INDIAN TEIBES. 281 



tral ideas of these fiestas, wliicli arc maintained by the 

 Indians for weeks together, until the faihire of provisions 

 compels them to set out upon long hunting-excursions. 

 Their villages are then deserted, and we find/ them scat- 

 tered in little tambos along the banks of the lagoons and 

 minor water-courses, obtaining a precarious subsistence 

 from the streams and forests. 



There are two principal tribes dwelling upon the Rio 

 Napo : the Zaparos, upon the southern bank of the river, 

 and the Napos, upon the northern. The latter have been 

 partially civilized by the padres, and, in almost all their 

 little villages, the rude church, occupying the most promi- 

 nent site, indicates their presence. The nomadic Zaparos, 

 from the fact that they do not congregate in towns, have 

 not been brought under the influence of civilization. They 

 are the most abject and miserable Indians that we en- 

 countered in the interior. The Quichua is the language 

 of the Napos. Singularly enough, in Quichua the word 

 for mother is the same as in English. It seems strangely 

 odd to hear these children of the forest calling " mamma ! " 

 The tongue of the Zaparos is, doixbtless, judging from 

 certain affinities, a dialect of the same. In common with 

 many other American tribes, their system of numeration 

 contains traces of decimal arrangement. However the 

 tribes beyond the Quichuas may have come in possession 

 of their somewhat imperfect system — whether by contact 

 with higher civilization, or by originating it among them- 

 selves — the rigid notation of these Indians bears the im- 

 press of Peruvian culture, and illustrates how language is 

 moulded and retains the impressions of the genius of a 

 people long after all other traces of it are lost. The mon- 

 uments of the civilization of the Incas, which rose upon 

 the table-lands of the Andes, now lie scattered over those 

 plains, in unintelligible ruins ; while here, in their lan- 

 guage, we find a monument that Avill endure ages beyond 



