huchanengna, his sins.
Saden, his wife.
Sadena, his wives.

In verbals and verbs the plural termination

may be

doc, as

Hucliapidoc, sinnings.

Anulao, leave me.


Anulaodoo, leave us.
Infixes

may be employed

in place of these suffixes, especially in

nouns derived from adjectives and


these

is

The most

participles.

usual of

a*r , as

Nambilec, I

live.

Nambiasu, he who lives, the living man.


Nambia^casu, those who live, the living.

The

syllable

ma, used either

as infix or suffix, also

conveys the

plural sense, as
Palen, thine.

Palenma, your.

Feminines are distinguished by the


vilalu, girl; /us,

man

of another vowel to the


sudalec, married

woman.
u, as we

luslu,

woman.

suffix lu

or

llu, as vila,

boy;

Also apparently by a change


find, sadalee,

married

man

25
Numerals.

The

ancient cardinal and ordinal numbers of the Jivaros were as

follows
1,

ala.

2,

catu.

3,

cala.

4,

encatu.

5,

alacotegladu

6,

7,
8,
9,

10,

(_ala, one
otegla, hand
du, termination).
intimutu (the thumb, of the second hand).
tannituna (the index finger, of the second hand).
tannituna cabiasu (=the finger next the index).
;

bitin otegla cabiasu.

catogladu

(= two hands).

This cumbrous plan has long been superseded by the adoption


from the Kechua of the names of numbers above five, so that the
present numeration is
:

1,

2,
3,

4,

26
iiu,

inserted before the termination of verbs, indicates that the action

done

is

for another.

one time only.

la, infixed, signifies that the action is for this

misan, infixed, conveys the sense that the action


na, as a suffix, indicates habit, as intulina, he

is

who

shared by
is

all present.

habitually in a bad

temper.

nunda, infixed in the present tense, denotes that the action takes place at
some other time as notonundalec, I do it (am accustomed to do it,
but am not doing it now).
pa or rnba, an affirmatory suffix.
qui, as an infix, denotes that the action takes place where the speaker is
;

at the time.

a frequent euphonic suffix,

ti is

which does not

alter the

meaning.

van, as suffix or infix, denotes possession; as liuclmvanlosa, those

have

vanan, like

who

who

sins.
itu,

signifies action for

another

as

muchavananamasu, thou

asks for us.

ya or nara, as a prefix, intimates a wish or desire; as pake, I see yapalec,


I wish to see.
yn, as a prefix, denotes reciprocal or mutual action
as yainmali, they
;

desire to take each other (in marriage).

Verbs.

The

verbs have but two

tenses, the

Occasionally the adverb epa, now,

and nuca,

is

present and the future.

prefixed to define the present,

naupa, to denote a past time.

pi.

The formation of

the

future

following examples will show

its

is

frequently

usual forms.

irregular,
It

but the

alone appears to

present a dual number.


Present.

I do,
I take,
I love,

I speak,
I die,

I pray,

The imperative

is

formed by the termination qued, often abbreI run ; tecaqued, run thou.
Other termi-

viated to q'r; as tecakc,

nations of an imperative character are tan, aner, licaa and ma.

The

substantive verb

is

not found in the language,

its

place being

supplied by terminations, especially the pronouns cu or sucu, etc.,


as Pedrocu,

am Pedro; Pedroquenma,

thou

art

Pedro; moim-

27

am bad.
am thus, is

In a similar sense the verb nolec or

bosucu, I
thus, I

nilec, I

do

often heard.

There is no trace of a true passive voice,


by the sense of the verb or by particles.

its

place being supplied

At the conclusion of his MS. the author inserts two versions of the
the one " in the Xebera language, as it was spoken

Lord's Prayer

in the earliest times of the mission," the translation being that of

Father Lucas de

la

Cueva (about 1655)

of the period of the writer, which

hundred and

Of

fifty

the second in the language

suppose to have been about one

years later.

the second or later of these

have ventured an interlinear

translation, while the former I insert without a rendering.

Lord's Prayer in Jivaro

Later

Version.

Papa mapoa, mosninariloquec napala; linlinpalin nomisansu muchai


art thou
name thy
holy
become;
heaven in
Father our,
quenmaquinlosamasu cudaquec unadiai ; loantamasu nomisansu notoi
come;
desire thy
holy
be
us to
thy kingdom
maponsu, mosninariloquec, nanaposu pilaasu lupaquec unda; uglilosa
daily
earth in
heaven in,
as
tandamapoa epala ugli encaodec ; eudaqui huchabidoc anuladoc, maponsu
our
sins
forgive,
as
bread our now to-day give;
quenmoa unda alapila dape'dlosaqui huchanengna anulalidoc; anerata
;

we

others

their

quenmoa dentatutan, quenmoa

forgive

sins

cola Dios

ayuaimbocaquea ;

nanamengtu
us

our
our
moimbosubuegla aliegodac.
evil

from

deliver.

Lord's Prayer in Jivaro

Earlier

Version.

Papa mapoa, mosenquec napalac linlinpalin ruchapalin ; quenma quilosamasu cudaquec undiai. Loantacasu notetiuma mapolina mosninariloquec
Uglilosa tanda epala ugli encaodoc
inosupila asuminceriloquec unda.
nulaodoc cutaqui hudabidoc ; dengquina cuda anulalidoc aubaqui hucha
nengna; anerata apolata muchaquecamengdana ; moimbocasuquegla atiego.

English-Jivaro Vocabulary.
Ask, to, mucha.
Bad, moaimbosu, aperosu.
Beard, amucuiola noteri,

Above, mosenquec.
Ankle, tula.
Arm, da'mpa.
Arrow, na'mu.

Belly, du', metpi, oquiulee.

Ashamed,

Below, mlenquec.

to be, dacotalec.

28
Bird, ilans'r, tiperllu.

Field, tiq'n naua.

Black,

Finish, to, tavantulec.

catli,

cadladasu.

Blind, dapina.

Fire, poung.

Blood, uogladec.

Fish, samer, lapisamed.

Blue, carcaso.

Flesh, meat, canan.

Body,
Bone,

loqueglo, timipi.

Flint, mosed.

lansi.

Flute, pi'learia.

Born, to be, oelilec.


Boy, vila.
Branch, taumee.
Brave, nan'tapi.

Flower, a, dancu.
Food, ca'lo'.

Breast, mudin,

titoi.

Forest, tana.

Brother,

yuyu'uc.

yalli,

Burn, to, ugedalec.


Buy, to, ucolatolee.

Foot, la'ndee.

Forehead, tequeda'.
Girl, vilalu.

Give,

Go,

to,

n'galec.

to, palec.

Calabash, pabi.

Gold, uri.

Call, to, pbelolee.

Good, mba,

Child, babi.

Grandfather, papaiangu.

Clothing, capi.

Grandmother, ami'.

Come, to, undialec.


Cold no'qued, noq'r.

Great, euni, chi, halupi.

Cotton, piterlu, boungpalo.

Grow,

Cover,

to,

Hair, Mntic.

Dance,

to,

Dawn,

to, ugliti.

patantulee.
danzalec.

rnoali.

Green, canin'rtia.
to, zuzulec.

Hammock,
Hand,

ta'la.

btegla.

Day, 'ugh.
Dead, timiansu.
Dear, llada, nunilu.
Death, tbminacasb.

Have, to, noli, napali.


Head, uma.

Deer, boro'.

Heaven, mosninanlo.
Herb, puma, daubad.
High, chi.

Dog,

nini.

Drink,
Drink,

to,

Drum,

tundo.

Dwell,

to,

Ears,

a, liuasu, ulec.

upailacu.

nambilec.

bitec.

Hear,

to,

la'oclec.

Heart, cangan.

Hill, mutopi.

House, pi'dec.

How ?

mapoli.

Hot, ucasu.

Earth, land, lu'p

If,

Eat, to, calec, uranlec.

In, pa'lec.

Egg, cado.
Elbow, quog'da.
Enemy, quegma.

Indian, muda, cuapr".

Enter,

to, da'lee.

aa, n'tati.

Iron, huana'.
Kill, to, atiminlec.

Knee,

toto'pi.

Eyes, llada, da'pila.

Knife, seotie.

Face, llada (see Eyes).

Know,

Feather, ambo'lu.

Female, cuapr".

to (things), nintitulec.

(persons), loatulec.

Lake, sangna.

29
Semen, miladoc.

Last, na'pi.

Learn,
Life,

Send,

nintitanalec.

to,

Light,

Sierra, obituna.

a, ugli, ocli.

Light a

fire, to,

piuglec.

to,

Shade, shadow, dacJiu'na.

nambiacasu.
atengtulec.

Sin, a, liucha.

Lightning, yilmerlec.

Sing,

Lip, u'tec.

Silver, culiqued.

Live,

to,

nambilee.

Lizard, tuda,

lili.

to, peclalec.

Sister,

chayauc, cadecuc.

Sleep,

bitilee.

Love, to, tan'denlec.


Maize, totm, ibtrlla.

Small, hamecha.

Man

Snake, daua.

(vir),

Smoke, cadlo or

quenmopinen.

Married man, sadalee.


Married woman, sudalec.
Medicine man, wizard,

muda.
Monkey, duda,
Moon, ducat.

callo.

Soul, i)ada, limipi.

Spaniard,
pichotasu

Speak,

mdan.

to, laonlec, lalalec

Star, tandola.
isolo, lolo.

Slick, na'la,

unguna.

Strong, nantapi.

More, hapia.

Sun, quo' qui.

Most, halupi, mointi.


Mother, auauc.

Sweet, yali.
Take, to, malec.

Mouth, lala'.
Much, eupi, bapo.

Tame,

Name,

Teach,

linlin or Mntin.

daiali.

Tapir, pahuala.
to, anintilulec.

Navel, mumu'la.
Near, pa' via.

Throat, unqued.

New,

To, quec.

na'lu.

Thumb,

iniimutu.

Night, dogpili.

Tobacco, pinterlo, uhualec.

No, cola.
Nose, ne'tie.

Tongue, ninegla.

Now,

Totem,

epala.

Tooth,

la'tec.

clan, patun.

Old, tas'serpi.

Town,

Old (man), tas'pitosu.


Old (woman), tas'serllu.
Open, to, hoqusrlec.
People, vapomuda.

Tree, nala, squig'umti.

Pray,

Virgin, inilad.

to,

malealee.

Raft, sudu*.

ninan'lo.

Turtle, mado.

Uncle, apreha.
Valley, sa'ca".

Rainbow, podo'na.

Wall, lupa, patenpi.


Water, doc.
White, dadapua'su.

Red, pip'rasu, togua.


Road, degaun.

Wind,

Root, btecnin.

Within, que'negla.

Rain,

Run,

to,

ola n, olanli.

to, tecalec.

Who,

deng.
tanlo'a.

Without,

Salt, lamu'la.

Woman,

Say,

Wood,

to, tulec.

See, to, lolec, loapalec.

a'dipi.

cuapr", sada

deboe.

Yellow, chapica8o.

30
III.

THE CHOLONA LANGUAGE.


Nothing has heretofore been printed of the language of the
This tribe dwells on the left bank of the upper Huallaga river, between 8-9 30' South latitude.
They were visited
by Edward Poeppig in 1829, when he found them to number about
1000 souls, scattered in missions on the banks of the Monzon,
Cholonas.

Tocache and Pachiza, small streams flowing into the


At the close of the last century they occupied a mission
with the Hibitos or Xibitos, and together numbered about 5000.*
Uchiza,

Huallaga.

Pceppig asserts that the Hibitos speak a wholly different tongue,


but this

is

my MS.

denied by

dialectic difference

but the

authorities,

German

who acknowledge only

traveler

is

ment that some of the wild Chunchos of the Sierra belong


same stock.

My
the

Museum,

entitled Arte de

author was Fr. Pedro de

la

Mata,

to the

is a MS.
Lengua Cholona.

source of information in regard to this language

British

la

who wrote

it

correct in his state-

in
Its

inTruxillo in 1748,

from which original the MS. in question is a copy made by Fr.


Geronimo Clota, in San Buenaventura del Valle, in 1772. It is a
small octavo of 132 folios and is complete. Fathers Jose de Araujo
and Francisco Gutierrez wrote also Artes of these dialects, but I
have not discovered their manuscripts. There is also a MS. Arte de
la Lengua Cholona, apparently anonymous, mentioned by Ludewig,
Lit. of Amer. Aborig. Langs., p. 162.
The Cholona is a language extending over a small area, but it
seems connected with no other, forming an independent stock.
The only analogies worth mentioning which I have noted point
For instance
towards dialects of the Arawak stock.
,

Sun, muxac.

This seems

= kamu

saaehe,

"the shining sun," of the

Moxos.

Moon, pel; allowing

for

r=l,

this

is

close to the pueri of the

Jucuna

dialect.

Eye, nache; reminds one of the nuchii of the Canamirim

the nacuque of

theUirina, etc.

l, this is the ari of the Goajiro.


Tooth, ale; again allowing r
Black, zalucli or ehaluch ; ghulekm Araicu.
White, cheeh ; glialik in Araicu.

* See

my

American Race,

p. 288.

31

Whether these analogies are sufficient to classify it with the NuArawak group of Von den Steinen is doubtful. The differences in
the personal pronouns especially seem to isolate

of that

it

from the dialects

stein.

Phonetics.

The letters b, d, rand f are lacking


The soft eh (as in " choose ") alternates
is

in the

represented in the Spanish alphabet by

and eh are interchangeable.


The vowel represented by o is

Initial

Cholona alphabet.

with the soft th

hard before

is

The

probably the neutral vowel (as u

in

to represent a slight aspiration, as

iayuor hayu, man.

n and ng appear

to

be

The accent always


forms, where

it

is

").

all

and

slated to be between o

"but

the latter

so that in the Arte, z

z,

vowels.

and

u,

is

seems

initial i

The elements

nasals.

falls

on the

last syllable,

found on the penult.

sound of the spoken tongue

except in some verbal

Pceppig says

that the

disagreeable to the European ear.

is

Nouns.

The

relations of the

which may be arranged

nominal theme are indicated by suffixes,


to appear like a declension, though not

really such.

iayu or iayuiup, the man.


iayuilou, of the man.
Dat. iayuJie or iayuge, to the man.

Nom.
Gen.

Ace.
Voc.

iayute or iayutu, the man.

iayuey or iayupey (fern.), O man.

Abl. iayute or

The

plural

is

tep,

pat, nio, with or

by the man.

formed by the insertion of the

particle

lol,

before

the case ending.


nunlol, the

men.

men.
men.

nunlolloula, of the

nunlolge, to the
nunlolte, the
o,

The

men

(accus.).

with or by the men.

case -endings are used only

meaning

clear, as

Juantup Pedro

the accusative termination

is

when required

ilami,

to

render the

Juan killed Pedro, where

omitted, that of the nominative

ciently indicating the relation.

suffi-

Certain particles also give a plural

32
sense, in

which case

along with;

manmin,

as

These are mec, all ; pullem,


and pemec, signifying quantity, and
Whenever the plural is indicated by the

lol is omitted.

comec, incomec

many

as.

form of the attached pronoun, other plural signs may be omitted.


There is no grammatical distinction of gender in nouns, difference of sex being indicated by the terms nun, male ila, female,
;

which may be either prefixed or

suffixed, as

Man, nuniayu or iayunun.

Woman,

ilaiayu or iayuila.

Boy, nunpullup.
Girl, ilapullup.

neuter or epicene gender can be denoted by a suffixed

3, as

nuno, a person.

Various
nie,

suffixes are

added

to

nouns to modify

their

meaning, as

signifying excess or abundance.

absence or negation.
camayoc, indicating knowledge of a subject or practice in
is borrowed from the Kechua.
zu, signifying

it.

This word

Pronouns.

The pronouns possess the prominence in this tongue which they


show in American languages. All parts of speech can
be grammatically inflected by their agency, and they generally
so frequently

suffice

sign,

to

indicate the plural without the insertion of the plural

lol.

The

primitive pronouns are

sa.

The

quija.

You, minaja.
They, ehija.

Thou, mi.
He,

We,

I, oc.

separable or independent possessives are formed by adding

to the primitives the particle alou, with slight

euphonic changes:

Mine, oealou.
Thine, mimilou.

Ours, quihaguilou.

His, satiou.

Theirs, ehihaloula.

The

Yours, mimilouha.

inseparable possessives are those prefixed to form the con-

jugation of verbs, and attached to certain classes of nouns.


are as follows

My,

a-.

Thy, m- (masc), p- (fem.).


His (none).

Our, qui-.
Your, mi- (both genders).
Their, ehi-.

They

33
In the transitions of verbs the pronouns are abbreviated and certain other forms used, as

34
Verbs.
All active verbs are conjugated

by

transitions,

formed by prefix-

ing the pronoun of the person acting, and inserting immediately


after

the

it

pronoun of the person or thing acted upon.

Example

amcollan, I thee love.

mayian, thou me watchest.


payian, he me watches.
asae apuahihan, my food me they give.
misac mapuchilan, thy food thee they give (masc).
pisaa papuchilan, thy food thee they give (fem. ).
sac hapucMlan, his food him they give.
ysac apahapuchan, their food them I give.

These are forms of the verb apuchan,


derivative from amchan, to put, to place.

to

put

before one, a

Other examples

amcolecte amenan, I thee wish to love.

me wishest to love.
we wish to love God.

macolecte mimenan, thou

Diosqui
Diostup

The

rigolecte

quimenart,

iceoleete

ymenan, God wishes

to love us.

variation in the third person plural in the transitions appears

depend on the following conditions


mo is used when the transition is from the third person singular
to the third person plural, as in the expression, " he loves them."
po where the transition is from any of the other persons, singular

to

or plural, to the third plural, as

apoaolla/n, I love

them.

mipocollan, thou lovest them.


quipocollan,

pa where

the

we

love them.

mipocollan,

you love them.

cJiipoeollan,

they love them.

verb implies another object besides the direct

one, as

ychac apahapuchan,, I give them their food.


la

is

plural to

employed when the transition


some other person than this, as

is

from the third person

micollilatan, they love thee.

chi

is

confined to transitions from third plurals to third plurals,

as
chipocollan, they love them.

35
Syntax.

The

construction of phrases will be seen from the following

examples

Liman

ne yayu

anantumild chectan.
covered
are.
houses of the Indians in the Sierra are covered with straw."

Sierra in

"The

men

The noun

yzi/p

pusimpat

their houses

straw with

zip

and the verb anantuman have

the third person plural, so the plural particle lol

The word

chectan

their

is

pronouns in

omitted.

an abbreviation of chiactan, the third person


am in a place. This verb is

is

plural of the verb actan, I stand, I

much used

to signify a usual action with reference to a

cot actan, I bring

ayllan actan, I

water

make

Najimac yayu
Each
Indian

zip actan,

fix

or arrange

noun, as

my

the bed, etc.


izoz

paehaeotan.

his idols

keeps.

izipte

his

"Every Indian keeps

house

in

idols in his

house."

English-Cholona Vocabulary.
Armadillo, xax, tacla.

Bad, evil, ixivaj.


Black, zaluch or dial.
Boy, nun-pullup.

Louse, culla.
Love, to, agollan.

my love, agole.
my lover, acoleuch.

Die, to, colhae.

Maize, each.

Drink, a, axitlam.
Drink, to, axean.
Each, every, nanmac.
Eyes, nache.
Father, pa.
Flesh, body, ayclia (K.).
Food, apuchan.

Man

Fox, sup.
Girl, ila-pullup.

Give,

to, allan.

(homo), iayu or hayu.


(male), nun.
(married), muluch.

Moon, pel.
Mother, pan.
Mountain, sierra, liman.
Nose, quexum.
Not, nothing, ma.
Place, to, amthan.
Bed, llaca.

Good, pallou.

River, xocot.

Green,

Road, path, pana.


Rule, to, capac (Kechua).
Sick, cama.

llin.

Hair, pe.

Hands, nen.
Head, tech.
House, zip, chip.
Husband, muluch.

Soul, zall or chall.

Idols, izoz, ichnch.

Spittle, olle.

Lance or

Stars, henna.

dart, ulluc.

Silver, checho.

Son, pul.

house

36
Straw, dry grass, pusim.

Will, wish, men.

Sun, muxac.

my

Teeth, my,

I wish,

ale.

Woman

Tongue, monzey.

amen.
amtncm.

will,

(female),

ila.

Town, putam.
Water, cot.
White, check.

Word, Ml.

Wife, zala.

Yuca,

(married), zala.

el.

IV.

THE LECA LANGUAGE.


The Lecos

of the river Beni have been erroneously included in


Tacana stock by D'Orbigny and later writers (including myself).
The only material I have anywhere found of their language is a short
the

vocabulary given in Weddell's

Voyage dans

le

Nord de

la Bolivie

them entirely
out of the Tacana group, but probably to place them in an independent position by themselves. As Weddell's book is not to be
found in many libraries, I shall translate and rearrange his list of
words and precede it with some remarks on the tribe and its possible
(Paris, 1859); but this is sufficient not only to take

affinities.

The Lecos

are stated by Weddel] to have resided originally on


Rio Tipuani and its affluent, the Rio Isuaya, whence they
removed to the banks of the Rio Mapiri.
On Arrowsmith's map (1809) the " Rio de Lecos " is located as
branch
of the Rio Beni, between 13 and 14 South latitude, in a
a
region assigned to the " Samachuanes," though I suspect these are
the " Muchanes " of other writers, and who, according to Weddell,

the

are Mozotenos.

The
stated

mission of Aten, in the valley of the Rio Beni,

by an

official

authority in the

last

is

distinctly

century to have been peo-

pled by the Lecos,* so we must include in them the " Atenianos,"

whom D'Orbigny

classed with the Tacanas.

somewhat extended comparison has not furnished me with


positive grounds for including the Lecos in any known linguistic
Most of the analogies I have noted are with the Carib
group.
stock, and some of them are striking, but scarcely decisive.
* " Eli Aten se hablan

la.

Leca por

Misiones del Alto Peru, 1771.

ser este

Pueblo de Indios Leeos."

Description de las

37

Leca Analogies.
Sun, he'no ; compare bue'no (Opone, Carib stock).

Mood, kurea; coinp. kede, siregu (Carib dialects).


Water, dua; perhaps from Carib tuna.
Arrow, uela; not far from Carib boul&'oua.
Arm, bepel; close to Carib yapoule, japali.
Tooth, bikiri ; nearly the same as the kxier and yeri of Caribs.
Heaven, kaut ; almost identical with the Bakairi kxau and Carijoua
cahoue, both Carib dialects.
Legs, boo'te ; comp. Carib iebeti,

is

beti.

I think it is safe to infer from the above comparisons that there


an infusion of Carib elements in the tongue but the material is
;

too scanty to assign

its

true value.

According to a count made by the missionaries in 1832 there


were about two thousand natives at the mission of Aten, all of

whom we may

assume were Lecos.

Dr.

Edwin R. Heath, who

spent two years in the valley of the Beni about 1880, does not mention them, at least under this name,

and gives no specimen of

their

language.

In personal appearance the Lecos are described (by Weddell) as


of pleasant expression, with straight foreheads and horizontal eyes,
the

mouth of medium

cheerful.

What

is

size.

In temperament they were frank and

unusual, they seemed totally devoid of apprecia-

and had no dances or songs of any kind.


is the Spanish ; il is the French
German.

tion or care for music,

The
u; j

alphabet of the vocabulary

as tscha in

English-Leco Vocabulary.
Arm,

bepel.

Arrow,

uela.

Flower, tutha.
Forest, kanda.

Belly, baualwbo.

Hand, bmu.

Bird, katchu.

Head, barua.
Senven^kaut.
House, uan.

Blood,

bile.

Body, bonotchco'10.

Bow,

tchava'ta.

Leaf, uoia.

Child, yatclipaik.

Legs, boo'te.

Earth,

Man, yubasa.

Eyes,
Feet,

lal.

bisiri.
besel.

Fingers, biui.
Fire,

moa.

Milk, buchuluro.

Moon, kurea.
Mountain, uotJia.
Mouth, bokorua.

38
Nails (finger), biuitd.

39
Dr. Spix, and published in Martius' Glossaria Linguarum Brasiliensium

the other,

a short catechetical work, which

forms the

and which has never been printed. The


the British Museum, Manuscript Department, and

material of this study,


original

in

is

bears the

title

" Doutrina

christa' a pella

has long been

It

both Ludewig and

known

Von

Lingoa dos Manaos."


and

to bibliographers,

is

referred to

by

Martius, but no one has copied or pub-

any portion of it. Its authorship and precise date are unknown, but it has the appearance of a draft or copy of an older
work, which it would seem was composed in 1740.
The orthography of the Portuguese words is somewhat irregular, and there
also seems to be an uncertainty in the spelling of various native
terms.
The extract which I give is about one-half of the whole,
and is sufficient to show the character of the tongue.
A comparison of the words of the text with those collected by
Spix about a century later shows little change in the dialect,
especially when the difference in the method of transcription is
allowed for, the writer of the text having employed the phonetics
of the Portuguese tongue, while Spix followed that of the German.
To illustrate this, and also to facilitate the examination of the text,
I append a list of some of the words in the latter, the majority of
which are also found in Spix's vocabulary ; the latter I have placed
in brackets and appended an S.

lished

English-Manao Words.
Man, herenary (yrin&ly, S.).
No, not, mehe (me'e, S.).

All, sabaque.

Always, lyxaoari.
Be,

Our, us, dene (Jmene, S.).


See, to, oabata (pipata, S.).

to, sahi.

Believe,

to,

yaniqui.

Belly, tuba (tula,

Sins, barayda.

S. ).

Body, eaeadyr (Jcaty, S.)


Day, samaco (tzamako, S.).
Die,

to,

mitica (uamatika,

Earth, eludeo

Son, bauri, dayri (tany, S.).


Stone, kya (ghua, S.).
S.).

(ete'e, S.).

Father, yracary (apakony, S.).


God, lupa (mauary, S.).
Heaven, quinaueudeo (gMnauigota,

to,

cayna.

Three, piaduqui (pialuky, S.).


True, caura.
Virgin, sabyra.

Where 1 padeura.

Why ?

S.).

Hell,

Teach,

capeda.

caman latyma.

Most of

these words are derived from roots extending through

40

many Arawak

dialects,

and are the property of

however, are borrowed from the Tupi.

This

word for God, Tupa, wliich is still


"LingoaGeral."
The personal pronouns as given by Spix

the

I,

We,

no.

Thou, pi.
He, erouty.

The

that stem.

in

Others,

especially so with

is

use in the Brazilian

are

Imene.

You, yna.
They, nela.

ppssessives, however,

which are also employed in the con-

jugations as inseparable prefixes, differ from these.

Thus we have:

oe-mequer, our Lord.


oe-naca, like us.

we believe.
we shall see.

oa-yaniqui,
oa-batar,

p'yaniqiii,

thou believest.

ba batare, they shall see (him).

Doutrina christa'a pella Lingoa DOS Manaos.


P. De q'. sorte se ha de haver o
homem neste mundo querendosse
livarsse

do inferno,

ao ceo ?
B. Crendo
baptizar,

P.

Ha

em

querendo hir

Deos,

goardando sua
Deos ?
i

fasendosse
ley.

E. Ha.

R. Auuynaca.

P. Oredes

em Deos?

R. Cremos.
P. Quern he Deos?
It.

P.

R.
R.

P. Capaqay

hua' sua so'palavra.

P. Deos tern corpo

Nam

como nos?

tem.

P. Deos

teue

P. Pyanyqui

antiguameute

Tupa?

R. Sabaqui bayqui tumaquer.


P. Capa" iiyna pura'

Mehe

P. Oatuquir ha quer rira bauy-

napu Tupa?
H.

R. Sempre.

R. Lyxaoari.

de ser para sempre?


R. Para sempre.

cacaliury.

R. Nam teve principio.


P. Sempre soy ?

Ha

Tupa tuma

bayqu sabayque ?
R. LygSra iiynapura.
P. Cacadyra ognaca Tupa
R.

principio?

P.

Tupa?

R. Oayaniqui.

O que fez todas as couzas


Com que fez todas essas couzas?

Com

P. Ca peda
lyauaqui samaco
anaqui Qamanna tyma gotia, oauBy-y&pa que rey lyua kynaucuda
diehe lyoaya edaca una?
R. Tupa yaquer cayta ca lygara
anaquyra.
P. Auflyna ca Tupa ?

Meh catuquinhaqueri.

P. Lyxaoari sahir?
P. BayrichipS. sahi lideuri?

R. Bayriche.

4L
P.

Aonde

R.

No

Deos?
na terra era todo o

chamao por elle.


Pode o homem ver aqui a
Deos?

lugar aonde
P.

R.

Nam

P. Padeura sahi Deos

esta

ceo, e

panoquer deo, padeno oacayta.


P. Sabyra sahi oabata caydeo

Tupa

pode ver.

sahi oabatar.

P. Caypeda?

nam

R. Melie cacasyr.

tern corpo.

P.

Aonde

R.

No

P.

Bos que sorem ao Inferno nam

Mehe

R.

P. Porque?

R. Porque

R. Quinanoudeo, etedeo sabaqui

hemos de ver?

ceo hindo nos

P. Padire oabatar?
R. Guinacuda dixe guareda oaba-

la.

tar.

o hao de ver

R.

Nam

P.

o hao de ver.

P. Por que rezam?

R.

Em castigo

Bamane camanhatyma

diclie

gareda babatare ?
R. Mehe babatare.

P. Capeda?

desus culpas.

R.

Mehe

bayaligara gata oeney-

ninique.

Preguntas sobre a
P. Quantos Deoses ha?
R.

Hu

Tupa ?
Baurayma Tupa

P. Paquiby

so Deois verdadero.

U.

P. Sendo pessoas quantas sao?


R. Sam tres.

P.

Trinidade.

SS.

Como se chamao essas

II.

tres pes-

Pyaduqui baduqui.
mara qui-yo piadu-

P. Capacapa

qui baduqui-y6

soas?

R. Deos Padre, Deos

filho,

Deos

Bspirito Santo.
P. Aelle

se

cliama

santissima

R. Aelle.
R. Porque

em hu

Tupan yracary, Tupan


Tupan Espirito Santo.
R.

P. Lysciniqui oena

ss.

bauri,

Trind" ma-

cuy?
R. Lyxiniqui.
P. Capeda?

Trinidade ?
P. Porque rezam

caiira.

P. Paquiby lideno paquiby.

so

Deos estam

R. Baurayma Tupa lyanaqui pya-

tres pessoas.

duqui baduqui

Esse Deos Padre, Deos Filho,


Deos Espirito Santo he o mesmo

Baurayma lioari Tupa ]y Tupa


yracary Tupa bayri Tupa Espirito

Deos?

Santo.

P.

R.

He hu

P.

Em

ma

Nao

Padre he
differenf.e,

mesmo

R.

Deos.

quanto pessoas he a mes-

pessoas

R.

so e o

liuri.

P.

P.

Baurayma Tupa oary,


Bauraymara sahi lideobaura?

em quanto

differente,

pessoas Deos

Deos

filho

he

Deos Espiritu santo he

R. Maycadi
yracari,
ca,

bauraymarara Tupa
ayunaca Tupa bauri aiiyna-

Tupa

Espirito Santo auynaca.

differente.
e
P. Qual dessos pessoas antigam'

P. Padeuora lypa

bauynapu lypa

42
Deos Padre soy pr ou Deos Tupa yracary lypa oacaru Tupa
ou Deos Espirito Santo?
bauri oacaru Tupa Espirito Santo ?
E. Nao soy pr nen hum todos
R. Mehe lyaquyra quariry.
sempre foram.
P. Qual dessos pessoas antiguam te
P. Capa bauynape qui-yo piadufoy a q. se fez homem como nos ?
quy baduqui di lixir herenari cauray eaanady oenake ?
soy

pr,

filho

O mesmo filho de Deos.


Como se chama o filho de Deos
depoy de feyto homem?
R.

R. Tupan bayri.

P.

P. Capacay

R. Nosso senhor Jesus Christo.


P. Por isso he, que os Christaos

tomaram este nome ?


R. Por isso.
P. Que quer dizer Christaos?
R. O que he bapti zado, entre
Jesus Christo filho Deos.
P. Deyxou antigamente N.
Jesus Christo outra pessoa
lugar antez de hir ao ceo?

em

Deyxou

Papr.s

seos

s.

Pedro

successores

narem a santa madre


de

Roma

P.

R.

Oemequer Jesus

Lygayqui cayta Christaos?

P. Capacay caytaca Christaosly?

em
S.

suo

e todos os

p gover-

Igresia Catolica

assim chamada.

Roma ?

Pontifex Papa de Roma, e agvardao


e creem em Jesus Christo.
P. Quern e nosso senhor Jesus

homem, como
P.

Como he

Jesus

P. Nemgda dipa baunape oemequer Jesus Christo baura 6e cuniapay quinaucuda lixyra gereda f ga?

R. Nemgda S. Pedro sabaque Pay


abarepano mar Simani caydixi santa
madre Igreyja catholica mequr-ey
Papa de Roma oacayta.
P. Capacay Santa Madre Ig Catholica de Roma ?
R. Sabaque caytaca Jesus Christo
eyaquer ligara abarepano mar Papa
de Roma gara anaguyra.
P.

Capacay

Christo

R. Verdadeyro Deos, e verdadeyro

Tupan bayri catyaca

R.

Christo eyaqur.

R. Sao todos os que sao baptizados, e estao pela palavra do summo

Christo

Christo.

R. Lygayqui.

Que couza he Santa Madre

Igresja Catolica de

here-

P.

taya

R.

Tupa bauyri-y

nari caurary tuminhane garedeV

nos.

verdadeyro Deos ?

R. Sendo verdadeyro filho de seo


Padre.
P. Como e verdadeyro homem.
R. Sendo verdadeyro filho da

sempre virgem Maria.


P. Deos filho tern corpo como
nos?
R. Tern corpo.
P. Quern fez antigamente o corpo
de nosso Senhor Jesus Christo?

oemequSr

Jesus

R. Tupan caura, herenari caura,


iienaca.

P. Capeda

Tupa caurayri?

R. Tupa yr&cari bayrinyo.


P. Capeda herenari caurayri

R. Santa Maria ababycagoereyma


dayri caurayri.

P. Cacadyra benaque

Tupa dayri ?

R. Cacadyra.
P.

Capabauynapu

66mequer

Jesus Christo carytumaquer?

43
R. Nen huina pessoa, o fez por
graca o por obra do Espirito santo
foy feyto.
P.

Aonde

R.

No

foy feyto

ventre

de hna donzella

chamada Santa Maria.

P.

essa Santa Maria flcou

lezao assim

como

gem que nunca


R.
P.

R.

pario

Nem mais nem menos.


E depois de parir filou

lezam

sem

otra qualqer vir-

sem

Nao

teve lezao ficou sempre

R.
ito

MehecapatomarTupan Espirtuma quenda d8o letumin-

santo

ha f gra<;a tumaquenda do letuminha.


P. Padeuora sahi lia6na?
R. Lymaque sabyra S.anta Maria
cayra ababycago ereyma tubadgo.
P. Lydeu-o Santa Maria enidagareda sabyray ababy cagoereyma
meh runida aguyra sayro ?
R. Lyaquira oary,
P. Lucaoaniquy pura luy nidan
gargda ?
R. Mehe rupiita.

virgem.

De que

P.

sorte se

houue N.

S.

Jesus Christo neste vnundo de nascer de sua santissima

may ?

R. Padeceo fo mecede e canpacjo


e todos os malles de pena por amor
de nos f por nosso amor.
P. Ensinou antigamente N. S.
Jesus Christo dando entendimento
a gente ?
R. Ensinou.
P. Ao depoiz morreo na cruz
por nos, em paga de nossos peccados?
R. Morreo.

Por amor q. sm morreo?


R. Por amor de nos, por amor de
nossos peecados, ou satyfuQum delP.

les,

a
p livarnos do

Infierno, o levar-

nos ao ceo.
P. Por sua vontade ?
R. Por sua vontade morreo.
P. Pois elle nao hera Deos ?
R. Hera Deos.
P. Pois esse morreo ?
R. Nao o corpo q'tomou de sua
santissima may he q e morreo.
:

P. CapSda
Christo

oemequer

Jesus

yma samaco anaquya

caro gatia lynidan gaida

lyra-

tayapa

payni gareda?
R. Pbatj yburi metatyr pe le ly
poyta sabaque bayque pura ly ta ba
o a cady che.
P. C ayna dalir bafiynapu o e
mequer Jesus Christo Lita ecalaya
r

nitia herenari

ychy ?

R. Recaynada.

P. Guayneypa remotica cruza


quadia 6 amane barayda oeney ?

R. Matica.
P. Capeda remallca ?
R. Oagayque c amane barayda
6eny camanha tymagalia o a u gtiy
i

yapaquer quynauda

lixira

eda cay-

day.
P.

Panangy?

R. Pananeyra rematica.
P.

Meh sayhe Tupaly?

R. Tupa.
P. Lydeu-ora

Mehe

Tupa

niaiica

tupa matica caca ryra


liracaro lyxira ba gua iyoari maliR.

cady.

Nao havia mos de


se elle nam morrera ?
R. Nao havia mos.
P.

hir ao ceo,

P.

mehe
R.

Mehe oama quynaucuda


6 a matica gai eda?

Meb oama

diche

u
P. Quantos dias estenne

N".

P.

S.

Jesus Christo debayxo da terra


no teo sepulcro de pedra?

R. Tres dias.
P. Era depois como passou?
R. Resuscilou.
P. Depois de resuscitar como se

P.

De que

sorte se

lia,

6emequ8r

eda et8 iiyn a pudeo kya anaquya.


R. Pyaquibaqui samaco.
P.

Guayney padeura?

R. Cayd8u-o ocary.
P. Ouydguo ocary guayney pad -

houve?
R. Subio ao ceo depois de 40

Paquyby samaco

Jesus Ohristo lideo rimatieaoi gar-

Sury?
R. Lycuruca
iquinaudadire
samaco buiutiquey.

dias.

P. Paquypa

ou esta

sahe

agourla?

6ury?

R. Esta asentado a mao direyt i


de Deos Padre tao honrado e esti-

quid8u-o

mado como

ymoeta pyrama.

elle.

R.

cachadir

40
lid-

Tupan yracar sabydi libauray


:

subinha

caura

aquidi

VI.

THE BONARI DIALECT OF THE CARIB STOCK.


The

last

of the Bonaris died about [870.

At one time they were


homes in the thick

a tribe of considerable strength, having their


forests

along the river Uatuma, which empties into the

Amazon
They

below the mouth of the Rio Negro.


were, therefore, neighbors to the Manaos, whose location
from the north, not

far

have

already described.

They were

a docile people,

mission Father

Nuno

and readily collected around the

Alvarez de Couto established at Sant'

Anna

do Atuma. There, however, they fell victims to various diseases


brought by the whites, and when Canon Francisco Bernardino de
Louza visited them, of all the tribe only one old woman survived
who was able to give him the words of its speech. These he published in his book, Para e Amazonas (three parts, 8vo, Rio
Janeiro, 1874-5), which is scarce outside of Brazil, and from
which Dr. A. Ernst, of Caracas, obligingly copied for me the
vocabulary which I subjoin.
The name of the tribe is taken from the Tupi language or Lingoa
Geral of Brazil, and in its proper form Boa-n-uara means "snakemen " or "serpent-people." Other boanari or snake-men are
mentioned, one band on the river Uaupes (Von Martius) and
It was a term probably
another on the river Icanna (Natterer).
derived from the totemic sign, or perhaps from some accidental or
fancied peculiarity, and has no ethnic significance.

45

Even a

slight

examination proves the Bonari a well-marked Carib

and as such it is correctly assigned and located on Karl


von den Steinen's linguistic map inserted in his work, Durch
dialect,

The only word, however, which he

Central Brasilien.
their dialect, keri,

moon,

is

gives from

not quite correct, according to this

vocabulary.

English-Bonari Vocabulary.
Air, calm.

Infant, pitianhea.

Arrow, purena'.

Light, ataquice.

Black, tapaiuna.

Bow, urapa'.

Man, uguere'.
Moon, quece.

Brother, mimien.

Old, tapoucu

Cold, tecominhua'

Old woman, itafoucu'

Dance, timiara.

Rain, cunoba.

1
.

Ear, panare'.

River, tuna' (see Water),

Earth, nono.

Son, child, meoo'.

Eye, nurvba'.

String, ubudiana.

Fire, uaiu.

Sun, usiu'.

Fish, uutu.

Thunder, darara'.

Girl,

Tooth, jore.

meacaba'.

God, tupan.

Uncle, uemi.

Grandfather, tamunba.

Water, tuna.

Head,

"White, tiada 1

iriopo'.

Heat, atupeua

Wind,

Heaven, maica-paa.
House, abeno'.
Husband, unho.

The
words

tupan,

(urapa'ra, Tupi)

God;

tamunha,

tiada, white

(//,

huna, Tupi), and a few others more

which do not

iriane'.

Woman,

influence of the neighboring


as

Wife, upuiten,

affect the

uauri.

Tupi

tribes

grandfather;

Tupi)

is

seen in such

urapa',

arrow

tapaiuna, black {iapan-

faintly.

These are loan-words

mass of the language.

VII.

THE HONGOTE LANGUAGE AND THE PATAGONIAN


DIALECTS.

Among

the manuscripts in the British

Museum

there

is

one in

Spanish (Add. MSS., No. 17,631), which was obtained in 1848


from the Venezuelan explorer, Michelena y Rojas (author of the

Exploration del America del Sur, published in 1867).

It

contains

46
anonymous accounts, by different hands, of a voyage (or
voyages) to the east coast of Patagonia, " desde Cabo Blanco hasta
las Virgines," one of which is dated December, 1789.
Neither the
several

name of

the ship nor that of the

Among

the

Tehuelhet dialect,

commander

appears.

two vocabularies of the Tsoneca or


comprising about sixty words and ten numerals.

material

are

These correspond closely with the various other lists of terms collected by travelers.
At the close of the MS., however, there is a
short vocabulary of an entirely different linguistic stock, without

name of

last words, "a la


Elsewhere the same numerals are
given, and a few words, evidently from some dialect more closely
akin to the Tsoneca, and the name Hongote is applied to the

collector,

Soleta," refer to

date or place, unless the

some

locality.

tongue.
This may be a corruption of "Choonke," the name
which Ramon Lista and other Spanish writers apply to the Tsoneca
(Hongote
Chongote
Choonke
Tsoneca).
The list which I copy below, however, does not seem closely

Tehuelhet nor to any other tongue with which

allied to the

compared

have

have

it.

The MS.

is

generally legible,

though

to a

few words

placed an interrogation mark, indicating that the handwriting was


uncertain.

The

sheet contains the following

Descripcion del Indio.


Caveza,
Frente,

seyocup.

47
1,

48
the

Onas tongue there

practically nothing

is

and but

little

of the

Alikuluf.
It is still uncertain whether the
Yakana-cunny, and whether these

last

mentioned

is

a branch of the

latter in turn differ

from the true

Patagonian or Tehuelhet.*

D'Orbigny

insists that the Puelches,

a half occupied the plains between the

orado (39

to 41

who have for a century and


Rio Negro and the Rio Col-

South), are radically different in language

lat.

both from their Aucanian neighbors to the north and the Patagonian

For

tribes to the south, f

this reason

they are called by the Arau-

" People who cannot understand. "J D'Orcomparative vocabulary of the " Patagon " and

canians Quimnolu-che,
bigny's short

"Puelche"

certainly reveals a wide difference, but a comparison

of the few words of "southern Puelche" collected by Hale discloses

unmistakable identities between the two idioms, as:


Puelche.

S.

Tehuel-het.

Star,

sXalela,

tsokalela.

Tree,

apa,

opuk.

Bone,

ohatsJc,

ohit.

Mr. Hale collected his vocabularies at Carmen, on the Rio


Negro; and the influence of the northern tribes is distinctly visible
in

them.

Especially the Guachi would seem to have percolated

into them.

or ya,

The

" my,"

is

bigny's Puelche.

possessive

pronoun of the

first

person singular, ia

seen in both Hale's vocabularies and also in D'OrIt is

common

to the

Tsoneca or Tehuelhet and

the Guachi.
Guachi.

Teh. ob Puelche.

Nose,

ia-note,

Water,

euak,

yagup.

ia-pe,

ia-pelk.

Teeth,

ia-va,

ia-hai

Mountain,

tegec-loan,

atecq, yuilhuana.

Mouth

or lips,

The Poyas

ia-nots.

or Pey-yus are stated in the Informeoi General Pietas,

above quoted, to have dwelt (in 1729) from the river Lauquen-leufu
one hundred leagues southward and quite to the Atlantic. Twenty-

ago Guinnard found the "Poyu-che," as he calls them,


wandering along both banks of the Rio Negro from Pacheco Island
five years

* The writers of the Mission Scientiftque au Cap Horn identify the Onas with the Yakanacunny, and assert that they speak a closely related dialect of Patagonian.

V Homme Am&ricain, Tome

ii,

p. 71.

Informe of Don Geronimo Pietas, 1729, quoted by Dr. Darapsky in the Bull, del lnstituta Geographico Argentino, Tomo x, p. 278.
X

49

The words he

to the Cordilleras.*

can be depended upon

Of

the Chonos,

we have no

prove

it

gives from their tongue

to

who were a maritime

linguistic material

of the Calen and Taijatef,

if

they

be an Araucanian dialect.
people on the west coast,

nor can we define the relationship

who

resided on the shore south of 48

and spoke one tongue.


In the following table
ber of
the

common words

earliest

straits that
little

that

I present

in

num-

a comparison of a limited

Patagonian vocabularies, beginning with

collected

by Magellan on

bear his name, in 1520.

his first

visit

It is interesting to

to the

note

how

the language has changed in the nearly four centuries which

have passed since that period.

The

list is

found in Pigafetta's nar-

ration.

Dialect.

1.

Patagonian,

2.
3.
4.

"

5.
6.

Tsoneca,

7.

Choonke or

8.

Tehuelche, or
Tehuelhet,
Puelche,

9.

10.

11.

Hougote,

12.
13.

Tekenntka

(or Yahgan),
14. Alikulul',

Dialect.

Man.

Author.
Pigafetta,
MS. Br. Mus. I,
MS. Br. Mus. II,

Martius,

D'Orbigny,
Hale,

MS. Br. Mus


MS. Br. Mus.
Brydges,

Moon.

amania,
amania,
amania,

ache,

kora,

zunum,
nacuna,
iamo-kanika,

kokaua,
shuim,
chuina,
apiuxk,

ahonican,

karkcn,

gengenko,

kenguenkm,

sheguenon,

kine,
chia,

iamo-kanok,

tciaxatoka,

api'xok,

iam-kat,

apiucuc,

p'ioo,

becok,

kekar,

kepa,
acklianash.

lum,
lum.

zitnum,

Lista,

Hale,
D'Orbigny,

Sun.

calexchem,

nuken,
nuken,
nuken,
nuca,
kina,

Musters,

Woman.

chuina.

shouan,

I,

II,

won,
ackinish.

hannuka,
cuunequa.

50

Dialect.

51
with a feminine prefix in iamo-kan-ok, karken, ackhanash

The English form of

kan-as/i).

this root

(=wa-

becomes cunny, found

as

a suffix to various tribal names.

Woman. Zuttum= woman, as zunum nakon, ugly woman;


zunum kekalun, girl, young woman; iama or yama means properly
" mother;" ache or ysher (Musters) is a woman of the same gens,
the masculine form of which is chen, brother; karken is a married
woman.
Sun and Moon. The two prevailing roots are kar and shuin.
They both appear in Pigafetta's calexchem (==kare- shuin). The
vocabulary No. 2 translates kora as "sun, heaven, God." The

generic term for both orbs

is

shuin {chuina), which seems allied to

the Araucanian cuyen of the same meaning.

The Hongote ke-kar

Another radical for both orbs is the guttural


sound variously represented by kok, cue, %ok, keng, geng, sheg.
According to Brydges the Yahgans have two different words for
sun, lum and usteca, and two for moon, annuca and hunian.
Fire.
The radical sound appears to be 'aua%, spelled variously
shows the radical kar.

yaik, hauak, kauik,

The

etc.

first

syllable

is

visible in

maja

ma-ya%.
Water.

The

term jarra or karra means "drinking water,"

from jara, to drink; iagop is rain water (ciagop, rain, Hale); the
Uy and lehe of Musters and Lista appear to be an abbreviation of
the ho- It' of Pigafetta.

Head. Pigafetta's her^hel, which is a variant of


Another radical for the idea is a guttural, '%a, which
of

the

ia'oe,

Araucanian
Eye.

Hongote

se-yocup,

Yahgan

luka-be,

guil, dil, etc.


is

at the base

etc.

(comp.

lonco, head).

All the words are


The term given by

clearly related except the

Ear.

Pigafetta, sane,

is

Hongote.

repeated w ith slight

variation in the various dialects including the Hongote, except the

Puelche, where Hale and D'Orbigny give a different word.

The

verb choinque, to hear, seems related to shene, ear.

Mouth.

Wide discrepancies

appear in the terms for

this organ.

shahan and ihum are probably forms of shum,


which is the right word for mouth, while ia pelk, according to
Hale, means " my lips."

The words

Nose.

chian,

The general root

which reappears
Tongue.

is

a modification of

<?,

Lista's or

in tochal, nohl, etc.

Pigafetta's

scial reappears in Muster's tal, etc.

06,

52
Araucanian
The prevailing
or may be
Hand. Two conceptions are conveyed by the words presented,
che'me, che'ne,jan, fan,
forms of the same = upper extremity,
related to

radical

Tooth.

or,

bone.

all

arm and hand

while or, cori,

tsic-c'r,

ya-s'k'cup all refer to

the

fingers.

The general root kel probably reappears


generally
House. The root
Foot.

in 'alj,

and even

in shan-kence (=chen-kels, lower extremity), cutli-kulkul, etc.

ko'a.

is

Numerals. These display considerable diversity. Several are


merely borrowed from the Araucanian, in which we have i, quine ;
:

2,

epic; 3,

cula ; 4,

melt;

5,

kechu.

From

kechu, for instance,

Hong, chalas probciech, Tel. keitzun, tzen, etc.


=Tel. ka-ash; Hong, .fa
Tel. tct, etc.
The general conclusion to which these comparisons lead is that
the Patagonian dialects are probably more closely related than has
comes Hongote

ably

hitherto been assumed.

VIII.

THE DIALECTS AND AFFINITIES OF THE KECHUA


LANGUAGE.
At the time of the discovery, and probably long before that
Kechua language was spoken along and near the Pacific
coast from 3 North to 35 South latitude, that is from the Rio
Ancasmayu in Ecuador to the Rio Maule in Chili.
Of course, in this long extent of nearly twenty-five hundred
miles of mountains and deserts, there was considerable variety in
its dialects ; but, so far as I can learn, much less than might be
date, the

expected at

first

sight.

The Abbe Camafio, a learned

Jesuit

who

traveled extensively in Peru about the middle of the last century,

and whose Elementi

Lingua Quichua has never seen the light


under five dialects as follows
1. The Chinchasuyo, spoken in the diocese of Lima.
2. The Lamano, spoken about Lamas, in the diocese of Truxillo.
3. The Quiteno, current in and around the city of Quito.
4. The Calchaqui or Tucumafio or Catamarefio, which prevailed
west of the Cordillera in the province of Tucuman.
5. The Cuzcuano, in and around Cuzco.
Of these the last mentioned is that which is considered the
della

in print, classified the tongue

53

and was adopted by the missionaries as representing the


its purest and most ancient form.
In it the drama of
OUanla was composed, which is justly regarded as one of the finest
productions of American aboriginal literature.
classical,

language in

The

Tucuman with

identification of the Calchaqui dialect of

Kechua would
ethnography and archaeology.
patois of the

settle

a vexed question in American

The language and

Calchaquis have long since disappeared

the nation of the

but their material

relics,

tombs of
copper and gold, and

in the shape of well-constructed walls of dressed stones,

the same material, ornaments and images in

handsomely decorated jars of earthenware, still remain in sufficient


abundance to testify to a condition of culture among them rivaling
that of the Kechuas of the western slope of the Cordilleras.*
The learned traveler, Von Tschudi, imagined that their tongue
was the modern Atacameno, and that these sparse inhabitants of
the desert were descendants of refugee Calchaquis.f But there is
no actual evidence to this effect.
Florentino Ameghino,

who

has done so

much

for our

knowledge

of the Argentine Republic, claims the Calchaqui as a dialect of the

Aymara tongue
ject, S.

of Bolivia ;\ and the two latest writers on the subA. Lafone Quevedo and Dr. H. von Ihering, are equally

at issue in their opinions.


The latter insists that the Calchaquis
spoke an idiom wholly different from either Kechua or Aymara ;
while the former argues that this extinct tongue was " not exactly

Kechuan, but not altogether distinct" from it, and was a mongrel
made up of Kechuan, Abiponian and Guaranian elements.
When we turn to the old authorities the point is by no means
The first and best who states anything definite is the
cleared up.
Jesuit missionary, Alonso de Barzana (sometimes written Barcena),
whose letter from "Asuncion del Paraguay," dated September 8,
He writes: "The most
1594, gives some pertinent particulars.
dialect

||

widely extended languages (in Tucuman) are the Caca, the Tono-

The Caca is spoken by the Diaguitas


cote and the Sanavirona.
and throughout the valley of Calchaqui, and that of Catamarca,
and in most of the district of Nueva Rioja. Nearly all the towns
* See authorities

quoted in

my work,

t Reisen in Siid-Amerika, Vol. v, p. 81

The American Race, pp. 319 seq.


Organismus der Klielsua-Sprache,

p. 71.

j!

Ameghino, quoted by Ihering.


In Dus Ausland, 1891, p. 914.

" Notes in the Calchaqui Region," in the American Anthropologist, October, 1891,

p. 358.

54
about Santiago use

it, as well as the


natives along the Rio de
and many more who live in the mountains. I have prepared a grammar and vocabulary of this language."*
These statements assign a distribution of the language over an

Estero,

area about 450 miles from east to west, and 300 miles from north
to south.

highly unlikely that so widespread a tongue should

It is

utterly disappear while so

spoke

it still

survive.

many

who

of the descendants of those

Yet the native population of Tucuman

day speak only a corrupt Kechua

when not Spanish.


fact, the name applied to the tongue by Barzana, kaka, is
Kechua word for mountain, and signifies in this connection

to-

In

dialect,

the
the

dialect of the mountaineers.

The grammar and vocabulary he prepared are lost, and we have


no monuments of the language remaining, except the geographical
and other names mentioned in the early writers or preserved on
old maps. In examining these one is at once struck with the
numerous names of villages ending in -gasta. These are found
from the Rio Salado to the Cordillera, and from about 26 30' to
30' South latitude;

31

in

other words,

in just about

the area

assigned by Barzana to the Caca tongue.


I

quote some of them

Ambargasta,
Amingasta,
Auguagasta,

Paquilagasta,

Cahgasta,

Tinogasta,

Calingaata,

Tnquiligasta.

G-uanagasta,

Machigasta,

Chiquiligasta,
I

do not think there can be any doubt but

that this gasta

corrupted form of the Kechua llacta, town or village.

Kechua there

is

no

g sound, and

the c

is

to gasta.

(German

a guttural

so that a rough equivalent in the Spanish alphabet

is

In pure
cK)

would be close

Moreover, many of the syllables preceding the termina-

tion are evidently

Kechua, as

= caja
cold town an appropriate name, as
high
Cordillera on the Rio de Limari.
Auguagasta = aueea
enemies' town occupied by hostile people.
Calingasta = ccali
salubrious
healthy town probably from
Cahgasta

llacta,

it

lies

up the

llacta,

llacta,

* Barzana's letter
(Madrid, 1885).

is

its

printed in the Helaciones Geogrqflcas de IndiaS, Peru,

site.

Tomo

ii

55
Machigasta= maecMy llaeta, washing town, place where large solid things
are washed quite suitable to the village of the name on the eastern
end of Lake Andalgala.
;

The Kechua origin of these names is plain. But if the Caca or


Catamareno, as it is sometimes called, was merely a dialect of the
Kechua, why did Barzana speak of it as a separate tongue? Possibly because the differences in

sound were so great

as to render

it

unintelligible to a person familiar only with the dialect of Cuzco.

For the present the evidence seems sufficient to consider the


less mixed branch of the Kechua family, and
the supposition formerly advanced by myself and others that they
Calchaquis a more or

constituted an independent stock seems unwarranted.

The Quiteno

by Von Tschudi

dialect was held

So

of higher antiquity than that of Cuzco.

to present features

know, there

far as I

are few published specimens of it.*

The Chinchasuyu

or Chinchaya dialect, also one of the northern

branches of the tongue, has been sufficiently analyzed by

Von

work on the language, his materials being drawn


from the Appendix to the second and third editions of Diego de
Torres Rubio's Arte de la lengua Quechua, and from the manuTschudi in

his

scripts of the

German

pronunciation
part, to

Hermann

engineer,

Gohririg.f

He

finds the

Certain differences in the verbs appear, in

softer.

be neologisms.

And

there

is

a rather large

number of

words which are wholly diverse in the two dialects.


The Lamafio is said by Von Tschudi to be closely allied to the
Quiteno, but he acknowledges that he was not personally familiar
with

it.

Whether the Incas,

that

is,

the gens from

whom

the war

and

peace chiefs were selected, had a language or dialect peculiar to


themselves, as asserted
else

by Garcilasso de

has been again brought up

Middendorf.

He

la

and

Vega

for discussion lately

by nobody
by Dr. E. W.

maintains that they had, and that this secret

language was the Aymara.J

This he does in the face of the fact

one of the eleven words which Garcilasso quotes from


mysterious tongue turns out either to be pure Kechua or from a

that every
this

An

Arte, printed at

Amer. Aborig. Langs.,

Lima

in 1753, of this dialect,

t Organismus der Ketckua Sprache, Einleitung, p.


J

See the Introduction to his work, Das

1890).

is

mentioned by Ludewig,

Lit. of

p. 162.
65.

Runa Simi

Oder der Keshua-Sprache (Leipzig,

56

Kechua radical.* Dr. Middendorf holds his opinion not so much


on the evidence, as to support his favorite theory that the Kechua
civilization was derived from the Aymaras and that the Inca gens
was of Aymara descent. Unfortunately, he has not acquainted
It
himself with the real constitution of the Kechua social system.
has been ably and satisfactorily analyzed by Dr. Gustav Briihl f and
later

by Heinrich Cunow.J

Kechua
Middendorf 's recent studies. He supplies a list of about five hundred and
seventy words, which have approximately the same form and sense
in the two tongues, and a second list of about one hundred words
which are alike in form but with more or less variation in sense.
There is also a strong phonetic likeness between the tongues, and

The

Aymara language

precise relationship of the

to the

has received considerable further elucidation through Dr.

their grammatical characteristics

sion

is

approach each other.

"Aymara and Kechua

that

children of mixed marriages

His conclu-

are sister languages, but are like

for while they agree in their essential

nature (in ihrem Wesen) quite to the most

trivial peculiarities,

yet

in external grammatical form, as well as in the larger part of their

vocabulary, they are wholly asunder."


This is substantially the conclusion reached by that master of
linguistic science, Prof.
identities

and

H.

Steinthal,

diversities of

these

the general philosophy of language.


It is

who

two

has ably explained the

tongues on principles of

||

probable that further light would be thrown on this question,

its settlement would yield on the


and the archaeology of the region
around Lake Titicaca, were the comparison instituted between the
oldest, and therefore purest, forms of the two tongues; and it is
partly to call attention to some rare or unpublished materials suit-

so interesting for the information

origin of Peruvian civilization

able for this purpose that


Von Tschudi, Organismus

boldt was the

first

have introduced the subject.

der Khetsua-Sprache, Einleitung, s. 65. Wilhelm von Hum"


words adduced by Gareilasso as members of the

to identify the

Kechua.
t Gustav Bruhl, Die Culturvolker Alt-Amerikas (Cincinnati, 1887).
X "Das peruanische Verwandtschaftssystem und die Geschlechtsverbiinde der Inka," in
Das Ausland, '1891. As to the " secret language," Cunow says, after discussing what words

of

it

we

find in Gareilasso "

Man

sieht,

von einer Geheimsprache kanu keine Rede

sein."

See Dr. E.

Bwna Simi Oder

W. Middendorf, Die
der Keshua-Sprache,

Aimara-Sprache,

s.

s.

285, seq. (Leipzig, 1891),

ana Das

25 (Leipzig, 1890).

" Das Verhaltniss zwischen dem Ketschua und Aimara," in the Compte Rendu of the
]
Congres des Americanistes, 7eme Session (1888), p. 465.

57

Assuming with most Kechuists that the trend of migration was


from north to south, we should look towards the north for the oldest
forms of the tongue. This, as I have said, Von Tschudi did ; but
both he and Dr. Middendorf state that they had not seen the work
on the Quiteno dialect printed at Lima in 1753, nor apparently any
MS. on the structure of the northernmost branches of the tongue.
A. vocabulary is mentioned by Von Tschudi, dated in 1S14, which
gives words of the idiom as spoken in the dioceses of Maynas and
Ucayali.

This could be supplemented by a

later

MS.

in

my

library, con-

taining a Diccionario castellano-inga (y inga-castelland) segun se

habla en las monlahas limitrofes del Ucayali and a Gramatica del

idioma Inga acomodado al modo de hablar de


It is

dated 1868, and the author

zuelo

but

it

is

los

manoitas

y Maynas.

given as Fr. Mariano Castellan-

appears, in part at least, to be founded on

some

earlier

work.

A comparison of this MS. with the grammars of Von Tschudi


and Middendorf shows that the dialect of Maynas, the most eastern
of all the Kechua dialects, is more closely akin to the Cuzceno than
to the Quiteno, both in vocabulary and structure.
It does not present the terminal nga to the verbal stem,

vocabulary
for

it is

example

common

in the latter.

In

nearer the classical Kechua than to the Chinchaya

58
J. C. in Lingua Pacasd.
translation in Latin.

Text
Aneha
Summse

It

contains the original and an interlinear

quote the following passage as an example:

the Pacasa Dialect of the Aymara Language.

in

Uaquisinapana
agone suo,

haclia
afflictionis

tacutaiha

suae

Jesusa

collna

divinus

Jesus

valdfi

sartussina

ad discipulos suos
Maasca acanaca
deprehendens,

fatigatus de

terra

Verum

rediit.

surgens,

eos excitavit,

dicens

"Surgite!

dormientes
parajtayana

valde

eos

Jam enim
puri

niupilla

quomodo vos dormitis?


non
humana
cuja
iquisipjiquita

meus non

camisa

dormit,

sed

Judseorum
hanilma

aucaltaja

finito

uraquetlia
cutinira.

hacjatassina

ininiicus

ulljapjta,

humppinapsa

yaticliatanacparu
iquisquiri

lamisaraqui

quoinodo

carcta

conti

meus

venditor

mla

cinti

sartupjama

sassina

kerisinapa

sanguineo sudore suoque

venit

aljiiihaja
videtis

hanati
in

manus

iquiti,

suas ad tradendum
me jam adest?" Verum, divine Jesus,
maasca Judiona
tana
amparanacparu
catuyana
liattaqui
non solum de discipulis tuis conquerere, de hujus urbis incolis
nialiua
Maasca
collana
Jesusay
haniqui
piorit
etiam
conquerere,
in
omnibus
singulis
animas
qui
et

yatichfitanamatha

quejasirati

suas salvandi rebus semper dormitant,

(From
Paz.

the Historia B. N.

J.

aca

rnarca

haquenacatha.

semper

otiosi

sunt.

O. in Lingua, Pacasa, diocesis urbis de la

MS.

Descripsit D. B. de Merian.

folio.)

IX.

AFFINITIES OF

SOUTH AND NORTH AMERICAN


LANGUAGES.

The first scientific attempt to show a connection between South


and North American languages was that read by Dr. Max Uhle
before the Congres des Americanistes at Berlin in 1888, and published in the Compte Rendu of that association. It was confined to
demonstrating a relationship between the Chibcha dialects of
northwestern South America to the Costa Rican dialects, which
have been so

fruitfully studied

by Gabb and Thiel.*

* I have summarized the evidence in The American Race, pp. 181-186.


I do not overlook the Kev. William Herzog's article in the Archiv fur Anthrop., 1884, entitled, " Ueber
die Verwandtschaftsbeziehungen der eostaricensischen Indianer-Sprachen mit denen
von Central- und Sud-Amerika ;" but it does not take up the subject in a scientific man-

ner,

and hence

its

results are unsatisfying.

59
Still

more recently an

effort

has been

made by

Dr. A. Ernst, of

Caracas, to establish a linguistic connection between the dialects of

who occupy the Cordillera in the district of


Merida (8 N. lat.), and the Costa Rican dialects, thus bringing
He
the Timotes into the Chibcha stock, as he expressly claims.
goes yet further and seeks to discover verbal identities between the
Timote and the Guatuso, spoken in Nicaragua on the Rio Frio.
The latter is not supposed to be related to the Costa Rican dialects,
which makes Dr. Ernst's theory the more important could it be
substantiated.
He has published a list of forty-five words in an
article in the Boletin del Ministerio de Obras Publicas for April 8,
I trans1891 (Caracas, Venezuela), on which he bases his claim.
late and arrange these words, and shall examine the alleged
the Timote stock,

analogies.

Supposed

Affinities

Timote Stock.

between Timote,
Guatuso Words.

Costa

Rican

and

60

61

from Nicaragua, we enter a territory which was at the discovery


occupied by nations whose

traditions

and

linguistic

pointed to the higher latitudes of North America.

affinities

Such was the

Nahuatl tribe, who occupied the islands and southern shores of


Lake Nicaragua, and the Mangues, who peopled the borders of
Lake Managua.
The latter were closely related to the Chapanecs of Chiapas,
One
speaking the same tongue with slight dialectic variations.
band of the Mangues, about four hundred in number, was found
by the early explorers among the Guaymis, one of the Costa Rican
tribes whose language has marked affinities to the Chibcha idioms
of New Granada. The close relations thus established between the
two stocks reappear in the Mazatec language, spoken in the district
of Teutitlan del Camino, State of Oaxaca.
Availing myself of a MS. vocabulary of

me by M.

A. Pinart,

have shown that

it is

this

language, furnished

Chapanecan
and especially

essentially a

dialect, but with a strong infusion of Costa Rican,

Guaymi, elements, and presents the most northern example of the


influence of South American upon North American languages.*

The

following examples will illustrate the similarity:

62
X.

ON THE DIALECTS OF THE BETOYAS AND TUCANOS.


The most recent writer on the Tucanos of the Rio Negro and
Upper Amazon, Dr. Franz Pfaff, observes: " Ueber die Stammesverwandtschaft der Tucanos kann mit einiger Sicherheit nichts behauptet werden."* Von Martius believed them a horde of the
Tapuya (Ges, Botocudo) stock f but their language betrays no
such relationship except in a few, doubtless borrowed, words. They
are equally far from the great Tupi. Arawack and Carib stocks.
But I believe I can show by conclusive evidence that this hitherto
;

unidentified people speak a language akin to that of the Betoyas

and Tamas, whose home is located on the eastern slope of the Cordillera, between the head waters of the rivers Apure and Meta.

My

further studies of the Betoya dialects have resulted in discov-

ering for them

American Race.

much wider extension than I assigned in The


They can be traced through about ten degrees

of latitude (from 3

South latitude

number of

northeastward to 7 North

on the rivers Napo,


Putumayo, Caqueta, Uaupes, Negro, Meta and Apure. The affinities of many of these tribes are asserted by the early missionaries,
whose testimony on such points was based on a study of the lanOne of the most useful of these sources is the Noticias
guages.
Autenticas del Famoso Rio Maranon, composed by an anonymous
latitude) in a large

Jesuit missionary,

tribes resident

and recently published

for the first

the competent editorship of Jimenez de la Espada

time under

by

the

Geo-

graphical Society of Madrid.

Another

Jesuit,

Father Padilla, in a letter to the

Abbe Hervas,

knowledge that the Siraras, Eles, Airicos and


speak dialects of Betoya ; while Gumilla names as other

stated from personal

Situjas all

Jabua, Arauca (probably for Airicd), QuiliLalaca and Atabaca.


The town Betoye itself is situated on a small affluent of the Casanare, in 6 North latitude, at the foot of the mountain chain
known as the "Paramo de Chisga," inhabited by a wild tribe of
dialects the Luculia,

fay, Anabali,

unknown affinities, the Chitareros.


The anonymous writer already referred
Jesuits had seven "reductions" among
*

Verhandlungen der Berliner

Gesell.

fur Anthrop.,

f Glossaria Linguarum BrasUiensium, p. 283.

to states that in

1730 the

the Icaguates (Piojes) of

etc., 1890,

s.

603.

63

and their missions extended north to the banks of the


Putumayo, on which stream were the Amaguages and the OcoBelow the latter, and occupying most of the district beguages.
tween the middle Putumayo on the north and the lower Napo and
Amazon on the south, were a number of tribes collectively called
the Napo,

'

Zeonas (Stones), comprising the Cungies, Parianas, Cenceguages


and others. These spoke a tongue allied to that of the Icahuates
(Piojes); while " the Neguas, Seizos, Tamas, Acunejos and Atuaras
are

all

of one tongue."

The

editor,

Jimenez de

la

Espada, speak-

ing from personal knowledge gained on the spot, identifies the

modern

Piojes with the Encabellados of the Spanish writers

and the

Icaguates of the Jesuits.


It is greatly to

be regretted that the ample material existing in

manuscript for the study of the Zeona language has not been made
accessible.

Col. Joaquin Acosta had in his library a Diccionario

Doctrina en lengua Zeona of 416 pages and another MS. of 116


pages. He expected to present them to the public library of Bogota,
but I have not been able to ascertain whether they are there.

From

these materials I present the following

should be classed in this linguistic family

The Betoya

list

of tribes

Linguistic Stock.

Aeanejos, a branch of the Tamas.

Aguaricos, a branch of the Tamas.


Airicos (A.yricoa), adjoin Betoyes to the south.

Amaguages, on upper Caqueta.


Anibalis, on Rio Apure.
Atuaras, a branch of the Tamas.
Avijiras, on Rio Napo.
Becuaries, a branch of the Icaguates.
Betoyes, on and near R. Casanare.
Cenceguages, on upper Putumayo south of the Correguages.
Ceonas

= Zeonas.

Cobeus, north of the Tucanos.

Correguages, on head waters of Caqueta and Putumayo.


Cungies (Kemgeioios), on R. Cungies, a branch of R. Putumayo.
Curetus (Coretus), west of the Tucanos.

= Tucanos.
Encabellados =
Dace

Eles, north of Betoyes,

on Rio Casanare.

Piojes.

Icahuates {Icaguates, Icaguages), former

Jamas, on Rio Man acacia.


Jaunas, near River TJauper.

name

of Piojes.

who

64
Jupuas, on Rio Apaporis.
Lolacos, a branch of the Betoyas.

Macaguages, on Rios Caucaya, Mecaya and Sensella


Magueias, a branch of the Icahuates.
Malifilitos, a branch of the Betoyas.
Neguas, a branch of the Tamas.
Ocoguages, on R. Putuinayo, near R. Pineya.
Pararies, a branch of the Zeonas.

Payaguas, a branch of the Icahuates.


Pequeyas, a branch of the Piojes.
Piojes,

on Rios Putumayo, Napo and Cocaya.

Pouzevaries, a branch of the Icahuates.


Quiiifayes,
Seizos,

Seones

on Rio Apure.

a branch of the Tamas.

= Zeonas.

Silufas (or Situjas), on Rio Casanare.

Tamas, on Rio Yari and R. Cagua.


Tucanos, on the Rio Uaupcs.

on R. Uaupes.
Tapuas, a branch of the Piojes.
TJaupes,

branch of the Icahuates.


branch of the Piojes.
Zenseies, a branch of the Zeonas.
Zeonas, between lower Napo and Patumayo
Tehebos, a
Yetes, a

Several of these

names are synonyms, or merely the same word

The

with varying orthography.


gentilia in the

rivers.

specific

termination of no?nina

Betoya dialects would seem

to

be guage, which

is

perhaps the guce, house, household, people, of the Correguage.

Thus, Oco-guage

= water people,

being remarkably
Pioje

is

skillful

the negative

all inquiries

this tribe,

canoemen.

according to Markham,

YeteSs, the Corr. for

"no," with which

these

natives

" hands."
reply to

addressed them by travelers.

long to the Lingoa Geral

uard), parti-colored,

e.,

/.

as,

Other of the names bePayagua =. enemies ; Pararie (para-

painted

men;

Atuara

= ihe

basket

(making) men; Jupua in the Jauna dialect means "tree" or


"wood" men, while Jauna means, in the lingoa geral, "water-

men." Dace is the name of the Toucan bird in the Tucano dialect.
" Curetu " in the lingoa geral'is an opprobrious epithet, " rascals."
It

was applied to several

tribes.

Balbi, in his Atlas Ethnographique,

gives a short vocabulary of one of


lived

at

Ega on

the

Amazon.

Curetu of the Rio Apaporis.

It

these

"rascal"

tribes,

who

has no connection with the

65

The Jupua and Curetu

dialects are properly

one and the same,

the difference which appears in their vocabularies arising simply

from inequality in the ears and the orthographies of observers.


is evident by the following comparison of the vocabularies of

This

Martius (German orthography) and Wallace (English orthography)

60
Man,

67

The conception
stock,

tions

of

and even the


for example

number

dialects

is

very slightly developed in this

most closely related show wide

varia-

OBSERVATIONS

The Chinantec Language of Mexico;

THE MAZATEC LANGUAGE


AND

DANIEL

G.

ITS AFFINITIES.

BRINTON,

A.M., M.D., LL.D.,

PROFESSOR OF AMERICAN LINGUISTICS AND ARCHEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY

OF PENNSYLVANIA.

Philadelphia
Press of

MacCalla & Company,

1892

237-9

Dock

St.

/(,

$((>

Observations on the Chinantec Language of Mexico.

By Daniel
{Read before

the

G. Brinfon,

M.D.

American Philosophical Society, January ij,

1892.')

Name. The folk-name Chinanteca, plural of chinantecatl, is a


word in the Nahuatl language meaning, "inhabitants of Chinantla,"
which latter signifies a spot enclosed by cane hedges or palisades.

By

common

extension, the

term for "village" was chinamitl, as

they were usually protected by such light defenses.

known

a nation, are

tecs, therefore, as

to us only

The Chinanby the name

applied by their neighbors, the Aztecs, to their chief town.

The

Orozco y Berra

assertion of

that they were also called Tenez

arose from a misunderstanding of the letter of

entos to

Hernando Cortes

(15 21).

Hernando de

Barrientos was not

Barri-

among

the

Chinantecs proper, but in another chinamitl in Chiapas.*

Still

other Chinanteca are mentioned as resident in Nicaragua.

This

Nahuatl word has absolutely no ethnographic significance.


Several authors have confounded these Chinanteca with the
"Tzinacanteca," or Bat-people, a Maya tribe in Tabasco and
Chiapas.
The two are nowise related.
Location.
Their country was located in the mountains of the

eastern portion of the State of

Oaxaca and on the

frontiers of the

present State of Vera Cruz.

Their neighbors on the north and east


were Nahuatl-speaking tribes, on the south the Zapotecs and Mistecs,

and on the west the Mazatecs and Cuicatecs, the latter supposed to
be a distant branch of the Zapotec stock. Within these boundaries
was a wide variety of climate, ranging from the torrid vales of the
tierra caliente up to the chilly regions of the high sierra, where we
find one of their villages with the significant name " Holy Mary
amid the Snows," Santa Maria de las Nieves. The village of
Chinantla itself is situated in a wild and mountainous district where
the climate is cool and rainy.f Orozco y Berra gives the names of
thirty-four other towns inhabited by them.
* See the letter of Barrientos in the Cartas

Don Pedro de Gayangos,

fB. Miihlenpfordt, Meziko, Bd.

REPRIHTED FEB.

y Selaciones de Hernando
and notes.

Cortes.

Edition of

Paris, 1866, pp. 204, 205

9,

1892,

ii, s.

214.

FROM

PK0C. AMEB. PHILOS. SOC, VOL. XXX.

History.
The Chinantecs are an extremely ancient people who
have resided on the spot where the Spaniards found them from the
earliest period of the traditional history of Mexico.
We first hear

of them as having been conquered by Ahuitzotzin, ruler of Mexico.

This event according to the chronology of Torquemada,

who

is

our

authority for it,* took place in the year 1488.

They were treated by their conquerors with the utmost severity


and cruelty, of which the historian Herrera cites several instances, f
They were glad, therefore, on the appearance of the Spaniards to
throw off the yoke of the Mexicans and lend their aid to the invading strangers.
Culture.

The Chinantecs are described

as a rude savage people,

and devoid of the


on either hand, the Zapotecs or the
Nahuas. Their principal weapon is said to have been lances of unusual length which they handled with singular dexterity.
living in huts constructed of branches of trees,

culture of their neighbors

Literature.

The

first

to

reduce the Chinantec

He was a

writing was Brother Francisco Saravia.

language to

native of Seville,

by trade a cabinetmaker, in that capacity he emigrated


Mexico, where he married and carried on a prosThe death of his wife, when he was about
perous business.
thirty-five years of age, led him to renounce the world, and in 1574
Having been assigned to the
he joined the order of Dominicans.
province of Oaxaca, he devoted himself to studying the language of
the Chinantecs, and in collecting them from the caves and ravines
in Spain

to the City of

which they lived into villages where they could cultivate the soil.
His success was great, and the natives regarded him with equal love
and reverence. For fifty years of his long life he labored among
them, and when he died in 1630, at the ripe age of a nonagenarian,
he left in the archives of his order a number of MSS. in and upon
the language.
Of these we have the titles of a Catecismo, an Arte, a
Probably the most important was his
Confesionario and Sermones.
in

Gran Homilario Chinanteco, a copy of which he placed in every


one of the parishes under his care, so that the native sacristan could
read the homily when the priest should be prevented from attending.
More interesting to the historian doubtless was his autobiographical sketch of the tribe written under the title Noticia de la
* Juan

de Torquemada, Monarquia Indiana, Lib.

+Historia de las lndias, Deo.

ill,

Lib.

iii,

cap. xv.

ii,

cap. lxiii.

Conversion de la Nation Chinanieca

sucesos acaecidos en elia al

Autor.

do not know of a single copy of any of Saravia's writings; and

what
cisely

is

more remarkable, Father Nicholas de

one hundred years

the only

known book

in the language,

la

Barreda,

who

pre-

death printed in Mexico

after Saravia's

had never even heard of

his

predecessor's labors, and states specifically in his Prologue that he

had not found so much

as a

word written or printed

in this tongue.

been a native of Oaxaca, and


began his missionary work among the Chinantecs about 1708.
For a score of years he had been cura of San Pedro de Yolos, when
his book appeared
Doctrina Christiana en Lengua Chinanieca
Of this only two copies are known to be
(4to, Mexico, 1730).
Barreda himself

is

said to have

extant, from one of which I possess a careful MS. copy by the


hand of the late Dr. C. Hermann Berendt. This learned Americanist had commenced a study of the tongue, and left a few notes
upon it, which have also been of some service to me, although they

are quite fragmentary.

The tongue

is

not included in Pimentel's Cuadro Descriptivo de

Lenguas Indigenas de Mexico, and there

las

accessible to students of linguistics.

while to present a short description of


this

seems different from

singular simplicity of

its

its

is

no specimen of

it

appears, therefore, worth

It

character

the

more

so as

many American tongues on account

of the

In

some

construction.

fact, I entertain

doubts whether Barreda's version represents correctly the idiom in


It certainly reveals no such difficulties as he speaks
and resembles strongly a jargon in which inflections and synSeveral
tactic relations have been reduced to their lowest terms.
of the translations of the early missionaries have proved, on examination, to be in a jargon or trade language of a tribe, and not in
This may be the case here.
its real speech.
The Language. The Chinantec tongue appears to have no
It is described as guttural,
affinity with any of its neighbors.
rough in enunciation and difficult to learn. Barreda says in his
its

pure form.

of,

Prologue that many of the priests assigned to parishes in the nation


it, and, failing in this, attempted to intro-

tried in vain to acquire

duce the Nahuatl among the Chinantecs


failure,

had asked

for other

fields

and

of labor.

that this proving a

He

himself, after

twenty years of study, had succeeded but moderately in mastering


care in translating
it, but adds that he had exercised the utmost

the Doctrina, submitting every

The

natives of his parish.

which

word

it to the most intelligent


employed was that of Yolos,

in

dialect he

differed, but not greatly,

from that of other portions of the

nation.

The pronouns

are but slightly developed


a fact in marked conmost American tongues. The same form serves for both
the personal and the possessive pronouns, and it is probable that
there is no distinction between their singular and plural number,
although a slight difference is sometimes indicated.
trast

to

Pronominal Fokms

Personal and
We,

na.

I,

Possessive.
nah.

You, no.
They, quialia.

Thou, no.
He,
quia.

It is noteworthy that the pronoun of the third person, quia, may


be used for either the second or the first in its possessive sense thus,
vi chaaqui quia, " for his sins," instead of vi chaaqui na, as a trans;

lation of

"

for

my

So again, animas quia, as a translation of

sins."

"our souls." This is analogous to the language of children, who


do not clearly distinguish persons, and often refer to themselves in
forms of the third person instead of the

The

interrogative

first.

which also serves as a

he,

is

relative,

and with

the addition of the adverb of place, la, here, forms the demonstra-

cna

tive, hela, this, as hela

"

that "

The

is

in,

"this

first

The demonstrative

one."

usually given by da or nda.

indefinite

pronoun cha, some, some one, somebody,

is

fre-

quently prefixed, often apparently in a collective or distinctive


sense, as chanuh,

charuhno,

devil; chajhian,

In

all

The

"some man"

or men,

e.,

i.

people in general;

"thy neighbor;" chazaquiun, "somebody bad"

"somebody

cases the possessive pronouns are suffixed to the nouns.

verbal forms appear to vary considerably.

A terminal

appears to mark the infinitive, as pane, to chastise


kill.

The imperative

is

lia

Say thou
reflexive has the

cala
as

phua na.
say

I.

pronoun before and

Na juanih
Me bow
(I

bow

na.
I.

myself.)

after the

or a

ngueihna, to

characterized by the pronoun, as

Phua

The

the

else."

verb

The

interrogative form

is

Cale

thus

nuh quiaha?

cuihno

know thou man

Didst

(Didst thou

know

her 1

her husband ?)

Ca-cuim-ba-na.
I did

In these sentences ca

know

him.

the sign of the preterit, as again in the

is

following sentence

Ma

ca-mea testamento nuh u?

Did thy

Where

father

make

the present form of the verb

is

a will

mea, to make.

Prepositions.

The

prepositions are properly such, being prefixed to the nouns,

and separated from them.


no;

as, no toho, "in the belly;" no caliz, "in the calix" (sacred
cup); no chaaqui, "in sin."
On, ni; as, nialtar, "on the altar;" nimuicuila, "on this world."

In,

Into, lei; as hini lei gotan tan vino lei muian,

(the)

" (the) bread into

Before, in the presence

persons."

of,

and

quiani; as quianijhian queeha, "before other

Before, in time, gean.

After, in time, quein.

Conjunctions.
And,

flesh

wine into blood."

tan.

Also, jalabajna; as, jalabajna

na

nina, " also I

am poor."

9
Otra vez ha de venir quando se
acabe el inundo, a tomar cuenta a
todos los vivos y muertos para darles el cielo para siempre a, todos los

Cna

que, nijhea

mui cha

mui

in

jhea quia quenta geilan chaxan,


tan cha jon, cha queh nujui geila
cui,

muiba geilan cha ca hah quiu mandamiento quiaha


tan hi chaza
mientos; y a los que no los guar- cahah quiu, queh geila muiba juahui
daron bien, les dam para siempre nyajui.
penas en el inflerno.
que guardaron

Como muri6

bien

sus

nianda-

nuestro Senor Jesu

Christo?
Muri<5

como

como hombre

no muri6

Dios; porque Dios no puede

phui

cajonne

Ihiala

Christo

nah

Jesu

Cajonne calan cha, aza cajonne


calan Dios, chavi Dios aza

li

jonne.

morir.
Si Dios no puede morir, como
murio nuestro Senor Jesu Christo ?

Aunque

Senor Jesu
tambien
hombre, y asi pudo morir como
hombre, y no pudo como Dios
porque Dios nunca puede morir.
Christo

nuestro

era

era

Dios,

Quando muere la gente en este


mundo, tambien mueron sus almas ?

No mueron sus almas, sino solamente el cuerpo muere; porque no


puede morir el alma.

cuando muere

el

cuerpo,

Ze Dios aza li jonne, ihiala ca


jonne phui nah Jesu Christo?
Gni cu jua phui nah Jesu
Christo yha Dios, ja hala jna yba
Suhne; vihe jna le jonne calan
chanu, tan aza
chavi Dios aza

Tan

ma

vi

para

nunca mas morir.

Adonde van

animas de

las

los

defuntos quando ruueren sus cuerpos ?

buenos van al
porque guardaron bien lo que manda la ley de
Dios y las almas de los malos van
al inflerno, porque no guardaron

Las animas de

los

cielo para siempre,

bien lo que

Que

manda

es cielo

Cielo es

la ley

ma

vi aza

li

jna
jon

jonne

gotan,

Aza li jonne cnaphue


quiaha mui cha in

jonne

geila muiba,

muicui, jna
tno nigni cala geila gotan, tan nigni
cnaha animas quiaha, vi aza jua cna
li jonne.

Jhia cha animas cha jon


gotan quiaha ?

ma jonne

Animas chaqui vn cha nu jui


hah quiu he quiu
hutaju quiaha Dios; tan animas cha
zaquiun cha nya jui, chavi za hah

geila muiba, chavi

quiu he quiu huta ju quiaha Dios.

de Dios.

He nu jui ?

un lugar

quiaha,

jabala

anima.

No puede morir para siempre,


porque el dia que se acabe el mundo,
juntaron con sus almas, ya

ha gotamba jonne

cnaphue 1

se

jonne calan Dios


jonne jua lei que.

Aza jon anima


la

para siempre 1

li

Ma jonnencha muicuila,
na jon anima quiaha ?

muere

resuscitaran todos los cuerpos,

li

lleno de

mucho

Nujui cnanamba, canle nu phueli

10
y grande

gloria
lleno de todo
genero de bienes, y de todo genero
de alegria, en donde esta Dios nues-

gloria, canle cala geila juayanchij,

tro

Nda cha animas

Sefior,

Santissima

la

todos los Angeles

y todos

Virgen,

los Santos.

Alii van las almas de los buenos


que sirvieron a Dios a descansar
para siempre, que nunca se podra

thia nhuiaa phui

nah Dios, xanujui,

geilan angeles, tan geilan santos.

camea

muiba, aza jua

geila

chaquiun,

ma

ta quiaha Dios,
li

clia

bine cala

chan.

acabar.

English-Chinantec Vocabulary.
Alive, chaxan.

Fire, gei.

All, geila, geilan, lagei; geila hejna,

Foot,

"all tbese things ;" geila balimea,

"all-powerful."

And,

Bad, azaquiu, zaquiu, chaaguiu


not good).
Because, chavi.

(=

Believe, to, changa.

"in the belly

of the

virgin," no toho xa muinne


Bird,

muiyun (= female

Girl,

Give,

conj., tan.

Belly, toho ;

tehi.

Full, canle.

Good, quiu.
Grandfather, nyuh.

Grandmother, nyaa.
Great, phue ; superlative, nu phueli.
Hand, quaha ; "open thy hands,"
janquaha! "In thy hands I

my

place

ta.

muian, muien ; "by the


blood," muien no (mui
water

Blood,

and woman).
Body, gotan; " in body and soul,"
gotan tan anima quiaha.

soul,"

Heaven, nujui, nahui.

Breast, ehij.

Brother, run.

Herb, ha.
House, nu.

Child, yun.

How,

"bad"); chalin

(see "sick").

loDg, ja

Infant, chimina.

Know,
Know,

Earth, muycui.
Eat, to, culm.

not true).

nuh (= man) mii; Dios mii,

"God

how

Husband, nuquia (= consecrated


man, i. e., by the Church).

Join, to, cun

nguhu.

Ear, (la)quaha.

Father,

cala;

If, ze.

Die, to, jon-ne.

Eye, manihi.
False, a lie, azacha

jhiala,

mui.

Dead, ma-jon, cha-jon.

to,

na

Hell, nyajui.

Day, muiba

Drink,

nqunlia

animaquia.
Head, gui ; "throw water on the
head of the child," yaha muini
gui yun.
Heart, haha.

Boy, quana.
Bread, hini.

Devil, zaquiun (see

child).

to, quce, quas he.

the Father."

(=

to

marry).

to (saber), nih.
to (conocer), cuih.

Kill, to,

ngueihna.

Live,

xan.

to,

Magician, gin.
Make, to (Span, hacer), mea.

Man, nuh, chanu.

11
Meat,

flesh, gno.

Son, jna.
Soon, naba.

Money, cu.
Month, zei.
Moon, zei.

Speak,

Mother, xa, xaha.


Mountain, hill, maa.
Much, nu, nuU.

Name,

Stick,

wood, ma.

Sun, manui.

What

mui
Town, jut.

Tears,

(is)

name?"

Nephew,
No,

phua.

Stone, cnu.

xi; hi xi no? "

thy

to,

Steal, to, Held.

niece, nyaa.

nii

(=

True, clia.
Uncle, aunt, Maya.

aza, za.

Nothing, aza-he.

Virgin, muinne (v.

Now,

Water, mui.
When, ma.

na.

Or, qua.

Pay,

to,

water, eyes).

Where,

qui-M, quei.

woman).

jhia.

Poor, nin, nina.

"
Wife, muiquia (see " husband
With, cnalia.

Pudenda
Pudenda

Wizard,

Ian.

Woman,

mui, cha-mui.

Place, narriba.

Relation,

feminse, yuh.
viri,

cnu.

Word, ju; cnaju, "one word


Work, to, ta.

ruh, run (== brother).

a,

Shoulder, ca.
Sick, chah.

Year, gni.

Sin, chaaqui.

Small,

little,

On

'

Yes, xa, jna,

ma

(iba

it is)

miha.

Mazatec Language of Mexico and

the

By Daniel

G. Brinton,

its Affinities.

M. D.

{Read before the American Philosophical Society, January

75, 1892.

lies a mounknown from earliest


Divine Land, or The Land

In the northeastern corner of the State of Oaxaca


tainous tract, watered

times by

its

whom

It

and

officially

now

as

the district

Teutitlan

del

has about 26,000 inhabitants, a large proportion of

are of native blood.

languages

streams,

Aztec name Teutitlan, the

of the Gods,

Camino.

by numerous

These speak three radically

the Cuicatec, which

is

different

probably a dialect of the Zapo-

tecan stock; the Chinantec, which stands alone, and the Mazatec,

of which nothing whatever has been known, and which


to

examine and,

The

if

material I have for the purpose

collected

it is

my aim

possible, classify in the present study.

by a Danish

officer,

who was

is

an unpublished vocabulary,

in the service of Maximilian,

12
and which has been obligingly furnished me by Mr. Alphonse
Pinart, whose extensive researches in American linguistics are well
known. The only published materials in existence are two translations of the Lord's Prayer into different dialects of the tongue.

These have been reprinted by Pimentel, Bancroft and other writers.


Their precise provenance is unknown ; as for the vocabulary, it was
obtained at Huantla, northeast of the town of Teutitlan.
Names. The name Mazatecatl plural, Mazateca means " Deer
People" in the Aztec or Nahuatl language. It may have been
given them by their Nahuatl neighbors on account of their land
abounding in deer ; or, as some say, because they worshiped the
figure of a deer
that is, had a deer totem among them.
There
were other Mazatecas living in the present State of Tabasco, and
yet others in the State of Guerrero ; but we have no reason to suppose that those "Deer Peoples" were at all related to these in
Teutitlan.
What they called themselves, if they had a collective
tribal name, we do not know.

Nor

is it

certain

"The Land

why

their country

of the Gods."

was referred to by the Aztecs

seems likely that it was on


account of the numerous temples that existed there, and the unusuas

It

ally devotional character of the natives.

ancient religious structures and of the

ported them

still

bear witness to

this,

The remains of these


mounds which sup-

artificial

and two of

their villages yet

bear the names San Antonio de los Cues and San Juan de los Cues,
the term cues (a Haytian word) being applied by the Spaniards to
artificial

Salado

mounds.
the

The former

latter

in

is

situated in the valley of the

an adjacent

valley.

Rio

Unfortunately, no

them has been reported.*


also referred to by the early Spanish
Sahagun describes them as performing remarkable tricks
writers.
at certain festivals, such as swallowing live snakes and frogs.
Mendieta speaks of their rigid fasts and abstinence from marital
archaeological exploration of

Their religious character

is

relations for fifteen days after the nuptials.

The

historian Herrera

some of their rites


"In the Province of Teutitlan, where the Mazatec language

gives the following description of

is

Another Teotitlan " Teotitlan del Valle "is found in Oaxaca. It was so called
from the temple of a famous divinity, which was erected on the summit of a high rock
near by. This was the goal of numerous pilgrims, and, according to Seflor J. B. Carriedo, "fuSuno de los santuarios de mas estima y de mas nombre en la gentilidad."
*

Estudios Historicos del Estado Oazaquefio.


t HUtoria de Nueva Espafia.

Lib.

ii,

Tom.

Apendice.

i,

pp. 15, 16.

13
spoken, which adjoined that of the Mistecs, they were accustomed
to flay the sacrificial victims,

boring villages, asking alms.

and carried the skins to the neighOn the day of a certain important

festival, which took place annually, the priests ascended the temple
and struck a war drum. At this signal all the Indians who were in
the fields had to run to their houses and their town.
Then those
who had carried the skins of the victims sallied forth and ran about
the country till midday, and whenever they caught a person they
cut his hair so as to form a sort of crown around his head, and such
persons were destined to be sacrificed within one year."*
According to Aztec mythology which is very rarely to be

regarded as historical

the natives of Teutitlan were descended from

Xelhua, the oldest of the six sons of Iztac Mixcohuatl and his wife,
Ilancuey, the venerable pair

northern

Land of

who dwelt

in

and ruled the mysterious

the Seven Caves, called in Nahuatl Chicomoztoc.f

This Xelhua was a mighty man one of the "Giants," and was
surnamed the Builder, for he it was who constructed the famous
Pyramid of Cholula. He is also referred to as chief of the Olmeca,
an unknown, ancient people.
We need attach little importance to these old stories, and will
find

it

more

profitable to turn to the language of the Mazatecas to

discover their

affiliations.

In investigating

its

possible analogies with other idioms I have

been somewhat surprised


closes.

at the relationships which it certainly disThese are not with the Zapotec-Mixtec stock, as I have

my work, The American Race,\ but with


two quite remote and independent stocks.
The one of these is the Chapanec, which was spoken in the present
State of Chiapas, and also at the time of the conquest by many
thousand natives, who occupied the shores of Lake Managua and
Fonseca Bay, in Nicaragua, where they were known as Mangues
and Orotinans. The dialects of this stock are closely akin to each
(erroneously) stated in

other.

The second

list

of affinities point to a

unexpected relationship.

The Mangues had

still

more remote and


beyond

as neighbors

the Cordilleras, in Costa Rica, a group of related tribes


* Historia de las Indias Occidentalcs, Dec.

iii,

Lib.

f Mendieta, Historia Eclesias'.ica Indiana, Lib.

ii,

iii,

the

Tala-

cap. 15.

cap. 33.

X The American Race : A Linguistic Classification and Ethnographic Description of the


yative Tribes of North and South America, p. 142 (Sew York, 1891).

14
mancas, Borucas, Bribris, Vizeitas,
lectively,

by Dr.

" Costa Rican."

Max Uhle,

etc.,

whom

These have been

shall call, col-

satisfactorily

shown

Dr. A. Ernst and other students to be not dis-

tantly connected with the important Chibchastem of New Granada,


which, at the conquest, was widely extended over that Province,

and is the only linguistic stock of South America whose presence


North America has been proved.*

me by Mr.

After presenting the vocabulary furnished

Pinart

in

and

the texts offered by Pimentel I shall pursue the comparisons of the

stock of terms thus supplied.

English-Mazatecan Vocabulary.
Arm,

Finger, noon-tza (see " Hand").

chale.

Bad, minda.
Banana, naeha'.
Beans, nalima'
Beard, tza' a.
Black, twna.

Forehead,

Blue,

Gold, naleto.

Fire, nii.

Foot,

'.

ten.

Girl, tzadi.

God, naina'.

iso.

Boy, indidi(see "Son").


Bread, chu hi.
Breast (chest), animale.

Brown,

tzoco.

Good, dani.
Green,

tzare'.

Hail, tzinayo.

schene'.

Hair,

coslie'.

Cactus, nan' da.

Hand,

Cat,

Hat, tzingye.

a, chito.

tza.

Clothing, nihye.

Head, tku.
Heaven, garni.
Here, ihndi.

Clouds,

Hill, nindo.

Chief, chicunai.

Church,

inai.

ifi.

Cow, ngchaha'.

Iron, quicha.

Daughter, tzadi (see "Girl").


Day, gunichi.

Leaf, schcatiya

Dead,

Light, ase'.

Die,

eoviu.

to,

cuiyane.

Large,

tzea.

Lightning, Teuata.

Dog, nanya.

Lungs,

Door, cliutoa.
Ear, sehieal.

Maize, name'.

Man,

cMi.

Earth, nangi.

Meat,

yoje.

Egg, eho'.
Evening, gischo.
Eye, schca.
Eyebrows, tza ixpan

Money, to.
Moon, sa.

American Race, pp.

nyesi.

Morning, tanhya.
Mouth, tzoa.
Night, nhyu.

(?).

Father, tala.
* See The

(= ear-tree).

184-186.

15
Hose, nitu.
Onion, tatzo.

Sun,

Palm,

Teeth, niiyu.

Summit,

schahe'.

Paper, sehuhu'.
Plantain, nacha'.
Plaza,

the, garonindo.

sui.

There, hani.

Thigh, chamila.
Toe, noonlzoeo (see " Foot ").

titei.

Pretty, da.

Tree, iya.

Rain,

Tobacco, naJinu.
To-day, gandni.

Red,

tzi.

int.

River, dahoe.

Tomato, ehiti.
Town, naschananda.

Road, diya.
Sea, daeMeu.

Turkey buzzard,

Sheep, ehilzanga.
Sierra, gihya.
Silver, tonschua.

Small, tun.

Wind,

Snow, dandya.

Woman,

Son, indi (see "13oy ").


Star, ningutzea.

Year, guno.
Yellow, sine.

Stone, noyo.

Yesterday, gohia.

The
I,

personal pronouns are

We,

gda'.

elm.

galii.

You, gahini.
They, niahne

possessives I find the following

Mine, na.
Thine, li.

The numerals

to.

Thou, galiye'.
He, lie.

Of the

nihye.

Ugly, chiu.
Water, nanda.
White, cluihua.

His,

1
.

le'.

Our, nalian.
are given thus
go'.

hi.

ho'.

nyaha'.

ha'.

10

niliu'.

11

tengo.

u.

15

chu.

hu'.

20

cung.

yato'.

30

hate.

te.

There are two versions of the Lord's Prayer given in Pimentel's


Cuadro Descriptivo de las Lenguas de Mexico. They evidently
have been made by different persons, and represent different dialects of the tongue, and apparently neither is in that of Huantla,

16
where the vocabulary was obtained. Both, however, are clearly
Mazatec, and the differences disappear considerably on analysis.

They

are as follows

A.

"JVddmina naina ga

tecni

gahami ; sandumi Hi gatirrubanajin


gahami

nanguili ; cuaha caiama janimali, jacunit die nangui cunit


niiio

rrajinna tey quitaha najin

jacunitgajin

qntedchatahanajin gadchidtonajin
tedtunajin

nedchata alejin chidtaga

tuajin, tued tinajin

guquimittacun-

cuacha ca/ama."
B.

"Tata nahan, xi nacd nihaseno


rico

manimajin

nihasen:

chacua catoma niere

catichova

catcma cuazuare, donjara batob cornangui, baieco

niotisla najin ri ganeihinixtin, tiuto najin de hi :

ni canuhi

ri guitenajin donjara batoo, juirin ni canojin ri quiteisajin: quini-

quenahi najin ri danjin quisanda nongo niqueste


Referring to the

first

as

and the second

as

MeeV
B we may make

following comparisons with words in the Vocabulary:


B.

Our,

VOCAB.

the

17
Comparison

of

the Mazatec with the Chapanecan and


Chibchan Stocks.

18

19
Man,

chi

Woman,

elm

Rain,
Sea,

Foot,

The words

with
with
tzi
with
daehieu with
tfzoco
with

Tie-eld-ehe.

sue, gui.
siu.

dechegu-in.
tsuku.

for the colors white, black, blue, yellow

and red show

They have no

rather remote, but, perhaps, actual resemblances.

analogy whatever with the Chapanecan color terms.

The ethnographic conclusion

to which this comparison would


do not constitute an independent stock,
but a branch of the Chapanec group, which was at some early date

lead

of

is

its

that the Mazatecas

history largely infiltrated with blood of the Costa Rican

tribes of

South American descent.

This

may have

arisen from the

adoption of some large band, which had migrated across the mountains separating Costa

Rica from Nicaragua.

The Mangue branch

of the Chapanecs lived in Nicaragua, in immediate proximity to

and must have been


beyond them.

these mountains,
tribes

in frequent relations with the

But how explain the extensive journey from Nicaragua to the


Here an ancient tradition
?

northern limits of the State of Oaxaca

of the Mangues comes to our aid.

It was preserved by Father


Remesal in his History of Chiapas, and runs to the effect that at a
remote time a considerable number of the Mangues departed from
the shores of Lake Managua and journeyed to the north, into the
Remesal construed this to explain the
territory of the Zoques.
origin of the Chapanecs of Chiapas; but the traditions of the latter
do not acknowledge this derivation, and it is probable that the
Mangues referred to some other division of their community.
This may well have been that which conveyed a mixed dialect of
Mangue and Costa Rican as far as the northern borders of Oaxaca.
We have also early evidence that a band of the Mangues, numbering about four hundred souls, occupied a town in the midst of
the Costa Rican tribes, in the valley of Guaymi, fronting on the
Golfo Dolce. There they were found by the Spanish explorers in
1563.* Doubtless they absorbed more or less of the language of
their rulers, the Guaymis; and the following identities between the
Mazatecan and the Guaymi vocabularies (published by Mr. Pinart
in the Revue d' Ethnographie, 1887) seem conclusive.
* Peralta, Costa Rica, Nicaragua y

Panama en d Siglo XVI,

p. 777

(Madrid, 1883).

20

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