The Lican-antais are fishermen and live in a condition of destitution. The aridity of the climate is unfavorable to agriculture. In physical habitus they are short, with dark complexions, flat broad noses and low foreheads.
D’Orbigny identifies the Lican-Antais with the Olipes, Lipes or Llipis of the older writers[331] (Garcilasso, etc). This, however, is open to doubt. Von Tschudi hazarded the opinion that the Atacameños were a remnant of the Calchaquis of Tucuman, who had sought refuge from the Spaniards in this remote oasis on the coast.[332] I can find no positive support for this view, as we have no specimens of the language of the Calchaquis.
Immediately to the south of the Atacameños, bordering upon the sterile sands of the desert of Atacama, between south latitude 22° and 24°, are the Changos. In their country it never rains, and for food they depend entirely on the yield of the sea, fish, crustacea and edible algae. Like the Bushmen of the Kalihari desert, and doubtless for the same reason of insufficient nutrition, they are undersized, as a tribe perhaps of the shortest stature of any on the continent. The average of the males is four feet nine inches, and very few reach five feet.[333] They are, however, solidly built and vigorous. The color is dark, the nose straight and the eyes horizontal.
Nothing satisfactory is reported about their language, which is asserted to be different from the Aymara or any other stock. The tribe has been confounded by some writers with the Atacameños, and the Spaniards apparently included both under the term Changos; which is at present used as a term of depreciation. But both in location and appearance they are diverse. Whether this extends also to language, as is alleged, I have not the material to determine, and probably the tongue is extinct.[334]
II. THE SOUTH ATLANTIC GROUP.
1. THE AMAZONIAN REGION.
Those two mighty rivers, the Amazon and the Orinoco, belong to one hydrographic system, the upper affluents of the latter pouring their waters for six months of the year into the majestic expanse of the former. Together they drain over three million square miles of land,[335] clothed throughout with lush tropical vegetation and seamed by innumerable streams, offering natural and facile paths of intercommunication. It is not surprising, therefore, that we find linguistic stocks extended most widely over this vast area, each counting numerous members. Of them the most widely disseminated were the Tupi, the Tapuya, the Carib and the Arawak families, and to these I shall first give attention.