219 



are difficult lo govern. In general, the monks 

 have united whole nations, or great portions 

 of the same nations, in villages lying near each 

 other. The natives see only those of their own 

 tribe ; for the want of communication, and the 

 isolated state of the people, form the principal 

 policy of the missionaries. The reduced Chay- 

 mas, Caribs, and Tamanacs retain so much the 

 more their natural physiognomy, as they have 

 preserved their languages. If the individuality 

 of man be in some sort reflected in his idioms, 

 these in their turn react on his ideas and sen- 

 timents. It is this intimate connection be- 

 tween the languages, the character, and the 

 physical constitution, which maintains and per- 

 petuates the diversity of nations, that unfailing 

 source of life and motion in the intellectual 

 world. • 



The missionaries may have prohibited the 

 Indians fVom following certain practices in use 

 on the birth of children, on their entrance on 

 the age of puberty, and at the interment of the 

 dead : they may have prevented them from 

 painting their skin, from making incisions on 

 their chins, noses, and cheeks ; they may have 

 destroyed among the great mass of the people 

 superstitious ideas, which are mysteriously trans- 

 mitted from father to son in certain families : but 

 it has been easier for them to proscribe customs 

 and efface remembrances, than to substitute 



