100 



CHARACTER OF THE INDIAKS. 



Distinction 

 of tribes 



CHAP. IX. Cumanagotos, Palenkas, Caribs, Piritoos, Tomoozas, 

 Topocuares, Cliacoiiatas, and Guarivas. The precise 

 Hutson trees, number of the Guaraunos, who live in huts elevated on 

 trees at the mouth of the Orinoco, is not known. There 

 are two thousand Guayquerias in the suburbs of Cumana 

 and the peninsula of Araya. Of the other tribes the 

 Cliaymas of the mountains of Caripe, the Caribs of New- 

 Barcelona, and the Cumanagotos of the missions of 

 Piritoo, are the most numerous. The language of the 

 Guaraunos, and that of the Caribs, Cumanagotos, and 

 Chaymas, arc the most general, and seem to belong to 

 the same stock. 



Althougli the Indians attached to the missions are all 

 agriculturists, cultivate the same plants, build their huts 

 in the same manner, and lead the same kind of life, yet 

 the shades by which the several tribes are distinguished 

 remain unchanged. There are few of these villages in 

 whicli tlie families belong to different tribes, and speak 

 different languages. The missionaries have indeed pro- 

 hibited the use of various practices and ceremonies, and 

 have destroyed many superstitions ; but they have not 

 been able to alter the essential character common to all 

 the American races from Hudson's Bay to the Straits of 

 Magellan. The instructed Indian, more secure of sub- 

 sistence than the untamed native, and less exposed to 

 the fury of hostile neighbours or of the elements, leads 

 a more monotonous life, possesses the mildness of char- 

 acter which arises from the love of repose, and assumes 

 a sedate and mysterious air ; but the sphere of his ideas 

 has received little enlargement, and tiie expression of 

 melanclioly wliicli his countenance exhibits is merely 

 the result of indolence. 



The Chaymas, of whom more than fifteen thousand 

 inhabit the Spanish villages, and who border on the 

 Cuniaiiagotos toward the west, the Guaraunos toward 

 the east, and the Caribs toward tlie south, occupy part 

 of the elevated mountains of the CocoUar and Guacharo, 

 as also tlie banks of the Guarapiclie, Rio Colorado, Areo, 

 and the Cano of Caripe. The first attemi>t to reduce 



Mildness of 

 cliaracter 



The Chu7- 

 mus. 



