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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One Of These Hills, Called Keri,
Is Celebrated In The Country On Account Of A White Spot Which Shines
From Afar, And In Which The Natives Profess To See The Image Of The
Full Moon.
I could not climb this steep rock, but I believe the white
spot to be a large nodule of quartz, formed by the union of several of
those veins so common in granites passing into gneiss.
Opposite Keri,
or the Rock of the Moon, on the twin mountain Ouivitari, which is an
islet in the midst of the cataracts, the Indians point out with
mysterious awe a similar white spot. It has the form of a disc; and
they say this is the image of the sun (Camosi). Perhaps the
geographical situation of these two objects has contributed to their
having received these names. Keri is on the side of the setting,
Camosi on that of the rising sun. Languages being the most ancient
historical monuments of nations, some learned men have been singularly
struck by the analogy between the American word camosi and camosch,
which seems to have signified originally, the sun, in one of the
Semitic dialects. This analogy has given rise to hypotheses which
appear to me at least very problematical. The god of the Moabites,
Chemosh, or Camosch, who has so wearied the patience of the learned;
Apollo Chomens, cited by Strabo and by Ammianus Marcellinus;
Belphegor; Amun or Hamon; and Adonis: all, without doubt, represent
the sun in the winter solstice; but what can we conclude from a
solitary and fortuitous resemblance of sounds in languages that have
nothing besides in common?
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