Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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After Having Entered The Rio Negro By The Pimichin, And Passed The
Small Cataract At The Confluence Of The Two Rivers, We Discovered, At
The Distance Of A Quarter Of A League, The Mission Of Maroa.
This
village, containing one hundred and fifty Indians, presented an
appearance of ease and prosperity.
We purchased some fine specimens of
the toucan alive; a courageous bird, the intelligence of which is
developed like that of our domestic ravens. We passed on the right,
above Maroa, first the mouth of the Aquio* (Aqui, Aaqui, Ake, of the
most recent maps.), then that of the Tomo.* (* Tomui, Temujo, Tomon.)
On the banks of the latter river dwell the Cheruvichahenas, some
families of whom I have seen at San Francisco Solano. The Tomo lies
near the Rio Guaicia (Xie), and the mission of Tomo receives by that
way fugitive Indians from the Lower Guainia. We did not enter the
mission, but Father Zea related to us with a smile, that the Indians
of Tomo and Maroa had been one day in full insurrection, because an
attempt was made to force them to dance the famous dance of the
devils. The missionary had taken a fancy to have the ceremonies by
which the piaches (who are at once priests, physicians, and conjurors)
evoke the evil spirit Iolokiamo, represented in a burlesque manner. He
thought that the dance of the devils would be an excellent means of
proving to the neophytes that Iolokiamo had no longer any power over
them. Some young Indians, confiding in the promises of the missionary,
consented to act the devils, and were already decorated with black and
yellow plumes, and jaguar-skins with long sweeping tails. The place
where the church stands was surrounded by the soldiers who are
distributed in the missions, in order to add more effect to the
counsels of the monks; and those Indians who were not entirely
satisfied with respect to the consequences of the dance, and the
impotency of the evil spirit, were brought to the festivity. The
oldest and most timid of the Indians, however, imbued all the rest
with a superstitious dread; all resolved to flee al monte, and the
missionary adjourned his project of turning into derision the demon of
the natives. What extravagant ideas may sometimes enter the
imagination of an idle monk, who passes his life in the forests, far
from everything that can recall human civilization to his mind. The
violence with which the attempt was made to execute in public at Tomo
the mysterious dance of the devils is the more strange, as all the
books written by the missionaries relate the efforts they have used to
prevent the funereal dances, the dances of the sacred trumpet, and
that ancient dance of serpents, the Queti, in which these wily animals
are represented as issuing from the forests, and coming to drink with
the men in order to deceive them, and carry off the women.
After two hours' navigation from the mouth of the Tomo we arrived at
the little mission of San Miguel de Davipe, founded in 1775, not by
monks, but by a lieutenant of militia, Don Francisco Bobadilla.
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