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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The Territory Subsequently Distinguished By That Appellation
Was At First Known As The Country Of El Rey Dorado, The Gilded
King.)
Such were the motives which prompted exaggeration on the part of those
writers who have given most reputation to
The Amazons of America; but
these motives do not, I think, suffice for entirely rejecting a
tradition, which is spread among various nations having no
communications one with another.
Thirty years after La Condamine visited Quito, a Portuguese
astronomer, Ribeiro, who has traversed the Amazon, and the tributary
streams which run into that river on the northern side, has confirmed
on the spot all that the learned Frenchman had advanced. He found the
same traditions among the Indians; and he collected them with the
greater impartiality as he did not himself believe that the Amazons
formed a separate horde. Not knowing any of the tongues spoken on the
Orinoco and the Rio Negro, I could learn nothing certain respecting
the popular traditions of the women without husbands, or the origin of
the green stones, which are believed to be intimately connected with
them. I shall, however, quote a modern testimony of some weight, that
of Father Gili. "Upon inquiring," says this well-informed missionary,
"of a Quaqua Indian, what nations inhabited the Rio Cuchivero, he named
to me the Achirigotos, the Pajuros, and the Aikeambenanos.* (* In
Italian, Acchirecolti, Pajuri, and Aicheam-benano.) Being well
acquainted," pursues he, "with the Tamanac tongue, I instantly
comprehended the sense of this last word, which is a compound, and
signifies women living alone.
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