I' A T A G O N 1 A. 653 



ARAUCAVO. CII1LJCNO. 



meli unli four 



/,-// five 



l;i-l('in six 



seven 

 fight 



aili/<i nine 



/////' //wi ten 



mari-i/uiin/r ninn-l;iiii/<- eleven 



niiiri-( Jin /itii/'i-f/ii/ twelve 



<-lii<-}ii<ifi cpn-i/i"n twenty 



ktilu-tiitn-i thirty 



i>nlukii (?) hundred 



P U E I. C II K S I' A M I' A S \ N I) T E H U I L I C H K S.. 



Faulkner, in his account of Patagonia, ilescrilx's the whole country south of the latitude 

 of the Rio de la Plata, and cast of the Cordilleras, as inhabited by a single nation of 

 Indians, sneaking our language, and known by the general name of Fuelcltcs. Different 

 tribes and bands have particular designations, such as the Mountaineers, the River people, 

 &c., according to their locality. Those to the north of the Rio Colorado are commonly 

 known as the " Pampas Indians," from the prairies over which they wander. Those 

 south of this river arc termed Tchnrllirtx or Tchnelches, (pronounced by the inhabitants 

 of Carmen, Telntiliches.) They inhabit the plains and the table-land between the Andes 

 and the coast. These are the people so celebrated for their gigantic stature, though this 

 ap|M>ars not to be a general characteristic. Of the natives whom we saw at the Rio 

 Negro, none were six feet tall ; but we were assured by respectable residents that among 

 the more southern tribes who occasionally visited that settlement, it was not uncommon 

 to see individuals who exceeded that measure. 



The following words were obtained from an Indian of the Pampas who had resided at 

 the settlement long enough to acquire some knowledge of the Spanish language. The 

 general sound of the speech is extremely harsh and guttural. The other Indians spoke 

 of it as very difficult (niut/ trabajoso) to acquire. It abounds in consonants and guttural 

 sounds, forming a strong contrast, in this respect, to the Chileno. The guttural /. fre- 

 quently occurs; and the sibilants s and f are often heard, as well as the harsh combina- 

 tions ts, <f, sk, tsk, jil (qu. tyl?), &c. But the most peculiar sound in the language is a 

 very deep guttural, resembling probably the 'ain of the Semitic tongues. It is pronounced 

 i> in the throat, with a contraction of the organs like that made in an ineffectual attempt 

 to swallow. Various methods of representing this element in Roman characters have 

 been employed by Arabic and Hebrew grammarians; one of these is by an inverted 

 comma (') placed before the vowel which follows the sound, and this has been adopted 

 in the present case.* 



The vocabulary has been left as originally written ; but it seems probable that this sound is the same 

 u that for which, in writing the Oregon tongues, three years afterwards, the letter 7 was adopted. It 

 will be seen that it is frequently combined with the k and g. 



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