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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D'Anville, In The First Edition Of His Great Map Of South America,
Laid Down The Rio Negro As An Arm Of The Orinoco, That Branched Off
From The Principal Body Of The River Between The Mouths Of The Meta
And The Vichada, Near The Cataract Of Atures.
That great geographer
was entirely ignorant of the existence of the Cassiquiare and the
Atabapo; and he makes the Orinoco or Rio Paragua, the Japura, and the
Putumayo, take their rise from three branchings of the Caqueta.
The
expedition of the boundaries, commanded by Iturriaga and Solano,
corrected these errors. Solano, who was the geographical engineer of
this expedition, advanced in 1756 as far as the mouth of the Guaviare,
after having passed the Great Cataracts. He found that, to continue to
go up the Orinoco, he must direct his course towards the east; and
that the river received, at the point of its great inflection, in
latitude 4 degrees 4 minutes, the waters of the Guaviare, which two
miles higher had received those of the Atabapo. Interested in
approaching the Portuguese possessions as near as possible, Solano
resolved to proceed onward to the south. At the confluence of the
Atabapo and the Guaviare he found an Indian settlement of the warlike
nation of the Guaypunaves. He gained their favour by presents, and
with their aid founded the mission of San Fernando, to which he gave
the appellation of villa, or town.
To make known the political importance of this Mission, we must
recollect what was at that period the balance of power between the
petty Indian tribes of Guiana. The banks of the Lower Orinoco had been
long ensanguined by the obstinate struggle between two powerful
nations, the Cabres and the Caribs. The latter, whose principal abode
since the close of the seventeenth century has been between the
sources of the Carony, the Essequibo, the Orinoco, and the Rio Parima,
once not only held sway as far as the Great Cataracts, but made
incursions also into the Upper Orinoco, employing portages between the
Paruspa* (* The Rio Paruspa falls into the Rio Paragua, and the latter
into the Rio Carony, which is one of the tributary streams of the
Lower Orinoco. There is also an ancient portage of the Caribs between
the Paruspa and the Rio Chavaro, which flows into the Rio Caura above
the mouth of the Erevato. In going up the Erevato you reach the
savannahs that are traversed by the Rio Manipiare above the tributary
streams of the Ventuari. The Caribs in their distant excursions
sometimes passed from the Rio Caura to the Ventuari, thence to the
Padamo, and then by the Upper Orinoco to the Atacavi, which, westward
of Manuteso, takes the name of the Atabapo.) and the Caura, the
Erevato and the Ventuari, the Conorichite and the Atacavi. None knew
better than the Caribs the intertwinings of the rivers, the proximity
of the tributary streams, and the roads by which distances might be
diminished. The Caribs had vanquished and almost exterminated the
Cabres. Having made themselves masters of the Lower Orinoco, they met
with resistance from the Guaypunaves, who had founded their dominion
on the Upper Orinoco; and who, together with the Cabres, the
Manitivitanos, and the Parenis, are the greatest cannibals of these
countries. They originally inhabited the banks of the great river
Inirida, at its confluence with the Chamochiquini, and the hilly
country of Mabicore. About the year 1744, their chief, or as the
natives call him, their king (apoto), was named Macapu. He was a man
no less distinguished by his intelligence than his valour; had led a
part of the nation to the banks of the Atabapo; and when the Jesuit
Roman made his memorable expedition from the Orinoco to the Rio Negro,
Macapu suffered that missionary to take with him some families of the
Guaypunaves to settle them at Uruana, and near the cataract of
Maypures. This people are connected by their language with the great
branch of the Maypure nations. They are more industrious, we might
also say more civilized, than the other nations of the Upper Orinoco.
The missionaries relate, that the Guaypunaves, at the time of their
sway in those countries, were generally clothed, and had considerable
villages. After the death of Macapu, the command devolved on another
warrior, Cuseru, called by the Spaniards El capitan Cusero. He
established lines of defence on the banks of the Inirida, with a kind
of little fort, constructed of earth and timber. The piles were more
than sixteen feet high, and surrounded both the house of the apoto and
a magazine of bows and arrows. These structures, remarkable in a
country in other respects so wild, have been described by Father
Forneri.
The Marepizanas and the Manitivitanos were the preponderant nations on
the banks of the Rio Negro. The former had for its chiefs, about the
year 1750, two warriors called Imu and Cajamu. The king of the
Manitivitanos was Cocuy, famous for his cruelty. The chiefs of the
Guaypunaves and the Manitivitanos fought with small bodies of two or
three hundred men; but in their protracted struggles they destroyed
the missions, in some of which the poor monks had only fifteen or
twenty Spanish soldiers at their disposal. When the expedition of
Iturriaga and Solano arrived at the Orinoco, the missions had no
longer to fear the incursions of the Caribs. Cuseru, the chief of the
Guaypunaves, had fixed his dwelling behind the granitic mountains of
Sipapo. He was the friend of the Jesuits; but other nations of the
Upper Orinoco and the Rio Negro, led by Imu, Cajamu, and Cocuy,
penetrated from time to time to the north of the Great Cataracts. They
had other motives for fighting than that of hatred; they hunted men,
as was formerly the custom of the Caribs, and is still the practice in
Africa. Sometimes they furnished slaves (poitos) to the Dutch (in
their language, Paranaquiri - inhabitants of the sea); sometimes they
sold them to the Portuguese (Iaranavi - sons of musicians).* (* The
savage tribes designate every commercial nation of Europe by surnames,
the origin of which appears altogether accidental.
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