1890.] [Brinton. 



1607. It is indeed rare, but there is a copy in the Bibliotheque 

 Nationale at Paris, which I recently consulted. It contains not 

 only the Pater Noster, but thirty odd pages in the Puquina tongue, 

 and presents a veritable mine of texts for any one to work out a 

 satisfactory presentation of the idiom. That is not my intention, 

 but merely to call attention to this valuable source of knowledge in 

 the hope that some of the many able French students of linguistics 

 will give us such an analysis of these texts as, for instance, M. Raoul 

 de la Grasserie has accomplished for the Timucua. 



The source of De Ore's information appears to be the remarkable 

 work of Father Alonso de Barcena, Lexica et precepta grammatica 

 in quinque Indorum linguis quarum usus per American australem, 

 said to have been printed at Lima in 1590, but of which not a sin- 

 gle copy is known as extant. Ore expressly states that the Puquina 

 version of the Doctrina Christiana which he publishes is according 

 to the translation of "P. Alonso de Barzana, jesuita." In addition 

 to the Doctrina, he inserts a Puquina translation of the Sacraments 

 of Baptism, the Eucharist, the Creed, various exhortations, etc. 

 These are accompanied by renderings in Spanish or Latin, and also 

 into the Kechua and Aymara, so that the similarities and differences 

 of the three tongues are clearly shown. 



At the time of Barcena's mission, the Puquina was spoken on 

 various islands in Lake Titicaca, in. the neighborhood of Pucarani 

 and in several villages of the diocese of Lima. Bastian quotes 

 Oliva as averring that it was also current on the Pacific coast, in the 

 extreme north-west of Peru, near Lambayeque ; but I should hesi- 

 tate to credit this without better evidence. The Titicacan tribe who 

 made use of it was called Uros or Ochozomas. According to the 

 authorities they were extremely low in culture, shy and dull. Acosta 

 says of them that they were so brutish that they did not even claim 

 to be men, but only animals.* Garcilasso de la Vega calls them 

 rude and stupid. f Alcedo, writing in the latter half of the last 

 century, calls them Hunos, and adds that formerly they lived in 

 great misery and degradation on the islands in the lake, but had 

 against their will been removed to the mainland, where they dwelt 



* " Son estos Uros tan brutales que ellos mismos no se tienen por hombres. Cuentase 

 dellos que preguntadolos que gente eran, respondieron que ellos no eran hombres sino 

 Uros, como si fuera otro genero de animates " (Acosta, Hist, de las Indias, p. 62). 



t " Los Indies Puquinas * * * que son rudos y torpes " (Comentarios Reales de los 

 Incas, Lib. vii, cap. iv). 



PROC. AMER. PHILOS. SOC. XXVIII. 134. 2F. PRINTED JAN. 14, 1891. 



