_Accawai_.
_Arecuna_.
_Caribisi_.
_Guianau_.
_Macusi_.
_Maiongkong_.
_Mawakwa_.
_Pianochotto_.
_Soerigong_.
_Tiverighotto_.
_Waiyamara_.
_Woyawoi_.
The Guaques, who live on the head-waters of the Caqueta or Yapura river,
have not been heretofore identified as Caribs; but their dialect, as
collected by Presbyter Manuel P. Albis in 1853, leaves no doubt as to
its relationship. He describes them as intelligent and kindly, but
incorrigible and dexterous thieves, skillful in the collection of wax and
the preparation of poisons. Nowhere is the couvade with its associate
superstitions more rigidly observed. No woman must be seen by men during
her catamenia, and at childbirth she must separate from the household for
three months. During all that time her husband strictly observes a diet
and seclusion.[384]
The lower Orinoco basin was for a long time the center of distribution of
the stock; they probably had driven from it nations of Arawak lineage,
some of whom, as the Goajiros, they pushed to the west, where they were
in contact with the Carib Motilones,[385] and others to the islands and
the shores to the east. The Carijonas and Guaques on the head-waters
of the Yapura or Caqueta are now their most western hordes, and the
Pimenteiras on the Rio Paruahyba are their most eastern. We can thus
trace their scattered bands over thirty-five degrees of latitude and
thirty of longitude. The earliest center of distribution which best
satisfies all the conditions of the problem would be located in the
Bolivian highlands, not remote from that I have assigned to the Arawaks.
The physical features of the Caribs assimilate closely to those of the
Arawaks. They are taller in the average and more vigorous, but their
skulls are equally brachycephalic and orthognathic. They are beardless,
and have the same variability in color of skin. As good specimens of the
modern Caribs we may take the tribes of Venezuela. These are spoken of as
“the strongest, handsomest and most intelligent of any of the natives in
northern South America.”[386] They are tall, straight and symmetrical,
the women not less muscular than the men. The hair is sometimes slightly
wavy, as Von den Steinen saw among the Bakairi.
The Caribs have had a bad reputation as to culture on account of
their anthropophagous tendencies. Indeed, the word _cannibal_ is a
mispronunciation of their proper name, _Karina_. But they were quite on
a par with their neighbors, the Arawaks, and in some respects superior
to them. For instance, their canoes were larger and finer, and they had
invented the device of the sail, which seems to have been unknown to all
the other tribes on the continent. To some extent they were agricultural,
and their pottery was of superior quality.
The beginnings of picture-writing were in use among them, and the
remarkable rock inscriptions still visible on the Orinoco and the
Essequibo are attributable to them, and were probably intended as
conjurations to the supernatural powers, similar to others which
remain in St. Vincent and other islands from the date of the Carib
occupation.[387] Their family life was not usually communal, but each
household occupied its own dwelling. In some parts, as in the deltas of
the Essequibo and Orinoco, and even on the dry savannas, their huts were
built on a substructure of piles which lifted them five or six feet from
the ground or the water, as the case might be.
The religious rites they observed were often elaborate. Their principal
divinities are said to have been the sun, moon and earth, the latter
of which was spoken of as the mother of the race. They practiced the
_couvade_, and their priests, called _piaye_, exercised unlimited power,
and were correspondingly feared.
It was the opinion of Von Martius that the Carib, the Tupi-Guarani and
the Arawak stocks are traceable to some very ancient common tongue. This
view is at first sight strengthened by a wide comparison of vocabularies,
but is weakened by an examination of the grammars of the three families,
especially their pronominal elements. It is probable that the three
ancestral tribes had early and close communication, but not original
identity.
The seeming relationship has been rendered more prominent in certain
instances by free later borrowings. M. Adam has shown that some of the
northern dialects are in the condition of jargons, their grammar on the
Carib model, their words drawn from various stocks. Such are the “Island
Carib,” which is largely Arawak, and the Boni-Ouyana, described by Dr.
Crévaux.[388]