56 COLUMBIAN HISTORICAL EXPOSITION AT MADRID. 



these were far from exhausting or even giving a full conception of the 

 riches in this direction owned by the national museums of that Republic. 

 They present, however, in an attractive manner, the size and coloring 

 of a large number of painted vases of clay, usually decorated in a con 

 ventional manner by representations of the human body and various 

 animals, especially the serpent. The majority of these were from the 

 Province of Catamarca, and were funerary urns obtained from the 

 cemeteries of that region. 



It is well known to students of the subject that precisely in this prov 

 ince some of the most difficult enigmas present themselves concerning 

 the history of the civilization of South America. Here alone, in any 

 part of the continent east of the Andes, were found tribes constructing 

 walls of cut stone, and erecting edifices of the same material, some of 

 which were of great extent and admirably designed for defensive works. 

 There can be little doubt but that the influence of ancient Peru made 

 itself felt upon the arts, of this province, but whether its inhabi 

 tants, the actual builders of these stone works, belonged in language 

 to the great Kechua stock, is a question upon which linguists have not 

 reached a unanimous opinion. The articles depicted in the collection 

 from the Argentine Republic at Madrid will extend an interest in this 

 question, and will prove the comparatively high artistic skill which had 

 been acquired by this unknown people. 



The natives of Catamarca were known as the Calchaquis, and were 

 in a much higher stage of culture at the time of the Conquest than their 

 neighbors, the tribes of the Gran Chaco, or those which roamed over 

 the pampas to the south. Xone of the latter had developed an agri 

 cultural or sedentary life, while the Calchaquis were distinctly city 

 builders. 



Although the province of Catamarca and its inhabitants became 

 early a field for missionary effort, and a grammar of the language was 

 prepared by the apostolic laborer, Father Alonso de Barcena, the work 

 is lost, and all that remains of the tongue is a series of place-names. 

 From an analysis of these, various conclusions have been reached. I 

 have endeavored to prove that they belong to a dialect of the Kechua, 

 of Peru, a conclusion which, if accepted, would bring the remarkable 

 remains of the Calchaquis as well as themselves into genetic relation 

 with the great culture-center of the Incas. Yon Tschudi, however, 

 thought they were a part of the Atacameiios of the Pacific Coast 5 and 

 Samuel A. Lafoue-Quevedo, who has long studied the problem on the 

 spot, is inclined to look upon them as an independent stock, without 

 known affiliations. 1 



1 On this question the following may be profitably consulted : Brinton, The 

 American Race, pp. 227, 319, seq. ; S. A. Lafone-Quevedo, Catalogo de las Huacas 

 deChanar-Yaco, La Plata 1892; Gunardo Lange, Las Ruinas del Pueblo de Watun- 

 gasta, La Plata, 1892. 



