277 



This we will not positively affirm ; for the Ca- 

 ribbees themselves give the name of Caribana * 

 to a country which they occupied, and which 

 extended from the Rio Sinu, to the Gulf of 

 Darien. This is a striking example of an iden- 

 tity of name between an American nation and 

 the territory it possessed. We may conceive, 

 that in a state of society, where residence is not 

 long fixed, such instances must be very rare. 



2. The Guaraons or Gu-ara-unu, almost all 

 free and independent, dispersed in the Delta 

 of the Oroonoko, with the variously ramified 

 channels of which they alone are well acquaint- 

 ed. The Caribbees call the Guaraons U-ara-u. 



or Iyupari (Herrera, Dec, vol. i, p. 80, 84, and 108). In 

 all these denominations of a great river, of a shore, and of a 

 rainy country, I think I recognise the radical par, signifying 

 water, not only in the languages of these countries, but also 

 in those of nations very distant from one another on the 

 eastern and western coasts of America. The sea, or great 

 water, is in the Caribbean, Maypure, and Brazilian lan- 

 guages, parana : in the Tamanack, parava. In Upper 

 Guiana the Oroonoko is called Parava. In the Peru- 

 vian, or Qquichua, I find rain, para; to rain parani. Be- 

 sides, there is a lake in Peru, that has been very anciently 

 called Paria (Garcia, Origen de los Ind., p. 292). I have 

 entered into these minute details concerning the word Paria, 

 because very recently some persons have thought they could 

 recognise in this word the country of the Parias, a Hindoo 

 cast. 



* Petrus Martyr, Ocean., p. 125. 



