T1IE CllUBBEES. 
335 
take their name from the ravine Piriehucuar, where the 
smaL thorny palm-tree,* called piritu, grows in abundance; 
the wood of this tree, which is excessively hard, and little 
combustible, serves to make pipes. On this spot the village 
of La Concepcion de Eirituwas founded in 1550; it is the 
chief settlement of the Cumanagoto Missions, known by the 
name of the Misiones de Piritu . 
I I. The Caribbces (Games). This name, which was 
given them by the first navigators, is retained through- 
out all Spanish America. The Prencli and the Ger- 
mans have transformed it, I know not why, into Ca- 
ra’ibes. The people call themselves Carina, Galina , and 
Callinago. I visited some Caribbean Missions in the 
Llanos, t on returning from my journey to the Orinoco ; 
and 1 shall merely mention that the ^G allies ( Caribi of 
Cayenne), the Tuapocas, and the Cunaguaras, who originally 
inhabited the plains between the mountains of Caripe 
(Carihe) and the village of Maturin, the Jaoi of the island 
oi Trinidad and of the province of Cumana, and perhaps 
also the Guarivas, aiLies of the Palencas, are all tribes of 
the great Caribbce nation. 
With respect to the other nations whose affinities of 
language with the Tamanac and Caribbeo have been men- 
tioned, they are not necessarily to be considered as of the 
same race. In Asia, the nations of Mongol origin differ 
totally in their physical organisation from those of Tartar 
origin. Such lias been, however, the intermixture of 
these nations, that, according to the able researches of 
Klaproth, the Tartar languages (branches of the ancient 
Oigour) are spoken at present by hordes incontestably of 
Mongol race. Neither the analogy nor the diversity of 
language suffice to solve the great problem of the filiation 
of nations ; they merely serve to point out probabilities. 
The Caribbees, properly speaking, those who inhabit the 
Missions of the Cari, in the llanos of Cumana, the banks 
* Candice gracili aculeato, foliis pinnatis. Possibly of the genua 
Aiphaoes of Willdenouw. 
t I shall in future use the word Llanos ( loca plana, suppressing the 
P), without adding the equivalent words pampas, savannahs, meadows, 
steppes, or plains. The country between the mountains of the coast and 
the lei t bunk of the Orinoco, constitutes the llanos of Cutnanu, Barce- 
lona, and Caracas. 
