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and Biscayan languages, by a certain ingenu- 

 ousness of expression. In Tamanack, the wasp, 

 uaneimu ; father (im-de) of honey (uane) : 

 the toes, ptari-mucuru, properly, the sons of 

 the foot ; the fingers, amgna-mucuru, the sons 

 of the hand; mushrooms, jeje-panari, properly, 

 the ears (panari) of a tree (jeje) ; the veins of 

 the hand, amgna-mitti, properly the ramified 

 roots ; leaves, prutpe-jareri, properly, the hair 

 of the top of the tree ; puire?ie-veju, properly 

 Sun (veju) straight or perpendicular; light- 

 ning % kinemeru - uaptori, properly, the fire 

 (uapto) of the thunder, or of the storm. In 

 Biscayan, becoquia, the forehead, what belongs 

 (co and quia) to the eye (beguia) ; odotsa, the 

 noise (otsa) of the cloud (odeiaj, or thunder; 

 arribicia, an echo, properly, the animated stone, 

 from arria, stone, and bicia, life. 



The Chayma and Tamanack verbs have an 

 enormous complication of tenses, two presents, 

 four preterites, three futures. This multiplicity 

 characterizes the rudest American languages. 

 Astarlpa reckons, in like manner, in the gram- 

 matical system of the Biscayan, two hundred 

 and six forms of the verb. Those languages, 

 the principal tendency of which is inflexion, 

 excite less the curiosity of the vulgar, than those 

 which seem formed by aggregation. In the 



* I recognise in Hnemeru y thunder or storm, the root kine- 

 me, black. 



