598 



pie saved on the summit of a mountain, and 

 throwing behind them the fruits of the mauritia 

 palm-tree, to repeople the Earth* ; of that 

 national divinity, Amalivaca, who arrived by 

 water from a distant land, prescribed laws to 

 nature, and forced the nations to renounce their 

 migrations ; these various features of a very 

 ancient system of belief, are well worthy to fix 

 our attention. What the Tamanacs, and the 

 tribes whose languages are analogous to the Ta- 

 manac tongue, now relate to us, they have no 

 doubt learned from other people, who inhabited 

 before them the same regions-^. The name of 

 Amalivaca is spread over a region of more than 

 five thousand square leagues ; it is found de- 

 signating the father tqf mankind (our great 

 grandfather) as far as to the Caribbee nations^, 

 whose idiom approaches that of the Tamanac 

 only in the same degree as the German ap- 

 proaches the Greek, the Persian, and the Sans- 

 crit. Amalivaca is not originally the Great 

 Spirit, the Aged of' Heaven, that invisible being, 

 whose worship springs from that of the powers 

 of nature, when nations rise insensibly to the 

 sentiment of the unity of these powers ; he is 



* See vol. iv, p. 472. 

 f The Parecas, Avarigotoes, Quiriquiripas, and Mariqui- 

 tares. 



X The Caribbees say Amarivaca, as they call themselves 

 Carina and Calina (Galibis) by changing the r into /. 



