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

CHAPTER XVIII.

OF THE WEDDINGS OF THE ABIPONES

Whenever an Abipon thinks fit to choose a wife, he must bargain with the parents of the girl about the price to be payed for her. Four or more horses, strings of beads made of glass or snail-shells, a woollen garment of various colours, woven like a Turkish carpet, a spear furnished with an iron point, and other articles of this kind, are paid by the bridegroom. It frequently happens that the girl rescinds what had been settled and agreed upon between the parents and the bridegroom, obstinately rejecting the very mention of marriage. Many girls, through fear of being compelled to marry, have concealed themselves in the recesses of woods or lakes; seeming to dread the assaults of tigers less than the untried nuptials. Some of them, just before they are to be brought to the bridegroom's house, fly to the chapel, and there, hidden behind the altar, elude the threats and the expectation of the unwelcome bridegroom.

Let us suppose the Abiponian bride to have acquiesced in her parents' wishes with regard to her marriage; without the observance of other ceremonies usual elsewhere, she is conducted, not without pomp, to the tent of her spouse. Eight girls hold up a beautiful garment like a carpet in their hands, by way of a shade, under which the bride goes, full of bashfulness, with her eyes fixed upon the ground, preserving a pensive silence, spectators being scattered around. After having been received by her spouse, and kindly saluted, she is brought back by her hordesmen to her fathers house, in the same manner, and with the same attendants as she left it; whence, in a second and a third journey, she brings the gourds, pots, pans, and the weaving-machine, under a shade, to her husband's tent, and after a very short conversation returns to the house of her parents, where the bridegroom is forced to go to take his food and pass the night: for the mothers are so careful of their daughters, that even when they are married they can hardly bear to part from them, and deliver them immediately into the power of another. After they have satisfied themselves of the probity of their son-in-law, or after the birth of a child, they suffer them to live in a separate house. These are the scanty rites of the Abiponian nuptials, which however are sometimes gladdened by a compotation on the part of the men. Sometimes a drum is struck by a boy seated on the top of a tent to proclaim the nuptials. The bride's being covered with a skreen when she is conducted to the bridegroom's house, resembles the Roman fashion of veiling the heads of the women, when they were given to their husbands, with a yellow or flame-coloured veil, whence the word nuptials.

Gumilla relates, in his History of the river Orinoco, that there is one nation which marries old men to girls, and old women to youths, that age may correct the petulance of youth. For, they say, that to join young persons equal in youth and imprudence in wedlock together, is to join one fool to another. The marriage of young men with old women is a kind of apprenticeship, which after they have served for some months, they are permitted to marry women of their own age.

CHAPTER XIX.

OF THE MARRIAGE OF THE ABIPONES

We know that a plurality of wives, or the repudiation of them, was familiar to the Hebrews and other nations, and that it is tolerated even now amongst the Mahometans and Chinese. The Greeks and Romans did not universally, nor at all times object to it. What wonder then that the custom of polygamy and divorce should be common to many savages of America, since it is upheld by the practice of the ancients? You should not however imagine that the whole nation of the Abipones follow after the steps of the other nations in that respect. The major part are contented with one and the same wife, though I cannot deny that divorce is as frequent amongst them as the changing of the dress in Europe; yet I have known many who kept the same wife all their lives. But if any Abipon marries several women, he settles them in separate hordes, many leagues distant from one another, and visits first one, then the other, at intervals of a year. If he keeps many in the same house, which is very seldom the case, endless quarrels, blows, and battles, are sure to ensue, about the prerogative of governing the family, and the favour of their husband. Nejetenta, as I said before, is a word appropriated to express a contest between two wives about their husband; any other sort of fight is called Roélakitápegeta.

Let us now speak of the reason that occasions divorce. It is very common amongst them to reject wives to whom they have formerly united themselves, at their own pleasure, and with impunity, so that divines have very properly doubted the reality of the marriage of savages, as it seems to want the perpetuity of the nuptial tie. If their wives displease them, it is sufficient; they are ordered to decamp. No farther cause or objection is sought for; the will of the husband, who dislikes his wife, stands in the place of reason. Should the husband cast his eyes upon any handsomer woman, the old wife must remove merely on this account, her fading form or advanced age being her only accusers, though she maybe universally commended for conjugal fidelity, regularity of conduct, diligent obedience, and the children she has born. None of the men of most authority have either the right or the inclination to defend the divorced, or control the divorcer. But, appointing a drinking-party, wherein the memory of injuries is refreshed in the minds of the intoxicated guests, the relations fiercely avenge the dishonour done to the repudiated wife. Often, too, women just cast off by one man are immediately married by another. I have observed elsewhere that the younger women highly approve the law of Christ, and are anxious that themselves and their husbands should be baptized, because the perpetuity of their marriage is thereby secured, and their husbands prevented from changing or increasing the number of their wives. This licence of divorce produces, as I have already related, bloody murders of children, and the incredible diminution of the whole nation.

You will find many things worthy of reprehension, but at the same time not a few deserving of praise, in the married state of the Abipones. I will inform you of those most worthy of mention. Though the paternal indulgence of the Roman pontiffs makes the first and second degrees of relationship alone a bar to the marriage of the Indians, yet the Abipones, instructed by nature and the example of their ancestors, abhor the very thought of marrying any one related to them by the most distant tie of relationship. Long experience has convinced me, that the respect to consanguinity, by which they are deterred from marrying into their own families, is implanted by nature in the minds of most of the people of Paraguay. In this opinion I was greatly confirmed by the Cacique Roỹ, leader of the savages in the woods of Mbaeverà, who, when I was explaining the heads of religion to the surrounding multitude, and happened to make mention of incestuous nuptials, broke out into these words – "You say right, Father! Marriage with relations is a most shameful thing. This we have learnt from our ancestors." Such are the feelings of these wood savages, though they think it neither irrational nor improper to marry many wives, and reject them whenever they like.

Another admirable trait in the character of the savage Abipones is their conjugal fidelity. You never hear of this being shaken, or even attempted. Husbands are many months absent from their homes, whilst their wives remain in the midst of a horde of men without danger or even suspicion. What the Greeks have fabled of Penelope, who continued faithful to her husband Ulysses during an absence of twenty years, is the true history of the Abiponian women. But if an Abipon entertains the slightest suspicion of his wife's virtue, he does not digest it in silence, but takes ample vengeance on the person suspected though not convicted of the injury.

Amongst the other good qualities of the married people amongst the Abipones, may be reckoned the tender affection which they display towards their offspring, in feeding, clothing, and taking care of them. To tutor the boys from their earliest age in the arts of riding, swimming, hunting, and fighting, is the chief care of the fathers. The girls are diligently instructed by their mothers in the domestic duties of females, and early inured to labour and in accommodation. But this is worthy of censure in them, that however disobedient or refractory their children may be, they never have the courage to correct them with a word, much less with a blow. Alaykin, chief Cacique of the town of Concepçion, whenever he visited me, held a little boy five years of age upon his lap. This child, who was as restless as a young ape, would sometimes pull his father's nose or his hair, and sometimes struck his face. The old man, pleased at this, would cry – "Look, Father! can you ever doubt that this fearless boy will sometime come to be a famous soldier or captain, since he is not afraid of me, a leader so victorious and so formidable to the Spaniards?" The same boy would throw bones, horns, or any thing else he could lay hold on, at his mother, when she came to call him home. The warlike father interpreted the child's insolence, which he ought to have punished, as the mark of an intrepid mind, and rewarded it with laughter, and even with praise. The too unbounded love which they bear their children incapacitates the savages from doing any thing to cause them pain. But every one knows that the immoderate fondness of parents is a frequent injury to children in Europe.

CHAPTER XX.

GAMES ON THE BIRTH OF THE MALE CHILD OF A CACIQUE

The love implanted in the minds of all nations towards their prince never shows itself more clearly than when the birth of an heir is announced. Festive fires, theatrical games, joyous acclamations, songs, paintings, sculpture, elegant dances, and various other things attest the public joy. This custom of the Europeans, the savage and warlike Abipones in their fashion imitate. They make public show of rejoicing for some days, when informed of the birth of a Cacique's son. As soon as a report is spread of the birth of the son of a Cacique, the whole crowd of girls, bearing palm boughs in their hands, repair to the house of the infant amid festive acclamations; they run round the roof and sides of it, shaking the palm boughs, by which percussion they happily augur that the child will become famous in war, and the scourge of his enemies. The use of the palms, and the other ceremonies which follow all have relation to this. The strongest of the women is covered from the loins to the legs, with a sort of apron made of the longer ostrich feathers. That woman has every day the most business to perform; for in company with the other girls, she visits all the huts, and with a hide, twisted in the form of Hercules's club, whips, puts to flight, and pursues all the men that she finds in every house, and those that are met by the way are soundly beaten by the girls, with the palm boughs. The first day is passed in this running up and down, amidst the laughter of the flagellated men. Next day the girls, who are distributed into bands, wrestle with one another, and the boys do the same in a separate place. On the third day they are called out to dance, the boys on one side, and the girls on the other. They all join hands till a circle is formed, an old woman, the directress of the dance going round striking a gourd: and when after a whirling for some time, they grow giddy, they rest at intervals, and then renew their dancing, which contains nothing worthy of admiration, but the patience displayed on the part both of the spectators and of the performers, and is perfectly devoid of art. On the fourth day, the woman with the apron of ostrich feathers traverses the town, surrounded by girls, challenging the stoutest and strongest woman she finds in every house, to contend with her in the street; and now throwing her adversary, now being herself thrown, affords an amusing spectacle to the assembled people. During the remaining days, (for those games last eight days,) either the former sports are renewed, or the men joyfully indulge in public drinking-parties, wherein songs are alternately sung to the sound of drum. Of the other games, on the occasion of some person's being admitted to the rank of captain, of the celebration of any signal victory, of the death of a noble, the removal of the bones of the dead, the shaving of a widow's hair, &c. we shall discourse elsewhere. Of this I am quite certain, that the Abipones Nakaiketergehes, or wood-Abipones, are much more observant of national rites and ceremonies than the rest. It is incredible what time and labour it cost us to abolish the national rites of this ferocious nation, which the example of their ancestors had hallowed in their eyes. An oak a hundred years old, which has stuck its roots deep into the ground, is not felled at a blow. But now, from nuptial and natal games, let us proceed to things of a more gloomy character, to diseases, physicians, and medicines.

CHAPTER XXI.

OF THE DISEASES, PHYSICIANS, AND MEDICINES OF THE ABIPONES

I have long since described the Abipones to be stout, vigorous, and robust; and unless I am much deceived, have already proved in chapter the seventh, that the diseases, which in Europe fill houses with sick persons, and graves with dead bodies, are unknown here. Epilepsy, gout, lethargy, madness, jaundice, diseases in the joints, complaints in the kidneys, elephantiasis, iliac disorders, &c. are names strange and foreign to the Abipones. You scarce hear once in three years of any of them dying of a fever, pleurisy, or consumption. Sickness is more rare amongst them than an Aurora Borealis, or an eclipse with us. I never heard any of them complain of tooth-ache except an old woman, who soon stopped the pain with a few drops of vinegar. I do not wonder that the savages should be exempt from so common a complaint, as they are accustomed from childhood to chew tobacco leaves mixed with salt and the saliva of old women, and reduced into the form of an unguent. It is not improperly, therefore, that they call tobacco noetà, their medicine: for they are constantly eating honey, both in a solid and liquid state, which is the certain destruction of the teeth; so that the Indians must suffer continual torment from them, or soon be deprived of them altogether, were not the bad effects of the honey counteracted by the acrimony of the salt and tobacco. Experience shows that persons who smoke or chew tobacco every day will preserve their teeth sound. I have seen Spaniards of the higher orders in Paraguay either chew or smoke tobacco, and take delight in it as of certain utility to the health. But the Paraguayrians have another remedy against the tooth-ache. The pods of the cacào are steeped for some time in brandy. Cotton dipped in this liquor is applied to the tooth, which, if not hollow, is well moistened with that brandy, which should be held a long time in the mouth. If you repeat this several times, both the swelling and the pain will entirely cease. My own frequent experience, joined with that of others, has taught me the efficacy of this noble medicine, which is celebrated even in Europe. The freshest and most juicy pods must be chosen for the purpose, for what virtue will the old decayed ones yield, which are destitute of oil? The milder drinkable brandy should be used, not that fiery liquor which chemists call spirits of wine. Some prick the gum of the tooth with the spine of the fish raya, and by eliciting blood, allay the pain. Others again reduce tigers' claws and alum first into a calx, and then into a powder, by laying them on hot coals, and after they are well mixed up together, apply them to the hollow of the tooth. By the adoption of this method, many, beside myself, have found not only the pain, but the cause of the pain so entirely removed, that it never returned afterwards. Tooth-ache is a frequent and dreadful affliction to Europeans in Paraguay, on account of the scarcity or unskilfulness of surgeons. In extracting the diseased tooth, they pierce and lacerate the whole gum near it, which causes extreme pain, together with much effusion of blood. That the Abipones never need the aid of these torturers, is a truly enviable part of their felicity. I never saw a toothless person amongst them. The teeth, which they have made strenuous use of all their lives, generally go with them to the grave.

Whenever they feel themselves unwell, although the complaint be in the foot or the elbow, they always say that their heart pains them. The same is the case with the Guaranies. If you say to the sick man, what ails you, what is the matter with you? he immediately replies with a groan, it is in my heart: so that it is very difficult to understand from the Indians what their complaint is, and where it is situated, unless it be betrayed by other signs. Loathing of food for ever so short a time is, in their opinion, a certain indication of sickness. If an Abipon, from having overloaded his stomach, abstains from food for a little while, the women immediately augur the worst respecting him, and make no end of their lamentations, saying every now and then with a groan, Chik rkeñe, he does not eat. As soon as the sick person takes ever so little food, though the disorder be not yet subdued, they think him out of danger, so that Là rkeñe, he eats now; and Là yamini, or Là natatéuge, now he is recovered, now he revives, are with them synonymous. Moreover, as the Abipones are but very seldom sick, so very few of them die when they are sick. I do not doubt but that in the frequent conflicts they have with enemies and tigers, numbers fall yearly by the nails of the one, and the claws of the other. In most of the remainder, extreme old age is generally the fatal disease. In a word, greatest part of the Abipones die when they are satiated with life, when, weary of the burden of years, they long for death as the rest and solace of their miserable existence. This circumstance occasions the common error that they should never die at all were the Spaniards and the jugglers banished from America; for, to the arms of the former, and to the arts of the latter, they attribute the deaths of all their countrymen. A wound inflicted with a spear often gapes so wide that it affords ample room for life to go out and death to come in; yet if the man dies of the wound, they madly believe him killed, not by a weapon, but by the deadly arts of the jugglers. The relations leave no stone unturned, not only diligently to investigate, but severely to punish the authors of the death, and of the sorcery. They are persuaded that the juggler will be banished from amongst the living, and made to atone for their relation's death, if the heart and tongue be pulled out of the dead man's body immediately after his decease, roasted at the fire, and given to dogs to devour. Though so many hearts and tongues are devoured, and they never observe any of the jugglers die, yet they still religiously adhere to the custom of their ancestors, by cutting out the hearts and tongues of infants and adults of both sexes, as soon as they have expired. How firmly this mad notion, that men are killed by magical arts alone, is rooted in the minds of the Abipones, you may learn from the following facts, of which I myself was a spectator. In the colony of St. Ferdinand, a Yaaucaniga, famed amongst his countrymen both for high birth and military prowess, and on that very account ready for any audacious action, was much afflicted at the untimely death of his little daughter. He knew that she had been weak and diseased from her birth, yet was fully bent upon finding out the magical author of her death. A foreign Indian woman married to an Abipon appeared to him, from the representations of certain old women, who bore her a grudge, to be the perpetrator of the crime. Infuriated by the supposed injury, and the desire of vengeance, he fell upon the innocent unsuspecting woman at the approach of night, as she was spinning at the fire; he pierced her shoulder-blade with a spear with such force, that the point came out in the middle of her bosom, and stained the child she was suckling with its mother's blood. The woman was middle-aged, very fat, and full-breasted. She swam in her own blood, which spouted from every vein. The horrid nature of the wound threatening certain death, the heads of our holy religion, which she had formerly learnt, were briefly recalled to her memory; she received baptism, and was admonished to forgive her murderer. Having thus attended to the salvation of the poor woman's soul, we applied all our thoughts towards retarding her death, though we thought no medicine capable of saving her life. The blood which flowed, mixed with milk, being wiped up, the wound was washed with hot wine, and anointed with hen's fat. Numbers of people assembled to witness this mournful spectacle. Mixed with the crowd came a juggler physician, who gave the husband of the wounded woman a horn, desiring him to discharge his urine into it, and was immediately and plentifully obeyed. He gave the warm urine to the woman to drink, who made no hesitation, but swallowed it to the last drop. The juggling Hippocrates then turned to my companion and said: "Do you know why I prescribed fresh urine? In order that the wounded woman may vomit up the blood trickling from the wound to the inmost parts of the body, which would otherwise putrefy, and cause the lungs and other parts to putrefy also." The event verified his prediction. The woman was cleared by vomiting. The deep wound, being daily anointed with hen's fat, and having the leaves of the cabbage, which we call süsse kraut, applied to it to prevent inflammation, healed in a few days, and, excepting the scar, no inconvenience, trouble, or pain resulted from it. The surgeons of our country will doubtless laugh at the application of hen's fat, and perhaps question its efficacy in curing wounds; let them laugh, deride, doubt and despise, with my hearty good-will. I confidently oppose the experience of my own eyes, to their doubts and laughter. My arm, which was pierced with an arrow armed with five barbs, by the Natakebit savages, the nerve which directs the middle finger being injured at the same time, was happily cured in fourteen days by this remedy alone. With this fat I have cured men wounded both with arrows and spears; and with the same remedy I entirely healed an Abiponian woman whose leg had been wounded by an axe, in consequence of which, as all medicine had for some days been neglected, the foot was swelled in a dreadful manner. It would be endless to relate all the cures that have been worked with hen's fat.

The jugglers are commonly thought to be the authors of diseases, as well as of death, and the sick Abipones imagine that they shall recover as soon as ever those persons are removed. A tragic event will render this foolish persuasion more undoubted. An Abipon of the town of St. Jeronymo, called Ychohàke, elevated by the memory of his own great deeds, and those of his brother, the Cacique Ychoalay, wasted away with a slow disease. It never entered his head to seek the cause in the noxious humours in which he abounded. To discover which of the jugglers it was that had afflicted him with this sickness, was his daily and nightly endeavour. On this affair he consulted some old women, who pronounced a Toba, of the name of Napakainchin, to be the cause of the disease. The sick man immediately devotes the accused to death, for the preservation, as he thought, of his own life. In the dead of the night, he came upon him unawares, as he was sleeping in his tent; he plunged the iron point of his spear into his body, pierced his left side with a powerful blow, broke two of his ribs, and clove his shoulder with a weapon. At the cries of the wounded man, people assembled, whilst the assassin escaped by flight. We were called to the assistance of the poor wretch. Seeing him bathed in blood, and pierced with three wounds, we imagined that he would expire immediately. The bystanders told us that unless we removed him into our house, the person who put him in this condition would return to dispatch him with fresh wounds. According to their advice, he was conveyed into our house. Slipping by the way out of the hands of the carriers, he fell to the ground with fresh, and imminent danger of his life; for he was very large, and of weight proportionable to such great bulk. The place where he was laid in our house, as it had neither door nor fastening, was fortified by the Abipones with hides on every side, that Ychohàke might not gain access, if he came to complete the murder. And, in fact, as the Indians foretold, in half an hour, he came furnished with a dagger to hasten the death of the dying man; but being bravely repulsed by Father Joseph Brigniel, whose companion I then was, returned without accomplishing his purpose. The wounded man was baptized, and by means of our cares and medicines, amongst which hen's fat was the principal, happily recovered in the course of a few weeks. Napakainchin's wife and children gladly imitated his example, and embraced the Christian religion. A little after, the whole family, apprehending fresh danger from the same Ychohàke, removed to the neighbouring town of St. Xavier.