Abstract
THIS, the latest issue of the interesting series published by the Institut dEthnographie of Paris, deals with an intriguing problem in ethnography and geography. It turns upon a small octavo book in the library of San Isidro in Madrid which came from the Imperial Jesuit College, and contains a vocabulary and exposition of the Christian doctrine in the ‘Arda Language’. It is dated 1658. The language was identified in 1858 by Ludewig as being that of an Indian tribe of the upper waters of the Amazon, and akin to the Yamio whom the Jesuits attempted to evangelise from 1727 to 1768. An examination of a photographic reproduction of the vocabulary, however, as well as the discrepancy in the date and the fact that it was the work of Capucins and not Jesuits, led the authors to doubt this attribution. Certain words in the vocabulary were undoubtedly African. They accordingly now identify it as the language of Allada on the Slave Coast, the cradle of the dynasty of Dahomey before it was made subject to the kingdom of Abomey in 1724. The title-page of this interesting volume and the vocabulary are reproduced photographically with other interesting plates from early voyages.
Le royaume d'Arda et son evangelisation au XVIIee siècle.
Par Prof. Henri Labouret Prof. Paul Rivet. (Université de Paris: Travaux et mémoires de l'Institut d'Ethnologie, Tome 7.) Pp. iv + 63 + 20 planches. (Paris: Institut d'Ethnologie, 1929.) 30 francs.
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[Book Reviews]. Nature 125, 376 (1930). https://doi.org/10.1038/125376a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/125376a0