Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America, During the Years 1799-1804, Vol.3 — 08 - Chapter 3.26, Part 1

CHAPTER 3.

26. THE LLANOS DEL PAO, OR EASTERN PART OF THE PLAINS OF VENEZUELA.

MISSIONS OF THE CARIBS.

LAST VISIT TO THE COAST OF NUEVA BARCELONA, CUMANA, AND ARAYA.

Night had set in when we crossed for the last time the bed of the Orinoco.

We purposed to rest near the little fort San Rafael, and on the following morning at daybreak to set out on our journey through the plains of Venezuela.

Nearly six weeks had elapsed since our arrival at Angostura; and we earnestly wished to reach the coast, with the view of finding, at Cumana, or at Nueva Barcelona, a vessel in which we might embark for the island of Cuba, thence to proceed to Mexico.

After the sufferings to which we had been exposed during several months, whilst sailing in small boats on rivers infested by mosquitos, the idea of a sea voyage was not without its charms.

We had no idea of ever again returning to South America.

Sacrificing the Andes of Peru to the Archipelago of the Philippines (of which so little is known), we adhered to our old plan of remaining a year in New Spain, then proceeding in a galleon from Acapulco to Manila, and returning to Europe by way of Bassora and Aleppo.

We imagined that, when we had once left the Spanish possessions in America, the fall of that ministry which had procured for us so many advantages, could not be prejudicial to the execution of our enterprise.

Our mules were in waiting for us on the left bank of the Orinoco.

The collection of plants, and the different geological series which we had brought from the Esmeralda and Rio Negro, had greatly augmented our baggage; and, as it would have been dangerous to lose sight of our herbals, we expected to make a very slow journey across the Llanos.

The heat was excessive, owing to the reverberation of the soil, which was almost everywhere destitute of vegetation; yet the centigrade thermometer during the day (in the shade) was only from thirty to thirty-four degrees, and during the night, from twenty-seven to twenty-eight degrees.

Here, therefore, as almost everywhere within the tropics, it was less the absolute degree of heat than its duration that affected our sensations.

We spent thirteen days in crossing the plains, resting a little in the Caribbee (Caraibes) missions and in the little town of Pao.

The eastern part of the Llanos through which we passed, between Angostura and Nueva Barcelona, presents the same wild aspect as the western part, through which we had passed from the valleys of Aragua to San Fernando de Apure.

In the season of drought, (which is here called summer,) though the sun is in the southern hemisphere, the breeze is felt with greater force in the Llanos of Cumana, than in those of Caracas; because those vast plains, like the cultivated fields of Lombardy, form an inland basin, open to the east, and closed on the north, south and west by high chains of primitive mountains.

Unfortunately, we could not avail ourselves of this refreshing breeze, of which the Llaneros, or the inhabitants of the plains, speak with rapture.

It was now the rainy season north of the equator; and though it did not rain in the plains, the change in the declination of the sun had for some time caused the action of the polar currents to cease.

In the equatorial regions, where the traveller may direct his course by observing the direction of the clouds, and where the oscillations of the mercury in the barometer indicate the hour almost as well as a clock, everything is subject to a regular and uniform rule.

The cessation of the breezes, the setting-in of the rainy season, and the frequency of electric explosions, are phenomena which are found to be connected together by immutable laws.

On entering the Llanos of Nueva Barcelona, we met with a Frenchman, at whose house we passed the first night, and who received us with the kindest hospitality.

He was a native of Lyons, and he had left his country at a very early age.

He appeared extremely indifferent to all that was passing beyond the Atlantic, or, as they say here, disdainfully enough, when speaking of Europe, on the other side of the great pool (al otro lado del charco).

Our host was employed in joining large pieces of wood by means of a kind of glue called guayca.

This substance, which is used by the carpenters of Angostura, resembles the best animal glue.

It is found perfectly prepared between the bark and the alburnum of a creeper* of the family of the Combretaceae.

(* Combretum guayca.

) It probably resembles in its chemical properties birdlime, the vegetable principle obtained from the berries of the mistletoe, and the internal bark of the holly.

An astonishing abundance of this glutinous matter issues from the twining branches of the vejuco de guayca when they are cut.

Thus we find within the tropics a substance in a state of purity and deposited in peculiar organs, which in the temperate zone can be procured only by artificial means.

We did not arrive until the third day at the Caribbee missions of Cari.

We observed that the ground was less cracked by the drought in this country than in the Llanos of Calabozo.

Some showers had revived the vegetation.

Small gramina and especially those herbaceous sensitive-plants so useful in fattening half-wild cattle, formed a thick turf.

At great distances one from another, there arose a few fan-palms (Corypha tectorum), rhopalas* (chaparro (* The Proteaceae are not, like the Araucaria, an exclusively southern form.

We found the Rhopala complicata and the R. obovata, in 2 degrees 30 minutes, and in 10 degrees of north latitude.

)), and malpighias* with coriaceous and glossy leaves.

(* A neighbouring genus, Byrsonima cocollobaefolia, B. laurifolia, near Matagorda, and B. ropalaefolia.

) The humid spots are recognized at a distance by groups of mauritia, which are the sago-trees of those countries.

Near the coast this palm-tree constitutes the whole wealth of the Guaraon Indians; and it is somewhat remarkable that we also found it one hundred and sixty leagues farther south, in the midst of the forests of the Upper Orinoco, in the savannahs that surround the granitic peak of Duida.

* (* The moriche, like the Sagus Rumphii, is a palm-tree of the marshes, not a palm-tree of the coast, like the Chamaerops humilis, the common cocoa-tree, and the lodoicea.

) It was loaded at this season with enormous clusters of red fruit, resembling fir-cones.

Our monkeys were extremely fond of this fruit, which has the taste of an over-ripe apple.

The monkeys were placed with our baggage on the backs of the mules, and they made great efforts to reach the clusters that hung over their heads.

The plain was undulating from the effects of the mirage; and when, after travelling for an hour, we reached the trunks of the palm-trees, which appeared like masts in the horizon, we observed with astonishment how many things are connected with the existence of a single plant.

The winds, losing their velocity when in contact with the foliage and the branches, accumulate sand around the trunk.

The smell of the fruit and the brightness of the verdure attract from afar the birds of passage, which love to perch on the slender, arrow-like branches of the palm-tree.

A soft murmuring is heard around; and overpowered by the heat, and accustomed to the melancholy silence of the plains, the traveller imagines he enjoys some degree of coolness on hearing the slightest sound of the foliage.

If we examine the soil on the side opposite to the wind, we find it remains humid long after the rainy season.

Insects and worms, everywhere else so rare in the Llanos, here assemble and multiply.

This one solitary and often stunted tree, which would not claim the notice of the traveller amid the forests of the Orinoco, spreads life around it in the desert.

On the 13th of July we arrived at the village of Cari, the first of the Caribbee missions that are under the Observantin monks of the college of Piritu.

We lodged as usual at the convent, that is, with the clergyman.

Our host could scarcely comprehend how natives of the north of Europe could arrive at his dwelling from the frontiers of Brazil by the Rio Negro, and not by way of the coast of Cumana.

He behaved to us in the most affable manner, at the same time manifesting that somewhat importunate curiosity which the appearance of a stranger, not a Spaniard, always excites in South America.

He expressed his belief that the minerals we had collected must contain gold; and that the plants, dried with so much care, must be medicinal.

Here, as in many parts of Europe, the sciences are thought worthy to occupy the mind only so far as they confer some immediate and practical benefit on society.

We found more than five hundred Caribs in the village of Cari; and saw many others in the surrounding missions.

It is curious to observe this nomad people, recently attached to the soil, and differing from all the other Indians in their physical and intellectual powers.

They are a very tall race of men, their height being from five feet six inches, to five feet ten inches.

According to a practice common in America, the women are more sparingly clothed than the men.

The former wear only the guajuco, or perizoma, in the form of a band.

The men have the lower part of the body wrapped in a piece of blue cloth, so dark as to be almost black.

This drapery is so ample that, on the lowering of the temperature towards evening, the Caribs throw it over their shoulders.

Their bodies tinged with onoto,* (* Rocou, obtained from the Bixa orellana.

This paint is called in the Carib tongue, bichet.

) their tall figures, of a reddish copper-colour, and their picturesque drapery, when seen from a distance, relieved against the sky as a background, resemble antique statues of bronze.

The men cut their hair in a very peculiar manner, very much in the style of the monks.

A part of the forehead is shaved, which makes it appear extremely high, and a circular tuft of hair is left near the crown of the head.

This resemblance between the Caribs and the monks is not the result of mission life.

It is not caused, as had been erroneously supposed, by the desire of the natives to imitate their masters, the Franciscan monks.

The tribes that have preserved their wild independence, between the sources of the Carony and the Rio Branco, are distinguished by the same cerquillo de frailes,* (* Circular tonsure of the friars.

) which the early Spanish historians at the time of the discovery of America attributed to the nations of the Carib race.

All the men of this race whom we saw either during our voyage on the Lower Orinoco, or in the missions of Piritu, differ from the other Indians not only in the tallness of their stature, but also in the regularity of their features.

Their noses are smaller, and less flattened; the cheek-bones are not so high; and their physiognomy has less of the Mongol character.

Their eyes, which are darker than those of the other hordes of Guiana, denote intelligence, and it may even be said, the habit of reflection.

The Caribs have a gravity of manner, and a certain look of sadness which is observable among most of the primitive inhabitants of the New World.

The expression of severity in their features is heightened by the practice of dyeing their eyebrows with the juice of caruto: they also lengthen their eyebrows, thereby giving them the appearance of being joined together; and they often mark their faces all over with black spots to give themselves a more fierce appearance.

The Carib women are less robust and good-looking than the men, On them devolves almost the whole burden of domestic work, as well as much of the out-door labour.

They asked us eagerly for pins, which they stuck under their lower lip, making the head of the pin penetrate deeply into the skin.

The young girls are painted red, and are almost naked.

Among the different nations of the old and the new worlds, the idea of nudity is altogether relative.

A woman in some parts of Asia is not permitted to show the tips of her fingers; while an Indian of the Carib race is far from considering herself unclothed if she wear round her waist a guajuco two inches broad.

Even this band is regarded as less essential than the pigment which covers the skin.

To go out of the hut without being painted, would be to transgress all the rules of Carib decency.

The Indians of the missions of Piritu especially attracted our attention, because they belong to a nation which, by its daring, its warlike enterprises, and its mercantile spirit has exercised great influence over the vast country extending from the equator towards the northern coast.

Everywhere on the Orinoco we beheld traces of the hostile incursions of the Caribs: incursions which heretofore extended from the sources of the Carony and the Erevato as far as the banks of the Ventuari, the Atacavi, and the Rio Negro.

The Carib language is consequently the most general in this part of the world; it has even passed (like the language of the Lenni-Lenapes, or Algonkins, and the Natchez or Muskoghees, on the west of the Allegheny mountains) to tribes which have not a common origin.

When we survey that multitude of nations spread over North and South America, eastward of the Cordilleras of the Andes, we fix our attention particularly on those who, having long held dominion over their neighbours, have acted an important part on the stage of the world.

It is the business of the historian to group facts, to distinguish masses, to ascend to the common sources of many migrations and popular movements.

Great empires, the regular organization of a sacerdotal hierarchy, and the culture which that organization favours in the first ages of society, have existed only on the high mountains of the western world.

In Mexico we see a vast monarchy enclosing small republics; at Cundinamarca and Peru we find pure theocracies.

Fortified towns, highways and large edifices of stone, an extraordinary development of the feudal system, the separation of castes, convents of men and women, religious congregations regulated by discipline more or less severe, complicated divisions of time connected with the calendars, the zodiacs, and the astrology of the enlightened nations of Asia--all these phenomena in America belong to one region only, the long and narrow Alpine band extending from the thirtieth degree of north latitude to the twenty-fifth degree of south.

The migration of nations in the ancient world was from east to west; the Basques or Iberians, the Celts, the Germans and the Pelasgi, appeared in succession.

In the New World similar migrations flowed from north to south.

Among the nations that inhabit the two hemispheres, the direction of this movement followed that of the mountains; but in the torrid zone the temperate table-lands of the Cordilleras had greater influence on the destiny of mankind, than the mountains of Asia and central Europe.

As, properly speaking, only civilized nations have a history, the history of the Americans is necessarily no more than that of a small portion of the inhabitants of the mountains.

Profound obscurity envelops the vast country which stretches from the eastern slope of the Cordilleras towards the Atlantic; and for this very reason, whatever in that country relates to the preponderance of one nation over others, to distant migrations, to the physiognomical features which denote a foreign race, excite our deepest interest.

Amidst the plains of North America, some powerful nation, which has disappeared, constructed circular, square, and octagonal fortifications; walls six thousand toises in length; tumuli from seven to eight hundred feet in diameter, and one hundred and forty feet in height, sometimes round, sometimes with several stories and containing thousands of skeletons.

These skeletons are the remains of men less slender and more squat than the present inhabitants of those countries.

Other bones wrapped in fabrics resembling those of the Sandwich and Feejee Islands are found in the natural grottoes of Kentucky.

What is become of those nations of Louisiana anterior to the Lenni-Lenapes, the Shawanese, and perhaps even to the Sioux (Nadowesses, Nahcotas) of the Missouri, who are strongly mongolised;

and who, it is believed, according to their own traditions, came from the coast of Asia?

In the plains of South America we find only a very few hillocks of that kind called cerros hechos a mano;* (* Hills made by the hand, or artificial hills.

) and nowhere any works of fortification analogous to those of the Ohio.

However, on a vast space of ground, at the Lower Orinoco, as well as on the banks of the Cassiquiare and between the sources of the Essequibo and the Rio Branco, there are rocks of granite covered with symbolic figures.

These sculptures denote that the extinct generations belonged to nations different from those which now inhabit the same regions.

There seems to be no connection between the history of Mexico and that of Cundinamarca and of Peru; but in the plains of the east a warlike and long-dominant nation betrays in its features and its physical constitution traces of a foreign origin.

The Caribs preserve traditions that seem to indicate ancient communications between North and South America.

Such a phenomenon deserves particular attention.

If it be true that savages are for the most part degenerate races, remnants escaped from a common wreck, as their languages, their cosmogonic fables, and numerous other indications seem to prove, it becomes doubly important to examine the course by which these remnants have been driven from one hemisphere to the other.

That fine race of people, the Caribs, now occupy only a small part of the country which they inhabited at the time of the discovery of America.

The cruelties exercised by Europeans have entirely exterminated them from the West Indian Islands and the coasts of Darien; while under the government of the missions they have formed populous villages in the provinces of New Barcelona and Spanish Guiana.

The Caribs who inhabit the Llanos of Piritu and the banks of the Carony and the Cuyuni may be estimated at more than thirty-five thousand.

If we add to this number the independent Caribs who live westward of the mountains of Cayenne and Pacaraymo, between the sources of the Essequibo and the Rio Branco, we shall no doubt obtain a total of forty thousand individuals of pure race, unmixed with any other tribes of natives.

Prior to my travels, the Caribs were mentioned in many geographical works as an extinct race.

Writers 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.

When the Caribs made an irruption into the archipelago of the West India Islands, they arrived there as a band of warriors, not as colonists accompanied by their families.

The language of the female sex was formed by degrees, as the conquerors contracted alliances with the foreign women; it was composed of new elements, words distinct from the Carib words,* which in the interior of the gynaeceums were transmitted from generation to generation, but on which the structure, the combinations, the grammatical forms of the language of the men exercised an influence.

(* The following are examples of the difference between the language of the men (m), and the women (w); isle, oubao (m), acaera (w); man, ouekelli (m), eyeri (w); but, irhen (m), atica (w).

) There was then manifested in a small community the peculiarity which we now find in the whole group of the nations of the New Continent.

The American languages, from Hudson's Bay to the Straits of Magellan, are in general characterized by a total disparity of words combined with a great analogy in their structure.

They are like different substances invested with analogous forms.

If we recollect that this phenomenon extends over one-half of our planet, almost from pole to pole; if we consider the shades in the grammatical forms (the genders applied to the three persons of the verb, the reduplications, the frequentatives, the duals); it appears highly astonishing to find a uniform tendency in the development of intelligence and language among so considerable a portion of the human race.