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!
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