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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Unacquainted With The Interior Of The Spanish Colonies Of The
Continent Supposed That The Small Islands Of Dominica, Guadaloupe,
And
St. Vincent had been the principal abodes of that nation of which the
only vestiges now remaining throughout the
Whole of the eastern West
India Islands are skeletons petrified, or rather enveloped in a
limestone containing madrepores.* (* These skeletons were discovered
in 1805 by M. Cortez. They are encased in a formation of madrepore
breccia, which the negroes call God's masonry, and which, like the
travertin of Italy, envelops fragments of vases and other objects
created by human skill. M. Dauxion Lavaysse and Dr. Koenig first made
known in Europe this phenomenon which has greatly interested
geologists.)
The name of Caribs, which I find for the first time in a letter of
Peter Martyr d'Anghiera is derived from Calina and Caripuna, the l and
p being transferred into r and b. It is very remarkable that this
name, which Columbus heard pronounced by the people of Hayti, was
known to exist at the same time among the Caribs of the islands and
those of the continent. From the word Carina, or Calina, has been
formed Galibi (Caribi). This is the distinctive denomination of a
tribe in French Guiana,* who are of much more diminutive stature than
the inhabitants of Cari, but speaking one of the numerous dialects of
the Carib tongue. (* The Galibis (Calibitis), the Palicours, and the
Acoquouas, also cut their hair in the style of the monks; and apply
bandages to the legs of their children for the purpose of swelling the
muscles. They have the same predilection for green stones (saussurite)
which we observed among the Carib nations of the Orinoco. There exist,
besides, in French Guiana, twenty Indian tribes which are
distinguished from the Galibis though their language proves that they
have a common origin.) The inhabitants of the islands are called
Calinago in the language of the men; and in that of the women,
Callipinan. The difference in the language of the two sexes is more
striking among the people of the Carib race than among other American
nations (the Omaguas, the Guaranis, and the Chiquitos) where it
applies only to a limited number of ideas; for instance, the words
mother and child. It may be conceived that women, from their separate
way of life, frame particular terms which men do not adopt. Cicero
observes* that old forms of language are best preserved by women
because by their position in society they are less exposed to those
vicissitudes of life, changes of place and occupation which tend to
corrupt the primitive purity of language among men. (* Cicero, de
Orat. lib. 3 cap. 12 paragraph 45 ed. Verburg. Facilius enim mulieres
incorruptam antiquitatem conservant, quod multorum sermonis expertes
ea tenent semper, quae prima didicerunt.) But in the Carib nations the
contrast between the dialect of the two sexes is so great that to
explain it satisfactorily we must refer to another cause; and this may
perhaps be found in the barbarous custom, practised by those nations,
of killing their male prisoners, and carrying the wives of the
vanquished into captivity.
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