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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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?
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