INHABITANTS OF GUIANA. 03 



But these ethnical affinities were gradually recognised, and the studies of the 

 missionaries and philologists have now reduced all the indigenous populations of 

 Guiana to three independent families : Ara/vak, Carib, and Tiq)i. Even these 

 groups, however, present many points of resemblance in their appearance, physiog- 

 nomy, and customs, while differing greatly in speech. 



The Arawaks. 



The oldest group, constituting the aboriginal element in the strictest sense, 

 appears to be that of the Arawaks, a name which has been referred with great 

 improbability to a Tupi word meaning " porridge-eaters." All the natives alike, 

 as well as the Creoles, live on a manioc diet, so that the Arawaks are not specially 

 distinguished in this respect. They are met, all bearing the same name, every- 

 where throughout the British Guiana seaboard, and under diiferent designations 

 in the inland districts; here they usually call themselves Lokono (Lukkunu), 

 that is, "Men." 



The Wapisianas, Tarumas, Atorais (Atorradi) of the upper Essequibo and of 

 the Takutu, and the Palicurs of the contested territory, all belong to this primitive 

 group. At the time of Schomburgk's journey the Amaripa tribe, formerly neigh- 

 bours of the Wapisianas, were already extinct, or represented only by a single 

 survivor, a woman sixty years old. The coast Arawaks, living in the midst of the 

 whites and of other settled populations with a sort of English jargon as their 

 common medium of intercourse, have all been Anglicised, and are gradually 

 merging in the somewhat cosmopolitan labouring class employed on the jjlanta- 

 lions. Under the Dutch rule these Arawaks were exempt from the servitude 

 " legally " imposed on all the other Indians. 



Those of the Moruka coast stream north-west of the Essequibo estuary are not 

 fidl-blood Arawaks. During the Venezuelan War of Independence some Orinoco 

 Indians belonging to an unknown tribe, but already largely Hispanified in their 

 usages, took refuge in British Guiana, in order to escape from oppression and 

 massacre. Here they received a concession of some land in the hilly district about 

 the sources of the Moruka, where they settled, cultivating the soil, intermarrying 

 with the Arawaks, and thus reverting to the Indian type. Later some Portu- 

 guese immigrants mingled with these half-breeds, while the discovery of the 

 gold mines brought them in contact with the cosmopolitan populations of the 

 auriferous districts. 



Till recently the Arawaks, who have their camping-grounds on the banks of 

 the Aruka, a western affluent of the Barima, kept completely aloof from the 

 whites, and of all the natives these alone were unfamiliar with the English 

 language. As amongst the Caribs of the West Indies, some traces of bilingual 

 speech have been discovered amongst them, a phenomenon which can only be 

 explained by the intermingling of two races as the result of conquest. 



The Arawaks have preserved many of the old national usages, amongst others 

 certain tests of endurance, such as the whip-game or dance, in which the dancers, 

 all being men, "stand in two rows opposite each other. Each man has in his 



