The modern Vilelas live on the Rio Salado, between 25° and 26° south latitude. I find in it so many words of such character that I am inclined to take it as the modern representative of the Lule of Machoni, though corrupted by much borrowing. When we have a grammar of it, the obscurity will be cleared up.
| LULE. | VILELA. | |
|---|---|---|
| Tongue, | lequy, | lequip. |
| Tooth, | llu, | lupe. |
| Hand, | ys, | ysip. |
| House, | enú, | quané. |
A comparison of the Vilela with the Chunipi, (Chumipy, Sinipi or Ciulipi,) proves that they are rather closely related, and that the Chunipi is not an independent tongue as has often been stated. In view of this, I include it in the Lule dialects.
The third important stock is that of the Matacos. It is still in extensive use on the Rio Vermejo, and we have a recent and genial description of these people and their language from the pen of the Italian traveler, Giovanni Pelleschi.[505] They are somewhat small in size, differing from the Guaycurus in this respect, who are tall. Their homes are low huts made of bushes, but they are possessed of many small arts, are industrious, and soon become conversant with the use of tools. Their hair is occasionally wavy, and in children under twelve, it is often reddish. The eyes are slightly oblique, the nose large, straight and low. Like all the Chaco Indians, they do not care for agriculture, preferring a subsistence from hunting and fishing, and from the product of their horses and cattle. What few traditions they have indicate a migration from the east.
The term Mataguayos was applied to some of this stock as well as to some of the Guaycurus. The former included the Agoyas, the Inimacas or Imacos, and the Palomos, to whom the Jesuit Joseph Araoz went as missionary, and composed a grammar and dictionary of their dialect. He describes them as exceedingly barbarous and intractable.[506] The Tayunis had at one time 188 towns, and the Teutas 46 towns. This was in the palmy days of the Jesuit reductions.[507] Both these extensive tribes are classed by D’Orbigny with the Matacos.
According to the older writers the Payaguas lived on the river Paraguay, and spoke their tongue in two dialects, the Payagua and the Sarigue. Von Martius, however, denies there ever was such a distinct people. The word payagua, he remarks, was a generic term for “enemies,” and was applied indiscriminately to roving hordes of Guaycurus, Mbayas, etc.[508]
The Payaguas, however, are mentioned distinctly by the early missionaries as a nation with peculiar language and habits. They differed from their neighbors as being aquatic, not equestrian. They were singularly skilful boatmen and had a mythology apart from the other tribes, “worshipping the devil under the figure of a great bird.”[509] There is also a manuscript in the Library of the American Philosophical Society, written in the middle of the last century, describing the visit of a missionary to the Payaguas, at that time resident near Santa Fé in Paraguay. He accuses them as given to revolting vices and utterly barbarous.[510]
The statement of Von Martius that the nation has entirely disappeared is incorrect, as quite recently a vocabulary of it has been obtained by Don Luis de Fontana, which shows it to be distinct both from the Guaycuru and any other known stock.[511]