One, On The Ventuari, Above The Rio Mariata; The Second, On The Padamo, North Of The Mountains Of Maraguaca; And The Third, Near The Guaharibos, Towards The Sources Of The Orinoco, Above The Rio Gehette.

This last tribe bears the name of Macos-Macos.

I collected the following words from a young Maco of the banks of the Cataniapo, whom we met near the embarcadero, and who wore in his ears, instead of a tusk of the peccary, a large wooden cylinder.* (* This custom is observed among the Cabres, the Maypures, and the Pevas of the Amazon. These last, described by La Condamine, stretch their ears by weights of a considerable size.)

Plantain, Paruru (in Tamanac also, paruru). Cassava, Elente (in Maco, cahig). Maize, Niarne. The sun, Jama (in Salive, mume-seke-cocco). The moon, Jama (in Salive, vexio). Water, Ahia (in Salive, cagua). One, Nianti. Two, Tajus. Three, Percotahuja. Four, Imontegroa.

The young man could not reckon as far as five, which certainly is no proof that the word five does not exist in the Maco tongue. I know not whether this tongue be a dialect of the Salive, as is pretty generally asserted; for idioms derived from one another, sometimes furnish words utterly different for the most common and most important things.* (* The great family of the Esthonian (or Tschoudi) languages, and of the Samoiede languages, affords numerous examples of these differences.) But in discussions on mother-tongues and derivative languages, it is not the sounds, the roots only, that are decisive; but rather the interior structure and grammatical forms.

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