Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/213

appearance, widely different language, learn Tupí on their arrival at Ega, where it is the common idiom. This perhaps may be attributed chiefly to the grammatical forms of all the Indian tongues being the same, although the words are different. As far as I could learn, the feature is common to all, of placing the preposition after the noun, making it, in fact, a postposition, thus: "he is come the village from;" "go him with, the plantation to," and so forth. The ideas to be expressed in their limited sphere of life and thought are few; consequently the stock of words is extremely small; besides, all Indians have the same way of thinking, and the same objects to talk about; these circumstances also contribute to the ease with which they learn each other's language. Hordes of the same tribe living on the same branch rivers, speak mutually unintelligible languages; this happens with the Miránhas on the Japurá, and with the Collínas on the Jurúa; whilst Tupí is spoken with little corruption along the banks of the main Amazons for a distance of 2500 miles. The purity of Tupí is kept up by frequent communication amongst the natives, from one end to the other of the main river; how complete and long-continued must be the isolation in which the small groups of savages have lived in other parts, to have caused so complete a segregation of dialects! It is probable that the strange inflexibility of the Indian organisation, both bodily and mental, is owing to the isolation in which each small tribe has lived, and to the narrow round of life and thought, and close intermarriages for countless generations, which are the neces-