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

But this their rapacity did not always remain unpunished; for, after the Guaranies were permitted by the King to carry fire-arms, they were frequently repulsed, and chastised with bloody slaughters. Memorable above the rest, was that victory which four thousand Guarany neophytes obtained at the river Mborore over a numerous flotilla of Brazilian banditti. Four hundred of the inhabitants of St. Paulo were present, in three hundred barks, with two thousand seven hundred of their allies the Tupies, the most ferocious savages in Brazil. The Guaranies, headed by Ignacio Abiazù, a chief of their nation, went to meet the enemy in five ships, and firing the cannon upon them, overturned three of their boats, many of the Brazilians being either killed or wounded. Most of them, terrified at this unexpected salutation, leaped from their boats on to the shore, and despairing of success in a naval fight, assaulted the army of Guaranies in the rear by surprize; but were bravely repulsed on every side, and partly slain: and indeed they would all have been massacred, had not night put an end to the fight and the victory. Next day they pursued the remnant of the enemy through the wood with such success, that the very few who remained alive, forsaking their camps and their boats, hastened home in great trepidation, and covered with wounds. Three only of the victorious Guaranies were slain about the beginning of the conflict, and forty wounded. This event rendered the men of St. Paulo afraid of the emboldened Guaranies. Peace and security were restored to their towns, and Christianity, which the perpetual incursions of the Mamalukes had not only disturbed, but almost banished, was every where greatly forwarded.

Nor should you imagine, that these things, relating to the Brazilians, are calumniously represented or exaggerated by Spanish writers. The Most Faithful King Joseph I. himself confesses, in a decree issued on the 6th of July, in the year 1755, and inserted into the new code of Portugueze laws, that many millions of Indians were destroyed, and that, at the present time, very few Brazilian towns remain, and equally few inhabitants. He adds, that this was occasioned by the depriving the Indians of their liberty, contrary to the laws of Portugal. He declares the Indians free, orders the captives to be set at liberty, &c. Likewise other pious kings of Spain and Portugal, his predecessors, prohibited all robbery, sale, oppression, and persecution of the Indians whatsoever, under the severest penalties, by repeated laws. Many governours of provinces urged, but rarely brought about the observance of these decrees. For innumerable persons, who profit by the captivity and services of the Indians, care more about riches than about conscience and honour. The barbarity of these men towards the Indians was pourtrayed in lively and faithful colours by the Jesuit Father Antonio Vieyra, who preached on this subject at the Court of Lisbon, in the year 1662, when his persecutors had turned him out of the province of Maranham, on account of his defending the liberty of the Indians.

As the royal laws were disregarded in Brazil, in order to eradicate this abominable custom of enslaving and ill-treating the Indians, the King found it necessary to have recourse to the threats and penalties of the Pope. Paul III., Urban VIII. and Benedict XIV. threatened to excommunicate all who should presume, in the words of the Roman Court, to reduce the Indians to a state of servitude; to sell, buy, exchange, or give them away; to separate them from their wives and children, or in any way whatsoever to deprive them of their liberty, or retain them in servitude; or to do the aforesaid under any pretext whatsoever of lending them counsel, aid, favour, or service; or to declare, or teach it to be lawful so to do, or to effect it in any way whatsoever. All this was prohibited, under pain of excommunication, in favour of all the Indians then dwelling in the provinces of Brazil and Paraguay, and at the river Plata, as well as in all other regions both of the western and southern Indies. The Pontifical and Royal letters against the oppression of the Indians were intended also to correct and intimidate the Spaniards, who, though they had formerly been less eager in captivating the Indians, were accustomed nevertheless to make use of them as slaves, in opposition to the commands of the king. It is incredible how wickedly they strove to disturb the colonies of the Chiquitos and other savages, because they feared that no Indians would be left in the woods for them to take and sell. For from this traffic of the Indians many thousands of crowns were yearly collected; but on account of it the savages were forcibly deterred from embracing religion, perceiving that, if they became Christians, and the friends of the Spaniards, they must be eternally enslaved and miserable.

The Spanish historians complain that the Indians were hardly treated and oppressed with labour by their masters, in many cities of Paraguay. The Indians, wearied with miseries, returned, whenever they could, to the ancient recesses of their forests. The Lules, who had formerly been baptized by St. Francisco Solano, and cruelly enslaved by the inhabitants of the city Esteco, fled to the woods which they had formerly inhabited; from whence the Jesuit Father Antonio Machoni, a Sardinian, brought them back, and with incredible labour civilized them in Valle Buena, and they have remained to this day in the town of St. Estevan. The warlike Calchaquis, deserting their Spanish masters, and scorning miserable servitude, returned to the caves of their native land, whence sallying forth, they afflicted Tucuman with frequent and bloody slaughters. The citizens of Concepcion, on the banks of the river Bermejo, were all destroyed by the Indians whom intolerable slavery had exasperated. The Jesuits, whilst, intent upon disseminating religion, they endeavoured to vindicate the liberty of the Indians, were often punished with exile, often with calumny and abuse, by those who had their own private interest more at heart than the augmentation of religion, or of the royal authority. The Indian towns, the inhabitants of which were subjected to private individuals, named Encomenderos, have long since been reduced, as I said, to such wretchedness, that they rather seemed shadows of towns, than the reality: whilst, on the other hand, the thirty-two towns of the Guaranies, ten of the Chiquitos, and smaller ones of other nations, the inhabitants of which were subject only to the Catholic Monarch, continually increased in population, and always remained and flourished under our discipline. I do not pretend to say that Paraguay and Brazil were at all times utterly destitute of Portugueze and Spaniards who paid strict obedience to the laws, who execrated the avarice and cruelty of their countrymen in regard to the Indians, and left no stone unturned to restore and protect their liberty, and to aid the progress of religion. But alas! those few with grief beheld themselves unable to correct a multitude of barbarians. Ability, not inclination was wanting.

Some mention has been made of the rivers which flow through Chaco: yet much remains to be said of the Parana, the chief and receptacle of them all, which at Buenos-Ayres obtains the splendid but inappropriate title of La Plata. Historians have made many mistakes respecting the source of this river, and the origin of its name. For they think that La Plata takes its rise chiefly from the Paraguay, and that this latter comes from the lake Xarayes. But in both these conjectures they are wide of the mark. For the river La Plata is in reality the vast Parana, enriched in its course by the Paraguay, Uruguay, and innumerable other streams. From its distant source, as far as the Pacific Ocean, it is invariably distinguished by the Guarany natives with the name of Parana, which word signifies something akin to, or resembling the sea.

In the year 1509, Juan Diaz de Solis, sailing from Europe, discovered the river Parana, and gave it his own name, Solis. In the year 1527, Sebastian Cabot and Diego Garcia called it the Silver River, Rio de la Plata, because they found among the Indians dwelling near it some plates of silver, brought from Peru by the Portugueze, and robbed from them, but suspected by the Spaniards to have been taken out of the bosom or shores of this river. But after nearly three centuries had elapsed, no silver had yet been discovered there. This river, which, though destitute of silver, is perhaps the greatest in the world, retains to this day the name of the Parana, which it received at its rise. It first bears the name of La Plata at the river Las Conchas, six leagues distant from Buenos-Ayres, where appears a remarkable rock, La Punta Gorda, a little beyond which place, on the western shore, it absorbs the Uruguay, which has already received the waters of the Rio Negro. By which means, the Parana is augmented to such a degree, that at Las Conchas it is ten leagues in width. Hence vessels that have sailed through the Paraguay and Parana rest here as in port, and are here unloaded, and loaded afresh before their return. For those small vessels which are sent from the cities of Asumpcion and Corrientes and from the Guarany towns, could not safely proceed farther.

The source of the river Parana has afforded as much matter of controversy as the native city of Homer. The Spaniards who first went to subdue Paraguay, after travelling for the space of full five hundred leagues, either on the stream itself, or on its banks, are said never to have been able to arrive at its source. The Brazilian Indians think the Parana originates in an immense lake arising from the Peruvian mountains, perhaps that called Lauricocha, near the Guanuco, about the 11th degree of latitude. Others, with more appearance of probability, derive the river Amazon from the lake above-mentioned, though the Indians insist upon it that the Amazon and the Parana both proceed from the same source. But who would pay any attention to what the Indians say? Many rivers flowing from the Peruvian mountains vary their course every now and then, and are mingled one with another: now who, amid such a labyrinth of streams, could so exactly distinguish the Parana from the rest as to leave no room for doubt? It has been ascertained that this river, in its various turnings and windings, travels more than eight hundred leagues before it disgorges itself into the sea, by a huge mouth. In this long journey it receives the waters of many rivers and innumerable brooks. Who can enumerate this crowd of confluent streams? I will mention the principal ones which occur to my memory, following its course from lands situate between north and south.

On the western shore the Parana receives the waters of the Ỹgayrỹ, the Ỹmuncina, the Monicỹ, the Amambaỹ, the Ygatimỹ, navigable to middle-sized vessels, the Ỹgureỹ, the Yguairỹ, the Acaraỹ, a noble river, as large as, perhaps larger than the Danube at Vienna. For on the shore itself I measured it to be full six fathoms deep, and that not during the time of inundation. It flows in a very wide channel, but so quietly that you can hardly hear it. It is joined on the way by thirty rivers of various sizes, and would certainly be navigable to large ships, were it not impeded by rocks, which might perhaps be removed could the Spaniards be brought to perceive the advantages of its navigation. For the herb of Paraguay, which abounds in the woods near its banks, might be transported along this river to the Parana, and thence to the city of Buenos-Ayres, with a great saving both of time and expense. But they are blind to these advantages. The Mondaỹ, which springs from the Tarumensian woods, near the town of St. Joachim, and afterwards other moderate-sized rivers, such as the Ỹhu, the Tarumaỹ, the Yuguirỹ, the Guirahemguaỹ, the Cambay, &c. augment it to such a degree that it becomes navigable to larger kinds of skiffs and boats – the Caapivarỹ, the Aguapeỹ, which has a narrow but very deep channel, and is dangerous to swimmers by reason of its water monsters, (the Yaguaro, a kind of water tiger, often devours horses and mules as they are swimming in this river) – the Atingỹ. All these, which I have mentioned, are of lesser note; they are quite ignoble streams. But now listen attentively whilst I give you some description of the place where the city Corrientes is situated and which lies in lat. 27° 43´ and in long. 318° 57´. You must know that the great Paraguay, swelled by the waters of so many rivers which it has received in its progress, here becomes the prey of the greater Parana, and, at the same time, loses the name it has hitherto borne. For that vast body of water formed by the junction of both rivers is never called the Paraguay but always the Parana, because the former brings a far greater quantity of water than the latter. But though both rivers flow within the same banks and in the same channel, the limpid Parana, scorning the muddy waters of the Paraguay, for some time refuses to mix entirely with it. It is certain that, about three miles apart, you may perceive the waters to be different both in colour and taste. The Parana, which, a little before, flowed westerly, following the Paraguay, changes its course, hastening towards the sea, the mother of streams. However you may despise this conjecture, it seems to me to possess some probability. In the country of St. Iago del Estero, the rivers Dulce and Salado have frequently changed their channel on this very account, and the same has been the case with regard to some other rivers. In the city of St. Iago, St. Francisco Solano built a dwelling-house, and a handsome church, for his companions, in such a manner that the door of it did not look toward the market-place of the city, but towards the plain. The brothers not approving of this plan, the architect Solano, who was famous for the gift of prophecy, bade them wait a little, saying, that what they now desired, in ignorance of the future, would some day really happen. Some years after, the river Dulce, which washes the city, changed its channel. The city was forced to be changed also, which being done, the door of the church fronted the market-place, as it does at this day. The event verified the prediction, which the native Spaniards related to me when I was there. But let us now return to the Parana.

The eastern shore of it is, in great measure, steep and stony; the western shore, on the contrary, is low, muddy, and subject to floods. All that part of this province which looks towards the west, beyond the Parana, abounds in immense trees of various kinds, (fit for building ships and waggons,) in fertile pastures and tracts of land, now sinking into plains, now rising into gentle hills; yet you can scarce ever meet with a situation fit for human habitations or fixed towns, either from the superfluity or deficiency of water, or, which comes to the same thing, the saltness and bitterness of it; for if you build a colony on the shores of the Parana, it will be inundated with water on the next flood, extending for two leagues beyond: if you remove it two or three leagues from the shore, both the inhabitants and the beasts will perish of thirst.

The rivers of lesser note, and more uncertain duration, which unite with the Parana, after its junction with the Paraguay, are the rivers Negro, Verde, Blanco, Rubeo, the Rio de Gomez, the Atopehenra-lauatè, or the place of Capibaris, the Alcaray, the Cayman, the Embalzado, the Rio del Rey, called by the Abipones Ychimaye, the Malabrigo, called by the Abipones Neboquelatèl, the Eleya, the Saladillo, the Inespin, called by the Abipones, Narahaguem, the Rio de Martin, the Salado, the Carcaranal, the Tortugas, or river of tortoises, the Matanza, the Rio de los Arrecifes, the Areco, the Lujan, the Rio de las Conchas. We have now reached the port where vessels, coming from the east or west of Paraguay, are in danger; for here the Parana, swelled by the accession of so many rivers, and by that of the vast Uruguay, and the equally vast Rio Negro, takes the appearance of a sea. But just as the Parana does really show itself akin to the sea, it suddenly receives the name of La Plata. What is the reason of this? Has it any silver in its bosom or on its shores? Nothing is to be found there but mud. However, as Scipio received the title of Africanus, from having devastated Africa, by the same right may the Parana be called La Plata from the Peruvian silver which it has often swallowed up, along with the ships that contained it. Here the river is ten leagues wide, yet, not content with its own magnitude, it joins with itself the other ignobler streams which flow towards the west. The most noted of them is that by the Spaniards called Riachuelo.

The more considerable rivers which join the Parana, on the eastern side, beginning at the north, are the Añembỹ, the Parana-panè, the Guitaỹ, the Iguazu, flowing from Brazil, by which the Mamalukes formerly came to plunder the Guaranies. This river is of no inconsiderable size, and will bear tolerably large vessels. Four leagues from the bank of the Parana you meet with a cataract thirty ells high, from which the river falls headlong, with a frightful noise, and such a foam proceeds from it that the thick vapour, covering the place like a cloud, may be seen at four leagues distance. As this cataract is utterly impassable, navigators travel by land, for some time, and drag their boats along with their hands. Three leagues from the cataract the river is only one league in width. The Ybiraytỹ, the Yabebirỹ, which flows past the Guarany towns of St. Ignatius-miri, and Nuestra Senhora de Loretto, is narrow but very deep, the St. Ambrose, the Rio de los Astores and the Rio de Sta. Lucia. Through these last-mentioned rivers we have often known those cruel pirates the Payaguas come to plunder the estates of the Spaniards, and slay the inhabitants. The Corrientes, a moderate-sized river, which rises from the neighbouring lake Yberà, formerly called Lago de los Caracaras, said to be about four miles in length, but of inconsiderable and varying breadth. Many islands which it contains, are chosen at this time by Indian runaways, as places of concealment; and we learn that, in the last century, they were inhabited by the Caracara Indians who proved very formidable, and almost invincible, to the Spaniards. However, at the command of the Governour of Buenos-Ayres, a party of our Guaranies, under Juan de Garay, happily attacked and conquered them, most of the enemies being either slain or taken captive after an obstinate defence of all the islands. These are the names of the other rivers which join the Parana. The Guanguilarò, the Espinosa, the Alcaràz, the Hernand Arias, the Pardia, the Rio de los Charruas and the Pacu. But all those streams are of lesser importance. Jam paulò major a canamus.

We have now arrived at the place where the Uruguay, a river of the first magnitude, submits to the Parana. It rises in the mountains of Brazil, between the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth degrees of latitude, in the Captaincy of St. Vicente, (according to Bourgainville,) and flows for the space of full two hundred leagues; the rocks and cataracts with which it is here and there impeded render navigation extremely difficult, even to middle-sized skiffs. The largest of all the cataracts blocks up the whole river at the Guarany town Yapeyù, and denies a passage to skiffs coming from the port of Buenos-Ayres, so that the sailors are obliged to carry them on their shoulders by land, in order that they may proceed on their journey. It is proper in this place to describe that kind of vessel in use amongst the Uruguayan Indians, and which in the Spanish language is called balsa. Two very large boats, sometimes seventy feet long, are firmly joined together with cross-planks, and over them they strew reeds carefully matted by way of a pavement. In the midst a little reed hut is erected, covered with bulls' hides to defend it from the inclemencies of the weather. Oars, not sails, are made use of, both in going up and down the stream, with more security than despatch. There is, moreover, need of many rowers; in all directions you meet with islands rich in palms, citrons, peaches and various other trees, but which abound likewise in tigers, serpents and other wild animals either dangerous, or fit for food. The immense rocks, of which these cataracts are composed, being blasted, were indeed hurled aloft into the air, but falling back again into the river, obstructed the passage of even the smallest vessels. Thus remedies are often worse than the disease itself.

The most considerable rivers which flow into the Uruguay on the western shore are the Yapucà, the Piguirỹ, or Pepirỹ, the Guanumbacà, the Acaranà, the Mborore, much celebrated for the victory I related to you gained by the Guaranies over the Mamalukes, the Aguapeỹ, the Miriñaỹ, flowing from the lake Ỹbera, the Vaccaretâ, the Timboỹ, the Gualeguaỹ, the Rio de los Topes, the Yaguarỹ-guazù. All these rivers are joined in their course by lesser streams. The Uruguay receives, on the east, the waters of the Uruguaỹ-mir̂i, the Uruguaỹ-pîtà, or the little, and red Uruguay, the Ỹribobà, the Rio St. Juan, the Ñucorà, the Yaguarapè, the Yyuỹ, the Piritinỹ, the Ỹcabagua, the Mbutuy, the Toropỹ, after its junction with the Ybicuỹ, the Guaraỹ, the Tebiguarỹ, the Lechiguana, the Rio San Salvador. In this neighbourhood, the Rio Negro, famed for the excellence and abundance of its waters, enters the Uruguay a little before that river unites with the Parana, at La Punta Gorda. From such a number of uniting streams you may arrive at an idea of the magnitude of the Uruguay.

I must now discourse upon the Paraguay, from which the Parana receives its chief augmentation. The origin of this river has occasioned as great a dispute as that of the Parana. It is, however, now established beyond all doubt, that those persons who have written that this river comes out of the lake Xarayes are quite mistaken. This ancient and universal error, with good leave of Bourgainville be it spoken, did not originate in the Jesuit geographers, but was brought into Europe by the Spaniards who first subdued Paraguay, and has in the present age been detected: for it is certain that the Spaniards their successors have sailed on the river Paraguay sixty leagues beyond that lake, which proves that we must seek for the source of it in the more distant mountains situated towards the north-east. Some have thought that it proceeds from the fabulous lake Del Dorado. Bourgainville asserts that the Paraguay takes its rise between the fifteenth and sixteenth degrees of north latitude, at almost an equal distance from the North and South Seas. This opinion of the Frenchman I willingly leave to be examined by the later Portugueze who have dwelt there. However this may be, it has been clearly ascertained that the Paraguay does not take its rise from the lake Xarayes, as such a lake exists no where but in geographical charts; for that collection of waters which is sometimes seen is not the parent of the river Paraguay, but the offspring of it. This I boldly affirm on the authority of Father Joseph Sanchez Labrador, a curious naturalist, who repeatedly traversed both banks of the Paraguay, and by them arrived at the towns of the Chiquitos. The Chiquito town dedicated to St. Xavier is situated more towards the north than the rest, lying, as the same Sanchez observed, in the 16th degree of latitude, and the 313th degree of longitude. The town of Corazon de Jesus, situated in the 16th degree of latitude, and the 319th degree of longitude, lies nearest the shores of the river Paraguay, one hundred and ninety leagues distant from the city of Asumpcion. Now let geographers hear what the oft commended Sanchez declares to be his opinion respecting that imaginary lake Xarayes, and the fabulous island De los Orejones.

"The Paraguay," says he, "collected into one channel, for some time flows to the north, but presently separates into three branches, one of which the Indians call Paraguay-mir̂i, that is little Paraguay, and the other two Paraguay-guazù, or great Paraguay. These three branches of the river are swelled by the usual floods, and, overflowing their banks, inundate the plain country for the space of two hundred leagues. European strangers have mistaken this frequent inundation, this collection of waters, which generally lasts for some time, for a permanent lake. In the midst of this imaginary lake they placed an island called De los Orejones, to which they give thirty leagues of length and ten of breadth, such being the degree of space occupied by the Parana when it overflows. This was called the Island of Paradise by the Spaniards who first conquered Paraguay, for there they rested for a short time after their mighty labours. Neither the Portugueze, who inhabit Cuyaba and Matto Grosso, neighbouring places, nor the more recent Spaniards, nor the native Indians, were acquainted with any such lake." These are the arguments made use of by Sanchez, who was better acquainted with the controverted territories than any other person, and consequently, in my opinion, most worthy of credit, to prove the non-existence of the lake Xarayes and its island. Europeans travelling in unknown America are frequently deceived; they mistake an assemblage of waters caused by many months' rain for a river, or a constant lake, whereas it only proceeds from an immense flood created by continual showers, or by the melting of the snow on the Peruvian mountains.