_Amarizonas_ (_Amarisanes_), near the Rio Guaviare and Rios Etari
and Ayrico.
_Arecunas_, on head-waters of the Rio Caroni.
_Ariguas_, near the Rio Tauca.
_Cabiunes_, on the Rio Apoporis.
_Carataimas_, on the Rio Cauca.
_Chaymas_, on the Rio Guarapiche.
_Cucciveros_, on the Rio Cauca.
_Cuneguaras_, on the Rio Maturin.
_Enaguas_, on the Rio Agua Branca.
_Guarives_, on the Rio Uñare.
_Maquiritares_, on the Orinoco, near Lake Carida and Rio Ventuari.
_Matanos_, on Rio Caura.
_Mucos_, on Rio Apoporis.
_Panares_, on Rio Caura.
_Parecas_, on the lower Orinoco.
_Paudacotos_, near the Rio Caura.
_Quiri-Quiripas_, on the lower Orinoco.
_Quivas_, on the Orinoco near the confluence of the Meta.
_Tamanacas_, on lower Orinoco.
_Tuapocos_, on the Rio Maturin.
_Vayamanos_, on the Rio Paragua.
_Yaos_, on the Rio de la Trinidad.
_Yocunos_, on the Rio Apoporis.
Even when Codazzi collected his material, more than half a century ago,
the once powerful Tamanacas had entirely disappeared, and no tribe of
the name existed in the region.[399] The process of dissolution and
destruction has gone on since his day with increasing rapidity, so
that when Chaffanjon visited the Orinoco and Caura in 1884, he found
that immense and fertile region almost uninhabited, the ancient tribes
scattered and disappeared, or existing only in wretched remnants,
_misérables débris_, of their former selves.[400] The opportunity is
forever lost, therefore, to define the ethnography of this region by
original observation, and we are thrown back on the collections and
statements of former observers.
The Maquiritares, however, still remain as one of the handsomest peoples
on the Orinoco, and remarkable for the skill with which they manufacture
canoes sixty or seventy feet long from the trunk of a single tree.[401]
On the river Uaupes, an affluent of the Rio Negro M. Coudreau encountered
various tribes, such as the Tarianos or Javis and the Nnehengatus, of
whose tongues he obtained brief vocabularies. They indicate a distant
influence of the Carib stock, especially the latter, but they seem mixed
largely with elements from other sources.[402] They dwell adjacent to
the Tucanos, to whom I have already referred as assigned by some to the
Tapuyas. (See above, p. 240.)
Gilii’s second group, the _Salivas_, offers difficulties. There appears
to be none of them under that name at present on the Orinoco. Chaffanjon
states that the Atures have become extinct.[403] The Piaroas survive,
but the tribe so-called to-day speak a tongue wholly unlike the Saliva,
and unconnected, apparently, with any other stock;[404] and the modern
Quaquas (Guagues) speak a dialect of the Arawak. Yet a hundred and fifty
years ago the missionaries estimated the Salivas at four thousand souls.
They lived principally on the river Cinareuco, below the Meta, and also
on the Rio Etari, where they were in contact with the Carib Amarisanes.
They are described as of a kindly and gentle disposition, well-made in
body and willing scholars of their spiritual masters. In their heathendom
they had the unique custom of disinterring the bones of their dead after
the expiration of a year, burning them, and then collecting the ashes to
mix with their drinking water.[405] Their language, which was vocalic
and nasal, has been preserved in sufficient specimens to serve for
comparison. According to Vergara y Vergara, it is still spoken on the
banks of the Meta,[406] and Hartmann includes in those who employ it, the
Quevacus and Maritzis, at the head of the Ventuari, and the Mayongcong on
the Merevari.[407]
The Arawak stock, which Gilii calls the _Maipure_, had numerous branches
in this region. They occupied much of the Orinoco in its middle and upper
course, as well as the valleys of its affluents. Gumilla speaks of one
of its members, the Caveres, as savage and inhuman warriors, but as the
only nation which had been able to repulse the attacks of the down-river
Caribs, who were accustomed to ascend the stream in fleets of eighty to a
hundred canoes, destroying every village on its banks.[408]
The same authority mentions the Achaguas as possessing the most agreeable
and cultured dialect, though he is in doubt whether it is strictly
related to the Maipure. This nation, quite prominent in the older annals,
still existed in the middle of this century to the number of five hundred
on the Rio Muco. They were not civilized, and practiced the customs of
polyandry and the destruction of female infants.[409] Cassani refers to
them as on the river Ele, and describes them as tattooed and painted,
with well-formed bodies and taking great pride in preserving and dressing
their magnificent hair.[410]
From a variety of sources at my disposition I have prepared the following
list of the