Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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About Eleven On The Morning Of The 17th Of April We Reached Our Boat.
Father Zea Caused To Be Embarked,
With our instruments, the small
store of provisions he had been able to procure for the voyage, on
which he
Was to accompany us; these provisions consisted of a few
bunches of plantains, some cassava, and fowls. Leaving the
embarcadero, we immediately passed the mouth of the Cataniapo, a small
river, the banks of which are inhabited by the Macos, or Piaroas, who
belong to the great family of the Salive nations.
Besides the Piaroas of Cataniapo, who pierce their ears, and wear as
ear-ornaments the teeth of caymans and peccaries, three other tribes
of Macos are known: one, on the Ventuari, above the Rio Mariata; the
second, on the Padamo, north of the mountains of Maraguaca; and the
third, near the Guaharibos, towards the sources of the Orinoco, above
the Rio Gehette. This last tribe bears the name of Macos-Macos. I
collected the following words from a young Maco of the banks of the
Cataniapo, whom we met near the embarcadero, and who wore in his ears,
instead of a tusk of the peccary, a large wooden cylinder.* (* This
custom is observed among the Cabres, the Maypures, and the Pevas of
the Amazon. These last, described by La Condamine, stretch their ears
by weights of a considerable size.)
Plantain, Paruru (in Tamanac also, paruru).
Cassava, Elente (in Maco, cahig).
Maize, Niarne.
The sun, Jama (in Salive, mume-seke-cocco).
The moon, Jama (in Salive, vexio).
Water, Ahia (in Salive, cagua).
One, Nianti.
Two, Tajus.
Three, Percotahuja.
Four, Imontegroa.
The young man could not reckon as far as five, which certainly is no
proof that the word five does not exist in the Maco tongue. I know not
whether this tongue be a dialect of the Salive, as is pretty generally
asserted; for idioms derived from one another, sometimes furnish words
utterly different for the most common and most important things.* (*
The great family of the Esthonian (or Tschoudi) languages, and of the
Samoiede languages, affords numerous examples of these differences.)
But in discussions on mother-tongues and derivative languages, it is
not the sounds, the roots only, that are decisive; but rather the
interior structure and grammatical forms. In the American idioms,
which are notwithstanding rich, the moon is commonly enough called the
sun of night or even the sun of sleep; but the moon and sun very
rarely bear the same name, as among the Macos. I know only a few
examples in the most northerly part of America, among the Woccons, the
Ojibbeways, the Muskogulges, and the Mohawks.* (* Nipia-kisathwa in
the Shawanese (the idiom of Canada), from nippi, to sleep, and
kisathwa, the sun.) Our missionary asserted that jama, in Maco,
indicated at the same time the Supreme Being, and the great orbs of
night and day; while many other American tongues, for instance the
Tamanac, and the Caribbee, have distinct words to denote God, the
Moon, and the Sun. We shall soon see how anxious the missionaries of
the Orinoco are not to employ, in their translations of the prayers of
the church, the native words which denote the Divinity, the Creator
(Amanene), the Great Spirit who animates all nature. They choose
rather to Indianize the Spanish word Dios, converting it, according to
the differences of pronunciation, and the genius of the different
dialects, into Dioso, Tiosu, or Piosu.
When we again embarked on the Orinoco, we found the river free from
shoals. After a few hours we passed the Raudal of Garcita, the rapids
of which are easy of ascent, when the waters are high. To the eastward
is seen a small chain of mountains called the chain of Cumadaminari,
consisting of gneiss, and not of stratified granite. We were struck
with a succession of great holes at more than one hundred and eighty
feet above the present level of the Orinoco, yet which,
notwithstanding, appear to be the effects of the erosion of the
waters. We shall see hereafter, that this phenomenon occurs again
nearly at the same height, both in the rocks that border the cataracts
of Maypures, and fifty leagues to the east, near the mouth of the Rio
Jao. We slept in the open air, on the left bank of the river, below
the island of Tomo. The night was beautiful and serene, but the
torment of the mosquitos was so great near the ground, that I could
not succeed in levelling the artificial horizon; consequently I lost
the opportunity of making an observation.
On the 18th we set out at three in the morning, to be more sure of
arriving before the close of the day at the cataract known by the name
of the Raudal de los Guahibos. We stopped at the mouth of the Rio
Tomo. The Indians went on shore, to prepare their food, and take some
repose. When we reached the foot of the raudal, it was near five in
the afternoon. It was extremely difficult to go up the current against
a mass of water, precipitated from a bank of gneiss several feet high.
An Indian threw himself into the water, to reach, by swimming, the
rock that divides the cataract into two parts. A rope was fastened to
the point of this rock, and when the canoe was hauled near enough, our
instruments, our dry plants, and the provision we had collected at
Atures, were landed in the raudal itself. We remarked with surprise,
that the natural damn over which the river is precipitated, presents a
dry space of considerable extent; where we stopped to see the boat go
up.
The rock of gneiss exhibits circular holes, the largest of which are
four feet deep, and eighteen inches wide. These funnels contain quartz
pebbles, and appear to have been formed by the friction of masses
rolled along by the impulse of the waters. Our situation, in the midst
of the cataract, was singular enough, but unattended by the smallest
danger.
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