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THOMAS] INDIAN LANGUAGES OF MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA 3
Waicuri and Pericu
It is usually stated that three principal languages were spoken in
Lower Californla-Cochimi, which constituted a dialect of the Yuman
family and has already been treated, Waicuri, and Pericu. Could
the authorities for this statement be sifted down in every case, it
would probably be found that most of them derived their information
from Venegas, who quotes a missionary named Taraval. In the
same chapter Venegas admits that other missionaries mcreased the
number to four or five, and gives one to understand that the more
intimate a person became with the people the fewer linguistic
divisions he found to exist. That Cochimi and the languages to
the south of it were entirely distinct is known on linguistic evidence.
The short vocabulary of Bagert is nearly all that is nuw available
of the languages at the lower end of the peninsula, and Brmton attempted
to find resemblances between this and Yuman biit the
futility of his attempt has been demonstrated by Mr. J. ]N B Hewitt,
.
and there can be no question of the independent position of the two
languages. Regarding Pericu, the case is different, because, so tar
as known, there is not a word of that language, except some proper
names, in existence, the only sources of information being the statements
of early writers and circumstantial evidence. As already
noted, the majority of direct statements make this people independent
of the Waicuri, but it is questionable how many independent
original sources are represented. On the other hand, two authorities
me^ntion but two stock languages in the entire peninsula, one of
which is, of course, Yuman, while the other includes all of the languages
to the south of it. Again, if Pericu were really distinct from
all others, why are so many mistakes made in applying the term?
Although the Cora who occupied the eastern side of the peninsula
at its lower end are frequently spoken of as a Waicuri tribe, Venegas
states that they were Pericu, and among later writers Orozco y Berra
does not hesitate to include them in his Pericu area^ Again, although
Venegas gives the Utciti as a branch of the Waicuri in his
chapter on languages, in his second volume he mentions them as a
Pericu tribe. Thirdly, although linguistic evidence can not be
brought to bear satisfactorily, there is in the word Pericu itself and
in a number of personal and mythological names from that tongue,
nroof of the existence of the phonetic r, which is also present m
Waicuri, but conspicuously absent from Cochimi. Altogether it
seems best to regard Pericu as related to Waicuri, only more distantly
than any other of the group of southern dialects. As indicated on
the map, the name appears to have been confined properly to one
tribe about the mission of San Jose, near Cape St. Lucas, and extend-
in- northward on the west coast of Lower CaHforma to about 23 60 .