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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He
Had Married The Daughter Of An Indian Chief Of The Rio Temi.
In a
paroxysm of rage against his father-in-law, he declared to his wife
that he was going to fight against him.
She reminded him of the
courage and singular strength of her father; when Cuseru, without
uttering a single word, took a poisoned arrow, and plunged it into her
bosom. The arrival of a small body of Spaniards in 1756, under the
order of Solano, awakened suspicion in this chief of the Guaypunaves.
He was on the point of attempting a contest with them, when the
Jesuits made him sensible that it would be his interest to remain at
peace with the Christians. Whilst dining at the table of the Spanish
general, Cuseru was allured by promises, and the prediction of the
approaching fall of his enemies. From being a king he became the mayor
of a village; and consented to settle with his people at the new
mission of San Fernando de Atabapo. Such is most frequently the end of
those chiefs whom travellers and missionaries style Indian princes.
"In my mission," says the honest father Gili "I had five reyecillos,
or petty kings, those of the Tamanacs, the Avarigotes, the Parecas,
the Quaquas, and the Maypures. At church I placed them in file on the
same bench; but I took care to give the first place to Monaiti, king
of the Tamanacs, because he had helped me to found the village; and he
seemed quite proud of this precedency."
When Cuseru, the chief of the Guaypunaves, saw the Spanish troops pass
the cataracts, he advised Don Jose Solano to wait a whole year before
he formed a settlement on the Atabapo; predicting the misfortunes
which were not slow to arrive.
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