It is worth while recording the names and positions of the other native tribes along the northern coast at the time of the discovery, even if we are unable to identify their linguistic connections. An official report made in 1546 furnishes a part of this information.[232] At that time and previously the eastern shore of Venezuela was peopled by the Chirigotos, who are probably the Chagaragotos of later authors.[233] Their western neighbors were the Caracas, near the present city of that name. They were warlike, wove hamacs, poisoned their arrows, and wore ornaments of gold. The whole coast from Caracas to Lake Maracaibo was in possession of the Caquetios, who also wove hamacs, and dwelt in stationary villages. They were of milder disposition and friendly, and as a consequence were early enslaved and destroyed by the Spaniards. Even at the date of the Relation they had disappeared from the shore. It is possible that they fled far inland, and gave their name in later days to the river Caqueta.

Along the eastern border of Lake Maracaibo were the Onotes, “The Lords of the Lagoon,” Señores de la Laguna, a fine race, whose women were the handsomest along the shore.[234] They lived in houses built on piles in the lake, and fished in its waters with nets and hooks. They traded their fish for maize and yuca to the Bobures. These dwelt on the southern shore of the lake, and are distinguished as erecting temples, mesquites adoratorios, for their religious rites.[235] The Sierra on the west of the lake was the home of the warlike Coromochos.

These warriors probably belonged to the Goajiros, who then, as now, occupied the peninsula on the northwest of Lake Maracaibo.

It is not easy to say who were the Tirripis and Turbacos, who lived about the mouth of the Magdalena River, though the names remind us of the Chibcha stock. Approaching the Gulf of Darien from the east, we find the highlands and shores on its west peopled by the Caimanes. These undoubtedly belonged to the Cunas, as is proved by the words collected among them in 1820 by Joaquin Acosta.[236] The earliest linguistic evidence about their extension dates from a report in 1515,[237] in which the writer says that all along this coast, up to and beyond San Blas, the natives call a man uma and a woman ira, which are words from the Cuna dialects.

In the mountainous district of Mérida, south of the plains in the interior from Lake Maracaibo, there still dwell the remains of a number of small bands speaking dialects of a stock which has been called from one of its principal members, the Timote. It has been asserted to display a relationship to the Chibcha, but the comparisons I have made do not reveal such connection. It seems to stand alone, as an independent tongue.

All the Timotes paid attention to agriculture, raising maize, pepper and esculent roots of the potato character. Those who lived in the warm regions painted their bodies red and went naked; while those in the uplands threw around them a square cotton blanket fastened at the waist. Some of them buried their dead in caves, as the Quindoraes on the banks of the Motatan. With them they placed small figures in terra cotta. The Mocochies, living where caves are rare, built underground vaults for their dead, closing the entrance with a great stone.[238]

From the writings of Lares and Ernst I make the following list of the members of the

TIMOTE LINGUISTIC STOCK.