Origins of the Tainan Culture, West Indies

Orinoco. This is in harmony with their own traditions, also.
When the True Arawaks met the Spaniards for the first time, a
tradition was still current among them of a time when they lived
in Guiana, how they had journeyed on the sea along the coast,
found the land fertile and had settled there for that reason. Indeed,
RODRIGO NAVARRETE says that they had come from the East,l)
but here might very well be a mistake in the longitude. BRINTON,
in his article 2 ) which until lately has been too little regarded,
cites myths from BRETT, according to which it appears that the
Arawaks formerly lived on an island in the North, which must
be Trinidad. An Arawak semi-cici,3) who was converted to Christianity
and in I84I became catechumen, related some of the Arawak
mythology to BRETT, and when asked where these incidents
had taken place, answered, "Not in this land, but at Kaieri (an
island)", pointing with his hand to the northward.4) The Arawaks
of Trinidad, moreover, called their island Cairi.5) In addition,
according to the information obtained by English navigators along
the coast of Guiana in the seventeenth century, the True Arawaks
had come thither from Trinidad.6)
From the above it must be inferred that there is no reason
to suppose that at the present time the True Arawaks are still
inhabiting in the mother-country of the Tainos. On the other
hand, these two tribes closely related by blood must have had a
common centre of expansion in Trinidad.
Paria. I have already mentioned that once upon a time
the Arawaks must have inhabited both sides of
the Gulf of Paria. This can not be proved linguistically,7) but all
1) See the trans. of Rodway in Timehri I895, Pt. I, p. 7.
2) D. G. BRINTON, The Arawah Language of Guiana in its Linguistic and
Ethnological Relations, trans. of Amer. Philos. Soc. Vo1. XIV, N. S. Phila. I87I,
P·444·
3) ~~ Piaie.
4) Rev. \V. H. BRETT, The Indian Tribes of Guiana, Land. I868, p. 402.
5) See RAI,EIGH, The Discovery - - - of Guiana Hak1. Soc. Ser., Vol. 4,
London I848, p. 4 and DE LAET, op. cit. p. 662.
6) PURCHAS, His Pilgrimes, London r625, A Relation of a Voyage to Guiana
Performed by Robert Harcourt etc. (I608).
7) Accordiug to }.i[ART'ilR, MacNutt's trans., p. 30 however, in Pari a the
canoc was called culchas, the Arawak form being kuljara (}vlartius).
29