An Account of the Abipones, an Equestrian People of Paraguay, (1 of 3)

COCHINILLA

The Paraguayrian cochineal is produced by winged insects, which sit continually on certain little thistles, and suck their juice. There are many kinds of these thistles, which differ from one another in their form, and fruit. The plant on which the cochineal is found, is called tuna by the Spaniards, and opuntia by botanists. From a very short root rises a thick stalk, sometimes four-cornered, green, crooked, with a white fragile pulp, and covered with thorns: on this, instead of boughs and leaves, grow other stalks, the same as the former, very long, and extremely full of juice. Yellow flowers are succeeded by fruit of a red colour, larger than a common fig, with a sweet, and at the same time, rather acid flavour, which renders them very delightful to the palate. Their pulp is full of small, black seeds, like grape stones, and when peeled has a delicious taste. From these shrubs therefore, the women collect cochineal, which consists of very small, white, fluid particles, closely resembling moss. Most of the particles are made into small, round cakes, and, after exposure to the air, become red and hard. Nothing further is requisite to fit them for painting, and dying. The Jesuit priest of the Guarany town Nuestra Senhora de Sta. Fè, took care to have the tuna thistle planted in a large garden, that they might not be obliged to seek the cochineal necessary for his town in distant plains. When the thistles were grown up, those winged insects, resembling bugs, were carried by the Indians from the plain, and scattered up and down, with more than the desired success; for so abundant, and so excellent was the cochineal collected from them, that it was anxiously bought, at any price, by the neighbouring priests, for the use of their towns; because it was of a deeper, and brighter red, than that of the plains, and the woods, and was, moreover, scented with citron juice. In succeeding years, the same Father prevented all access to the town by means of these thistles, that the equestrian savages, who had committed much carnage amongst them, might not be so easily able to approach it. This kind of living hedge, which the Spaniards use both in their gardens and estates, became not only a means of security, but at the same time, an ever fertile nursery of cochineal, which, as well as a most beautiful paint, affords the Paraguayrians a medicine for strengthening the heart, creating perspiration, and counteracting poison; so that it may be safely, and usefully mixed with vinegar, and other seasoning liquors.

GOLDEN-ROD

Golden-rod, which has a very straight stalk crowded from top to bottom with leaves, is sometimes four, sometimes five feet high, and adorned with a bright, yellow flower, abounds in the plains of Paraguay. Both its trunk, and leaves, boiled in water, and mixed with alum, afford painters, and dyers a most splendid yellow colour, and mixed with blue a very bright green. The same golden-rod is also of great, and various use amongst physicians. I remember a gentlewoman, who had been confined to her bed for years by some disease which baffled the skill of many physicians, being quickly, and happily cured, by a German, who prescribed the use of this medicine. There are many species of golden-rod, but I was acquainted with only one in Paraguay.

ROOTS OF A RED COLOUR

The Guaranies in marshy places dig up roots called yzipò with a dusky surface, which they use to dye woollen, and cotton cloths of a dark red. Whether this root be the rubia of dyers I cannot venture to affirm, for though that plant is cultivated in Austria, I never happened to see it.

THE BARK CAATIGUÀ

The bark of the tree caatiguà, when dipped in water, imparts a pale red colour, and is chiefly used for dying leather.

MATERIALS FOR A BLACK COLOUR

To dye cloth black, they make use either of a kind of alfaroba, which I have described elsewhere to be like the Egyptian tree acacia, of a well-known Paraguayrian herb, or of a rich, black clay. Though cotton will take a black dye, it will not hold it long; consequently the cotton dresses which we wore in Paraguay, became almost of no colour, and the blackness, by degrees, faded away. The Spanish ladies of St. Iago, and the Chiquito Indians have the art of dying cotton with a very lasting black, a secret unknown to every one else.

A NAMELESS FRUIT AFFORDING A GREEN COLOUR

Walking in a wood on the banks of the Narahage I discovered a shrub, before unknown to me, covered with leaves of such a very bright green that I felt an inclination to taste them. I found them sweeter than sugar, and thought to use them for sweetening the herb of Paraguay. Applauding myself vastly, for what I thought so useful a discovery, I gave a leaf to the Spaniard, my companion, to taste; but he prudently declared, that he should take care not to eat, or even touch that strange plant. The Indian old women were consulted on this affair: they told us that these leaves were used for dying things green, but were very poisonous.

WOODS USED FOR DYING

Woods, moreover, used for dying various colours, which are brought into Europe from Brazil, Guayana, and other countries of America, are found in that part of Paraguay, which borders on Brazil. The same may be observed with regard to roots, oils, juices, gums, rosins, kernels, &c.

CARDONES, or CEREI

To the thistles called tunas, or Indian figs, you may add the cardones, or cerei, the trunk of which is large, and tall, with a spungy, and brittle pulp. In the place of branches and leaves there grow on them other stalks, both thick, and long, which are thorny on every side, full of juice, and straight upright. They bear white flowers, and oval-shaped fruit larger than a goose's egg, which produce a red colour, and are eaten by the Indians with impunity. In the deserts of Paraguay, I have often traversed immense woods of cardones. The honey which bees deposit in them is very famous in Europe. Every part of the cardo is converted into medicinal uses, both by the Europeans, and Americans. There are many species of cardones, of strange, and monstrous forms. Some creep on the ground, others stand upright. The most remarkable is the large, thorny, Peruvian cereus, which is twenty feet high, and one foot thick. Its trunk has various corners, and channels, as it were, together with knobs, and thorns. The bark is green, and the pulp fleshy, and under it lies a ligneous substance, the pith of which is white, and juicy. It bears but few flowers. If you wish to know more of this cereus, it is to be seen in the gardens of princes.

VARIOUS SPECIES OF THE CARAQUATA

Many species of this plant are commonly to be met with in Paraguay. I will briefly mention those with which I am best acquainted. The caraquatà guazù, or the great caraquatà, is supported by a short thick root. It consists of about twenty very thick leaves, dentated on both sides, remarkably sharp, and about two feet in length, in the midst of which rises a stalk, like a trunk, five, and often more feet high. The top of it is crowned with yellow flowers. The Indian women spin threads of the fibres of the leaves, as others do of flax, or hemp, and weave them into cords, cloths, and nets. But no time, or art can make these threads perfectly white, nor will they hold any colour with which they may be dyed. Creditable authors write that in the province of Guayana such beautiful stockings are woven of this same thread, that they are sometimes preferred to silk ones in France for strength, and softness. Another kind of caraquatà, very like the former, is seen in the woods, but it cannot be spun into threads. In the woods of Mbaèverà, the Indian women who inhabit there make thread, and garments, not of the caraquatà, but of the bark of the tree pinô, after it has been properly cleaned: for the webs woven of the thread of this bark, after being exposed for sometime to the sun, and frequently sprinkled with water, become beautifully white and will retain any colour with which they are dyed, extremely well. It is much to be lamented that this tree pinô is found in the larger woods only, and is not to be seen in many parts of Paraguay. Another caraquatà of a different shape produces a kind of artichoke, or anana. It bears fruit of a scarlet colour, and has plenty of seed contained in a straight slender stalk. It is surrounded with very large leaves, denticulated like a saw, and pointing towards the ground, in the centre of which travellers find a tolerable supply of very clear water, and with it often quench their thirst in dry deserts, where sometimes not a drop of water is to be found. Another caraquatà with leaves very like a sword, and armed on both sides with a threatening row of thorns, bears fruit of a pale yellow within and without, full of black seeds, and pregnant with an acidulated, and pleasant juice. But to extricate this fruit from the many thorns, with which the leaves that guard it are armed, without being wounded, is the labour and the difficulty. Of this fruit mixed with sugar a very wholesome drink, and an excellent medicine for various diseases are made. These, and other kinds of caraquatà are of great use to the Americans. Planted around gardens, and the buildings of estates, they, by their thorns, prevent all secret, and improper access, more effectually than any other kind of hedge, and will survive every inclemency of the weather. Their leaves supply the place of flax in making thread, as well as of tiles in covering temporary huts, and their thorns serve for needles. Their leaves, on being pricked, yield a thick juice which washerwomen use for soap, and when boiled on the fire are fit to be eaten. The Indians look upon the various fruits of the caraquatà as food. From their leaves, when scraped with a knife, flows a sweet liquor, which is thickened on the fire, and condensed into sugar. This liquor of the caraquatà, mixed in water with the seeds of oranges, or lemons, undergoes a vinous fermentation; exposed to the sun it turns to vinegar. By what method, and in what cases, wounds and disorders are healed by the juice of the caraquatà, would be long to tell. A polypodium, preferable in the opinion of physicians to any European one, grows on the caraquatà.

VARIOUS KINDS OF REEDS

Both in marshy plains, and in the moister woods, you see a great abundance and variety of reeds; some solid, others hollow. Some are as thick as a man's thigh, others scarce equal to his thumb: many which are slenderer than a goose's quill, but full ten yards long, entwine themselves about the neighbouring trees. You commonly meet with reeds of such immense size, that they supply the place of wood in building houses, waggons, and ships, and if cut at proper times would exceed it in hardness and durability. Some made very large flagons, for the purpose of holding wine on a journey, of these reeds, and they answered better than glass, because less fragile. As various kinds of reeds grow in various parts of the province, the Indians ingeniously conjecture the name and country of their savage foes who have been travelling the same way, from the reed of an arrow which they may have chanced to see on the road. We have often crossed woods of wide extent bristling with continual reeds, and have been obliged to pass the night there even, always sleepless, always anxious; for as reeds generally delight in a marshy soil, they are seminaries and abodes of tykes, snakes, gnats and other insects, which are always noisy and stinging, and never spare either the blood or ears of strangers; especially on an impending calm. If a violent wind comes on, the fire at which you sit, being thereby scattered up and down, will set fire to the reeds, which are covered with leaves, and you will be burnt; for no means of extinguishing the flames are at hand, and there are no opportunities of escape. Those reeds which the Germans call Spanish canes, and the Spaniards Indian ones, and which are used for walking-sticks, never grow in Paraguay, though neither rare nor precious in the provinces of North America.

THE SUGAR-CANE

The sugar-cane flourishes exceedingly in the hotter territories towards the north, if properly cultivated. In the month of August, at the end of winter that is, slips of canes, about one or two feet long, are placed sloping in furrows, at equal distances, and properly ploughed. These gradually rot under ground, and from them a new germ arises, which grows to the height of eight feet, and is cut down in the space of about two months, being perfectly ripe. The longer they are left in the field, the sweeter and thicker becomes their juice, which is afterwards expressed by various methods and machines in America. In Paraguay, the canes, after being stripped of their leaves, are cut into pieces a foot and a half in length. These are thrust by the hand into two large cylinders of very hard wood, which are turned round by two oxen with the help of a great wooden wheel. The juice squeezed out by the tight compression of the cylinders, falls into a boat or cup placed beneath. It is then boiled in a brass pan, more or less, according to the various uses for which the sweet liquor is intended; for if it be used in the same manner as honey, which serves either for food or drink, it is less thickened on the fire, and kept in skins, at the bottom of which, after the liquid part is consumed, you find white crystallized stones, made of the coagulated sugar, which is commonly called the pure and natural sugar-candy; for that yellow candied sugar so full of threads, which is sold in shops, appears to be artificial. But if the liquor expressed from the canes be intended for making sugar, it must be boiled for a long time, and brought to a thick mass. The oftener this is strained through an earthen pan perforated at the bottom, and the longer it is exposed to the sun, the more thoroughly it is purged of the dregs, which flow off into a vessel placed beneath the pan, and the whiter and better sugar it becomes. Of these dregs the Spaniards make either coarser sugar, or aqua vitæ, by liquefying it at the fire drop by drop. For the same purpose others use the canes that have been pressed by the cylinders, but have not had all their juice entirely squeezed out. Observe, moreover, that the pans in which that sweet liquor is daily exposed to the sun are carefully covered with fresh moist mud. All the sugar prepared in Paraguay, and the neighbouring Brazil, has the appearance of wheat flour. That alone is used by the Portugueze; it is transported from Lisbon, in ships, to different places, and made as hard as a stone by aid of chalk, or bull's blood. As the industry of the inhabitants in Paraguay by no means answers to the fertility of the soil, the sugar made there is rarely sufficient for that province, so that no one thinks of exporting any from thence. On the contrary, from the exquisite cultivation of the sugar cane, Brazil derives immense wealth from Europe; it is the chief strength of the Portugueze trade, and a perpetual source of riches. The sugar cane differs from the common reed no otherwise than in having more joints, and a smaller space between each. It is adorned with beautifully green and very large leaves, especially at the top. It is about four inches thick. Though the plant is seven or eight feet high, great part of it towards the top is thrown away, being devoid of juice, and very full of leaves. Sugar canes like a rich and moist soil, nor will they grow much on hills, though well watered. More earth must be heaped on the sugar cane after it has been lately planted in the summer, less in the winter, that it may not bud too much; for the more leaves it bears the less juice it will yield. Weeds, which suck up the moisture of the earth, must be carefully extirpated. Moderate frosts are useful to the full grown canes, because they thicken the sweet liquor; immoderate ones do harm, because they exhaust it all. Ants, which are destructive to the young canes, must be carefully kept away. Many other arts, proper to be used in the rearing and expression of canes, and the converting of them into sugar, I choose to omit for the sake of brevity. I have briefly described the principal ones, that Europeans may be made thoroughly acquainted with the origin of sugar, which they know so well how to consume, and cease to wonder that these reedy sweets, so laboriously prepared in America, should often be sold at such an extravagant price in Europe.

BEES' HONEY

Throughout the whole of Paraguay you see none of those beehives the keeping of which is so troublesome in Europe, because the various species of bees deposit their excellent and copious honey either in hollow trees, in the caverns of the earth, or in the open plain; especially in those territories which enjoy a mild climate, and are near to flowery plains. Honey differs both in name and taste according to the different bees that produce it, and the different times and places in which it is produced. That which is concealed under ground the Abipones call nahérek. In some places it is rather acid, in others very sweet. A quantity sufficient to fill many jugs is often dug out of one cave. That which is taken at the beginning of spring from the tops of shrubs or high grass is called by the Spaniards lechiguana. The materials of which the cells of this honey consist are very like blotting-paper, and are often of such extent and circumference that you can hardly embrace them with both arms. The honeycombs which certain wasps build in Europe are constructed in much the same way. The excellence of the lechiguana honey you may ascribe to its being made of the first spring flowers, and if it remains untouched for some months, and escapes the eyes and hands of passers by, it hardens of itself, like sugar, which it excels in sweetness. Moreover it has no admixture of wax. Though various kinds of honey are found under the earth, and in the plain, yet the principal storehouses of the bees are the hollow trunks of lofty trees. The Spaniards of St. Iago prefer to every other kind that found on the cardones. With the Guaranies, and all just estimators, the first place is given to the eỹrobáña, the sweetest and most transparent of all honey, which, when poured into a glass, could not be distinguished from water. The same honey, if found on the fragrant wood of the tree ybir̂apayè is then decidedly the best, and excels all other honey as the sun does the lesser stars. In Paraguay, in the winter months the Abipones think honey extremely unwholesome, and carefully abstain from eating it. The Spaniards of St. Iago go out in crowds to seek honey and wax in distant woods; and after whitening it with immense labour in the sun, sell it to the people of Peru and Chili, with hardly moderate profits. To discover and rifle the beehives concealed in the woods is a matter of little difficulty to the Abipones, who, when the sky is clear, and the sun bright, ride out on horseback into the country. Being possessed of wonderfully quick eyesight, they perceive the bees flying about, and leaving their horse at the bank of a river, pursue them on foot till they see what tree they enter: this they climb with all the agility of apes, open a hole by way of a door, and as a mark of the hive, take out the honey and wax into a leathern bag, and carry it home, where their friends, wives, and children soon consume these adventitious sweets, either by eating them like ambrosia, or drinking them like nectar. But if a general drinking-party be appointed on any occasion, the honey they bring is mixed with cold water, and stirred for a little while with a stick; when, without addition of any other ferment, it effervesces, froths, and becomes wine in the space of some hours, and taken even in small quantities intoxicates the Indians like very pure wine: for we have found two or three cups sufficient to upset their naturally imbecile minds. Wax is scarce ever used amongst the Indians: for the fire, which is always kept alive on the floor of the hut, serves to dress the food by day, and supplies the place of a candle by night.

SALT

From honey let us proceed to salt, which is in great request both amongst the savages and almost all beasts, though they are scarce ever able to procure it: for notwithstanding that some parts of Paraguay abound in salt either natural, or artificial, yet none of either kind can be obtained throughout immense tracts of land, unless it be brought at a great expense from other places. All the Guarany towns are destitute of chalk, and salt, both of which are forced to be conveyed in ships, or waggons, from the remote colonies of the Spaniards, are often purchased at an exorbitant price, often not to be procured. In the Cordoban territories, and elsewhere, the lakes which have been exhausted by a long drought do indeed afford coagulated salt; but during time of drought it is very difficult to reach those lakes, as the plains, through which you must pass, deny water both to the carriers, and to the oxen, by whom the salt is conveyed in waggons to the cities. In rainy seasons, when those lakes are full, no salt is coagulated, which being frequently the case, salt is in consequence often scarce and dear. In many places under the jurisdiction of the cities Asumpcion, and St. Iago, nitre collected in the plains, or salt water boiled in small pans, is converted into salt. At the town of Concepcion the salt boiled in the little town of Sta. Lucia was sometimes too bitter to be eaten: that salt made in the Indian town Lambare, and in Cochinoco where it borders on Peru, is much esteemed, because it is hard as a stone, very white, and fit for medicinal purposes. The people of Buenos-Ayres sometimes convey salt in ships by the South Sea, sometimes in waggons by land from the lakes, where there is an immense accumulation of native salt, and of snow. These lakes, as they are situated towards the straits of Magellan, many days' journey from the city, can never be reached without much expense, and seldom without some danger. Great troops of Spaniards were often cruelly murdered on the way by the southern savages, who scarce left one alive to announce the massacre to the city. On considering these difficulties you will not much wonder that salt is generally scarce in Paraguay, and often not to be procured. The Guaranies eat their meat and all their other provisions without a grain of salt; but a single spoonful was given on Sundays by the free bounty of the priest, to every father of a family, to last the whole week: yet even this little portion was expensive to the towns, of which some contained a thousand inhabitants, others seven or eight hundred. For as an arroba (a Spanish weight of twenty-five pounds) of salt often cost four crowns, or eight Austrian florens, a pound was worth about twenty of our cruitzers. The savages who live in hidden wilds generally eat their food without salt, as there are no salt-pits there; and this is, in my opinion, the reason that so many of them are afflicted with cutaneous disorders. Others burn a shrub which the Spaniards call la vidriera, the ashes of which they used instead of salt, to season their meat with and to prepare medicines.

CORO

This plant closely resembles tobacco in its leaf, its pungency, and property of exciting saliva.

When should I ever have done writing, were I to mention the names of all the other shrubs and plants? In certain Guarany towns you find immense woods of rosemary, rue, artemisia or mugwort, golden-rod, mint, and wormwood. I was acquainted with three different kinds of sage, varying in appearance, but endued with the same virtues. That which the Spaniards call royal sage is scarce, because seldom cultivated. Borage, plantane, mallows, bastard marjoram, garden-nasturtium, bugloss, vervain, fumitory, purslain, liquorice, and three kinds of pepper, that is, common pepper, which the Guaranies call gỹ; cumbarỹ, which has a small grain, but is remarkably pungent; and aji, which we call Turkish pepper: all these, which grow in Europe, are seen here in some places; but not every where. Ginger grows abundantly when planted. Throughout many tracts of land I could discover none of the nettles of our country. Liberal nature has bestowed on the soil of Paraguay innumerable herbs useful to physicians, such as contrayerva, &c. It may be proper to give some little account of the grains which compose the chief part of the support of the Indians.