An Account of the Abipones, an Equestrian People of Paraguay, (2 of 3)

Martin Dobrizhoffer

An Account of the Abipones, an Equestrian People of Paraguay, (2 of 3)

CHAPTER I.

OF THE TERRITORY, ORIGIN, AND VARIOUS NAMES OF THE ABIPONES

The Abipones inhabit the province Chaco, the centre of all Paraguay; they have no fixed abodes, nor any boundaries, except what fear of their neighbours has established. They roam extensively in every direction, whenever the opportunity of attacking their enemies, or the necessity of avoiding them renders a journey advisable. The northern shore of the Rio Grande or Bermejo, which the Indians call Iñatè, was their native land in the last century. Thence they removed, to avoid the war carried on against Chaco by the Spaniards of Salta, at the commencement of this century, and migrating towards the south, took possession of a valley formerly held by the Calchaquis. This territory, which is about two hundred leagues in extent, they at present occupy. But from what region their ancestors came there is no room for conjecture. Ychamenraikin, chief cacique of the Abipones in the town of St. Jeronymo, told us, that, after crossing the vast waters, they were carried hither on an ass, and this he declared he had heard from ancient men. I have often thought that the Americans originally came, step by step, from the most northern parts of Europe, which are perhaps joined to America, or separated only by a narrow firth. We have observed some resemblance in the manners and customs of the Abipones to the Laplanders, and people of Nova Zembla, and we always noticed in these savages a magnetical propensity to the north, as if they inclined towards their native soil; for when irritated by any untoward event, they cried in a threatening tone —Mahaik quer ereëgem, I will go to the north; though this threat meant that they would return to the northern parts of Paraguay, where their savage compatriots live at this day, free from the yoke of the Spaniards, and from Christian discipline.

But if the Americans sprung from the north of Europe, why are all the Indians of both Americas destitute of beard, in which the northern Europeans abound? Do not ascribe that to air, climate, and country, for though we see some plants brought from Europe to America degenerate in a short time, yet we find that Spaniards, Portugueze, Germans, and Frenchmen, who in Europe are endowed with plenty of beard, never lose it in any part of America, but that their children and grandchildren plainly testify their European origin by their beard. If you see any Indian with a middling-sized beard, you may be sure that his father or grandfather was an European; for those thinly-scattered hairs, growing here and there upon the chins of the Indians both of North and South America, are unworthy the name of beard.

Paraguay is indeed near Africa, yet who would say that the inhabitants migrated from thence? In that case, the Paraguayrians would be of a black, or at any rate of a dusky leaden colour, like the Africans. The English, Spaniards, and Portugueze know that if both parents be Negroes, the children, in whatever country they are born, will be black, but that the offspring of a male and female Indian are of a whitish colour, which somewhat darkens as they grow older, from the heat of the sun, and the smoke of the fire, which they keep alive, day and night, in their huts. Moreover, the Americans have not woolly hair like the Negroes, but straight, though very black locks. The vast extent of ocean which divides Africa from the southern parts of America, renders a passage difficult, and almost incredible, at a time when navigators, then unfurnished with the magnet, dared scarcely sail out of sight of the shore. The Africans, you will say, might have been cast by a storm on the shores of America; but how could the wild beasts have got there? Opposite to the shores of Paraguay lies the Cape of Good Hope, inhabited by Hottentots which, in the savageness of their manners, resemble the Paraguayrian Indians, but are totally different in the form of their bodies, in their customs, and language. Many may, with more justice, contend that Asia was the original country of the Americans, it being connected with America by some hitherto undiscovered tie; and so they may, with my free leave; nor, were I to hear it affirmed that the Americans fell from the moon, should I offer any refutation, but having experienced the inconstancy, volubility, and changefulness of the Indians, should freely coincide in that opinion. The infinite variety of tongues amongst the innumerable nations of America baffles all conjecture in regard to their origin. You cannot discover the faintest trace of any European, African, or Asiatic language amongst them all.

However, although I dare not affirm positively whence the Abipones formerly came, I will at any rate tell you where they now inhabit. That vast extent of country bounded from north to south by the Rio Grande, or Iñatè and the territories of Sta. Fè, and from east to west by the shores of the Paraguay, and the country of St. Iago, is the residence of the Abipones, who are distributed into various hordes. Impatient of agriculture and a fixed home, they are continually moving from place to place. The opportunity of water and provisions at one time, and the necessity of avoiding the approach of the enemy at another, obliges them to be constantly on the move. The Abipones imitate skilful chess-players. After committing slaughter in the southern colonies of the Spaniards, they retire far northwards, afflict the city of Asumpcion with murders and rapine, and then hurry back again to the south. If they have acted hostilities against the towns of the Guaranies, or the city of Corrientes, they betake themselves to the west. But if the territories of St. Iago or Cordoba have been the objects of their fury, they cunningly conceal themselves in the marshes, islands, and reedy places of the river Parana. For the Spaniards, however desirous, are not able to return the injuries of the savages, from the difficulty of the roads, or their want of acquaintance with them. It sometimes happens that a lake or marsh, which the Abipones swim with ease, obliges the Spanish cavalry to abandon the pursuit.

The whole territory of the Abipones scarcely contains a place which has not received a name from some memorable event or peculiarity of that neighbourhood. It may be proper to mention some of the most famous of these places; viz. Netagr̂anàc Lpátage, the bird's nest; for in this place birds resembling storks yearly build their nests. Liquinr̂ánala, the cross, which was formerly fixed here by the Spaniards. Nihírenac Leënerer̂quiè, the cave of the tiger. Paët Latetà, the bruised teats. Atopehènr̂a Lauaté, the haunt of capibaris. Lareca Caëpa, the high trees. Lalegr̂aicavalca, the little white things. Hail of enormous size once fell in this place, and killed vast numbers of cattle. Many other places are named from the rivers that flow past them. The most considerable are the Evòr̂ayè, the Parana, or Paraguay, the Iñatè, the Rio Grande, or Vermejo, the Ychimaye, or Rio Rey, the Neboquelatèl, or mother of palms, called by the Spaniards Malabrigo, the Narahage, or Inespin, the Lachaoquè Nâuè, Ycalc, Ycham, &c. the Rio Negro, Verde, Salado, &c.

In the sixtieth year of the present century, many families of Abipones removed, some to the banks of the Rio Grande, others to the more distant northern parts. The last Abiponian colony was nearly ten leagues north of the Rio Grande, in which situation we found that the Toba savages, who call themselves Nataguebit, had formerly resided.

CHAPTER II.

OF THE NATURAL COLOUR OF THE AMERICANS

When European painters have represented a man of a dark complexion, naked and hairy from head to foot, with flat distorted nostrils, threatening eyes, and a vast belly, a monster, in short, armed with a quiver, bow, arrows, and a club, and crowned with feathers of various colours, they think they have made an admirable portrait of an American Indian. And, indeed, before I saw America, I pictured the Americans to myself as agreeing with this description; but my own eyes soon convinced me of my error and I openly denounced the painters, to whom I had formerly given credit, as calumniators and romancers. Upon a near view of innumerable Indians of many nations, I could discover none of those deformities which are commonly ascribed to them. None of the Americans are black like Negroes, none so white as the Germans, English and French, but of this I am positive, that many of them are fairer than many Spaniards, Portugueze, and Italians. The Americans have whitish faces, but this whiteness, in some nations, approaches more to a pasty colour, and in others is darker; a difference occasioned by diversity of climate, manner of living, or food. For those Indians who are exposed to the sun's heat in the open plain, must necessarily be of a darker colour than those who dwell always in the shade of forests, and never behold the sun. The women are fairer than the men, because they go out of doors less frequently, and whenever they travel on horseback, take greater care of their complexions, skreening their faces with fans made of the longer emu feathers.

I have often wondered that the savage Aucas, Puelches or Patagonians, and other inhabitants of the Magellanic region, who dwell nearer to the South Pole, should be darker than the Abipones, Mocobios, Tobas, and other tribes, who live in Chaco, about ten degrees farther north, and consequently suffer more from the heat. May not the difference of food have some effect upon the complexion? The Southern savages feed principally upon the flesh of emus and horses, in which the plains abound. Does this contribute nothing to render their skin dark? What, if we say that the whiteness of the skin is destroyed by very severe cold, as well as by extreme heat? Yet if this be the case, why are the inhabitants of Terra del Fuego more than moderately white: for that island is situated in the fifty-fifth degree of latitude, at the very extremity of South America, hard by the Antarctic Pole? May we not suppose that these Southern nations derive their origin from Africa, and brought the dark colour of the Africans into America? If any one incline to this opinion, let him consider by what means they crossed the immense sea which separates Africa from America, without the use of the magnet.

Many have written, and most persons at this day believe the Patagonians to be giants, perhaps the progeny of the Cyclops Polyphemus; but believe me when I say that the first are deceivers, and the latter their dupes. In the narrative of the voyage of the Dutch commander, Oliver Von Nord, who, in the year 1598, passed the Straits of Magellan, the Patagonians are asserted to be ten or eleven feet high. The English, who passed these straits in 1764, gave them eight feet of height. The good men must have looked at those savages through a magnifying-glass, or measured them with a pole. For in the year 1766, Captains Wallis and Carteret measured the Patagonians, and declared them to be only six feet, or six feet six inches high. They were again measured in 1764, by the famous Bourgainville, who found them to be of the same height as Wallis had done. Father Thomas Falconer, many years Missionary in the Magellanic region, laughs at the idea entertained by Europeans of the gigantic stature of the Patagonians, instancing Kangapol chief Cacique of that land, who exceeded all the other Patagonians in stature, and yet did not appear to him to be above seven feet high. Soon after my arrival, I saw a great number of these savages in the city of Buenos-Ayres. I did not, indeed, measure them, but spoke to some of them by an interpreter, and though most of them were remarkably tall, yet they by no means deserved the name of giants.

CHAPTER III.

OF THE PERSONS OF THE ABIPONES, AND THE CONFORMATION OF THEIR BODIES

The Abipones are well formed, and have handsome faces, much like those of Europeans, except in point of colour, which, though not entirely white, has nothing of the blackness of Negroes and Mulattoes. For that natural whiteness which they have in infancy is somewhat destroyed as they grow up, by the sun, and by the smoke: as nearly the whole of their lives is passed in riding about plains exposed to the beams of the sun, and the short time that they spend in their tents, they keep up a fire on the ground day and night, by the heat and smoke of which they are unavoidably somewhat darkened. Whenever the cold south wind blows, they move the fire to the bed, or place it underneath the hanging net in which they lie, and are thus gradually smoke-dried, like a gammon of bacon in a chimney. The women, when they ride out into the country, shield their faces from the sun's rays with an umbrella, and are, in consequence, generally fairer than the men, who, more ambitious to be dreaded by their enemies than to be loved, to terrify than attract beholders, think the more they are scarred and sun-burnt, the handsomer they are.

I observed that almost all the Abipones had black but rather small eyes; yet they see more acutely with them, than we do with our larger ones; being able clearly to distinguish such minute, or distant objects as would escape the eye of the most quick-sighted European. Frequently, in travelling, when we saw some animal running at a distance, and were unable to distinguish what it was, an Abipon would declare, without hesitation, whether it was a horse or a mule, and whether the colour was black, white, or grey; and on examining the object more closely, we always found him correct.

Moreover, in symmetry of shape, the Abipones yield to no other nation of America. I scarce remember to have seen one of them with a nose like what we see in the generality of Negroes, flat, crooked, turned up towards the forehead, or broader than it should be. The commonest shape is aquiline; as long and sharp as is consistent with beauty. An hundred deformities and blemishes, common among Europeans, are foreign to them. You never see an Abipon with a hump on his back, a wen, a hare lip, a monstrous belly, bandy legs, club feet, or an impediment in his speech. They have white teeth, almost all of which they generally carry to the grave quite sound. Paraguay sometimes produces dwarf horses, but never a dwarf Abipon, or any other Indian. Certain it is, that out of so many thousands of Indians, I never saw an individual of that description. Almost all the Abipones are so tall, that they might be enlisted amongst the Austrian musketeers.

The Abipones, as I told you before, are destitute of beard, and have perfectly smooth chins like all the other Indians, both of whose parents are Americans. If you see an Indian with a little beard, you may conclude, without hesitation, that one of his parents, or at any rate his grandfather, must have been of European extraction. I do not deny that a kind of down grows on the chins of the Americans, just as in sandy sterile fields, a straggling ear of corn is seen here and there; but even this they pull up by the roots whenever it grows. The office of barber is performed by an old woman, who sits on the ground by the fire, takes the head of the Abipon into her lap, sprinkles and rubs his face plentifully with hot ashes, which serve instead of soap, and then, with a pair of elastic horn tweezers, carefully plucks up all the hairs; which operation the savages declare to be devoid of pain, and that I might give the more credit to his words, one of them, applying a forceps to my chin, wanted to give me palpable demonstration of the truth. It was with difficulty that I extricated myself from the hands of the unlucky shaver, choosing rather to believe than groan.

The Abipones bear the pain inflicted by the old woman with the forceps, without complaining, that their faces may be smooth and clear; for they cannot endure them to be rough and hairy. For this reason, neither sex will suffer the hairs, with which our eyes are naturally fortified, but have their eye-brows and eye-lashes continually plucked up. This nakedness of the eyes, though it disfigures the handsomest face in a high degree, they deem indispensable to beauty. They ridicule and despise the Europeans for the thick brows which overshadow their eyes, and call them brothers to the ostriches, who have very thick eye-brows. They imagine that the sight of the eye is deadened, and shaded by the adjacent hairs. Whenever they go out to seek honey, and return empty-handed, their constant excuse is, that their eye-brows and eye-lashes have grown, and prevented them from seeing the bees which conduct them to the hives. From the beard, let us proceed to the hair of the head.

All the Abipones have thick, raven-black locks; a child born with red or flaxen hair would be looked upon as a monster amongst them. The manner of dressing the hair differs in different nations, times, and conditions. The Abipones, previously to their entering colonies, shaved their hair like monks, leaving nothing but a circle of hair round the head. But the women of the Mbaya nation, after shaving the rest of their heads, leave some hairs untouched, to grow like the crest of a helmet, from the forehead to the crown. As the savages have neither razors nor scissors, they use a shell sharpened against a stone, or the jaws of the fish palometa, for the purpose of shaving. Most of the Abipones in our colonies let their hair grow long, and twist it into a rope like European soldiers. The same fashion was adopted by the women, but with this difference, that they tie the braid of hair with a little piece of white cotton, as our countrymen do with black.

At church, and in mournings for the dead, they scatter their hair about their shoulders. The Guarany Indians, on the contrary, whilst they live in the woods, without the knowledge of religion, let their hair hang down their backs: now that they have embraced Christianity, and entered various colonies, they crop it like priests. But the women of the Guarany towns wear their hair long, platted, and bound with a piece of white cotton, both in and out of doors, but dishevelled and flowing when they attend divine service. The Spanish peasantry also approach the door of the church with their hair tied in the military fashion, but loosen it on entering. Indeed, all the Americans are persuaded that this is a mark of reverence due to the sacred edifice.

As soon as they wake in the morning, the Abiponian women, sitting on the ground, dress, twist, and tie their husbands' hair. A bundle of boar's bristles, or of hairs out of a tamandua's tail, serves them for a comb. You very seldom see an Indian with natural, never with artificial curling hair. They do not grow grey till very late, and then not unless they are decrepid; very few of them get bald. It is worthwhile to mention a ridiculous custom of the Abipones, Mocobios, Tobas, &c. all of whom, without distinction of age or sex, pluck up the hair from the forehead to the crown of the head, so that the fore part of the head is bald almost for the space of two inches: this baldness they call nalemr̂a, and account a religious mark of their nation. New-born infants have the hair of the fore part of their head cut off by a male or female juggler, these knaves performing the offices both of physicians and priests amongst them. This custom seems to me to have been derived from the Peruvian Indians, who used to cut their children's first hair, at two years of age, with a sharp stone for want of a knife. The ceremony was performed by the relations, one after another, according to the degrees of consanguinity; and at the same time a name was given to the infant.

It is also a custom, amongst the Abipones, to shave the heads of widows, not without much lamentation on the part of the women, and drinking on that of the men; and to cover them with a grey and black hood, made of the threads of the caraquatà, which it is reckoned a crime for her to take off till she marries again. A widower has his hair cropped with many ceremonies, and his head covered with a little net-shaped hat, which is not taken off till the hair grows again. All the men cut off their hair to mourn for the death of a Cacique. Amongst the Christian Guaranies, it is thought a most shameful and ignominious punishment, when any disreputable woman has her hair cut off. I have described the person which liberal nature has bestowed upon the Abipones; it now remains for me to show by what means they disfigure it.

CHAPTER IV.

OF THE ANCIENT AND UNIVERSAL METHODS OF DISFIGURING THE PERSON

Many Europeans spoil their beauty by eagerly imitating foreign customs, and always seeking new methods of adorning their persons. The Abipones disfigure and render themselves terrible to the sight from a too great attachment to the old customs of their ancestors; by whose example they mark their faces in various ways, some of which are common to both sexes, others peculiar to the women. They prick their skin with a sharp thorn, and scatter fresh ashes on the wound, which infuse an ineffaceable black dye. They all wear the form of a cross impressed on their foreheads, and two small lines at the corner of each eye extending towards the ears, besides four transverse lines at the root of the nose between the eye-brows, as national marks. These figures the old women prick with thorns, not only in the skin, but in the live flesh, and ashes sprinkled on them whilst streaming with blood render them of an indelible black. What these figures signify, and what they portend I cannot tell, and the Abipones themselves are no better informed on the subject. They only know that this custom was handed down to them from their ancestors, and that is sufficient.

I saw not only a cross marked on the foreheads of all the Abipones, but likewise black crosses woven in the red woollen garments of many. It is a very surprizing circumstance that they did this before they were acquainted with the religion of Christ, when the signification and merits of the cross were unknown to them. Perhaps they learnt some veneration for the cross, or gained an idea of its possessing great virtues from their Spanish captives, or from those Abipones who had lived in captivity amongst the Spaniards.

The Abiponian women, not content with the marks common to both sexes, have their face, breast, and arms covered with black figures of various shapes, so that they present the appearance of a Turkish carpet. The higher their rank, and the greater their beauty, the more figures they have; but this savage ornament is purchased with much blood and many groans. As soon as a young woman is of age to be married she is ordered to be marked according to custom. She reclines her head upon the lap of an old woman, and is pricked in order to be beautified. Thorns are used for a pencil, and ashes mixed with blood for paint. The ingenious, but cruel old woman, sticking the points of the thorns deep into the flesh, describes various figures till the whole face streams with blood. If the wretched girl does but groan, or draw her face away, she is loaded with reproaches, taunts and abuse. "No more of such cowardice," exclaims the old woman in a rage, "you are a disgrace to our nation, since a little tickling with thorns is so intolerable to you! Do you not know that you are descended from those who glory and delight in wounds? For shame of yourself, you faint-hearted creature! You seem to be softer than cotton. You will die single, be assured. Which of our heroes would think so cowardly a girl worthy to be his wife? But if you will only be quiet and tractable, I'll make you more beautiful than beauty itself." Terrified by these vociferations, and fearful of becoming the jest and derision of her companions, the girl does not utter a word, but conceals the sense of pain in silence, and with a cheerful countenance, and lips unclosed through dread of reproach, endures the torture of the thorns, which is not finished in one day. The first day she is sent home with her face half pricked with the thorns, and is recalled the next, the next after that, and perhaps oftener, to have the rest of her face, her breast and arms pricked in like manner. Meantime she is shut up for several days in her father's tent, and wrapped in a hide that she may receive no injury from the cold air. Carefully abstaining from meat, fishes, and some other sorts of food, she feeds upon nothing but a little fruit which grows upon brambles; and, though frequently known to produce ague, conduces much towards cooling the blood.