MOSQUITO LOVE SONG.
As a specimen of this language I have the following love song:
Keker miren náne, warwar páser yamne krouekan. Coope nárer mi koolkun I doukser. Dear máne kuker cle wol proue. I sabbeáne wal moonter moppara. Keker misére yapte winegan. Koker sombolo barnar lippun, lippun, lippunke. Koolunker punater bin biwegan. Coope nárer tánes I doukser. Coope nárer mi koolkun I doukser.
Of this the translation is given as follows:
Dear girl, I am going far from thee. When shall we meet again to wander together on the sea-side? I feel the sweet sea-breeze blow its welcome on my cheek. I hear the distant rolling of the mournful thunder. I see the lightning flashing on the mountain's top, and illuminating all things below, but thou art not near me. My heart is sad and sorrowful; farewell! dear girl, without thee I am desolate.[XII'-4]
Following is a comparative vocabulary of some of the other languages.[XII'-5]
OROTIÑA CONJUGATIONS.
Besides the Aztec, which I have already spoken of in a previous chapter, there were four distinct languages spoken in Nicaragua:—The Coribici, Chorotega, Chontal, and Orotiña.[XII'-6]Of the Orotiña, which Mr Squier calls the Nagrandan, I have the following grammatical notes.
Neither articles nor prepositions are expressed. The plural is formed by the affixnu;—ruscu, bird;ruscunu, birds. Comparatives and superlatives are expressed bymah, better or more, andpooruorpuru, best or most;—meheña, good;ma-meheña, better;puru-meheña, best. Diminutives, or deficiency, are expressed byaiormai;—ai-meheñaormai-meheña, bad or lacking good.
PRONOUNS.
CONJUGATION OF THE VERB SA, TO BE.
CONJUGATION OF THE VERB AIHA, TIHA, AHIHA, TO COME.
Of the Orotiña and Chorotega I also insert a short vocabulary.
NICARAGUA AND COSTA RICA VOCABULARIES.
More scanty still is the information regarding the tongues of Costa Rica. Only one vocabulary is at hand of the languages spoken by the Blancos, Valientes, and Talamancas, who inhabit the east coast between the Rio Zent and the Boca del Toro. Besides these there are mentioned, as speaking separate tongues, the Chiripos, Guatusos, and Tiribis. Of the language of the Talamancas I give a few words.
CHOLO, TULE, AND DARIEN LANGUAGES.
On the isthmus of Darien there is nothing to be mentioned but the names of tongues said to have been spoken there, and of specimens nothing but a few scanty vocabularies exist. Oviedo, speaking of Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and the ancient province of Tierra Firme, thinks there were as many as seventy-two distinct tongues spoken in that region. He specially mentions the Coiba, the Burica, and the Paris.[XII'-10]Andagoyaspeaks of a distinct language in the province of Acla; another called the Cueva as spoken in the provinces of Comogre and Biruqueta, on Pearl Island, about the gulf of San Miguel, and in the province of Coiba; at Nombre de Dios the Chuchura; to each of the provinces of Tobreytrota, Nata, Chiru, Chame, Paris, Escoria, Chicacotra, Sangana, and Guarara, a distinct language is assigned.[XII'-11]Another tongue spoken of by an old writer is that of the Simerones.[XII'-12]To the different surveying and exploring expeditions of later years we are indebted for a few notes on the languages spoken in Darien at this day. The Tules, Dariens, Cholos, Dorachos, Savanerics, Cunas, and Bayamos, are new names not mentioned by any of the older writers; of some of them vocabularies have been taken, but otherwise we are left in darkness.[XII'-13]
Although from a perusal of what has here been gathered we might wish to know more of the weird imaginings that floated through the minds of these peoples, and to follow further the interminable intermixture of tongues and dialects, spoken, grunted, and gestured between the Arctic Ocean and the Atrato River, we must content ourselves with what we have. I have gathered and given in this volume all that I have been able to find; and from the readiness with which the Americans were wont to adopt the dogmas and creeds of Europeans, supernatural conceptions supposedly superior to their own, and insist upon their being aboriginal, and from the rapid and bewildering changes that so quickly mar and destroy the original purity of tongues, there is little hope of our learning further from living lips, or of our ever being able to study these things from the scattered and degraded remnants of the people themselves.
CONCLUSION.
He who carefully examines the Myths and Languages of the aboriginal nations inhabiting the Pacific States, cannot fail to be impressed with the similarity between them and the beliefs and tongues of mankind elsewhere. Here is the same insatiate thirst to know the unknowable, here are the same audacious attempts to tear asunder the veil, the same fashioning and peopling of worlds, laying out and circumscribing of celestial regions, and manufacturing, and setting up, spiritually and materially, of creators, man and animal makers and rulers, everywhere manifest. Here is apparent what would seem to be the same inherent necessity for worship, for propitiation, forpurification, or a cleansing from sin, for atonement and sacrifice, with all the symbols and paraphernalia of natural and artificial religion. In their speech the same grammatical constructions are seen with the usual variations in form and scope, in poverty and richness, which are found in nations, rude or cultivated, everywhere. Little as we know of the beginning and end of things, we can but feel, as fresh facts are brought to light and new comparisons made between the races and ages of the earth, that humanity, of whatsoever origin it may be or howsoever circumstanced, is formed on one model, and unfolds under the influence of one inspiration.
END OF THE THIRD VOLUME