A. H. Keane

Mexican and Central American Cultures—Aztec and Maya Scripts and Calendars—Nahua and Shoshoni—Chichimec and Aztec Empires—Uncultured Mexican Peoples: Otomi; Seri—Early Man in Yucatan—The Maya to-day—Transitions from North to South America—Chontal and Choco—The Catio—Cultures of the Andean area—The Colombian Chibcha—Empire of the Inca—Quichuan Race and Language—Inca Origins and History—The Aymara—Chimu Culture—Peruvian Politico-Social System—The Araucanians—The Pampas Indians—The Gauchos—Patagonians and Fuegians—Linguistic Relations—The Yahgans—The Cashibo—The Pana Family—The Caribs—Arawakan Family—The Ges (Tapuyan) Family—The Botocudo—The Tupi-Guaranian Family—The Chiquito—Mataco and Toba of the Gran Chaco.

In Mexico and Central America interest is centred chiefly in two great ethnical groups—the Nahuatlan and Huaxtecan—whose cultural, historical, and even geographical relations are so intimately interwoven that they can scarcely be treated apart. Thus, although their civilisations are concentrated respectively in the Anahuac (Mexican) plateau and Yucatan and Guatemala, the two domains overlap completely at both ends, so that there are isolated branches of the Huaxtecan family in Mexico (the Huaxtecs (Totonacs) of Vera Cruz, from whom the whole group is named, and of the Nahuatlan in Nicaragua (Pipils, Niquirans, and others)[873].

This very circumstance has no doubt tended to increase the difficulties connected with the questions of their origins, migrations, and mutual cultural influences. Some of these difficulties disappear if the "Toltecs" be eliminated (see p. 342), who had hitherto been a great disturbing element in this connection, and all the rest have in my opinion been satisfactorily disposed of by E. FÖrstemann, a leading authority on all Aztec-Maya questions[874]. This eminent archaeologist refers first to the views of Seler[875], who assumes a southern movement of Maya tribes from Yucatan, and a like movement of Aztecs from Tabasco to Nicaragua, and even to Yucatan. On the other hand Dieseldorff holds that Maya art was independently developed, while the link between it and the Aztec shows that an interchange took place, in which process the Maya was the giver, the Aztec the recipient. He further attributes the overthrow of the Maya power 100 or 200 years before the conquest to the Aztecs, and thinks the Aztecs or Nahuas took their god Quetzalcoatl from the "Toltecs," who were a Maya people. Ph. J. Valentini also infers that the Maya were the original people, the Aztecs "mere parasites[876]."

Now FÖrstemann lays down the principle that any theory, to be satisfactory, should fit in with such facts as:—(1) the agreement and diversity of both cultures; (2) the antiquity and disappearance of the mysterious Toltecs; (3) the complete isolation at 22° N. lat. of the Huaxtecs from the other Maya tribes, and their difference from them; (4) the equally complete isolation of the Guatemalan Pipils, and of the other southern (Nicaraguan) Aztec groups from the rest of the Nahua peoples; (5) the remarkable absence of Aztec local names in Yucatan, while they occur in hundreds in Chiapas, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, where scarcely any trace is left of Maya names.

To account for these facts he assumes that in the earliest known times Central America from about 23° to 10° N. was mainly inhabited by Maya tribes, who had even reached Cuba. While these Mayas were still at quite a low stage of culture, the Aztecs advanced from as far north as at least 26° N. but only on the Pacific side, thus leaving the Huaxtecs almost untouched in the east. The Aztecs called the Mayas "Toltecs" because they first came in contact with one of their northern branches living in the region about Tula (north of Mexico city)[877]. But when all the relations became clearer, the Toltecs fell gradually into the background, and at last entered the domain of the fabulous.

Now the Aztecs borrowed much from the Mayas, especially gods, whose names they simply translated. A typical case is that of Cuculcan, which becomes Quetzalcoatl, where cuc = quezal = the bird Trogon resplendens, and can = coatl = snake[878]. With the higher culture developed in Guatemala the Aztecs came first in contact after passing through Mixtec and Zapotec territory, not long before Columbian times, so that they had no time here to consolidate their empire and assimilate the Mayas. On the contrary the Aztecs were themselves merged in these, all but the Pipils and the settlements on Lake Nicaragua, which retained their national peculiarities.

But whence came the hundreds of Aztec names in the lands between Chiapas and Nicaragua? Here it should be noted that these names are almost exclusively confined to the more important stations, while the less prominent places have everywhere names taken from the tongues of the local tribes. But even the Aztec names themselves occur properly only in official use, hence also on the charts, and are not current to-day amongst the natives who have kept aloof from the Spanish-speaking populations. Hence the inference that such names were mainly introduced by the Spaniards and their Mexican troops during the conquest of those lands, say, up to about 1535, and do not appear in Yucatan which was not conquered from Mexico. FÖrstemann reluctantly accepts this view, advanced by Sapper[879], having nothing better to suggest.

The coastal towns of Yucatan visited by Spaniards from Cuba in 1517 and onwards were decidedly inferior architecturally to the great temple structures of the interior, though doubtless erected by the same people. The inland cities of Chichen-Itza and Uxmal by that time had fallen from their ancient glory though still religious centres[880].

The Maya would thus appear to have stood on a higher plane of culture than their Aztec rivals, and the same conclusion may be drawn from their respective writing systems. Of all the aborigines these two alone had developed what may fairly be called a script in the strict sense of the term, although neither of them had reached the same level of efficiency as the Babylonian cuneiforms, or the Chinese or the Egyptian hieroglyphs, not to speak of the syllabic and alphabetic systems of the Old World. Some even of the barbaric peoples, such as most of the prairie Indians, had reached the stage of graphic symbolism, and were thus on the threshold of writing at the discovery. "The art was rudimentary and limited to crude pictography. The pictographs were painted or sculptured on cliff-faces, boulders, the walls of caverns, and even on trees, as well as on skins, bark, and various artificial objects. Among certain Mexican tribes, also, autographic records were in use, and some of them were much better differentiated than any within the present area of the United States. The records were not only painted and sculptured on stone and moulded in stucco, but were inscribed in books or codices of native parchment and paper; while the characters were measurably arbitrary, i.e. ideographic rather than pictographic[881]."

The Aztec writing may be best described as pictographic, the pictures being symbolical or, in the case of names, combined into a rebus. No doubt much diversity of opinion prevails as to whether the Maya symbols are phonetic or ideographic, and it is a fact that no single text, however short, has yet been satisfactorily deciphered. It seems that many of the symbols possessed true phonetic value and were used to express sounds and syllables, though it cannot be claimed that the Maya scribes had reached that advanced stage where they could indicate each letter sound by a glyph or symbol[882]. According to Cyrus Thomas, a symbol was selected because the name or word it represented had as its chief phonetic element a certain consonant sound or syllable. If this were b the symbol would be used where b was the prominent element of the word to be indicated, no reference, however, to its original signification being necessarily retained. Thus the symbol for cab, 'earth,' might be used in writing Caban, a day name, or cabil, 'honey,' because cab is their chief phonetic element.... One reason why attempts at decipherment have failed is a misconception of the peculiar character of the writing, which is in a transition stage from the purely ideographic to the phonetic[883]. From the example here given, the Maya script would appear to have in part reached the rebus stage, which also plays so large a part in the Egyptian hieroglyphic system. Cab is obviously a rebus, and the transition from the rebus to true syllabic and alphabetic systems has already been explained[884]. The German Americanists on the other hand have always regarded Maya writing as more ideographic, and H. Beuchat adopts this view, for "no symbol has ever been read phonetically with a different meaning from that which it possesses as an ideogram[885]."

But not only were the Maya day characters phonetic; the Maya calendar itself, afterwards borrowed by the Aztecs, has been described as even more accurate than the Julian itself. "Among the Plains Indians the calendars are simple, consisting commonly of a record of winters ('winter counts'), and of notable events occurring either during the winter or during some other season; while the shorter time divisions are reckoned by 'nights' (days), 'dead moons' (lunations), and seasons of leafing, flowering, or fruiting of plants, migrating of animals, etc., and there is no definite system of reducing days to lunations or lunations to years. Among the Pueblo Indians calendric records are inconspicuous or absent, though there is a much more definite calendric system which is fixed and perpetuated by religious ceremonies; while among some of the Mexican tribes there are elaborate calendric systems combined with complete calendric records. The perfection of the calendar among the Maya and Nahua Indians is indicated by the fact that not only were 365 days reckoned as a year, but the bissextile was recognized[886]."

In another important respect the superiority of the Maya-QuichÉ peoples over the northern Nahuans is incontestable. When their religious systems are compared, it is at once seen that at the time of the discovery the Mexican Aztecs were little better than ruthless barbarians newly clothed in the borrowed robes of an advanced culture, to which they had not had time to adapt themselves properly, and in which they could but masquerade after their own savage fashion.

It has to be remembered that the Aztecs were but one branch of the Nahuatlan family, whose affinities Buschmann[887] has traced northwards to the rude Shoshonian aborigines who roamed from the present States of Montana, Idaho, and Oregon down into Utah, Texas, and California[888]. To this Nahuatlan stock belonged the barbaric hordes who overthrew the civilisation which flourished on the Anahuac (Mexican) table-land about the sixth century A.D. and is associated with the ruins of Tula and Cholula. It now seems clear that the so-called "Toltecs," the "Pyramid-builders," were not Nahuatlans but Huaxtecans, who were absorbed by the immigrants or driven southwards.

To north and north-west of the settled peoples of the valley lived nomadic hunting tribes called Chichimec[889], merged in a loose political system which was dignified in the local traditions by the name of the "Chichimec Empire." The chief part was played by tribes of Nahuan origin[890], whose ascendancy lasted from about the eleventh to the fifteenth century, when they were in their turn overthrown and absorbed by the historical Nahuan confederacy of the Aztecs[891] whose capital was Tenochtitlan (the present city of Mexico), the Acolhuas (capital Tezcuco), and the Tepanecs (capital Tlacopan).

Thus the Aztec Empire reduced by the Conquistadores in 1520 had but a brief record, although the Aztecs themselves as well as many other tribes of Nahuatl speech, must have been in contact with the more civilised Huaxtecan peoples for centuries before the appearance of the Spaniards on the scene. It was during these ages that the Nahuas "borrowed much from the Mayas," as FÖrstemann puts it, without greatly benefiting by the process. Thus the Maya gods, for the most part of a relatively mild type like the Maya themselves, become in the hideous Aztec pantheon ferocious demons with an insatiable thirst for blood, so that the teocalli, "god's houses," were transformed to human shambles, where on solemn occasions the victims were said to have numbered tens of thousands[892].

Besides the Aztecs and their allies, the elevated Mexican plateaus were occupied by several other relatively civilised nations, such as the Miztecs and Zapotecs of Oajaca, the Tarasco and neighbouring Matlaltzinca, of Michoacan[893], all of whom spoke independent stock languages, and the Totonacs of Vera Cruz, who were of Huaxtecan speech, and were in touch to the north with the Huaxtecs, a primitive Maya people. The high degree of civilisation attained by some of these nations before their reduction by the Aztecs is attested by the magnificent ruins of Mitla, capital of the Zapotecs, which was captured and destroyed by the Mexicans in 1494[894]. Of the royal palace Viollet-le-Duc speaks in enthusiastic terms, declaring that "the monuments of the golden age of Greece and Rome alone equal the beauty of the masonry of this great building[895]." In general their usages and religious rites resembled those of the Aztecs, although the Zapotecs, besides the civil ruler, had a High Priest who took part in the government. "His feet were never allowed to touch the ground; he was carried on the shoulders of his attendants; and when he appeared all, even the chiefs themselves, had to fall prostrate before him, and none dared to raise their eyes in his presence[896]." The Zapotec language is still spoken by about 260 natives in the State of Oajaca.

Farther north the plains and uplands continued to be inhabited by a multitude of wild tribes speaking an unknown number of stock languages, and thus presenting a chaos of ethnical and linguistic elements comparable to that which prevails along the north-west coast. Of these rude populations one of the most widespread are the Otomi of the central region, noted for the monosyllabic tendencies of their language, which Najera, a native grammarian, has on this ground compared with Chinese, from which, however, it is fundamentally distinct. Still more primitive are the Seri Indians of Tiburon island in the Gulf of California and the adjacent mainland, who were visited in 1895 by W. J. McGee, and found to be probably more isolated and savage than any other tribe remaining on the North American Continent. They hunt, fish, and collect vegetable food, and most of their food is eaten raw, they have no domestic animals save dogs, they are totally without agriculture, and their industrial arts are few and rude. They use the bow and arrow but have no knife. Their houses are flimsy huts. They make pottery and rafts of canes. The Seri are loosely organised in a number of exogamic, matrilineal, totemic clans. Mother-right obtains to a greater extent perhaps than in any other people. At marriage the husband becomes a privileged guest in the wife's mother's household, and it is only in the chase or on the war-path that men take an important place. Polygyny prevails. The most conspicuous ceremony is the girls' puberty feast. The dead are buried in a contracted position. "The strongest tribal characteristic is implacable animosity towards aliens.... In their estimation the brightest virtue is the shedding of alien blood, while the blackest crime in their calendar is alien conjugal union[897]."

It is noteworthy that but few traces of such savagery have yet been discovered in Yucatan. The investigations of Henry Mercer[898] in this region lend strong support to FÖrstemann's views regarding the early Huaxtecan migrations and the general southward spread of Maya culture from the Mexican table-land. Nearly thirty caves examined by this explorer failed to yield any remains either of the mastodon, mammoth, and horse, or of early man, elsewhere so often associated with these animals. Hence Mercer infers that the Mayas reached Yucatan already in an advanced state of culture, which remained unchanged till the conquest. In the caves were found great quantities of good pottery, generally well baked and of symmetrical form, the oldest quite as good as the latest where they occur in stratified beds, showing no progress anywhere.

The caves of Loltun (Yucatan) and Copan (Honduras), examined by E. H. Thompson and G. Byron-Gordon, yielded pre-Mayan dÉbris from the deep strata. Perhaps this very ancient population was of the same race as the little known tribes still living in the forests of Honduras and San Salvador[899].

Since the conquest the Aztecs, and other cultured nations of Anahuac, have yielded to European influences to a far greater extent than the Maya-QuichÉ of Yucatan and Guatemala. In the city of Mexico the Nahuatl tongue has almost died out, and this place has long been a leading centre of Spanish arts and letters[900]; yet the Mexicans yearly celebrate a feast in memory of their great ancestors who died in defence of their country[901]. But Merida, standing on the site of the ancient Ti-hoÓ, has almost again become a Maya town, where the white settlers themselves have been largely assimilated in speech and usages to the natives. The very streets are still indicated by the carved images of the hawk, flamingo, or other tutelar deities, while the houses of the suburbs continue to be built in the old Maya style, two or three feet above the street level, with a walled porch and stone bench running round the enclosure.

One reason for this remarkable contrast may be that the Nahua culture, as above seen, was to a great extent borrowed in relatively recent times, whereas the Maya civilisation is now shown to date from the epoch of the Tolan and Cholulan pyramid-builders. Hence the former yielded to the first shock, while the latter still persists to some extent in Yucatan. Here about 1000 A.D. the cities of Chichen-Itza, Uxmal and Mayapan formed a confederacy in which each was to share equally in the government of the country. Under the peaceful conditions of the next two centuries followed the second and last great Maya epoch, the Age of Architecture, as it has been termed, as opposed to the first epoch, the Age of Sculpture, from the second to the sixth century A.D. During this earlier epoch flourished the great cities of the south, Palenque, Quirigua, Copan, and others[902]. Despite their more gentle disposition, as expressed in the softer and almost feminine lines of their features, the Mayas held out more valiantly than the Aztecs against the Spaniards, and a section of the nation occupying a strip of territory between Yucatan and British Honduras, still maintains its independence. The "barbarians," as the inhabitants of this district are called, would appear to be scarcely less civilised than their neighbours, although they have forgotten the teachings of the padres, and transformed the Catholic churches to wayside inns. Even as it is the descendants of the Spaniards have to a great extent forgotten their mother-tongue, and Maya-QuichÉ dialects are almost everywhere current except in the Campeachy district. Those also who call themselves Catholics preserve and practise many of the old rites. After burial the track from the grave to the house is carefully chalked, so that the soul of the departed may know the way back when the time comes to enter the body of some new-born babe. The descendants of the national astrologers everywhere pursue their arts, determining events, forecasting the harvests and so on by the conjunctions of the stars, and every village has its native "Zadkiel" who reads the future in the ubiquitous crystal globe. Even certain priests continue to celebrate the "Field Mass," at which a cock is sacrificed to the Mayan Aesculapius, with invocations to the Trinity and their associates, the four genii of the rain and crops. "These tutelar deities, however, have taken Christian names, the Red, or God of the East, having become St Dominic; the White, or God of the North, St Gabriel; the Black, or God of the West, St James; and the 'Yellow Goddess' of the South, Mary Magdalene[903]."

To the observer passing from the northern to the southern division of the New World no marked contrasts are at first perceptible, either in the physical appearance, or in the social condition of the aborigines. The substantial uniformity, which in these respects prevails from the Arctic to the Austral waters, is in fact well illustrated by the comparatively slight differences presented by the primitive populations dwelling north and south of the Isthmus of Panama.

At the discovery the West Indies were inhabited by two distinct peoples, both apparently of South American origin. The populations of the Greater Antilles, Cuba, Jamaica, Santo Domingo and Porto Rico were of Arawak stock, as were also the Lucayans of the Bahamas. The Lesser Antilles were peopled by Caribs, whose culture had been somewhat modified by the Arawaks who had preceded them. As regards influences from the north-west and west, Joyce considers that intercourse between Yucatan and Western Cuba was confined to occasional trading voyages and did not long antedate the arrival of the Spaniards. The same applies to Florida where, however, Antillean influences may be traced, especially in pottery designs[904]. According to Beuchat, however, the Guacanabibes of Cuba are of common origin with the Tekestas of Florida. Other tribes from Florida spread to the Bahamas, Cuba[905], and perhaps Hayti, but were checked by Arawaks from South America who mastered the whole of the West Indies. Last came the more vigorous but less advanced Caribs, also from the southern mainland (of Arawak origin according to Joyce and Beuchat). The statement of Columbus that the Lucayans[906] were "of good size, with large eyes and broader foreheads than he had ever seen in any other race of men" is fully borne out by the character of some old skulls from the Bahamas measured by W. K. Brooks, who regarded them as belonging to "a well-marked type of the North American Indian race which was at that time distributed over the Bahama Islands, Hayti, and the greater part of Cuba. As these islands are only a few miles from the peninsula of Florida, this race must at some time have inhabited at least the south-eastern extremity of the continent, and it is therefore extremely interesting to note that the North American crania which exhibit the closest resemblance to those from the Bahama Islands have been obtained from Florida[907]." This observer dwells on the solidity and massiveness of the Lucayan skulls, which bring them into direct relation with the races both of the Mississippi plains and of the Brazilian and Venezuelan coast-lands, though the general ethnography of Panama and Costa Rica reveals no active influence exerted by tribes of Colombia and Venezuela, except in eastern Panama[908].

Equally close is the connection established between the surviving Isthmian and Colombian peoples of the Atrato and Magdalena basins. The Chontal of Nicaragua are scarcely to be distinguished from some of the Santa Marta hillmen, while the Choco and perhaps the Cuna of Panama have been affiliated to the Choco of the Atrato and San Juan rivers. The cultural connection between the tribes of the Isthmus and of Colombia appears especially in the gold-work and pottery of the Chiriqui; at the Chiriqui Lagoon, however, Nahuan influence is perceptible[909]. Attempts, which however can hardly be regarded as successful, have even been made to establish linguistic relations between the Costa Rican Guatuso and the Timote of the Merida uplands of Venezuela, who are themselves a branch of the formerly widespread Muyscan family.

But with these Muyscans we at once enter a new ethnical and cultural domain, in which may be studied the resemblances due to the common origin of all the American aborigines, and the divergences due obviously to long isolation and independent local developments in the two continental divisions. In general the southern populations present more violent contrasts than the northern in their social and intellectual developments, so that while the wild tribes touch a lower depth of savagery, some at least of the civilised peoples rise to a higher degree of excellence, if not in letters—where the inferiority is manifest—certainly in the arts of engineering, architecture, agriculture, and political organisation. Thus we need not travel many miles inland from the Isthmus without meeting the Catio, a wild tribe between the Atrato and the Cauca, more degraded even than the Seri of Tiburon island, most debased of all North American hordes. These Catio, a now nearly extinct branch of the Choco stock, were said to dwell like the anthropoid apes, in the branches of trees; they mostly went naked, and were reported, like the Mangbattus and other Congo negroes, to "fatten their captives for the table." Their Darien neighbours of the Nore valley, who gave an alternative name to the Panama peninsula, were accustomed to steal the women of hostile tribes, cohabit with them, and carefully bring up the children till their fourteenth year, when they were eaten with much rejoicing, the mothers ultimately sharing the same fate[910]; and the Cocoma of the MaraÑon "were in the habit of eating their own dead relations, and grinding their bones to drink in their fermented liquor. They said it was better to be inside a friend than to be swallowed up by the cold earth[911]." In fact of the Colombian aborigines Herrera tells us that "the living are the grave of the dead; for the husband has been seen to eat his wife, the brother his brother or sister, the son his father; captives also are eaten roasted[912]."

Thus is raised the question of cannibalism in the New World, where at the discovery it was incomparably more prevalent south than north of the equator. Compare the Eskimo and the Fuegians at the two extremes, the former practically exonerated of the charge, and in distress sparing wives and children and eating their dogs; the latter sparing their dogs because useful for catching otters, and smoking and eating their old women because useless for further purposes[913]. In the north the taste for human flesh had declined, and the practice survived only as a ceremonial rite, chiefly amongst the British Columbians and the Aztecs, except of course in case of famine, when even the highest races are capable of devouring their fellows. But in the south cannibalism in some of its most repulsive forms was common enough almost everywhere. Killing and eating feeble and aged members of the tribe in kindness is still general; but the Mayorunas of the Upper Amazon waters do not wait till they have grown lean with years or wasted with disease[914]; and it was a baptized member of the same tribe who complained on his death-bed that he would not now provide a meal for his Christian friends, but must be devoured by worms[915].

In the southern continent the social conditions illustrated by these practices prevailed everywhere, except on the elevated plateaus of the western Cordilleras, which for many ages before the discovery had been the seats of several successive cultures, in some respects rivalling, but in others much inferior to those of Central America. When the Conquistadores reached this part of the New World, to which they were attracted by the not altogether groundless reports of fabulous wealth embodied in the legend of El Dorado, the "Man of Gold," they found it occupied by a cultural zone which extended almost continuously from the present republic of Colombia through Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia right into Chili. In the north the dominant people were the semi-civilised Chibcha, already mentioned under the name of Muysca[916], who had developed an organised system of government on the Bogota table-land, and had succeeded in extending their somewhat more refined social institutions to some of the other aborigines of Colombia, though not to many of the outlying members of their own race. As in Mexico many of the Nahuatlan tribes remained little better than savages to the last, so in Colombia the civilised Muyscans were surrounded by numerous kindred tribes—Coyaima, Natagaima, Tocaima and others, collectively known as Panches—who were real savages with scarcely any tribal organisation, wearing no clothes, and according to the early accounts still addicted to cannibalism.

The Muysca proper had a tradition that they owed their superiority to their culture-hero Bochica, who came from the east long ago, taught them everything, and was then placed with Chiminigagua, the creator, at the head of their pantheon, and worshipped with solemn rites and even human sacrifices. Amongst the arts thus acquired was that of the goldsmith, in which they surpassed all other peoples of the New World. The precious metal was even said to be minted in the shape of discs, which formed an almost solitary instance of a true metal currency amongst the American aborigines[917]. Brooches, pendants, and especially grotesque figurines of gold, often alloyed with silver and copper, have been found in great numbers and still occasionally turn up on the plateau. These finds are partly accounted for by the practice of offering such objects in the open air to the personified constellations and forces of nature, for the primitive religion of all the Andean tribes consisted of nature-, in particular sun-cults. Near Bogota was a temple of the Sun, where children were reared for sacrifice[918]. Any mysterious sound emanating from a forest, a rock, a mountain pass, or gloomy gorge, was accepted as a manifestation of some divine presence; a shrine was raised to the embodied spirit, and so the whole land became literally crowded with local deities. This world itself was upborne on the shoulders of Chibchacum, a national Atlas, who now and then eased himself by shifting the burden, and thus caused earthquakes. In most lands subject to underground disturbances analogous ideas prevail, and when their source is so obvious, it seems unreasonable to seek for explanations in racial affinities, contacts, foreign influences, and so forth.

It has often been remarked that at the advent of the whites the native civilisations seemed generally stricken as if by the hand of death, so that even if not suddenly arrested by the intruders they must sooner or later have perished of themselves. Such speculations are seldom convincing, because we never know what recuperative forces may be at work to ward off the evil day. When the Spaniards arrived in Colombia they found at one end of the scale naked and savage cannibals, at the other a people with a feudal form of government, whose political system was progressive, who, though possessing no form of writing, had a system of measures and a calendar, and who were skilled in the arts of weaving, pottery, and metallurgy[919]. The chiefs of the Chibcha were all absolute monarchs and the appointment of priests rested with them. Succession to the chieftainship was matrilineal, and installation in the office was attended by much ceremony. A great gulf separated nobles and commoners; slavery existed as an institution but slaves were well treated. Polygyny was permitted, but relatives within certain degrees might not marry[920]. This feebly organised political system broke to pieces at the first shock from without, and so disheartened had the people become under their half theocratic rulers, that they scarcely raised a hand in defence of a government which in their minds was associated only with tyranny and oppression. The conquest was in any case facilitated by the civil war at the time raging between the northern and southern kingdoms which with several other semi-independent states constituted the Muyscan empire. This empire was almost conterminous southwards with that of the Incas. At least the numerous terms occurring in the dialects of the Paes, Coconucos, and other South Colombian tribes, show that Peruvian influences had spread beyond the political frontiers far to the north, without, however, quite reaching the confines of the Muyscan domain.

But for several centuries prior to the discovery the sway of the Peruvian Incas had been established throughout nearly the whole of the Andean lands, and the territory directly ruled by them extended from the Quito district about the equator for some 2500 miles southwards to the Rio Maule in Chili, with an average breadth of 400 miles between the Pacific and the eastern slopes of the Cordilleras. Their dominion thus comprised a considerable part of the present republics of Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chili, and Argentina, with a roughly estimated area of 1,000,000 square miles, and a population of over 10,000,000. Here the ruling race were the Quichua, whose speech, called by themselves ruma-simi, "the language of men," is still current in several well-marked dialects throughout all the provinces of the old empire. In Lima and all the seaports and inland towns Spanish prevails, but in the rural districts Quichuan remains the mother-tongue of over 2,000,000 natives, and has even become the lingua franca of the western regions, just as Tupi-Guarani is the lingoa geral, "general language," of the eastern section of South America. The attempts to find affinities with Aryan (especially Sanskrit), and other linguistic families of the eastern hemisphere, have broken down before the application of sound philological principles to these studies, and Quichuan is now recognised as a stock language of the usual American type, unconnected with any other except that of the Bolivian Aymaras. Even this connection is regarded by some students as verbal rather than structural, an interchange of a considerable number of terms being easily explained by the close contact in which the two peoples have long dwelt.

As to the origin of the Incas we cannot do better than follow the views of Sir Clements Markham, who has made a careful study of the various early authorities. His account (The Incas of Peru, 1910) is based largely on the works of Spanish military writers such as Ciezo de Leon and Pedro Pizarro (cousin of the conqueror), of priests like Molina, Montesinos, and the half-breed Blas Valera, and on those of the Inca Garcilasso de la Vega, son of a Spanish knight and an Inca princess. The megalithic ruins of Tiahuanacu, at the southern end of Lake Titicaca, mark the earliest known centre of culture in southern Peru. They are situated on a lofty plateau, over 13,000 feet above the sea, and are the remains of a great city built by highly skilled masons who used enormous stones. The placing of such monoliths, unrivalled except by those of ancient Egypt, indicates a dense and well-organised population. The famous monolithic doorway is elaborately carved, the central figure apparently representing the deity, while on either side are figures, human- or bird-headed, kneeling in adoration (op. cit., pls. at pp. 26, 28). Now it seems probable that the builders of this megalithic city were the ancestors of the Incas, assuming that a substratum of truth underlies the Paccari-tampu myth.

The end of the early civilisation is stated to have been caused by a great invasion from the south, when the king was killed in a battle in the Collao, north of Lake Titicaca. A state of barbarism ensued. A remnant of the royal house took refuge in a district called Tampu-Tocco ("Window Tavern")[921] and there preserved a vestige of their ancient traditions and civilisation. Elsewhere religion deteriorated to nature worship, here the kings declared themselves to be children of the sun. Montesinos' list of kings gives 27 names for this period of Tampu-Tocco, which may cover 650 years.

The myth, which is "certainly the outcome of a real tradition, ... the fabulous version of a distant historical event," tells how Manco Ccapac and the three other Ayars, his brothers, the children of the sun, came forth with their wives from the central opening or window in the hill Tampu-Tocco. They advanced slowly at the head of several ayllus (lineages). Ayar Manco took the lead, and he had with him a falcon-like bird revered as sacred, and a golden staff which he flung ahead; when it reached soil so fertile that the whole length sank in, there the final halt was to be made. This happened in the fertile vale of Cuzco. The date of these events would be about four centuries before the Spanish conquest.

Farther north at about 15° S. lat. the Inca civilisation was preceded, according to Uhle, by the very ancient one of Ica and Nazca, where dwelt a people who made pottery but were ignorant of weaving. The same authority has also discovered about Lima the remains of a tall people, who made rude pottery, nets, and objects of bone[922].

Manco established himself in the Cuzco valley, his third successor finally subjugating the tribes there. The early position of the Incas, cemented by judicious marriages, seems to have been one of priority in a very loose confederacy. The rise of the Incas was due to the ambition of the lady Siuyacu whose son, Inca Rocca, appears to have been the pioneer of empire; material prosperity began under him, schools were erected and irrigation works begun. Then from a strip of land 250 miles long between the gorge of the Apurimac and the wide fertile valley of Vilcamayu, the empire was extended to form the Ttahua-ntin-suyu, "the four provinces," of which the northern one, Chinchay-suyu, reached to Quito, and the southern, Colla-suyu, into Chili. This southward extension was due to the efforts of Pachacuti who succeeded after hard fighting in annexing the region around Lake Titicaca, and the new territory was named after the Collas, the largest and most powerful tribe thereabouts. In order to pacify the region permanently large numbers of Collas were sent as mitimaes, or colonists, as far as the borders of Quito, while their places were filled by loyal colonists from Inca districts. Among these were a number of Aymaras from the Quichuan region of the Pachachaca, a left bank tributary of the Apurimac, who were settled among the remaining Lupacas on the west shore of Lake Titicaca at Juli. Thither came Jesuit fathers in 1572 and learnt the language of the Lupacas from these Aymara colonists, who had been there three generations; the name Aymara was given by the priests not only to the Lupaca language but to those spoken by Collas and other Titicacan tribes. Thus the name Aymara is now generally but quite erroneously applied to the language and people of this region; it was first so used in 1575. It must be pointed out, however, that other authorities regard the Aymara and Quichua as entirely distinct. A. Chervin[923] discusses the physical differences at great length and concludes that they are two separate brachycephalic peoples.

The Peruvians were primarily agriculturists, maize and at higher altitudes the potato being their chief crops. Their aqueducts and irrigation systems moved the admiration of early chroniclers, as did also their roads and suspension bridges[924]. The supreme deity and creator was Uira-cocha, who was worshipped by the more intellectual and had a temple at Cuzco. The popular religion was the worship of the founder of each ayllu, or clan, and all joined in adoration of the sun as ancestor of the sovereign Incas. Sun-worship was attended by a magnificent ritual, the high priest was an official of highest rank, often a brother of the sovereign, and there were over 3000 Virgins of the Sun (aclla) connected with the cult at Cuzco. The peasants put their trust in conopas, or household gods, which controlled their crops and their llamas. The calendar had been calculated with considerable ingenuity, and certain festivals took place annually and were usually accompanied with much chicha-drinking. It is remarkable that so advanced a people kept all their elaborate records by means of quipus (coloured strings with knots).

Here is not the place to enter into the details of the astonishing architectural, engineering, and artistic remains, often assigned to the Incas, whose empire had absorbed in the north the old civilisation of the Chimu, perhaps of the AtacameÑo, and other cultured peoples whose very names have perished. The Yunga (Mochica or Chimu), conquered by the Inca Tupac Yupanqui, had a language radically distinct from Quichuan, but have long been assimilated to their conquerors.

The ruins of Grand Chimu (modern Trujillo) cover a vast area, nearly 15 miles by 6, which is everywhere strewn with the remains of palaces, reservoirs, aqueducts, ramparts, and especially huacas, that is, truncated pyramids not unlike those of Mexico, whence the theory that the Chimus, of unknown origin, were "Toltecs" from Central America. One of these huacas is described by Squier as 150 feet high with a base 580 feet square, and an area of 8 acres, presenting from a distance the appearance of a huge crater[925]. Still larger is the so-called "Temple of the Sun," 800 by 470 feet, 200 feet high, and covering an area of 7 acres. An immense population of hundreds of thousands was assigned to this place in pre-Inca times; but from some rough surveys made in 1897 it would appear that much of the space within the enclosures consists of waste lands, which had never been built over, and it is calculated that at no time could the number of inhabitants have greatly exceeded 50,000.

We need not stop to describe the peculiar civil and social institutions of the Peruvians, which are of common knowledge. Enough to say that here everything was planned in the interests of the theocratic and all-powerful Incas, who were more than obeyed, almost honoured with divine worship by their much bethralled and priest-ridden subjects. "The despotic authority of the Incas was the basis of government; that authority was founded on the religious respect yielded to the descendant of the sun, and supported by a skilfully combined hierarchy[926]." From remote antiquity the peoples of this area were organised into ayllus each occupying part of a valley or a limited area. It was a patriarchal system, land belonging to the ayllu, which was a group of families. The Incas systematised this institution, the ayllu was made to comprise 100 families under a village officer who annually allotted land to the heads of families. Each family was divided by the head into 10 classes based on age. Ten ayllus (now termed pachacas) formed a huaranca. A valley with a varying number of huarancas was termed a hunu; over four hunus there was an imperial officer. "This was indeed Socialism," Markham observes, "existing under an inexorable despotism" (p. 169).

Beyond the Maule, southernmost limits of all these effete civilisations, man reasserted himself in the "South American Iroquois," as those Chilian aborigines have been called who called themselves Molu-che, "Warriors," but are better known by their Quichuan designation of Aucaes, "Rebels," whence the Spanish Aucans (Araucan, Araucanian). These "Rebels," who have never hitherto been overcome by the arms of any people, and whose heroic deeds in the long wars waged by the white intruders against their freedom form the topic of a noble Spanish epic poem[927], still maintain a measure of national autonomy as the friends and faithful allies of the Chilian republic. Individual freedom and equality were leading features of the social system which was in the main patriarchal. The Araucanians were led by four independent chiefs, each supported by five ulmen, or district chiefs, whose office was hereditary but whose authority was little more than nominal. It was only in time of national warfare that the tribes united under a war-chief[928]. Not only are all the tribes absolutely free, but the same is true of every clan, sept, and family group. Needless to say, there are no slaves or serfs. "The law of retaliation was the only one understood, although the commercial spirit of the Araucano led him to forego personal revenge for its accruing profit. Thus every injury had its price[929]."

The basis of their belief is a rude form of nature worship, the principal deities being malignant and requiring propitiation. The chief god was Pillan, the thunder god. Spirits of the dead go west over the sea to a place of abundance where no evil spirits have entry[930]. And this simple belief is almost the only substitute for the rewards and punishments which supply the motive for the observance of an artificial ethical code in so many more developed religious systems.

In the sonorous Araucanian language, which is still spoken by about 40,000 full-blood natives, the term che, meaning "people," occurs as the postfix of several ethnical groups, which, however, are not tribal but purely territorial divisions. Thus, while Molu-che is the collective name of the whole nation, the Picun-che, Huilli-che, and Puel-che are simply the North, South, and East men respectively. The Central and most numerous division are the Puen-che, that is, people of the pine district, who are both the most typical and most intelligent of all the Araucanian family. Ehrenreich's remark that many of the American aborigines resemble Europeans as much as or even more than the Asiatic Mongols, is certainly borne out by the facial expression of these Puenche. The resemblance is even extended to the mental characters, as reflected in their oral literature. Amongst the specimens of the national folklore preserved in the Puenche dialect and edited with Spanish translations by Rodolfo Lenz[931], is the story of a departed lover, who returns from the other world to demand his betrothed and carries her off to his grave. Although this might seem an adaptation of BÜrger's "Lenore," Lenz is of opinion that it is a genuine Araucanian legend.

Of the above-mentioned groups the Puelche are now included politically in Argentina. Their original home seems to have been north of the Rio Negro, but they raided westwards and some adopted the Araucanian language[932] and to them also the Chilian affix che has also been extended. Indeed the term Puelche, meaning simply "Easterns," is applied not only to the Argentine Moluche, whose territory stretches east of the Cordilleras as far as Mendoza in Cuyo, but also to all the aborigines commonly called Pampeans (Pampas Indians) by the Europeans and Penek by the Patagonians. Under the designation of Puelche would therefore be comprised the now extinct Ranqualche (Ranqueles), who formerly raided up to Buenos-Ayres and the other Spanish settlements on the Plate River, the Mapoche of the Lower Salado, and generally all the nomads as far south as the Rio Negro.

These aborigines are now best represented by the Gauchos, who are mostly Spaniards on the father's side and Indians on the mother's, and reflect this double descent in their half-nomadic, half-civilised life. These Gauchos, who are now also disappearing before the encroachments of the "Gringos[933]," i.e. the white immigrants from almost every country in Europe, have been enveloped in an ill-deserved halo of romance, thanks mainly to their roving habits, splendid horsemanship, love of finery, and genial disposition combined with that innate grace and courtesy which belongs to all of Spanish blood. But those who knew them best described them as of sordid nature, cruel to their women-kind, reckless gamblers and libertines, ruthless political partisans, at times even religious fanatics without a spark of true religion, and at heart little better than bloodthirsty savages.

Beyond the Rio Negro follow the gigantic Patagonians, that is, the Tehuelche or Chuelche of the Araucanians, who have no true collective name unless it be Tsoneca, a word of uncertain use and origin. Most of the tribal groups—Yacana, Pilma, Chao and others—are broken up, and the former division between the Northern Tehuelche (Tehuelhet), comprising the Callilehet (Serranos or Highlanders) of the Upper Chupat, with the Calilan between the Rios Chupat and Negro, and the Southern Tehuelche (Yacana, Sehuan, etc.), south to Fuegia, no longer holds good since the general displacement of all these fluctuating nomad hordes. A branch of the Tehuelche are unquestionably the Ona of the eastern parts of Fuegia, the true aborigines of which are the Yahgans of the central and the Alakalufs of the western islands.

Hitherto to the question whence came these tall Patagonians, no answer could be given beyond the suggestion that they may have been specialised in their present habitat, where nevertheless they seem to be obviously intruders. Now, however, one may perhaps venture to look for their original home amongst the Bororo of Matto Grosso, a once powerful race who held the region between the Rios Cuyaba and Paraguay. These Bororo, who had been heard of by Martius, were visited by Ehrenreich[934] and by Karl von den Steinen[935], who found them to be a nomadic hunting people with a remarkable social organisation centring in the men's club-house (baitÓ). Their physical characters, as described by the former observer, correspond closely with those of the Patagonians: "An exceptionally tall race rivalling the South Sea Islanders, Patagonians, and Redskins; by far the tallest Indians hitherto discovered within the tropics," their stature ranging nearly up to 6 ft. 4 in., with very large and rounded heads (men 81.2; women 77.4). With this should be compared the very large round old Patagonian skull from the Rio Negro, measured by Rudolf Martin[936]. The account reads like the description of some forerunner of a prehistoric Bororo irruption into the Patagonian steppe lands.

To the perplexing use of the term Puelche above referred to is perhaps due the difference of opinion still prevailing on the number of stock languages in this southern section of the Continent. D'Orbigny's emphatic statement[937] that the Puelche spoke a language fundamentally distinct both from the Araucanian and the Patagonian has been questioned on the strength of some Puelche words, which were collected by Hale at Carmen on the Rio Negro, and differ but slightly from Patagonian. But the Rio Negro lies on the ethnical divide between the two races, which sufficiently accounts for the resemblances, while the words are too few to prove anything. Hale calls them "Southern Puelche," but they were in fact Tehuelche (Patagonian), the true Pampean Puelche having disappeared from that region before Hale's time[938]. I have now the unimpeachable authority of T. P. Schmid, for many years a missionary amongst these aborigines, for asserting that d'Orbigny's statement is absolutely correct. His Puelche were the Pampeans, because he locates them in the region between the Rios Negro and Colorado, that is, north of Patagonian and east of Araucanian territory, and Schmid assures me that all three—Araucanian, Pampean, and Patagonian—are undoubtedly stock languages, distinct both in their vocabulary and structure, with nothing in common except their common polysynthetic form. In a list of 2000 Patagonian and Araucanian words he found only two alike, patac = 100, and huarunc = 1000, numerals obviously borrowed by the rude Tehuelche from the more cultured Moluche. In Fuegia there is at least one radically distinct tongue, the Yahgan, studied by Bridges. Here the Ona is probably a Patagonian dialect, and Alakaluf perhaps remotely allied to Araucanian. Thus in the whole region south of the Plate River the stock languages are not known to exceed four: Araucanian; Pampean (Puelche); Patagonian (Tehuelche); and Yahgan.

Few aboriginal peoples have been the subject of more glaringly discrepant statements than the Yahgans, to whom several lengthy monographs have been devoted during the last few decades. How contradictory are the statements of intelligent and even trained observers, whose good faith is beyond suspicion and who have no cause to serve except the truth, will best be seen by placing in juxtaposition the accounts of the family relations by G. Bove, a well-known Italian observer, and P. Hyades of the French Cape Horn Expedition, both summarised[939]:—

Bove.

Hyades.

These seeming contradictions may be partly explained by the general improvement in manners due to the beneficent action of the English missionaries in recent years, and great progress has certainly been made since the accounts of King, Fitz-Roy and Darwin[940].

But even in the more favoured regions of the Parana and Amazon basins many tribes are met which yield little if at all to the Fuegians of the early writers in sheer savagery and debasement. Thus the Cashibo or Carapache of the Ucayali, who are described as "white as Germans, with long beards[941]," may be said to answer almost better than any other human group to the old saying, homo homini lupus. They roam the forests like wild beasts, living almost entirely upon game, in which is included man himself. "When one of them is pursuing the chase in the woods and hears another hunter imitating the cry of an animal, he immediately makes the same cry to entice him nearer, and, if he is of another tribe, he kills him if he can, and (as is alleged) eats him." Hence they are naturally "in a state of hostility with all their neighbours[942]."

These Cashibo, i.e. "Bats," are members of a widespread linguistic family which in ethnological writings bears the name of Pano, from the Pano of the Huallaga and MaraÑon, who are now broken up or greatly reduced, but whose language is current amongst the Cashibo, the Conibo, the Karipuna, the Setebo, the Sipivio (Shipibo) and others about the head waters of the Amazons in Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil, as far east as the Madeira. Amongst these, as amongst the Moxo and so many other riverine tribes in Amazonia, a slow transformation is in progress. Some have been baptized, and while still occupying their old haunts and keeping up the tribal organisation, have been induced to forego their savage ways and turn to peaceful pursuits. They are beginning to wear clothes, usually cotton robes of some vivid colour, to till the soil, take service with the white traders, or even trade themselves in their canoes up and down the tributaries of the Amazons. Beyond the Rubber Belt, however, many tribes are quite untouched by outside influences. The cannibal Boro and Witoto, living between the Issa and Japura, are ignorant of any method of producing fire, and their women go entirely nude, though some of their arts and crafts exhibit considerable skill, notably the plaitwork and blow-pipes of the Boro[943].

In this boundless Amazonian region of moist sunless woodlands fringed north and east by Atlantic coast ranges, diversified by the open Venezuelan llanos, and merging southwards in the vast alluvial plains of the Parana-Paraguay basin, much light has been brought to bear on the obscure ethnical relations by the recent explorations especially of Paul Ehrenreich and Karl von den Steinen about the Xingu, Purus, Madeira and other southern affluents of the great artery[944]. These observers comprise the countless Brazilian aborigines in four main linguistic divisions, which in conformity with Powell's terminology may here be named the Cariban, Arawakan, Gesan and Tupi-Guaranian families. There remain, however, numerous groups which cannot be so classified, such as the Bororo and Karaya of Matto Grosso, while in the relatively small area between the Japura and the Waupes Koch-GrÜnberg found two other language groups, Betoya and Maku in addition to Carib and Arawak[945].

Hitherto the Caribs were commonly supposed to have had their original homes far to the north, possibly in the Alleghany uplands, or in Florida, where they have been doubtfully identified with the extinct Timuquanans, and whence they spread through the Antilles southwards to Venezuela, the Guianas, and north-east Brazil, beyond which they were not known to have ranged anywhere south of the Amazons. But this view is now shown to be untenable, and several Carib tribes, such as the BakaÏri and Nahuqua[946] of the Upper Xingu, all speaking archaic forms of the Carib stock language, have been met by the German explorers in the very heart of Brazil; whence the inference that the cradle of this race is to be sought rather in the centre of South America, perhaps on the Goyaz and Matto Grosso table-lands, from which region they moved northwards, if not to Florida, at least to the Caribbean Sea which is named from them[947]. The wide diffusion of this stock is evidenced by the existence of an unmistakably Carib tribe in the basin of the Rio Magdalena beyond the Andes[948].

In the north the chief groups are the Makirifare of Venezuela and the Macusi, Kalina, and Galibi of British, Dutch, and French Guiana[949] respectively. In general all the Caribs present much the same physical characters, although the southerners are rather taller (5 ft. 4 in.) with less round heads (index 79.6) than the Guiana Caribs (5 ft 2 in., and 81.3).

Perhaps even a greater extension has been given by the German explorers to the Arawakan family, which, like the Cariban, was hitherto supposed to be mainly confined to the region north of the Amazons, but is now known to range as far south as the Upper Paraguay, about 20° S. lat. (Layana, Kwana, etc.), east to the Amazons estuary (Aruan), and north-west to the Goajira peninsula. To this great family—which von den Steinen proposes to call Nu-Aruak from the pronominal prefix nu = I, common to most of the tribes—belong also the Maypures of the Orinoco; the Atarais and Vapisiana of British Guiana; the Manao of the Rio Negro; the Yumana; the Paumari and Ipurina of the Ipuri basin; the Moxo of the Upper MamorÉ, and the Mehinaku and Kustenau of the Upper Xingu.

Physically the Arawaks differ from the Caribs scarcely, if at all, more than their Amazonian and Guiana sections differ from each other. In fact, but for their radically distinct speech it would be impossible to constitute these two ethnical divisions, which are admittedly based on linguistic grounds. But while the Caribs had their cradle in Central Brazil and migrated northwards, the Arawaks would appear to have originated in eastern Bolivia, and spread thence east, north-east and south-east along the Amazons and Orinoco and into the Paraguay basin[950].

Our third great Brazilian division, the Gesan family, takes its name from the syllable ges which, like the Araucan che, forms the final element of several tribal names in East Brazil. Of this the most characteristic are the Aimores of the Serra dos Aimores coast range, who are better known as Botocudo, and it was to the kindred tribes of the province of Goyaz that the arbitrary collective name of "Ges" was first applied by Martius. A better general designation would perhaps have been Tapuya, "Strangers," "Enemies," a term by which the Tupi people called all other natives of that region who were not of their race or speech, or rather who were not "Tupi," that is, "Allies" or "Associates." Tapuya had been adopted somewhat in this sense by the early Portuguese writers, who however applied it rather loosely not only to the Aimores, but also to a large number of kindred and other tribes as far north as the Amazons estuary.

To the same connection belong several groups in Goyaz already described by Milliet and Martius, and more recently visited by Ehrenreich, von den Steinen and Krause. Such are the Kayapo or Suya, a large nation with several divisions between the Araguaya and Xingu rivers; and the Akua, better known as Cherentes, about the upper course of the Tocantins. Isolated Tapuyan tribes, such as the KamÉs or Kaingangs, wrongly called "Coroados," and the Chogleng of Santa Catharina and Rio Grand do Sul, are scattered over the southern provinces of Brazil.

The Tapuya would thus appear to have formerly occupied the whole of East Brazil from the Amazons to the Plate River for an unknown distance inland. Here they must be regarded as the true aborigines, who were in remote times already encroached upon, and broken into isolated fragments, by tribes of the Tupi-Guarani stock spreading from the interior seawards[951].

But in their physical characters and extremely low cultural state, or rather the almost total absence of anything that can be called "culture," the Tapuya are the nearest representatives and probably the direct descendants of the primitive race, whose osseous remains have been found in the Lagoa Santa caves, and the Santa Catharina shell-mounds (sambaqui). On anatomic grounds the Botocudo are allied both to the Lagoa Santa fossil man and to the sambaqui race by J. R. Peixoto, who describes the skull as marked by prominent glabella and superciliary arches, keel or roof-shaped vault, vertical lateral walls, simple sutures, receding brow, deeply depressed nasal root, high prognathism, massive lower jaw, and long head (index 73.30) with cranial capacity 1480 c.c. for men, and 1212 for women[952]. It is also noteworthy that some of the Botocudo[953] call themselves Nacnanuk, Nac-poruc, "Sons of the Soil," and they have no traditions of ever having migrated from any other land. All their implements—spears, bow and arrows, mortars, water-vessels, bags—are of wood or vegetable fibre, so that they may be said not to have yet reached even the stone age. They are not, however, in the promiscuous state, as has been asserted, for the unions, though temporary, are jealously guarded while they last, and, as amongst the Fuegians whom they resemble in so many respects, the women are constantly subject to the most barbarous treatment, beaten with clubs or hacked about with bamboo knives. One of those in Ribeiro's party, who visited London in 1883, had her arms, legs, and whole body covered with scars and gashes inflicted during momentary fits of brutal rage by her ephemeral partner. Their dwellings are mere branches stuck in the ground, bound together with bast, and though seldom over 4 ft. in height accommodating two or more families. The Botocudo are pure nomads, roaming naked in the woods in quest of the roots, berries, honey, frogs, snakes, grubs, man, and other larger game which form their diet, and are eaten raw or else cooked in huge bamboo canes. Formerly they had no hammocks, but slept without any covering, either on the ground strewn with bast, or in the ashes of the fire kindled for the evening meal. About their cannibalism, which has been doubted, there is really no question. They wore the teeth of those they had eaten strung together as necklaces, and ate not only the foe slain in battle, but members of kindred tribes, all but the heads, which were stuck as trophies on stakes and used as butts for the practice of archery.

At the graves of the dead, fires are kept up for some time to scare away the bad spirits, from which custom the Botocudo might be credited with some notions concerning the supernatural. All good influences are attributed by them to the "day-fire" (sun), all bad things to the "night-fire" (moon), which causes the thunderstorm, and is supposed itself at times to fall on the earth, crushing the hill-tops, flooding the plains and destroying multitudes of people. During storms and eclipses arrows are shot up to scare away the demons or devouring dragons, as amongst so many Indo-Chinese peoples. But beyond this there is no conception of a supreme being, or creative force, the terms yanchong, tapan, said to mean "God," standing merely for spirit, demon, thunder, or at most the thunder god.

Owing to the choice made by the missionaries of the Tupi language as the lingoa geral, or common medium of intercourse amongst the multitudinous populations of Brazil and Paraguay, a somewhat exaggerated idea has been formed of the range of the Tupi-Guarani family. Many of the tribes about the stations, after being induced by the padres to learn this convenient lingua franca, were apt in course of time to forget their own mother-tongue, and thus came to be accounted members of this family. But allowing for such a source of error, there can be no doubt that at the discovery the Tupi or Eastern, and the Guarani or Western, section occupied jointly an immense area, which may perhaps be estimated at about one-fourth of the southern continent. Tupi tribes were met as far west as Peru, where they were represented by the Omagua ("Flatheads[954]"), in French Guiana the Emerillons and the Oyampi belong to this stock, as do the Kamayura and AuetÖ on the Upper Xingu, and the Mundurucu of the middle Tapajoz.

Some attention has been paid to the speech of the Ticuna of the MaraÑon, which appears to be a stock language with strong Pana and weak Aymara[955] affinities. Although its numeral system stops at 2, it is still in advance of a neighbouring Chiquito tongue, which is said to have no numerals at all, etama, supposed to be 1, really meaning "alone."

Yet it would be a mistake to infer that these Bolivian Chiquito, who occupy the southernmost headstreams of the Madeira, are a particularly stupid people. On the contrary, the NaquiÑoÑeis, "Men," as they call themselves, are in some respects remarkably clever, and, strange to say, their otherwise rich and harmonious language (presumably the dominant Moncoca dialect is meant) has terms to express such various distinctions as the height of a tree, of a house, of a tower, and other subtle shades of difference disregarded in more cultured tongues[956]. But it is to be considered that, pace Max MÜller, the range of thought and of speech is not the same, and all peoples have no doubt many notions for which they have no equivalents in their necessarily defective languages. The Chiquito, i.e. "Little Folks," were so named because, "when the country was first invaded, the Indians fled to the forests; and the Spaniards came to their abandoned huts, where the doorways were so exceedingly low that the Indians who had fled were supposed to be dwarfs[957]." They are a peaceful industrious nation, who ply several trades, manufacture their own copper boilers for making sugar, weave ponchos and straw hats, and when they want blue trousers they plant a row of indigo, and rows of white and yellow cotton when striped trousers are in fashion. Hence the question arises, whether these clever little people may not after all have originally possessed some defective numeral system, which was merely superseded by the Spanish numbers.

The Gran Chaco is another area of considerable modification induced by European influence, and there only remain hybridised descendants of many of the ancient peoples, for example, the Abipone of the Guaycuru family. Pure survivals of this family are the Mataco and Toba of the Vermejo and Pilcomayo rivers. These two tribes were visited by Ehrenreich, who noticed their disproportionately short arms and legs, and excessive development of the thorax[958]. The daily life, customs, and beliefs of these and other Chaco Indians have been admirably described and illustrated by Erland NordenskiÖld[959], who lived and travelled among them. The Toba and Mataco frequently fall out with the neighbouring Choroti and Ashluslays of the Pilcomayo anent fishing rights and so on, but the conflict consists in ambuscades and treachery rather than in pitched battles. Weapons consist of bows and arrows and clubs, and lances are used on horseback. Enemies are scalped and these trophies are greatly prized, being hung outside the victor's hut when fine and playing a part on great occasions. On the conclusion of peace both sides pay the blood-price for those slain by them in sheep, horses, etc. Within the Choroti or Ashluslay village all are equal, and though property is held individually, the fortunate will always share with those in want, so that theft is unknown. To kill old people or young children is regarded as no crime[960].