Latàm means almost. Latàm riýgerañi: He was very near being drowned. Latàm riahámat ỳúihàk: the ox had almost killed me. Yt, or ych, means only, alone. Tachkaûe yt lenechiavàlk: Give me only a little of any thing. Mat, or gramachka, means lastly. They use this word, in affirming any thing with serious asseveration, or with boasting. Gramachka Abipon yapochì; lastly the Abipones are brave. Eneha mat yoale: this, lastly, is the man. Chik, chit, and chichi, are words of prohibition, as ne with the Latins. Chik grakalakitřani: Thou shouldst not doubt. Chichi noaharegřani: Thou shouldst not lie. Klatùm keèn means although, and oagan, yet, however. Eneha klatùm keèn èúének, oagan netackaik: Though this man is beautiful, yet he is cowardly. Tán means because, and máoge, therefore. Tán aỳte apatáye ken nepark, máoge chik ààtèkan: Because there are many gnats in the plain, therefore I have not slept. Men, men, mean as, so. Men netà, men naetařat, As the father, so the son.
They have various exclamations of wonder, grief, joy, &c. Kemen apalaik akami! How stingy and tenacious of thy own property thou art! Kemén naáchik, or Kîmilî naáchik! Oh! how useful this will be to me! is their way of thanking you for a gift; for neither the Abipones nor Guaranies have any word whereby to express thanks. What wonder, since gratitude is unknown, even by name, among them, that they do not display it their actions? For, as some one observed, they think benefits like flowers—only pleasant as long as they are fresh. One repulse entirely effaces the memory of former benefits from the minds of the Indians. The Guaranies, on receiving a gift, use the same phrase, and say, Aquiyebete ângà: This will be useful to me. The Abipones, after obtaining what they ask, sometimes thanked the giver with nothing but the word Kliri: This is what I wanted. In wonder or compassion, they exclaim, Kem ekemat! Ta yeegàm! or Ndřè! (which they usually say when astonished at any sudden novelty,) and Tayretà! Oh! the poor little thing!
But these examples are sufficient to show you the asperities, difficulties, and strange construction of the Abiponian tongue. Were I to embrace every thing necessary to the thorough understanding of it, I should fill a volume. Father Joseph Brigniel, the first civilizer of that nation, was also the first to turn his attention towards learning, and afterwards explaining this language. He translated the chief heads of religion, and the regular church prayers, into the Abiponian tongue, for the use of the whole nation. It is incredible what pains he took in this study; and his patience, and the retentiveness of his memory, were absolutely iron. Though he spoke Latin, German, French, Italian, and Spanish, as well as the language of the Guaranies, whose apostle he had formerly been, with elegance and fluency, being well versed in six different languages, yet he found it a difficulty to gain even a smattering of the Abiponian tongue. He left no stone unturned to fish out the names of things, and the inflexions, and force of the words. But though he was extremely eager to obtain a knowledge of the language, and spared no pains in the pursuit, masters and books were both wanting. There were, indeed, Spaniards who, having been taken captives by the Abipones in their boyhood, had learnt the Abiponian tongue, but they had generally forgotten the language of their own country; while those who fell in captivity amongst the savages, after they had grown up, had learnt their language so ill that they scarce spoke a word without blundering. By degrees they forget their own language, but are incapable of properly acquiring any other. The same may be said in regard to the Abipones, who have returned to their own people after being for some time captives amongst the Spaniards. You will, therefore, sooner learn to err than to speak from the captives. But if we were able to hire any one of them to instruct us who was tolerably well acquainted with both languages, Good heavens! what troubles had we not to undergo! When asked what the Abipones called such or such a thing, he would reply in so low and dubious a tone, that we were not able to distinguish a syllable, or even a letter. If we asked him to repeat the same word two or three times over, he grew angry, and would not speak. Scarce was the hour of instruction ended, when he required the reward for the few words he has pronounced: one day a knife; the next a pair of scissars; the next glass-beads; the next something of more value. If we denied him what he asked, he would never visit us again; if we gave it, he was daily emboldened to ask things of still more value. Great is the misery of the scholar when masters are either scarce or too dear. I do not deny that, by daily conversation with the Indians, I learnt the names of those things which are present to the eyes; but invisible things, which relate to God and the soul, can only be learnt by conjecture and very long use. When horses, tigers, or arms, are talked of, you will find any of the Abipones a Demosthenes or a Tully: if the question turn on the affections and functions of the mind, and the practice of virtue, they will either give you answers darker than night, or remain silent.
When we were studying the Guarany tongue, grammars and three dictionaries were published by Fathers Antonio Ruiz de Montoya, and Paulo Restivo, a Sicilian, which saved us a great deal of time and labour. By their assistance our progress was so much accelerated that, at the end of three months, we were permitted to confess the Guaranies by order of four of the older Jesuits, who, at the command of the superiors, closely examined our knowledge in the language. But as the assistance of books was wanting amongst the Abipones, Joseph Brigniel made up for the deficiency by all possible arts and industry. If any new word or elegance could be gathered from the conversation of the savages, he carefully wrote it down, and at length composed a dictionary, which, in course of time, grew to a hundred and fifty sheets. It was afterwards copied out, corrected, and considerably enriched by members of our society. It is easy to add to what is begun; for the successors, sitting on the shoulders of those that preceded them, see farther, and more than they. Pizarro penetrated into Peru, and Cortez into Mexico, but not till Columbus, who first saw America, had shown them the way. The Jesuit Brigniel first discovered the track to be pursued amid the dim shades of a savage language, made himself a guide to the rest, and, to express myself in few words, merits eternal fame for having kindled a light amidst darkness, by pointing out the rude lineaments of grammar rules.
The Abiponian language is involved in new difficulties by a ridiculous custom which the savages have of continually abolishing words common to the whole nation, and substituting new ones in their stead. Funeral rites are the origin of this custom. The Abipones do not like that any thing should remain to remind them of the dead. Hence appellative words bearing any affinity with the names of the deceased are presently abolished. During the first years that I spent amongst the Abipones, it was usual to say Hegmalkam kahamátek? When will there be a slaughtering of oxen? On account of the death of some Abipon, the word kahamátek was interdicted, and, in its stead, they were all commanded, by the voice of a cryer, to say, Hegmalkam négerkatà? The word nihirenak, a tiger, was exchanged for apañigehak; peûe, a crocodile, for kaeprhak, and Kaáma, Spaniards, for Rikil, because these words bore some resemblance to the names of Abipones lately deceased. Hence it is that our vocabularies are so full of blots, occasioned by our having such frequent occasion to obliterate interdicted words, and insert new ones. Add to this another thing which increases the difficulty of learning the language of the Abipones. Persons promoted to the rank of nobles are called Hëcheri, and Neleřeycatè, and are distinguished from the common people even by their language. They generally use the same words, but so transformed by the interposition, or addition of other letters, that they appear to belong to a different language. The names of men belonging to this class, end in In; those of the women, who also partake of these honours, in En. These syllables you must add even to substantives and verbs in talking with them. The sentence, This horse belongs to Captain Debayakaikin, would be rendered by an Abipon, speaking the vulgar tongue, in this manner: Eneha ahëpegak Debayakaikin lela. But in the language of the Hëcheri you must say, Debayakaikin lilin. They salute a plebeian with Là nauichi? Art thou come? to which he replies Là ñauè, I am come. If a noble person is addressed, he must be saluted in these words: La náuirin, Art thou come? and he, with much importance, and pompous modulation of his voice, will reply, Là ñauerinkie, I am come. Moreover, they have some words peculiar to themselves, by which they supersede those in general use. Thus, the common people call a mother, Latè, the nobles, Lichiá. The former call a son Laétařat, the latter Illalèk, not to mention other instances. Both in the explanation of religion, and in common conversation, we chose to use the vulgar tongue, because it was understood by all.
I have said that there are three kinds of Abipones, the Riikahes, the Nakaikétergehes, and the Yaaukanigas. All of them, however, speak the same language; all understand each other, and are understood. Yet each of these classes has some words peculiar to itself. The Riikahes call gnats ayte; the Nakaiketergehes apatáye. Both names are extremely suitable to gnats, for ayte means many, and apatáye is derived from napàta, a mat, which they use to cover their tents with; and so great is the multitude of gnats in the lands of the Abipones that the inhabitants seem not only covered but oppressed by them. To drink with the Riikahes is expressed by neèt, with the Nakaiketergehes by nañàm. The latter call a head Lapañik, the former Lemařat. The Yaaucanigas, in the use of words, sometimes imitate one, sometimes the other; but in a few they differ from both. The rest call the moon Grauèk, but they, by antonomasia, name it Eergřaik, a star. The rainbow is called by the rest, Oáhetà, but by the Yaaucanigas, Apich. But this variety creates neither difficulty nor wonder. The Teutonic language is used by many nations, but how greatly does it differ in different provinces, not only in dialect but also in words! How different is Tuscan from the languages spoken at Milan, Savoy, and Venice! How different is Castilian from the languages of Arragon, Andalusia, Navarre, and Valencia!
CHAPTER XVIII.
OF THE WEDDINGS OF THE ABIPONES.
Whenever an Abipon thinks fit to choose a wife, he must bargain with the parents of the girl about the price to be payed for her. Four or more horses, strings of beads made of glass or snail-shells, a woollen garment of various colours, woven like a Turkish carpet, a spear furnished with an iron point, and other articles of this kind, are paid by the bridegroom. It frequently happens that the girl rescinds what had been settled and agreed upon between the parents and the bridegroom, obstinately rejecting the very mention of marriage. Many girls, through fear of being compelled to marry, have concealed themselves in the recesses of woods or lakes; seeming to dread the assaults of tigers less than the untried nuptials. Some of them, just before they are to be brought to the bridegroom's house, fly to the chapel, and there, hidden behind the altar, elude the threats and the expectation of the unwelcome bridegroom.
Let us suppose the Abiponian bride to have acquiesced in her parents' wishes with regard to her marriage; without the observance of other ceremonies usual elsewhere, she is conducted, not without pomp, to the tent of her spouse. Eight girls hold up a beautiful garment like a carpet in their hands, by way of a shade, under which the bride goes, full of bashfulness, with her eyes fixed upon the ground, preserving a pensive silence, spectators being scattered around. After having been received by her spouse, and kindly saluted, she is brought back by her hordesmen to her fathers house, in the same manner, and with the same attendants as she left it; whence, in a second and a third journey, she brings the gourds, pots, pans, and the weaving-machine, under a shade, to her husband's tent, and after a very short conversation returns to the house of her parents, where the bridegroom is forced to go to take his food and pass the night: for the mothers are so careful of their daughters, that even when they are married they can hardly bear to part from them, and deliver them immediately into the power of another. After they have satisfied themselves of the probity of their son-in-law, or after the birth of a child, they suffer them to live in a separate house. These are the scanty rites of the Abiponian nuptials, which however are sometimes gladdened by a compotation on the part of the men. Sometimes a drum is struck by a boy seated on the top of a tent to proclaim the nuptials. The bride's being covered with a skreen when she is conducted to the bridegroom's house, resembles the Roman fashion of veiling the heads of the women, when they were given to their husbands, with a yellow or flame-coloured veil, whence the word nuptials.
Gumilla relates, in his History of the river Orinoco, that there is one nation which marries old men to girls, and old women to youths, that age may correct the petulance of youth. For, they say, that to join young persons equal in youth and imprudence in wedlock together, is to join one fool to another. The marriage of young men with old women is a kind of apprenticeship, which after they have served for some months, they are permitted to marry women of their own age.