The Chiquitano Seldom Speaks, And In This Respect
He Is Utterly Unlike The Brazilian.
The women differ from our mothers
and sisters and wives, for they (the Chiquitanas) have nothing to
say.
After all, ours are best, and a headache is often preferable to
companioning with the dumb. I unhesitatingly say, give me the music,
even if I have to suffer the consequences.
The waiting-time was employed by our hunter in his favorite sport.
One day he shot a huge alligator which was disporting itself in the
water some five hundred yards from the shore. Taking a strong rope,
we went out in an Indian dug-out to tow it to land. As my friend was
the more dexterous in the use of the paddle, he managed the canoe,
and I, with much difficulty, fixed the rope by a noose to the
monster's tail. When the towing, however, commenced, the beast seemed
to regain his life. He dived and struggled for freedom until the
water was lashed into foam. He thrust his mighty head out of the
water and opened his jaws as though warning us he could crush the
frail dug-out with one snap. Being anxious to obtain his hide, and
momentarily expecting his death, for he was mortally wounded, I held
on to the rope with grim persistency. He dived under the boat and
lifted it high, but as his ugly nose came out on the other side the
canoe regained its position in the water. He then commenced to tow
us, but, refusing to obey the helm, took us to all points of the
compass. After an exciting cruise the alligator gave a deep dive and
the rope broke, giving him his liberty again. On leaving us he gave
what Waterton describes as "a long-suppressed, shuddering sigh, so
loud and so peculiar that it can be heard a mile." The bullet had
entered the alligator's head, but next morning we saw he was still
alive and able to "paddle his own canoe." The reader may be surprised
to learn that these repulsive reptiles lay an egg with a pure white
shell, fair to look upon, and that the egg is no larger than a hen's.
One day I was called to see a dead man for whom a kind of wake was
being held. He was lying in state in a grass-built hovel, and raised
up from the mud floor on two packing-cases of suspiciously British
origin. His hard Indian face was softened in death, but the observant
eye could trace a stoical resignation in the features. Several men
and women were sitting around the corpse counting their beads and
drinking native spirits, with a dim, hazy belief that that was the
right thing to do. They had given up their own heathen customs, and,
being civilized, must, of course, be Roman Catholics. They were
"reduced," as Holy Mother Church calls it, long ago, and, of course,
believe that civilization and Roman Catholicism are synonymous terms.
Poor souls! How they stared and wondered when they that morning heard
for the first time the story of Jesus, who tasted death for us that
we might live. To those in the home lands this is an old story, but
do they who preach it or listen to it realize that to millions it is
still the newest thing under the sun?
Next day the man was quietly carried away to the little forest
clearing reserved for the departed, where a few wooden crosses lift
their heads among the tangled growth. Some of these crosses have four
rudely carved letters on them, which you decipher as I. N. R. I. The
Indian cannot tell you their meaning, but he knows they have
something to do with his new religion.
As far as I could ascertain, the departed had no relatives. One after
another had been taken from him, and now he had gone, for "when he is
forsaken, withered and shaken, what can an old man do but die?" - it
is the end of all flesh. Poor man! Had he been able to retain even a
spark of life until Holy Week, he might then have been saved from
purgatory. Rome teaches that on two days in the year - Holy Thursday
and Corpus Christi - the gates of heaven are unguarded, because, they
say, God is dead. All people who die on those days go straight to
heaven, however bad they may have been! At no other time is that gate
open, and every soul must pass through the torments of purgatory.
A missionary in Oruru wrote: "The Thursday and Friday of so-called
Holy Week, when Christ's image lay in a coffin and was carried
through the streets, God being dead, was the time for robberies,
and some one came to steal from us, but only got about fifty dollars'
worth of building material. Holy Week terminates with the 'Saturday
of Glory,' when spirits are drunk till there is not a dram left in
the drink-shops, which frequently bear such names as 'The Saviour of
the World,' 'The Grace of God,' 'The Fountain of Our Lady,' etc. The
poor deluded Romanists have a holiday on that day over the tragic end
of Judas. A life-size representation of the betrayer is suspended
high in the air in front of the cafes. At ten a.m. the church bells
begin to ring, and this is the signal for lighting the fuse. Then,
with a flash and a bang, every vestige of the effigy has disappeared!
At night, if the town is large enough to afford a theatre, the crowds
wend their way thither. This place of very questionable amusement
will often bear the high-sounding name, Theatre of the Holy Ghost!"
There is no church or priest in the village of Piedra Blanca. Down on
the beach there is a church bell, which the visitor concludes is a
start in that direction, but he is told that it is destined for the
town of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, three hundred miles inland.
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