Part 5 - Chapter 1. Southern Regions Of South America

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_ PART FIVE
CHAPTER ONE. SOUTHERN REGIONS OF SOUTH AMERICA

GEOGRAPHY AND NATIVE TRIBES.

The vast territory south of the Brazils is watered by a wide-extending branch-work of mighty streams, having as their main trunk the Rio de la Plata at their southern end. To the east is the River Uruguay, running almost parallel with the Atlantic coast. Close to its mouth the far more important Parana, rising in the mountains of the Brazils, near the sources of the Tocantins, falls into the La Plata. While the Tocantins flows north till it reaches the Amazon, the Parana takes a more or less southerly course for many hundreds of miles, till it turns due west for nearly two hundred, and then once more runs south and east till it enters the main trunk. At its extreme western point it is joined by the River Paraguay, which, from its source in the diamond district of the Brazils, has an almost southerly course, receiving on its way numerous large tributaries. One of the most important of these is the Vermejo, which, rising in the Andes, near the source of the Amazon, affords a water communication between Bolivia across the whole continent to the Atlantic. These rivers form the boundaries of several states.

Directly south of the Brazils, between Parana on the east and Paraguay on the west, is the republic of Paraguay, lately ruled over by the two savage dictators, Francia and Lopez. It is a thickly-wooded region, with numerous streams running through it, and a lofty range--the Cordillera de Caaguazu--at the northern end. The inhabitants are mostly a mixed race of Spaniards and Indians. To the west of the Paraguay river is a wide-extended level region, bounded on the north by Bolivia, and interspersed with lakes and marshes known as the Gran Chaco, and inhabited by tribes of still savage Indians.

The southern boundary of Paraguay is the River Parana, where it runs east and west. To the south of it is the state of Corrientes, a woody but level region between the two rivers, Uruguay and Parana. Further south is the state of Entre Rios; while, to the west, are a collection of confederated towns and villages scattered widely over the Pampas, known as part of the Argentine Confederation; to which the two last-mentioned, as well as Buenos Ayres, to the south of the La Plata, belong.

East of the Uruguay, between it and the Atlantic, is the republic of Uruguay. Through the southern portion of the Argentine Republic flow the rivers Colorado, Negro, and Chupat. On the banks of the latter a Welsh colony has been established; while in various parts of the republic numerous other settlements have been formed by Europeans. The level Pampas--inhabited by those bold and daring riders, the Gauchos, and still wilder tribes of Indians--extending to the base of the Andes, from its peculiar and interesting character demands a separate description.

 

THE PAMPERO.

The pampero, dreaded on shore as well as at sea, blows with tremendous force across this region.

There is not a cloud in the sky. The night may be perfectly calm. Mosquitoes in vast numbers are busy with their sharp stings. Suddenly a rustling in the woods may be heard afar off. The noise increases into a dull roar. Clouds appear above the horizon. Still all is calm. The mosquitoes vanish. The dogs are howling in anticipation of danger. As if by magic, dark masses of clouds cover the heavens like a curtain. They are rent asunder, thunder roars, lightning flashes, and the wind, like an army of wild beasts, rushes on. Down comes the rain in torrents, beating furiously against the hapless traveller exposed to its fury, or on the deck of the ship. Flash succeeds flash; the lightning in forked streaks darting through the air. In an hour, perhaps, the heaviest part of the storm may be over, but still the wind blows furiously; till at length it ceases, the clouds disappear, and the air becomes delightfully fresh and cool.

The craft on the rivers are, however, often caught in these pamperos, and driven into the bush, or upset, when the swift current carries down the best of swimmers to a watery grave.

Houses, also, are frequently unroofed, orange groves stripped of their golden fruit, and trees uprooted and hurled to the ground.

 

NATIVES OF LA PLATA AND ITS TRIBUTARIES--THE PAMPAS AND PATAGONIA.

When the Spaniards first arrived in that sea-like river, with shallow shores--the mighty Parana, to which Sebastian Cabot afterwards gave the name of La Plata--they encountered a fierce tribe (the Charranas) inhabiting its shores. The natives endeavoured to repel the invaders by a system of warfare which the latter, though they describe it as of the most treacherous character, were not slow to imitate. Step by step, however, the Spaniards fought their way; though sometimes defeated and compelled to retreat, they again returned, establishing forts and towns on the banks of the river, till they finally obtained a firm footing in the land. They hesitated at no act, however atrocious, to secure their conquests by the destruction of their foes.

On one occasion being warned that a tribe--the Guaycaruses--with whom they had formed a treaty of peace, had laid a plot to cut them off, they formed a counterplot, far surpassing in treachery that of the savages. The Spanish Lieutenant-Governor, pretending that he had been smitten with the charms of the daughter of their principal cacique, offered her his hand in marriage. The proposal was accepted by the delighted Indians, who, with their chiefs and a large number of people, were invited into the town to attend the ceremony. Meantime soldiers were concealed in the houses to which the chiefs were conducted, and orders were given to supply them amply with intoxicating liquors. While they were thus deprived of their senses, soldiers were sent across the river to destroy the remainder of the tribe who had not come to the wedding. At a given signal the native village was attacked, and every inhabitant slaughtered; while the hosts of those in the town killed more than three hundred of their helpless guests.

The invaders were creating a fearful heritage for their descendants by intermarrying with the native women. From these marriages have sprung the race which now occupies, in vast numbers, a large portion of that magnificent territory, and who, by their low moral condition, their ignorance, and instability of character, have been the chief cause of the melancholy wars which have so long saturated its plains with blood. The Jesuits, by the missions they formed in various parts of the country, introduced a superficial civilisation among some of the tribes; but their system failing, as it ever has done, to raise the moral character of the people, and fit them for independent thought and self-government, has left them as ignorant and superstitious, and scarcely less savage, than before. Thus they have become the facile tools of every leader who, by greater audacity, craft, or determination, has risen to authority among them.

 

THE GUARANIS AND THEIR DESCENDANTS.

The Guaranis were the principal nation dwelling on the eastern portion of South America. They were probably the same race as the Quichuas, who inhabited the western shores, and a large portion of the Andes, under the rule of the Incas. The two languages are still spoken in various parts of the country. The Guaranis were superior in civilisation to numerous other intervening and more isolated tribes, who had sunk by degrees into greater barbarism. Like the Quichuas, they were agriculturalists--cultivating mandioca, maize, calabashes, and potatoes. They fed on honey and wild fruit; and hunted birds, monkeys, and other animals, and caught fish with their bows and arrows. They had also canoes; and had a better established system of government than their neighbours. Yet they were among the first to bow their necks to the yoke of their invaders; while other tribes, who, though less numerous, fiercely opposed the Spaniards, were swept away from the face of the earth.

The descendants of the Guaranis exist--some in a semi-civilised condition, others as barbarous as of yore--in several parts of the continent; but a large portion became amalgamated with the invaders, and their language is still spoken throughout Paraguay and the neighbouring provinces by the mixed race who have descended from them. The Charruas--the first tribe with whom the Spaniards came in contact--were barbarous in the extreme. Their arms were lances and arrows, and they were noted for their expertness in tracking their enemies. They could bear an almost incredible amount of fatigue, and could subsist for several days without food or water. They wore their hair long,--the women allowing theirs to flow down the back, while the young men gathered up their locks in bunches, and ornamented them with white feathers. They ate every description of food, even to snakes and insects, and were especially fond of the parasites of the human body. They tattooed their faces and limbs; and soon after a boy was born a hole was made in his lower lip, when a piece of wood was introduced like a nail, the head being in his mouth, while another stick was fastened to it outside.

They lived in tree-formed huts, which they entered on all-fours; and wore no clothes, except in cold weather, when they covered the chest with a piece of skin. They never washed, huddling together in their dirty toldas or huts. They subsisted entirely on the produce of the chase; polygamy was general; their children were not taught to obey their parents, while they appear to have been destitute of all family affection. Their beverage, called chicha--a name common throughout South America--was prepared from honey and water. Although, during lifetime, relations exhibited no affection towards each other, at the death of one of them the survivors underwent many cruel funeral ceremonies. They ultimately assisted the Spaniards in the extermination of several of the neighbouring tribes, but were eventually either destroyed, or brought completely under subjection.

 

THE QUERANDIS OR PEHUELCHES.

The Querandis or Pehuelches--the principal tribe of the Pampas Indians-- were, from the first, the chief opponents of the Spaniards in Buenos Ayres. They stole their cattle, made captives of their wives and children, and cut off the soldiers and estancieros, or cattle-farmers, on numerous occasions. They were vain, haughty, and daring. Unlike the Charruas, they paid great attention to their dress and appearance, neither painting nor cutting their hair. The men wore their locks turned up and secured at the top of the head; while the women divided theirs in the centre, wearing them on each side in a large clump, fastened by a ribbon, the ends falling down over each ear nearly to the waist. They wore combs, and were in every respect cleanly. The women also wore necklaces, with hanging ornaments. Their costume was a poncho on festive occasions, highly ornamented; while they wore leather boots. Although, when galloping across the Pampas, they went totally naked, they carried their clothes with them--either to put on during cold weather, or to appear in state when meeting Europeans. Their weapons of war were lances and the formidable bolas,--by means of which, used as slings, they could send stones to a great distance,--and combustible materials, with which they set fire to the Spanish houses. Their huts were composed of upright poles, four or five feet in height, and as many apart, on which skins of large animals--such as the huanacus or ostrich--were fastened, on the side from whence the cold winds blew. These huts formed long streets; but were used only during cold or rainy weather, as in fine weather they slept on the uncovered ground.

No sooner did the horses introduced by the Spaniards, escaping into the wilds, increase and multiply, than the Indians learned to bestride them, and soon exhibited an uncommon aptitude in their management. Armed with their long lances, they would charge the Spanish troops,--each man lying down at his horse's side, though going at full gallop, and jumping up, turning round, or dropping down again, with wonderful rapidity. Though even the Gauchos give their horses some preliminary training, the Pampas Indian catches the animal with the lasso, throws it down, forces a wooden bit, covered with a piece of hide, into its mouth, from which bit there is a leathern cord to bind round its lower lip, and gallops off.

They are divided into many tribes, who, even a few years ago, made frequent incursions into the provinces of Buenos Ayres, Cordova, and others, and carried off large flocks of cattle--and many Argentines, as captives. They were pursued to the River Colorado, however, when part of the stolen cattle was recovered, and several captives liberated. They are under the belief that when death does not occur, in consequence of violence, it is owing to sorcery.

 

THE PAYAGUAS.

Another tribe or nation must be mentioned--the Payaguas, who inhabited the territory of Paraguay, and from whom the district has taken its name. They used canoes, and many of their warlike expeditions were carried on down the river by water. The women had to perform all the hard work, and were never allowed to eat meat. The boys and girls wore no clothes, but the young men painted their bodies in a variety of patterns.

The Tupis, another large tribe, appear either to have extended to the Amazon, or to have been driven there from the south, as their language is now spoken by the tribes on its banks.

The Toromonos were the chief tribe inhabiting the territory of Bolivia to the north of the Gran Chaco. They lived in houses, each man building one for himself. The men wore no clothes, but ornamented their heads with a crown formed of feathers; whilst the women wore a small cotton garment, only partially covering the person. They painted their faces, and wore rings in their noses and lips. Many of their customs were cruel and barbarous in the extreme, though they appear to have cultivated the ground, and used ploughs and wooden implements of agriculture. They employed bows and arrows in battle, as also for fishing and killing game. They also showed skill in building canoes.

 

INDIANS OF BOLIVIA--NATIVE APOTHECARIES.

Even at the present day, as was the case in the time of the Incas, the people of one of the tribes were distinguished for their medical knowledge, and sent out travelling apothecaries, who collected herbs,-- traversing the whole of the continent. Markham describes meeting with a party of them emerging from the forest,--cadaverous, miserable-looking men, almost worn to death by fatigue and hardship. They wore their long hair plaited and secured behind in the form of a queue. They came from the district of Yungas, and are called Yunguenos, or Cherrihuanos. Formerly they went on foot, but they now ride asses, on which they carry the herbs and nuts, reputed efficacious for the cure of sickness; as well as bundles of chinchona, coca leaf, incense, and other articles.

The Bolivian Indians were subdued only in 1843. Each village or toldera of these tribes is governed by a cacique, generally possessing hereditary rank; though, as in other cases, much depends upon his physical powers and wealth. A number of wild tribes still roam over the country between the western Argentine states and the Andes. There they live free and independent, though barbarous. When they venture into the neighbourhood of large towns, they soon degenerate into thieves and drunkards. Here they come to carry on a trade in furs and panther skins, or to collect meat at the saladeros, which they dry and carry off with them. They make money by selling Indian ornaments, and foraging for the settlers' cattle; or by thieving, which they look upon as an orthodox mode of gaining a livelihood.

 

TRIBES OF THE GRAN CHACO.

Several tribes inhabited the Gran Chaco. The principal one--the least sunk in barbarism--were the Guanas. They lived in towns arranged in some symmetrical order, composed of palm-trees. Each house formed an enclosed square composed of posts and arches. To these were fixed horizontal beams, the whole covered with mud and straw. There was but one door, and the structure was sufficiently large to contain a dozen families. They had bed-places on square frames, covered over with boards and straw and skins, while their houses were kept scrupulously clean.

They were noted for their hospitality, and subsisted chiefly by agriculture. They cut off the hair in the middle of the forehead; some shaved sometimes the front half of the head, and others half-moons over the ears. Though the marriage ceremony was simple in the extreme, a contract as to various points was invariably entered into. The men greatly exceeded the women in number, in consequence of the unnatural custom prevailing among them of putting to death the female children. Old women acted the part of doctors.

Their dead were buried outside the doors of their houses, and a considerable time was spent in bewailing their loss. Though they fought bravely with bows and arrows, as well as with spears or clubs, they were of a peaceable disposition, and never made war except in self-defence.

The great ambition of a Chaco Indian is to possess a horse, saddle, and gun. Once mounted, he soon becomes a bold rider.

Their mode of crossing a river is curious. As their canoes cannot carry their animals over, they first drive the horse into the river up to his shoulders in the water, then launch the canoe--after tying the animal's head to the top of the gunwale--with the children and luggage on board. As the horse's feet are off the ground, he cannot injure the canoe. When travelling, however, without canoes, they form small rafts, into which they put their children; and lance in hand, and with bow and quiver at their backs, they bestride their steeds and tow them across, a curious spectacle to witness.

The children go perfectly naked; indeed, so do the people generally, except those who come into the settled districts. The women wear their masses of black hair almost covering their heads and shoulders. They dress in a short skirt, with a scarf over the shoulders. "The old women," observed Captain Kennedy, "are terrible to behold, they having all the hard work to do. They even paddle the canoes, while the men and young women sit looking on."

Their villages consist of rows of wretched hovels. They appear to have no superstitious ideas, but they believe in an evil spirit, against whom they try to guard by charms and incantations. They are under a chief cacique; and after the other chiefs in conclave have determined on war, or rather, on a plundering expedition, and it is concluded, they separate into their original tribes, each taking opposite directions with their share of the plunder, to escape the risk of being captured. A considerable portion of the almost unexplored district--the Gran Chaco--which they inhabit is a dreary waste of lagoons and marshes, traversed by rapid, muddy, and tortuous rivers.

 

JESUIT MISSIONS.

The missions established by the Jesuits show the impotence of their system for the civilisation of the wild man. The territory where they carried on their chief labours exists on the eastern bank of the Parana, to the north of Uruguay and Corrientes, bordering on the Brazilian territory. After three hundred years of labour, they left these savages utterly incapable of self-government.

"The Indian mind, indeed," observes Captain Page--an American--"laying aside its atrocities, has never emerged from the intellectual development of childhood. These savages showed the imitative faculties of the animal. When taught, they delved and ploughed, planted cotton and sugar-cane, and executed work in carpentry and wove fabrics, and performed other manual operations; yet their reason and intelligence has not advanced, even _pari passu_ in any degree with the progress of European civilisation; nor have the natures of their female population become modified with the slightest trait of the humanities and tendernesses which are the brightest attributes of the women of the present century."

"Among the Jesuit missions in the Gran Chaco," observes another writer, "are found no remaining evidence of better knowledge, than that the Indians now prefer horse-flesh to any other kind of meat."

The same writer gives us the derivation of the names of several of the rivers:--Parana, resembling the sea; Paraguay, from the Payaguas, a tribe of Indians who were met with by the discoverers navigating the river; and Uruguay, from a bird--the uru--which is found on the banks of that stream.

 

LANGUAGE.

With regard to the two prevailing Indian languages spoken in the southern part of the continent, it is remarkable that the Quichua, the language of the Peruvians, is still used by the natives found on the banks of the River Salado, in the province of Santiago del Estero, though far-distant from the Andes, in the centre of the Argentine territory; while it is not in use in the intermediate provinces. This proves, either the distance to which the Incas extended their conquests, or perhaps the fact that the natives of Santiago are descendants of a Peruvian colony. The Guarani language is still spoken in Entre Rios and Corrientes, while in the Republic of Paraguay it is more generally used than the Spanish; indeed, paragraphs printed in it appear in one of the papers published in that province. The Jesuits compiled a number of grammatical and other works in the Guarani, for the purpose of teaching the novitiates in their establishments at Paraguay.

The Guarani nation occupied the whole sea-coast, from Uruguay northwards through Brazil, Cayenne, and even into Venezuela. _

Read next: Part 5: Chapter 2. Paraguay

Read previous: Part 4: Chapter 3. Central Brazil

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