During a 200-mile
ride, 180 lay through water with the sun almost vertical. All this
country in past ages must have been the bed of a great salt sea.
As I have said, the Chaco is peculiarly Indian territory, into which
the white man steps at his peril. I accepted a commission, however,
to examine and report on certain parts of it, so I left the civilized
haunts of men and set foot on the forbidden ground.
My first introduction to the savages in Chaco territory was at their
village of Teepmuckthlawhykethy (The Place Where the Cows Arrived).
They were busy devouring a dead cow and a newly-born calf, and I saw
their naked bodies through such dense clouds of mosquitos that in one
clap of the hands I could kill twenty or thirty. This Indian toldo
consists of three large wigwams, in which live about eighty of the
most degraded aborigines to be found on earth. When they learned I
was not one of the Christians from across the river, and that I
came well introduced, they asked: Did I come across the big water
in a dug-out? Was it a day's journey? Would I give them some of "the
stuff that resembles the eggs of the ant?" (their name for rice).
I was permitted to occupy a palm hut without a roof, but I slept
under a tiger's skin, and that kept off dew and rain. They reserved
the right to come and go in it as they pleased. The women, with naked
babies astride their hips, the usual way of carrying them, were
particularly annoying. A little girl, however, perhaps ten years old,
named Supupnik (Sawdust), made friends with me, and that friendship
lasted during all my stay with them. Her face was always grotesquely
painted, but she was a sweet child.
These Indians are of normal stature, and are always erect and
stately, perhaps because all burdens are borne by straps on the
forehead. The expression of the savage is peculiar, for he pulls out
all the hair on his face, even the eyelashes and eyebrows, and seems
to think the omission of that act would be a terrible breach of
cleanliness. These same individuals will, however, frequently be seen
with their whole body so coated with dirt that it could easily be
scraped off with a knife in cakes, as the housewife would scrape a
burnt loaf! The first use to which the women put the little round tin
looking-glasses, which I used for barter, was to admire their pretty
(?) faces; but the men, with a sober look, would search for the
detested hair on lip or chin. That I was so lost to decency as to
suffer a moustache to cover my lip was to them a constant puzzle and
wonder, for in every other respect the universal opinion was that I
was a civilized kind of "thing." I write thing advisedly, for the
white man is to them an inferior creation - not a person.
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.
