Briuton.] "^ [Feb. 5, 



about Santiago use it, as well as the natives along the Rio de 

 Estero, and many more who live in the mountains. I have pre- 

 pared a grammar and vocabulary of this language."* 



These statements assign a distribution of the language over an 

 area about 450 miles from east to west, and 300 miles from north 

 to south. It is highly unlikely that so widespread a tongue should 

 utterly disappear while so many of the descendants of those who 

 spoke it still survive. Yet the native population of Tucuman to- 

 day speak only a corrupt Kechua dialect, when not Spanish. In 

 fact, the name applied to the tongue by Barzana, kaka, is the 

 Kechua word for mountain, and signifies in this connection the 

 dialect of the mountaineers. 



The grammar and vocabulary he prepared are lost, and we have 

 no monuments of the language remaining, except the geographical 

 and other names mentioned in the early writers or preserved on 

 old maps. In examining these one is at once struck with the 

 numerous names of villages ending in -gasta. These are found 

 from the Rio Salado to the Cordillera, and from about 26° 30' to 

 31° 30' South latitude; in other words, in just about the area 

 assigned by Barzana to the Caca tongue. 



I quote some of them : 



Ambargasta, G-uanagasta, 



Amingasta, Machigasla, 



Auguagasta, Paquilagasta, 



Cahgasta, Tiuogasta, 



Calingasta, Tiiquiligasta. 

 Chiquiligasta, 



I do not think there can be any doubt but that this gasta is a 

 corrupted form of the Kechua llacta, town or village. In pure 

 Kechua there is no g sound, and the ^ is a guttural (German cJi) ; 

 so that a rough equivalent in the Spanish alphabet would be close 

 to gasta. Moreover, many of the syllables preceding the termina- 

 tion are evidently Kechua, as : 



Cahgasta ^ ca;a llacta, cold town ; an appropriate name, as it lies high 



up the Cordillera on the Rio de Limari. 

 Auguagasta =:«?<cca llacta, enemies' town ; occupied by hostile people. 

 Calingasta = ccaK llacta, healthy town ; probably from its salubrious site. 



* Bdrzana's letter is printed in tlie Rdacioncs Geograflcas de Indias, Peru, Torao ii 

 (Madrid, 1885). 



