332 MIGRATION OF THE CARIBS. 



Conorichite and the Atacav% None knew better than the 

 Caribs the uitertwiriings of the rivers, the proximity of 

 the tributary streams, and the roads by which distances 

 might be diminished. The Caribs had vanquished and 

 almost exterminated the Cabres. Having made them- 

 selves masters of the Lower Orinoco, they met with re- 

 sistance from the G-uaypunaves, who had founded their 

 dominion on the Upper Orinoco ; and who, together with 

 the Cabres, the Manitivitanos, and the Parenls, are the 

 greatest cannibals of these countries. They originally inha- 

 bited the banks of the great river Inirida, at its confluence 

 with the Chamochiquini, and the hilly country of Mabicore. 

 About the year 1744, their chief, or as the natives call him, 

 their king (apoto), was named Macapu. He was a man no 

 less distinguished by his intelligence than his valour ; had 

 led a part of the nation to the banks of the Atabapo ; and 

 when the Jesuit E-oman made his memorable expedition 

 from the Orinoco to the Rio Negro, Macapu suffered that 

 missionary to take with him some families of the G-uay- 

 punaves to settle them at Uruana, and near the cataract 

 of Maypures. This people are connected by their language 

 with the great branch of the Maypure nations. They are 

 more industrious, we might also say more civilized, than the 

 other nations of the Upper Orinoco. The missionaries 

 relate, that the G-uaypunaves, at the time of their sway 

 in those countries, were generally clothed, and had con- 

 siderable villages. After the death of Macapu, the com- 

 mand devolved on another warrior, Cuseru, called by the 

 Spaniards El capitan Cusero. He established lines of de- 

 fence on the banks of the Inirida, with a kind of little fort, 

 constructed of earth and timber. The piles were more than 

 sixteen feet high, and surrounded both the house of the 

 apoto and a magazine of bows and arrows. These structures, 



There is also an ancient portage of the Caribs between the Paruspa and 

 the Rio Chavaro, which flows into the Rio Caura above the mouth of the 

 Erevato. In going up the Erevato you reach the savannahs that are 

 traversed by the Rio Manipiare above the tributary streams of the 

 Veatuari. The Caribs in their distant excursions sometimes passed fron? 

 the Rio Caura to the Ventuari, thence to the Padaroo, and then by the 

 Upper Orinoco to the Atacavi, which, westward of Manuteso, takes the 

 name of the Atabtpo. 



