Brinton.l oO [Feb. 5, 



the Onas tongue there is practically nothing and but little of the 

 Alikuluf. 



It is still uncertain whether the last mentioned is a branch of the 

 Yakanacunny, and whether these latter in turn differ from the true 

 Patagonian or Tehuelhet.* 



D'Orbigny insists that the Puelches, who have for a century and 

 a half occupied the plains between the Rio Negro and the Rio Col- 

 orado (39° to 41° lat. South), are radically different in language 

 both from their Aucanian neighbors to the north and the Patagonian 

 tribes to the south. f For this reason they are called by the Arau- 

 canians Quinviolu-che, "People who cannot understand. "J D'Or- 

 bigny's short comparative vocabulary of the " Patagon " and 

 "Puelche" certainly reveals a wide difference, but a comparison 

 of the few words of " southern Puelche" collected by Hale discloses 

 unmistakable identities between the two idioms, as: 



S. Puelche. Tehuel-het. 



Star, s'/jdela, tsbkalela. 



Tree, apa, opuk. 



Bone, ohatsk, ohit. 



Mr. Hale collected his vocabularies at Carmen, on the Rio 



Negro; and the influence of the northern tribes is distinctly visible 



in them. Especially the Guachi would seem to have percolated 



into them. The possessive pronoun of the first person singular, ia 



or ya, " my," is seen in both Hale's vocabularies and also in D'Or- 



bigny's Puelche. It is common to the Tsoneca or Tehuelhet and 



the Guachi. 



Guachi. Teh. or Puelche. 



Nose, ia-note, ia-nots. 



Water, euak, yag^ip- 



Mouth or lips, ia-pe, ia-pelk. 



Teeth, ia-va, ia-haii 



Mountain, tegec-loan, atecq, yuiUmana. 



The Poyas or Pey-yus are stated in the Informe of General Pietas, 

 above quoted, to have dwelt (in 1729) from the river Lauquen-leufu 

 one hundred leagues southward and quite to the Atlantic. Twenty- 

 five years ago Guinnard found the "Poyu-che," as he calls them, 

 wandering along both banks of the Rio Negro from Pacheco Island 



* The writers of the Mission Scientiflque au Cap Horn identify the Onas with the Yakana- 

 cunny, and assert that they speak a closely related dialect of Patagonian. 



i L' Homme Amb'icdin, Tome ii, p. 71. 



X Informe of Don Geronimo Pietas, 1729, quoted by Dr. Darapsky in the Bull, del In^ti- 

 tuta Geographico Argentino, Tomo x, p. 278. 



I 



