In the cooler season the visitor is invited
to hang his hammock along with the rest inside the house, and in the
early morning naked little children bring mate to each one. If the
family is wealthy this will be served in a heavy silver cup and
bombilla, or sucking tube, of the same metal. After this drink and
a bite of chipa, a strangely shaped, thin-necked bottle, made of
sun-baked clay, is brought, and from it water is poured on the hands.
The towels are spotlessly white and of the finest texture. They are
hand-made, and are so delicately woven and embroidered that I found
it difficult to accustom myself to use them. The beautifully fine
lace called nanduti (literally spider's web) is also here made by
the Indian women, who have long been civilized. Some of the
handkerchiefs they make are worth $50 each in the fashionable cities
of America and Europe. A month's work may easily be expended on such
a dainty fabric.
The women seem exceptionally fond of pets. Monkeys and birds are
common in a house, and the housewife will show you her parrot and
say, "In this bird dwells the spirit of my departed mother." An
enemy, somehow, has always turned into an alligator - a reptile much
loathed by them.
In even the poorest houses there is a shrine and a "Saint." These
deities can answer all prayers if they choose to. Sometimes, however,
they are not "in the humor," and at one house the saint had refused,
so he was laid flat on the floor, face downwards. The woman swore
that until he answered her petition she would not lift him up again.
He laid thus all night; whether longer or not I do not know.
Having heard much concerning the moralite of the people, I asked
the maid at a respectable private house where I was staying: "Have
you a father?" "No, sir," she answered, "we Paraguayans are not
accustomed to have a father." Children of five or six, when asked
about that parent, will often answer, "Father died in the war." The
war ended thirty-nine years ago, but they have been taught to say
this by the mother.
As in Argentina the first word the stranger learns is manana (to-
morrow), so here the first is dy-qui (I don't know). Whatever
question you ask the Guarani, he will almost invariably answer, "Dy-
qui." Ask him his age, he answers "Dy-qui" To your question: "Are
you twenty or one hundred and twenty?" he will reply "Dy-qui."
Through the long rule of the Jesuits the natives stopped thinking;
they had it all done for them. "At the same time that they enslaved
them, they tortured them into the profession of the religion they had
imported; and as they had seen that in the old land the love of this
world and the deceitfulness of riches were ever in the way of
conversion to the true faith, they piously relieved the Indians of
these snares of the soul, even going so far in the discharge of this
painful duty as to relieve them of life at the same time, if
necessary to get their possessions into their own hands," [Footnote:
Robertson's "Letters on Paraguay."]
"The stories of their hardness, and perfidy, and immorality beggar
description. The children of the priests have become so numerous that
the shame is no longer considered." [Footnote: Service.]
As the Mahometans have their Mecca, so the Paraguayans have Caacupe;
and the image of the Virgin in that village is the great wonder-
worker. Prayers are directed to her that she will raise the sick,
etc., and promises are made her if she will do this. One morning I
had business with a storekeeper, and went to his office. "Is the
carai in?" I asked. "No," I was answered, "he has gone to Caacupe to
pay a promise." That promise was to burn so many candles before the
Virgin, and further adorn her bejewelled robes. She had, as he
believed, healed him of a sickness.
The village of Caacupe is about forty miles from Asuncion. "The
Bishop of Paraguay formally inaugurated the worship of the Virgin of
Caacupe, sending forth an episcopal letter accrediting the practice,
and promising indulgences to the pilgrims who should visit the
shrine. Thus the worship became legal and orthodox. Multitudes of
people visit her, carrying offerings of valuable jewels. There are
several well-authenticated cases of persons, whose offerings were
of inferior quality, being overtaken with some terrible calamity."
[Footnote: Washburn's "History of Paraguay."]
Funds must be secured somehow, for the present Bishop's sons, to whom
I was introduced as among the aristocrats of the capital, certainly
need a large income from the lavish manner I noticed them "treat" all
and sundry in the hotel. "It is admitted by all, that in South
America the church is decadent and corrupt. The immorality of the
priests is taken for granted. Priests' sons and daughters, of course
not born in wedlock, abound everywhere, and no stigma attaches to
them or to their fathers and mothers." [Footnote: "The Continent of
Opportunity." Dr. Clark.] Hon. S. H. Blake, in the Neglected
Continent, writes: "I was especially struck by the statement of a
Roman Catholic - a Consular agent with a large amount of information
as to the land and its inhabitants. He stopped me in speaking of the
priests by saying, 'I know all that. You cannot exaggerate their
immorality. Everybody knows it - but the Latin race is a degenerate
race.
