draft manuscript - Linguistics - University of California, Berkeley

Jesuits succeeded in bringing a significant quantity of linguistic materials to Italy.
As to how Uriarte acquired the Omagua text itself (assuming he did not write it in Italy), he
may have done so by: 1) copying a version kept at San Joaquín when he left from there in 1764 to
return to San Regis de Yameos; or 2) taking it for himself during the trip that led the remaining
Jesuits out of Maynas in 1768, when all of the remaining priests in the lower Marañón mission left
via San Joaquín. If he also smuggled out a Yameo text, to which he would presumably have had
access, given that he resided in San Regis de Yameos for the four years preceding the expulsion,
this would then account for the group of Omagua, Yameo and Tikuna texts in the appendix to
his diaries. This account would also explain why the texts in Franciscis’ manuscript are not in the
same set of languages as those appended to Uriarte’s diaries. Franciscis may have simply copied
a set of texts that Uriarte had in his possession in 1761 but not 1768, or he may have gathered
the texts from missionaries besides Uriarte. In sum, this account leads to the conclusion that the
text copied by Franciscis and published in González Suárez (1904) is slightly older than the one in
Uriarte ([1776]1986). Dissimilarities between the two catechisms (which were reviewed in §9.4) can
be accounted for either as changes by Uriarte (assuming he took a copy when he left San Joaquín
in 1764) or by Palme between 1764 and 1768 (assuming Uriarte took a copy when left San Joaquín
for the last time in 1768 after the expulsion).
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