Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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In The American Idioms,
Which Are Notwithstanding Rich, The Moon Is Commonly Enough Called The
Sun Of Night Or Even The Sun Of Sleep; But The Moon And Sun Very
Rarely Bear The Same Name, As Among The Macos.
I know only a few
examples in the most northerly part of America, among the Woccons, the
Ojibbeways, the
Muskogulges, and the Mohawks.* (* Nipia-kisathwa in
the Shawanese (the idiom of Canada), from nippi, to sleep, and
kisathwa, the sun.) Our missionary asserted that jama, in Maco,
indicated at the same time the Supreme Being, and the great orbs of
night and day; while many other American tongues, for instance the
Tamanac, and the Caribbee, have distinct words to denote God, the
Moon, and the Sun. We shall soon see how anxious the missionaries of
the Orinoco are not to employ, in their translations of the prayers of
the church, the native words which denote the Divinity, the Creator
(Amanene), the Great Spirit who animates all nature. They choose
rather to Indianize the Spanish word Dios, converting it, according to
the differences of pronunciation, and the genius of the different
dialects, into Dioso, Tiosu, or Piosu.
When we again embarked on the Orinoco, we found the river free from
shoals. After a few hours we passed the Raudal of Garcita, the rapids
of which are easy of ascent, when the waters are high. To the eastward
is seen a small chain of mountains called the chain of Cumadaminari,
consisting of gneiss, and not of stratified granite.
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