In Place Of A Beard Or Moustache, The Inhabitant Of The Chaco Prefers
To Paint His Face, And Sometimes He Makes Quite An Artistic Design.
These wild inhabitants of Central South America generally wear a skin
around the loins, or a string of ostrich feathers.
Some tribes, as,
for example, the Chamacocos, dispense with either. The height of
fashion is to wear strings of tigers' teeth, deer's hoofs, birds'
bills, etc., around the neck. Strings of feathers or wool are twisted
around ankles and wrists, while the thickly matted hair is adorned
with plumes, standing upright.
The men insert round pieces of wood in the lobe of the ear. Boys of
tender age have a sharp thorn pushed through the ear, where more
civilized nations wear earrings. This hole is gradually enlarged
until manhood, when a round piece, two inches in diameter and one and
a half inches thick, can be worn, not depending from the ear, but in
the gristle of it. The cartilage is thus so distended that only a
narrow rim remains around the ornament, and this may often be seen
broken out. Sometimes three or four rattles from the tail of the
rattlesnake also hang from the ear on to the shoulder.
These tribes of the Chaco were all vassals of the Inca at the advent
of the Spaniards. They had been by them reclaimed from savagery, and
taught many useful arts, one or two of which, such as the making of
blankets and string, they still retain. The Inca used the ear
ornaments of solid gold, but made in the form of a wheel. The nearest
approach to this old custom is when the wooden ear-plug is painted
thus, as are some in the author's possession.
I was fortunate in gaining the favor of the tribe living near the
river, and because of certain favors conferred upon them, was adopted
into the family. My face was painted, my head adorned with ostrich
plumes, and I was given the name of Wanampangapthling ithma (Big
Cactus Red Mouth). Because of this formal initiation, I was
privileged to travel where I chose, but to the native Paraguayan or
Argentine the Chaco is a forbidden land. The Indian describes himself
as a man; monkeys are little men; I was a thing; but the
Paraguayans are Christians, and that is the lowest degree of all.
The priests they see on the other side of the river are Yankilwana
(neither man nor woman); and a Yankilwana, in his distinctive garb,
could never tread this Indian soil. So abhorrent to them is the name
of Christian, that the missionaries have been compelled to use
another word to describe their converts, and they are called
"Followers of Jesus." All the members of some large expeditions have
been massacred just because they were Christians. Surely this is
convincing corroboration of my remarks regarding the state of Roman
Catholicism in those dark lands.
A few miserable-looking, diminutive sheep are kept by some tribes,
and the blankets referred to are made from the wool, which is torn
off the sheep with a sharp shell, or, if near the coast, with a
knife.
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