Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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Still It
Is By No Means Probable That The Caribs Of The Islands And Of Parima
Took To Themselves The Name Of The Region Which They Had Originally
Inhabited.
On the east of the Andes and wherever civilization has not
yet penetrated, it is the people who have given names to the places
where they have settled.* (* These names of places can be perpetuated
only where the nations succeed immediately to each other, and where
the tradition is interrupted.
Thus in the province of Quito many of
the summits of the Andes bear names which belong neither to the
Quichua (the language of Inca) nor to the ancient language of the
Paruays, governed by the Conchocando of Lican.) The words Caribs and
Cannibals appear significant; they are epithets referring to valour,
strength and even superior intelligence.* (* Vespucci says: Charaibi
magnae sapientiae viri.) It is worthy of remark that, at the arrival
of the Portuguese, the Brazilians gave to their magicians the name of
caraibes. We know that the Caribs of Parima were the most wandering
people of America; possibly some wily individuals of that nation
played the same part as the Chaldeans of the ancient continent. The
names of nations readily become affixed to particular professions; and
when, in the time of the Caesars, the superstitions of the East were
introduced into Italy, the Chaldeans no more came from the banks of
the Euphrates than our Gypsies (Egyptians or Bohemians) came from the
banks of the Nile or the Elbe.
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