PEOPLE. 15 



Dolegas, Dorasques, Dures, Utelaes, Zaribas and Zunes. The reduction has gone 

 steadily on since the advent of the European. According to Gabb, 1 " A strange 

 fatality seems to hang over these Isthmian Indians. Even when not brought into 

 contact with the debasing influences of civilization, the tribes are visibly dimin- 

 ishing." To other obliterating agencies must be added intermixture with the 

 blood of both whites and blacks. 



Brinton 2 draws the ethnographic boundary line between North and South 

 America at the mountain chain which separates Nicaragua from Costa Rica, and 

 the head-waters of the Rio Frio from those of the more southern and eastern 

 streams. " Beyond it we come upon tribes whose linguistic affinities point towards 

 the southern continent." Fernandez states that at the time of the discovery the 

 outposts of Nahuatl civilization did not reach farther south than Chiriqui lagoon, 

 while Uhle places the northern limit of Peruvian culture at Pasto. The region 

 between includes the present republics of Colombia and Panama, and forms a 

 linguistic and archeological barrier between the great civilizations of Mexico and 

 Peru. In this culture zone the dominant factor is Chibchan. The original home 

 of the Chibchas was on the plains of Bogota and Tunja. Brinton believes their 

 language to have been " much more widely disseminated throughout New Granada 

 at the time of the discovery than later writers have appreciated." Dr. Max Uhle's 3 

 important researches serve to confirm this view. The dialectic evidence points 

 to attrition and gradual loss of the original form as one proceeds from Colombia 

 through the Isthmus into Costa Rica, making it clear that the invasion was from 

 South America into North America, and not the reverse. Thus, even in Costa 

 Rica, the only tribes whose language shows no affinity with the Chibcha are the 

 Guetares and Orotinans, both belonging to the Chapanec linguistic stock of Chia- 

 pas, and the Guatusos, which, judging from the vocabularies already collected, 

 are an independent stock related neither to the Nahuatl nor the Chibcha. As 

 for Panama, the only possible breaks in the Chibcha linguistic chain of influence 

 are to be found among the Cunas or Coibas, who at the time of the discovery 

 occupied the territory from the Gulf of Darien and the Atrato river on the east 

 to the river Chagres on the west, and the Changuina-Dorasque stock of Chiriqui. 

 Uhle points out certain verbal similarities between the Cuna and Chibcha, while 

 Pinart, who has published extensively on the Cuna, notes affiliations with the 

 Carib. The present state of our knowledge would not warrant its classification 

 with either of these linguistic stocks. 



The tribes occupying the province of Chiriqui in recent times are the Guaymis 

 and Dorasques. The Guaymis inhabit both slopes of the Cordillera and are 

 divided into three sub-tribes, each speaking a distinct dialect: (1) The Muois, of 

 whom only three were living in 1880, (2) the Moves or Valientes, and (3) Murires 

 or Sabaneros. The generic name Guaymi is from the Muoi dialect and means man. 



1 Wm. M. Gabb. On the Indian tribes and languages of Costa Rica. Proc. Amer. philos. 

 soc, XIV, 491, 1875. 



2 D. G. Brinton. The American race, 164, 1901. 



3 Verwandtschaften und Wandemngen der Tschibtscha. C. R. Congres intern, des Ameri- 

 canistes, 466, Berlin, 1888. 



