334 
INDIAN NATIONS. 
dialect of the Salive tongue ; and their original abode was 
on the hanks of the Assiveru, which the Spaniards call 
Cuchivero. They have extended their migrations one hun- 
dred leagues to the north-east. I nave often heard them 
mentioned on the Orinoco, above the mouth of the Meta ; 
and, what is very remarkable, it is asserted* that missionary 
Jesuits have found Quaquas as far distant as the Cordilleras 
of Popayan. Ealeigh enumerates, among the natives of 
the island of Trinidad, the Salives, a people remarkable for 
their mild manners; they came from the Orinoco, and 
settled south of the Quaquas. Perhaps these two nations, 
which speak almost the same language, travelled together 
towards the coasts. 
V. The Cumanagotos, or, according to the pronunciation 
of the Indians, Oumanacoto, are now settled westward of Cu- 
mana, in the Missions of Piritu, where they live by cultiva- 
ting the ground. They number more than twenty-six thou- 
sand. '1 heir language, like that of the Palcucas, or Palenques, 
and Guarivas, is between the Tamanac and the Caribbee, 
but nearer to the former. These are indeed idioms of the 
same family; but if we are to consider them as simple 
dialects, the Latin must he also called a dialect of the 
Greek, and the Swedish a dialect of the German. In 
considering the affinity of languages one with another, it 
must not be forgotten that these affinities may be very 
differently graduated ; and that it would be a source of 
confusion not to distinguish between simple dialects and 
languages of the same family. The Cumanagotos, the 
Tnmnnacs, the Chaymas, the Guaraons, and the Caribbees, 
do not understand each other, in spite of the frequent 
analogy of words and of grammatical structure exhibited 
in their respective idioms. The Cumanagotos inhabited, 
at the beginning of the sixteenth century, the mountains 
of the Brigantine and of Parabolata. I am unable to deter- 
mine whether the Piritus, Cocheymas, Chaeopatas, To- 
muzas, and Topocuares, now confounded in the same 
villages with the Cumanagotos, and speaking their language, 
were originally tribes of the same nation. The Piritus 
* Vater, tom. iii. pt. ii., p. 364. The name of Quaqiia is found on tht 
coast of Guinea. The Europeans apply it to a horde of Negroes to th< 
east of Cape Lahon. 
