_Aricaguas._
_Aviamos._
_Bailadores._
_Canaguaes._
_Chamas._
_Escagueyes._
_Guaraques._
_Guaquis._
_Iguiños._
_Insumubies._
_Jajies._
_Miguries._
_Mirripuyas._
_Mocochies._
_Mocotos._
_Mocombos._
_Mombunes._
_Mucuchaies._
_Mucunchies._
_Mucurabaes._
_Mucutuyes._
_Quindoraes._
_Quinos._
_Quiroraes._
_Tabayones._
_Taparros._
_Tatuyes._
_Tiguinos._
_Tricaguas._
Few of these names are found in the older writers. In the Taparros we
recognize the “Zaparas,” who, in the last century, lived in contiguity
to the Goajiros of the adjacent peninsula.[239] The Mucuchis gave their
name to an early settlement of that name in the province of Mérida.[240]
The prefix _muco_ or _moco_, which is very common in place-names of that
region, is believed by Lares to have a locative significance. Such names
give approximately the extent of the dialects at the settlement of the
country.
In the highlands near the present city of Caracas, and in the fertile
valleys which surround the beautiful inland lake of Valencia to the
southeast, were at the discovery a number of tribes whose names, Arbacos,
Mariches, Merigotos, etc., give us no information as to their affinities.
They are now extinct, and nothing of their languages has been preserved.
All the more store do we set by the archæology of the district, about
which valuable information has been contributed by Dr. G. Marcano.[241]
He opened a number of burial mounds where the bones of the dead, after
having been denuded of flesh, were interred, together with ornaments and
utensils. These were in stone, bone and terra cotta, the only metal
being gold in small quantity. The character of the work showed the
existence of a culture belonging to the highest stage of polished stone.
Many of the skulls were artificially deformed to a high degree, the
frontal obliquity in some cases being double the normal. Add to this that
there was present an almost unexampled prognathism, and we have crania
quite without similars in other parts of the continent. When not deformed
they were brachycephalic, and both series gave a respectable capacity,
1470 c. c.
_2. The Chibchas._
Most of the writers on the Chibchas have spoken of them as a nation
standing almost civilized in the midst of barbarous hordes, and without
affinities to any other. Both of these statements are erroneous. The
Chibchas proper, or Muyscas, are but one member of a numerous family of
tribes which extended in both directions from the Isthmus of Panama, and
thus had representatives in North as well as South America. The Chibcha
language was much more widely disseminated throughout New Granada at
the time of the discovery than later writers have appreciated. It was
the general tongue of nearly all the provinces, and occupied the same
position with reference to the other idioms that the Kechua did in
Peru.[242] Indeed, most of the tribes in New Granada were recognized as
members of this stock.[243] Nor were they so much above their neighbors
in culture. Many of these also were tillers of the soil, weavers and
spinners of cotton, diggers of gold in the quartz lodes, skilled in
moulding and hammering it into artistic shapes, and known widely as
energetic merchants.
No doubt the Chibchas had carried this culture to the highest point of
all the family. Their home was on the southern confines of the stock,
in the valleys of Bogota and Tunja, where their land extended from the
fourth to the sixth degree of north latitude, about the head-waters of
the Sogamoso branch of the Magdalena. Near the mouth of this river on its
eastern shore, rises the Sierra of Santa Marta, overlooking the open sea,
and continuing to the neck of the peninsula of Goajira. These mountains
were the home time out of mind of the Aroacos, a tribe in a condition of
barbarism, but not distantly related in language to the Chibchas.
When the Spaniards first undertook the conquest of this Sierra, they met
with stubborn resistance from the Tayronas and Chimilas, who lived among
these hills. They were energetic tribes, cultivating fields of maize,
yucca, beans and cotton, which latter they wove and dyed for clothing.
Not only were they versed in stratagems, but they knew some deadly
poison for their arrows.[244]
In later generations the Tayronas disappear entirely from history, but
I think the suggestion is well founded that they merely became merged
with the Chimilas, with whom they were always associated, and who
still survive in the same locality as a civilized tribe. We have some
information about their language.[245] It shows sufficient affinity with
the Chibcha to justify me in classing the Tayronas and Chimilas in that
group.
An imperfect vocabulary of the native residents of Siquisique in the
state of Lara, formerly the province of Barquisimetro, inclines me to
unite them with the Aroac branch of this stock, though their dialect is
evidently a mixed one.[246]
A still more interesting extension of this stock was that which it
appears to have had at one time in the northern continent. A number
of tribes beyond the straits, in the states of Panama and Costa Rica,
were either filially connected or deeply influenced by the outposts of
the Chibcha nation. These were the Guaymis in Veraguas, who possessed
the soil from ocean to ocean, and the Talamancas of Costa Rica, who in
a number of small sub-tribes extended quite to the boundaries of the
present state of Nicaragua. It has been recently shown, and I think
on satisfactory evidence, that their idioms contain a large number of
Chibcha words, and of such a class that they could scarcely have been
merely borrowed, but point to a prolonged admixture of stocks.[247] Along
with these terms are others pointing to a different family of languages,
perhaps, as has long been suspected, to some of the Carib dialects; but
up to the present time they must be said not to have been identified.
Thus Lucien Adam has pointed out that the two groups of the Guaymi
dialects differ as widely, as follows:
MUOI-MUR- VALIENTE-
IRE-SAVANERO. GUAYMI-NORTENO.
Sun, _cui_, _nono_, _noana_.
Moon, _dai_, _so_, _go_.
Water, _ci_, _ca_, _ño_, _ñu_.
Man, _cuia_, _ni-togua_.
Woman, _moima_, _ni-uire_.
Eye, _guagava_, _ogua_.
Nose, _se_, _chegua_, _ni-doñ_, _domo_.
Foot, _sera_, _n-goto_.
Dr. Max Uhle, in a late essay, has collected numerous verbal identities
between the various Guaymi and Talamanca dialects on the one hand, and
the Aroac and Chibcha on the other, including most of the simple numerals
and many words besides those which would be likely to be introduced by
commerce. Not stopping with this, he has successfully developed a variety
of laws of vowel and consonant changes in the dialects, which bring the
resemblance of the two groups into strong relief and do away with much of
their seeming diversity. Moreover, he points out that the terminations of
the present and imperative are identical, and the placement of words in
the sentence alike in both. These and his other arguments are sufficient,
I think, to establish his thesis; and I am at greater pains to set it
forth, as I regard it as one of unusual importance in its bearing on the
relations which existed in pre-historic times between tribes along the
boundary of the two continents.
As to the course of migration, I do not think that the discussion of the
dialectic changes leaves any room for doubt. They all indicate attrition
and loss of the original form as we trace them from South into North
America; evidently the wandering hordes moved into the latter from the
southern continent. So far, there is no evidence that any North American
tribe migrated into South America.
To illustrate these points I quote from Uhle’s tables the following:
_Comparison of the Chibcha with the Costa Rican Dialects._
(T. = Talamanca. G. = Guaymi.)