Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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These Were Perhaps The Names Of Some Tribes, Into Which
The Great Guaraonese Nation Was Divided.
(Barrere Essai sur l'Hist.
Naturelle de la France Equinoctiale.)) They make bread of the
medullary flour of this palm-tree, which is the sago of America.
The flour bears the name of yuruma:
I have eaten it at the town of
St. Thomas, in Guiana, and it was very agreeable to the taste,
resembling rather the cassava-bread than the sago of India.* (* M.
Kunth has combined together three genera of the palms, Calamus,
Sigus, and Mauritia, in a new section, the Calameae.) The Indians
assured me that the trunks of the Mauritia, the tree of life so
much vaunted by father Gumilla, do not yield meal in any abundance,
unless the palm-tree is cut down just before the flowers appear.
Thus too the maguey,* (* Agave Americana, the aloe of our gardens.)
cultivated in New Spain, furnishes a saccharine liquor, the wine
(pulque) of the Mexicans, only at the period when the plant shoots
forth its long stem. By interrupting the blossoming, nature is
obliged to carry elsewhere the saccharine or amylaceous matter,
which would accumulate in the flowers of the maguey and in the
fruit of the Mauritia. Some families of Guaraons, associated with
the Chaymas, live far from their native land, in the Missions of
the plains or llanos of Cumana; for instance, at Santa Rosa de
Ocopi. Five or six hundred of them voluntarily quitted their
marshes, a few years ago, and formed, on the northern and southern
banks of the Orinoco, twenty-five leagues distant from Cape Barima,
two considerable villages, under the names of Zacupana and Imataca.
When I made my journey in Caripe, these Indians were still without
missionaries, and lived in complete independence. Their excellent
qualities as boatmen, their perfect knowledge of the mouths of the
Orinoco, and of the labyrinth of branches communicating with each
other, give the Guaraons a certain political importance. They
favour that clandestine commerce of which the island of Trinidad is
the centre. The Guaraons run with extreme address on muddy lands,
where the European, the Negro, or other Indians except themselves,
would not dare to walk; and it is, therefore, commonly believed,
that they are of lighter weight than the rest of the natives. This
is also the opinion that is held in Asia of the Burat Tartars. The
few Guaraons whom I saw were of middle size, squat, and very
muscular. The lightness with which they walk in places newly dried,
without sinking in, when even they have no planks tied to their
feet, seemed to me the effect of long habit. Though I sailed a
considerable time on the Orinoco, I never went so low as its mouth.
Future travellers, who may visit those marshy regions, will rectify
what I have advanced.
3. The Guaiqueries or Guaikeri, are the most able and most intrepid
fishermen of these countries. These people alone are well
acquainted with the bank abounding with fish, which surrounds the
islands of Coche, Margareta, Sola, and Testigos; a bank of more
than four hundred square leagues, extending east and west from
Maniquarez to the Boca del Draco. The Guaiqueries inhabit the
island of Margareta, the peninsula of Araya, and that suburb of
Cumana which bears their name. Their language is believed to be a
dialect of that of the Guaraons. This would connect them with the
great family of the Caribbee nations; and the missionary Gili is of
opinion that the language of the Guaiqueries is one of the numerous
branches of the Caribbean tongue.* (* If the name of the port
Pam-patar, in the island of Margareta, be Guaiquerean, as we have
no reason to doubt, it exhibits a feature of analogy with the
Cumanagoto tongue, which approaches the Caribbean and Tamanac. In
Terra Firma, in the Piritu Missions, we find the village of
Cayguapatar, which signifies house of Caygua.) These affinities are
interesting, because they lead us to perceive an ancient connection
between nations dispersed over a vast extent of country, from the
mouth of the Rio Caura and the sources of the Erevato, in Parima,
to French Guiana, and the coasts of Paria.* (* Are the Guaiqueries,
or O-aikeries, now settled on the borders of the Erevato, and
formerly between the Rio Caura and the Cuchivero near the little
town of Alta Gracia, of a different origin from the Guaikeries of
Cumana? I know also, in the interior of the country, in the
Missions of the Piritus, near the village of San Juan Evangelista
del Guarive, a ravine very anciently called Guayquiricuar. These
resemblances seem to prove migrations from the south-west towards
the coast. The termination cuar, found so often in Cumanagoto and
Caribbean names, means a ravine, as in Guaymacuar (ravine of
lizards), Pirichucuar (a ravine overshaded by pirichu or piritu
palm-trees), Chiguatacuar (a ravine of land-shells). Raleigh
describes the Guaiqueries under the name of Ouikeries. He calls the
Chaymas, Saimas, changing (according to the Caribbean
pronunciation) the ch into s.)
4. The Quaquas, whom the Tamanacs call Mapoje, are a tribe formerly
very warlike and allied to the Caribbees. It is a curious
phenomenon to find the Quaquas mingled with the Chaymas in the
Missions of Cumana, for their language, as well as the Atura, of
the cataracts of the Orinoco, is a dialect of the Salive tongue;
and their original abode was on the banks of the Assiveru, which
the Spaniards call Cuchivero. They have extended their migrations
one hundred leagues to the north-east. I have often heard them
mentioned on the Orinoco, above the mouth of the Meta; and, what is
very remarkable, it is asserted* that missionary Jesuits have found
Quaquas as far distant as the Cordilleras of Popayan. (* Vater tome
3 part 2 page 364. The name of Quaqua is found on the coast of
Guinea. The Europeans apply it to a horde of Negroes to the east of
Cape Lahou.) Raleigh enumerates, among the natives of the island of
Trinidad, the Salives, a people remarkable for their mild manners;
they came from the Orinoco, and settled south of the Quaquas.
Perhaps these two nations, which speak almost the same language,
travelled together towards the coasts.
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