597 



that this heroic personage had a brother, Vochu 

 who helped him to give the surface of the Earth 

 if s present form. The Tamanacs relate, that 

 the twobrothers,in their system of perfectibility, 

 sought at first, to arrange the Oroonoko in such 

 a manner, that the current of the water could 

 always be followed either going down or going up 

 the river. They hoped by this means to spare men 

 the trouble of rowing in proceeding toward the 

 source of rivers ; but, however great the power 

 of these regenerators of the world, they could 

 never contrive to give a double slope to the 

 Oroonoko, and were compelled to relinquish 

 this singular hydraulic system. Amalivaca had 

 daughters who had a decided taste for travel- 

 ling. The tradition says, no doubt in a figura- 

 tive style, that he broke their legs, to render 

 them sedentary, and force them to people the 

 land of the Tamanacs. After having regulated 

 every thing in America, on that side of the great 

 water, Amalivaca again embarked, and u re- 

 turned to the other shore," to the same place 

 from which he came. Since the natives have 

 seen the missionaries arrive, they imagine, that 

 Europe is this other shore ; and one of them 

 inquired with great simplicity of father Gili, 

 whether he had seen the great Amalivaca yon- 

 der, the father of the Tamanacs, who had cover- 

 ed the rocks with symbolic figures. 



These notions of a great cataclysm ; of a cou- 



