This Analogy Has Given Rise To Hypotheses Which Appear To Me At Least Very Problematical.

The god of the Moabites, Chemosh, or Camosch, who has so wearied the patience of the learned; Apollo Chomens, cited by Strabo and by Ammianus Marcellinus; Belphegor; Amun or Hamon; and Adonis:

All, without doubt, represent the sun in the winter solstice; but what can we conclude from a solitary and fortuitous resemblance of sounds in languages that have nothing besides in common?

The Maypure tongue is still spoken at Atures, although the mission is inhabited only by Guahibos and Macos. At Maypures the Guareken and Pareni tongues only are now spoken. From the Rio Anaveni, which falls into the Orinoco north of Atures, as far as beyond Jao, and to the mouth of the Guaviare (between the fourth and sixth degrees of latitude), we everywhere find rivers, the termination of which, veni,* (* Anaveni, Mataveni, Maraveni, etc.) recalls to mind the extent to which the Maypure tongue heretofore prevailed. Veni, or weni, signifies water, or a river. The words camosi and keri, which we have just cited, are of the idiom of the Pareni Indians,* (* Or Parenas, who must not be confounded either with the Paravenes of the Rio Caura (Caulin page 69), or with the Parecas, whose language belongs to the great family of the Tamanac tongues. A young Indian of Maypures, who called himself a Paragini, answered my questions almost in the same words that M. Bonpland heard from a Pareni. I have indicated the differences in the table, see below.) who, I think I have heard from the natives, lived originally on the banks of the Mataveni.* (* South of the Rio Zama. We slept in the open air near the mouth of the Mataveni on the 28th day of May, in our return from the Rio Negro.) The Abbe Gili considers the Pareni as a simple dialect of the Maypure. This question cannot be solved by a comparison of the roots merely. Being totally ignorant of the grammatical structure of the Pareni, I can raise but feeble doubts against the opinion of the Italian missionary. The Pareni is perhaps a mixture of two tongues that belong to different families; like the Maquiritari, which is composed of the Maypure and the Caribbee; or, to cite an example better known, the modern Persian, which is allied at the same time to the Sanscrit and to the Semitic tongues. The following are Pareni words, which I carefully compared with Maypure words.*

TABLE OF PARENI AND MAYPURE WORDS COMPARED.

COLUMN 1 : WORD.

COLUMN 2 : PARENI WORD.

COLUMN 3 : MAYPURE WORD. (* The words of the Maypure language have been taken from the works of Gili and Hervas. I collected the words placed between parentheses from a young Maco Indian, who understood the Maypure language.)

The sun : Camosi : Kie (Kiepurig). The moon : Keri : Kejapi (Cagijapi). A star : Ouipo : Urrupu. The devil : Amethami : Vasuri. Water : Oneui (ut) : Oueni. Fire : Casi : Catti. Lightning : Eno : Eno-ima.* (* I am ignorant of what ima signifies in this compound word. Eno means in Maypure the sky and thunder. Ina signifies mother.) The head : Ossipo : Nuchibucu.* (* The syllables no and nu, joined to the words that designate parts of the body, might have been suppressed; they answer to the possessive pronoun my.) The hair : Nomao. The eyes : Nopurizi : Nupuriki. The nose : Nosivi : Nukirri. The mouth : Nonoma : Nunumacu. The teeth : Nasi : Nati. The tongue : Notate : Nuare. The ear : Notasine : Nuakini. The cheek : Nocaco. The neck : Nono : Noinu. The arm : Nocano : Nuana. The hand : Nucavi : Nucapi. The breast : Notoroni. The back : Notoli. The thigh : Nocazo. The nipples : Nocini. The foot : Nocizi : Nukii. The toes : Nociziriani. The calf of the leg : Nocavua. A crocodile : Cazuiti : Amana. A fish : Cimasi : Timaki. Maize : Cana : Jomuki. Plantain : Paratana (Teot)* : Arata. (* We may be surprised to find the word teot denote the eminently nutritive substance that supplies the place of corn (the gift of a beneficent divinity), and on which the subsistence of man within the tropics depends. I may here mention, that the word Teo, or Teot, which in Aztec signifies God (Teotl, properly Teo, for tl is only a termination), is found in the language of the Betoi of the Rio Meta. The name of the moon, in this language so remarkable for the complication of its grammatical structure, is Teo-ro. The name of the sun is Teo-umasoi. The particle ro designates a woman, umasoi a man. Among the Betoi, the Maypures, and so many other nations of both continents, the moon is believed to be the wife of the sun. But what is this root Teo? It appears to me very doubtful, that Teo-ro should signify God-woman, for Memelu is the name of the All-powerful Being in the Betoi langnage.) Cacao : Cacavua* (* Has this word been introduced from a communication with Europeans? It is almost identical with the Mexican (Aztec) word cacava.). Tobacco : Jema : Jema. Pimento : (Pumake). Mimosa inga : (Caraba). Cecropia peltata : (Jocovi). Agaric : (Cajuli). Agaric : Puziana (Pagiana) : Papeta (Popetas). Agaric : Sinapa (Achinafe) : Avanume (Avanome). Agaric : Meteuba (Meuteufafa) : Apekiva (Pejiiveji). Agaric : Puriana vacavi : (Jaliva). Agaric : Puriana vacavi uschanite. Agaric : Puriassima vacavi : (Javiji).

This comparison seems to prove that the analogies observed in the roots of the Pareni and the Maypure tongues are not to be neglected; they are, however, scarcely more frequent than those that have been observed between the Maypure of the Upper Orinoco and the language of the Moxos, which is spoken on the banks of the Marmora, from 15 to 20 degrees of south latitude. The Parenis have in their pronunciation the English th, or tsa of the Arabians, as I clearly heard in the word Amethami (devil, evil spirit). I need not again notice the origin of the word camosi. Solitary resemblances of sounds are as little proof of communication between nations as the dissimilitude of a few roots furnishes evidence against the affiliation of the German from the Persian and the Greek. It is remarkable, however, that the names of the sun and moon are sometimes found to be identical in languages, the grammatical construction of which is entirely different; I may cite as examples the Guarany and the Omagua,* languages of nations formerly very powerful.

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