An Account of the Abipones, an Equestrian People of Paraguay, (1 of 3). Dobrizhoffer Martin
with arrows and a club, stole into the Spanish hut where only one man remained. "So," said the savage with a stern aspect, "you have dared to enter these woods, which were never yours! Know ye not that this is our hereditary soil? Are ye not content with having injuriously usurped immense tracts and innumerable woods, spite of the vain opposition of our ancestors? Should any one of us attempt your domains, would he return alive? No: and we will imitate your example. If, therefore, you are wise, if life is dear to you, – haste away, – advise your countrymen cautiously to shun our woods, unless they would be the cause of their own deaths." During this menacing speech the Spaniard remained silent, pale with expectation of the mortal stroke. To save his life, he offered, with a trembling hand, knives, axes, garments and other trifles within his reach; pacified by which the savage returned to his comrades who lurked hard by. The Spaniard, deeming any stay in these quarters extremely perilous, ran off, leaving, to its own fate, many thousand pounds of ready made tea.
I shall here record another excursion to the savages, which, though completed in less time than the former, was productive of more advantage. A company of Spaniards were employed in preparing the herb of Paraguay on the southern banks of the river Empalado. The trees from which these leaves were plucked failing, they commissioned three men to seek for the tree in request beyond the river. By accident they lit upon a hovel and a field of maize, from which they falsely conjectured that the wood was full of savage hordes. This occurrence affected them all with such fear, that, suspending the business upon which they were engaged, they kept within their huts, like snails in their shells, and spent day and night in dread of hostile aggression. To deliver them from this state of fear, a messenger was sent to St. Joachim, requiring us to search for the savages abiding there, and to remove them, when found, to our colony. I applied myself to the task without shrinking, and on the day of St. John the Evangelist commenced my travels, accompanied by forty Indians. Having taken a guide from the Spanish hut, and crossed the river Empalado, we carefully explored all the woods and the banks of the river Mondaỹ-mir̂i, and discovering at length, on the third day, a human footstep, we traced it to a little dwelling, where an old woman with her son and daughter, a youth and maiden of twenty and fifteen years of age, had lived many years. Being asked where the other Indians were to be found, the mother replied that no mortal besides herself and her two children survived in these woods; that all the rest, who had occupied this neighbourhood, had died long ago of the small-pox. Perceiving me doubtful as to the correctness of her statement, the son observed, "You may credit my mother in her assertion without scruple; for I myself have traversed these woods far and near in search of a wife, but could never meet with a single human being." Nature had taught the young savage that it was not lawful to marry his sister. I exhorted the old mother to migrate as fast as possible to my town, promising that both she and her children should be more comfortably situated. She declared herself willing to accept my invitation, to which there was only one objection. "I have," says she, "three boars which have been tamed from their earliest age. They follow us wherever we go, and I am afraid, if they are exposed to the sun in a dry plain, unshaded by trees, they will immediately perish." "Pray be no longer anxious on this account," replied I; "depend upon it I shall treat these dear little animals with due kindness. When the sun is hot, we will find shade wherever we are. Lakes, rivers, or marshes will be always at hand to cool your favourites." Induced by these promises, she agreed to go with us. And setting out the next day we reached the town in safety on the first of January. And now it will be proper to give a cursory account of the mother and her offspring. Their hut consisted of the branches of the palm-tree, their drink of muddy water. Fruits, antas, fawns, rabbits, and various birds, maize, and the roots of the mandiò tree afforded them food; a cloth woven of the leaves of the caraquatà, their bed and clothing. They delighted in honey, which abounds in the hollow trees of the forest. The smoke of tobacco the old woman inhaled, night and day, through the reed to which was affixed a little wooden vessel, like a pan. The son constantly chewed tobacco leaves reduced to powder. Shells sharpened at a stone or split reeds served them for knives. The youth, who catered for his mother and sister, carried in his belt two pieces of iron, the fragment of some old broken knife, about as broad and long as a man's thumb, inserted in a wooden handle, and bound round with wax and thread. With this instrument he used to fashion arrows with great elegance, make wooden gins to take antas, perforate trees which seemed likely to contain honey, and perform other things of this kind. There being no clay to make pots of, they had fed, all their lives, on roasted meat instead of boiled. The leaves of the herb of Paraguay they only steeped in cold water, having no vessel to boil it in. To show how scanty their household furniture was, mention must be made of their clothes. The youth wore a cloak of the thread of the caraquatà, reaching from his shoulders to his knees, his middle being girded with little cords, from which hung a gourd full of the tobacco dust which he chewed. A net of coarser thread was the mother's bed by night and her only garment by day. The girl in like manner wore a short net by day in which she slept at night. This appearing to me too transparent, I gave her a cotton towel to cover her more effectually. The girl folding up the linen cloth into many folds, placed it on her head to defend her from the heat of the sun, but at the desire of the Indians wrapped it round her. I made the youth, too, wear some linen wrappers, which in my journey I had worn round my head as a defence against the gnats. Before this, he had climbed the highest trees like a monkey to pluck from thence food for his pigs, but his bandages impeded him like fetters, so that he could scarcely move a step. In such extreme need, in such penury I found them, experiencing the rigours of ancient anchorites, without discontent, vexation, or disease.
My three wood Indians wore their hair dishevelled, cropped, and without a bandage. The youth neither had his lip perforated, nor his head crowned with parrot feathers. The mother and daughter had no ear-rings, though the former wore round her neck a cord from which depended a small heavy piece of wood, of a pyramidal shape, so that by their mutual collision they made a noise at every step. At first sight I asked the old woman whether she used this jingling necklace to frighten away the gnats; and I afterwards substituted a string of beautifully coloured glass-beads, in place of these wooden weights. The mother and son were tall and well-looking, but the daughter had so fair and elegant a countenance, that a poet would have taken her for one of the nymphs or dryads, and any European might safely call her beautiful. She united a becoming cheerfulness with great courtesy, and did not seem at all alarmed at our arrival, but rather enlivened. She laughed heartily at our Guarany, and we, on the other hand, at her's. For as this insulated family had no intercourse with any but themselves, their language was most ridiculously corrupted. The youth had never seen a female except his mother and sister, nor any male but his father. The girl had seen no woman but her mother nor any man but her brother, her father having been torn to pieces by a tiger before she was born. To gather the fruits that grew on the ground or on the trees, and wood for fuel, the dexterous girl ran over the forest tangled as it was with underwood, reeds, and brambles, by which she had her feet wretchedly scratched. Not to go unattended, she commonly had a little parrot on her shoulder, and a small monkey on her arm, unterrified by the tigers that haunt that neighbourhood. The new proselytes were quickly clothed in the town, and served with the daily allowance of food before the rest. I also took care they should take frequent excursions to the neighbouring woods, to enjoy the shade and pleasant freshness of the trees, to which they had been accustomed. For we found by experience, that savages removed to towns often waste away from the change of food and air, and from the heat of the sun, which powerfully affects their frames, accustomed, as they have been from infancy, to moist, cool, shady groves. The same was the fate of the mother, son, and daughter in our town. A few weeks after their arrival they were afflicted with a universal heaviness and rheum, to which succeeded a pain in the eyes and ears, and, not long after, deafness. Lowness of spirits, and disgust to food at length wasted their strength to such a degree that an incurable consumption followed. After languishing some months, the old mother, who had been properly instructed in the Christian religion and baptized, delivered up her spirit, with a mind so calm, so acquiescent with the divine will, that I cannot doubt but that she entered into a blessed immortality. The girl, who had entered the town full of health and beauty, soon lost all resemblance to herself. Enfeebled, withering by degrees like a flower, her bones hardly holding together, she at length followed her mother to the grave, and, if I be not much deceived, to Heaven. Her brother still surviving was attacked by the same malady that proved fatal to his mother and sister, but being of a stronger constitution overcame it. The measles, which made