MOSETENA LINGUISTIC STOCK.

The Toromonas occupy the tract between the Madre de Dios and the Madidi, from 12° to 13° south latitude. According to D’Orbigny they are, together with the Atenes, Cavinas, Tumupasas and Isuiamas, members of one stock, speaking dialects of the Tacana language. He was unable to procure a vocabulary of it, and only learned that it was exceedingly guttural and harsh.[469] From their position and their Kechua name (tuyu), low or swamp land, I am inclined to identify the Toromonas with the Tuyumiris or Pukapakaris, who are stated formerly to have dwelt on the Madre de Dios and east of the Rio Urubamba, and to have been driven thence by the Sirineris (Tschudi).

According to recent authorities the Cavinas speak the same tongue as the Araunas on the Madre de Dios, which are separated from the Pacaguaras by the small river Genichiquia;[470] and as the language of the Toromonas is called in the earlier accounts of the missions Macarani, I may make out the following list of the members of the

TACANA LINGUISTIC STOCK.

The Araunas are savage, and according to Heath “cannibals beyond a doubt.” He describes them as “gaunt, ugly, and ill formed,” wearing the hair long and going naked.[471] Colonel Labré, however, who visited several of their villages in 1885, found them sedentary and agricultural, with temples and idols, the latter being geometrical figures of polished wood and stone. Women were considered impure, were not allowed to know even the names of the gods, and were excluded from religious rites.[472] The Cavinas, on the other hand, are described by early writers as constructing houses of stone.[473] The Maropas, on the east side of the river Beni near the little town of Reyes, speak a dialect of Tacana as close to it as Portuguese to Spanish. They are erroneously classed as a distinct nation by D’Orbigny, who obtained only a few words of their tongue. The Sapiboconas, who lived at the Moxos Mission, and of whose dialect Hervas supplies a vocabulary, are also a near branch of the stock. We now have sufficient material to bring these tribes into relation. With them I locate the Lecos, the tribe who occupied the mission of Aten, and are therefore called also Atenianos.[474] At present some civilized Lecos live at the mission of Guanay, between the Beni and Titicaca; but we have nothing of their language.[475]

The Tacana dialects present a number of verbal analogies to Kechua and Aymara; so many in fact that they testify to long inter-communion between the stocks, though I think not to a radical identity. I present a few: