Arawakan / Caräibes
Aborigines of the West Indes
Posted: Monday| April 9 2018 | Administration
"The Arawak name for Carib Place, or home, is Caribisi; the Caribs style themselves, Carinya." ' Hum-boldt says : " They call themselves Carina, Calina, Callin-go. The Calibis (of Cayenne) and others, who originally inhabited the plains between the mountains of Caripe(Caribe) and the village of Maturin, also the native tribes of Trinidad, and the village of Cumana, are all tribes of the great Caribbee nation." Davies, the author previously quoted, says : " The ancient and natural inhabitants of the Caribbees, are those who have been called by some authors Cannibals, Anthropophagi, or Eaters of Men ; but most of the others who have written of them commonly called them Caribbians, or Caribs; but their primitive and original name, and that which is pronounced with the most gravity,is Caräibes.
They believe themselves descended from the Caribites, or Calibis, of the Main, in that country or prov-ince which is commonly called Guayana. The Caribs of St. Vincent said (1600) that their first insular ancestors were rebels against the Arrowaks, and retreated to the Caribbees (then inhabited by scattered Arrowaks), first to Tobago, and thence going still farther northward."
The Indians of Guiana to-day, says a very thorough investigator, who published the results of his researches ten years ago,' are divided into four branches, as the Warrau, Arawak, Wapiana, and the Carib. "The lan-guages of these four branches are quite distinct from each other, and within the language are dialectic variations. . .A stranger finds it difficult to distinguish, merely from appearances, the different members of the respective tribes.
.....The Arawaks are slightly taller than the Warraus; their bodies better built; having, in appearance and in reality, far greater strength; features coarser, with the appearance of greater power. . . . There is a constant enmity between Caribs and Arawaks. The Ara-waks to this day retain a timid dread of the Caribs, who repay the feeling with contempt. . . . The Caribs are the most warlike of all, especially the pure Caribs. . . . They are peculiar among the tribes, in that they occupy no particular district, but are scattered more or......