A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro,

by Alfred Russel Wallace

With the exception of the Lingoa Geral, Mr. Wallace’s vocabularies represent languages hitherto unknown. What is their geographical relation to the known ones?

It is only through the northern tongues (the Baniwa of Javita and the Tomo) that we even approach the areas of any well-described dialect. The Uainambeu in the south-west, the Juri in the south, and the Coretu in the west, are each and all on the limits of terræ incognitæ. For the parts between the western watershed of the Rio Magdalena in New Granada, the 71st degree of west longitude, the 4th degree of north latitude (there or thereabouts), the River Napo, and the Amazons, I know of no vocabularies, still less of any grammars. Hence, of any tongue spoken at one and the same time to the west of the Rio Negro, to the south of the Rio Inirida, to the north of the Amazons, and to the east of the Putumayo, the only specimens are the ones under notice.

1. To the east of the Rio Negro, the vocabularies that bring us nearest to Mr. Wallace’s are those of Sir Robert Schomburgk, of which the Guinau is the most western. They are all dealt with by Sir Robert Schomburgk himself as members of the great Carib (Carib-Tamanak) family, and this upon reasonable and sufficient grounds.

2. For the north we must seek our chief data in the ‘Mithridates’ and in Humboldt.

Along the rivers Meta, Vichada, and Guaviare, feeders of the Orinoco, different forms of the Saliva language are spoken—a language of which the distribution reminds us of the Guarani, although it is far less remarkable for its extent. At the same time it is so far fluviatile as to follow to the system of the Orinoco, and so far extensive as to occur on the Upper Meta at the present time, and to be supposed (on reasonable grounds) to have once reached as far eastwards as Trinidad.

b. Conterminous with the Saliva, and also conterminous with the Guiana and Venezuelan members of the great Carib family, lie the populations speaking languages akin to the Maypure and Pareni—of both of which forms of speech we have specimens (Humboldt’s and that of the ‘Mithridates’), though short and insufficient. That the Caveri, the Avani, and the Poignavi (Guipunavi) speak dialects akin to each other and to the Maypure rests upon external evidence. Specimens are wanted. South of the Rio Uapes in Arrowsmith’s London Atlas lie the Meppuris, similar in name to the Maypure, but by no means necessarily allied to them.

c. Further north (in a north-western direction) on the Casanare and the Lower Meta, are the Yarura, Betoi, and Otomaca tongues.

3. South of the Amazons we must descend as far as the Province of Moxos (on the Beni) before we get anything beyond the most fragmentary specimens of language.

4. Westwards, and in the direction of the Andes, the break is greater still. For New Granada, a few words of the old Muysca language from the parts about Tunja, and, then, a short list from the mouth of the Atrato (at the very neck of the Isthmus of Darien) constitute the whole of our materials.

b. And matters are but little better in Ecuador. Between the Andes (of which the different Quichua dialects are pretty well known) and the area now under notice, the Zapara vocabulary of Osculati’s recently published work is all we have. The Zapara is spoken on the Rio Napo.