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

Moreover, being lovers of liberty and roving, they choose to own no law, and bind themselves to their cacique by no oaths of fidelity. Without leave asked on their part, or displeasure evinced on his, they remove with their families whithersoever it suits them, and join some other cacique; and when tired of the second, return with impunity to the horde of the first. This is quite common, and a matter of surprize to no one that knows how fleeting is the faith, how mutable the will of the Indians. Should a report be spread by uncertain or suspicious authors, that the enemy are coming in a few days, it is enough. Numbers, dreading the loss of life more than of fame, will desert their cacique, and hasten with their families to some well-known retreats. Lest however they should be branded with the name of deserters and cowards, they say they are going out to hunt. Hence, whenever we priests had to defend the new colonies filled with savage assailants, and almost destitute of inhabitants to repel them, we generally made more use of craft and threats than of force. The danger, or the fear of it, being dissipated, these fugacious heroes at length came home, no one daring to accuse them of cowardice, though no one could be ignorant that fear prompted their departure, security their return.

Whenever a cacique determines upon undertaking an excursion, a public drinking-party is appointed. Heated with that luscious beverage, prepared from honey or the alfaroba, they zealously offer their services to the cacique, who invites them to war, sing triumph before the victory with festive vociferations, and, (who would believe it?) diligently execute when sober, what they promised in a state of intoxication. That love is kindled by love, as fire by fire, and that friends are gained by liberality, are trite proverbs in Europe, and have been experienced by us in our long commerce with the Abipones. A cacique who seldom gives a repulse will have numerous, obedient, and affectionate hordesmen. Kind words or looks, the marks of good-will, avail but little amongst the savages, unless accompanied with beneficence. They require at the cacique's hands whatever they take it into their heads to wish for, believing that his office obliges him to satisfy the petitions of all. If he denies them any thing, they say he is not a captain, or noble, and insolently bestow upon him the disgraceful appellation of wood-Indian —Acami Lanařaik. The cacique has nothing, either in his arms or his clothes, to distinguish him from a common man, except the peculiar oldness and shabbiness of them; for if he appear in the street with new and handsome apparel, just taken out of his wife's loom, the first person he meets will boldly cry, Give me that dress, Tach cauê grihilalgi; and unless he immediately parts with it, he becomes the scoff and the scorn of all, and hears himself called covetous and niggardly. Sometimes, when they came to ask a great favour of me, they would stroke my shoulder, and say in a sweet tone, You are indeed a captain, Father; by which honourable appellation they wished me to understand that it was unlike a captain to refuse a man any thing. As those things which they asked me for were not always in my possession, nor could indeed be found in any shop at Amsterdam, I told them I was no captain, that they might bear a refusal with good humour, and attribute it to poverty, not to ill-nature. But it was all in vain. They construe a Father's excuse into a falsehood, and exclaim, not without much laughter on both sides, What a liar, what a miser you are! I found that those caciques had abundance of followers who were active and successful in the acquirement of booty, free from sordid avarice, and fond of displaying an unbounded liberality towards their hordesmen. Kaapetraikin and Kebachin had crowds of soldiers in their service, because they were distinguished for dexterity and assiduity in depredation; the same men, when decrepit with extreme age, inadequate to undertaking excursions, and consequently poor, found none but relations continue in their hordes.

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