THE WILT) INDIAN TRIBES OF THE MADEIRA VALLEY. 
161 
\vliicli ai-e inteiuled to convey tlie tliouglit easily and eloai’ly in all its 
sharpness and logical power to the sjnrit of the hearer. These flexions 
are substituted hy certain particles,* that express the most necessary 
grammatical and syntactical notions. Of course they are loss apt for 
the purpose ; and these idioms eamiot possess the beauty and precision 
of more civilised languages. l\Tiile in the latter these flexions and 
composed words appear (so to say) as tlie results of an organic process, 
as a spontaneous emanation of the spirit, showing the laws regulating 
the course of ideas already in the construction of the sentences ; the- . 
poly.synthetical languages, on the contrary, liaving nothing of the kind, « 
appear only as a loosely-joined conglomeration of words. This in- 
flexibility and poverty characterize all the Indian languages of Ilrazil, 
even the Guarani, and the Liugoa geral do Brazil, or Tupi, which 
has arisen from it under the influence of the Jesuits; so that the 
eulogies lamshcd on it by the old ruissionaries seem to be applicable 
rather to its phonetic character than to its construction.” 
Thus far the excellent German linguist and botanist. At the end 
of his treatise he proposes the erection of schools for instruction in 
the Tupi language, thinking that thereupon the greater part of the 
native popiflation, or rather the half-civilised descendants of the autoch- 
thons, would not regard the white men as strangers and intruders 
any longer, and would join them in larger numbers. Well-meaning 
wishes ! If I conjecture aright, Brazilian statesmen nuist have thought ; 
“ If we but had schools for our own descendants ! In a short time 
the last remains of the natives will, notwithstanding all our efforts, 
have vanished, and the low degree of civilisation to which they wei'o 
capable of advancing by their own unaided efforts certainly did not 
warrant bright hopes of them ! ” So it is always the same vicious 
ch’cle. They are not helped because they do not progress ; and they do 
not progress because they are not helped. 
* The following passage is taken from tlie Introdnotion to the “ Tesoro do la lengiia 
truarnui. quo se usa eu el Peru, Paraguay y Rio de la Plata. Por el P. Antonio 
Ruiz (de Montoya) do la Corapanin de .Tosns. Madiid; J. Sanchez. 1639.” 
‘‘Among the chief difficulties of this language are the particles, many of which 
have no meaning hy themselves, but only when joined to some other word, be it 
entire or maimed by the composition. For this reason there me no particular forms 
for the verb, which is conjiigatwl by the particles; A, ere, o, ya, ha, j>ee, and the 
pronouns — che,_^nde, &c. The verb, nemboe, e.g., is composed by the particles, ne, 
mo, and e. N6 is reciprocal ; wti i.s an active particle ; and e means cleverness, 
aptitude; the whole together meaning to exercise, to learn. ‘I learn’ is expressed 
Ijy n4mho^.^* 
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