Volume Ii Part 13 (1/2)

Advancing towards the west, we find the hills or islets in the deserted branch of the Orinoco crowned with the same palm-trees that rise on the rocks of the cataracts. One of these hills, called Keri, is celebrated in the country on account of a white spot which s.h.i.+nes from afar, and in which the natives profess to see the image of the full moon. I could not climb this steep rock, but I believe the white spot to be a large nodule of quartz, formed by the union of several of those veins so common in granites pa.s.sing into gneiss. Opposite Keri, or the Rock of the Moon, on the twin mountain Ouivitari, which is an islet in the midst of the cataracts, the Indians point out with mysterious awe a similar white spot. It has the form of a disc; and they say this is the image of the sun (Camosi). Perhaps the geographical situation of these two objects has contributed to their having received these names. Keri is on the side of the setting, Camosi on that of the rising sun. Languages being the most ancient historical monuments of nations, some learned men have been singularly struck by the a.n.a.logy between the American word camosi and camosch, which seems to have signified originally, the sun, in one of the Semitic dialects. This a.n.a.logy has given rise to hypotheses which appear to me at least very problematical. The G.o.d of the Moabites, Chemosh, or Camosch, who has so wearied the patience of the learned; Apollo Chomens, cited by Strabo and by Ammia.n.u.s 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 lat.i.tude), 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 : Kej.a.pi (Cagij.a.pi).

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 p.r.o.noun 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 G.o.d (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.