North America. Aztec or Mexican; yetl: Algonkin; sema: Huron; oyngoua.
South America. Peruvian or Quichua; sayri: Chiquito; pais. Guarany; pety: Vilela; tusup: Mbaja (west of the Paraguay), nalodagadi: Moxo (between the Rio Ucayale and the Rio Madeira); sabare. Omagua; petema. Tamanac; cavas. Maypure; jema. Cabre; scema.)
The Tamanacs and the Maypures of Guiana wrap maize-leaves round their cigars, as the Mexicans did at the time of the arrival of Cortes. The Spaniards have substituted paper for the leaves of maize in imitation of them. The poor Indians of the forests of the Orinoco know as well as did the great nobles at the court of Montezuma that the smoke of tobacco is an excellent narcotic; and they use it not only to procure their afternoon nap, but also to put themselves into that state of quiescence, which they call dreaming with the eyes open, or day-dreaming. The use of tobacco appears to me to be now very rare in the missions; and in New Spain, to the great regret of the revenue-officers, the natives, who are almost all descended from the lowest class of the Aztec people, do not smoke at all. Father Gili affirms that the practice of chewing tobacco is unknown to the Indians of the Lower Orinoco. I rather doubt the truth of this assertion, having been told that the Sercucumas of the Erevato and the Caura, neighbours of the whitish Taparitos, swallow tobacco chopped small, and impregnated with some other very stimulant juices, to prepare themselves for battle. Of the four species of nicotiana cultivated in Europe* (* Nicotiana tabacum, N. rustica, N. paniculata, and N. glutinosa.) we found only two growing wild; but the Nicotiana loxensis, and the Nicotiana andicola, which I found on the back of the Andes, at the height of eighteen hundred and fifty toises (almost the height of the Peak of Teneriffe), are very similar to the N. tabacum and N. rustica. The whole genus, however, is almost exclusively American, and the greater number of the species appeared to me to belong to the mountainous and temperate region of the tropics.
It was neither from Virginia, nor from South America, but from the Mexican province of Yucatan, that Europe received the first tobacco seeds, about the year 1559.* (* The Spaniards became acquainted with tobacco in the West India Islands at the end of the 15th century. I have already mentioned that the cultivation of this narcotic plant preceded the cultivation of the potato in Europe more than 120 or 140 years. When Raleigh brought tobacco from Virginia to England in 1586, whole fields of it were already cultivated in Portugal. It was also previously known in France, where it was brought into fashion by Catherine de Medicis, from whom it received the name of herbe a la reine, the queen's herb.) The celebrated Raleigh contributed most to introduce the custom of smoking among the nations of the north. As early as the end of the sixteenth century bitter complaints were made in England of this imitation of the manners of a savage people. It was feared that, by the practice of smoking tobacco, Englishmen would degenerate into a barbarous state.* (* This remarkable passage of Camden is as follows, Annal. Elizabet. page 143 1585; "ex illo sane tempore [tabacum] usu cepit esse creberrimo in Anglia et magno pretio dum quamplurimi graveolentem illius fumum per tubulum testaceum hauriunt et mox e naribus efflant; adeo ut Auglornm corporum in barbarorum naturam degenerasse videantur, quum iidem ac barbari delectentur." We may see from this passage that they emitted the smoke through the nose; but at the court of Montezuma the pipe was held in one hand, while the nostrils were stopped with the other, in order that the smoke might be more easily swallowed. Life of Raleigh volume 1 page 82.)
When the Ottomacs of Uruana, by the use of niopo (their arborescent tobacco), and of fermented liquors, have thrown themselves into a state of intoxication, which lasts several days, they kill one another without ostensibly fighting. The most vindictive among them poison the nail of their thumb with curare; and, according to the testimony of the missionary, the mere impression of this poisoned nail may become a mortal wound if the curare be very active and immediately mingle with the mass of the blood. When the Indians, after a quarrel at night, commit a murder, they throw the dead body into the river, fearing that some indications of the violence committed on the deceased may be observed. "Every time," said Father Bueno, "that I see the women fetch water from a part of the shore to which they are not accustomed to go, I suspect that a murder has been committed in my mission."
We found in the Indian huts at Uruana the vegetable substance called touchwood of ants,* (* Yesca de hormigas.) with which we had become acquainted at the Great Cataracts, and which is employed to stop bleeding. This substance, which might less improperly be called ants' nests, is in much request in a region whose inhabitants are of so turbulent a character. A new species of ant, of a fine emerald-green (Formica spinicollis), collects for its habitation a cotton-down, of a yellowish-brown colour, and very soft to the touch, from the leaves of a melastomacea. I have no doubt that the yesca or touchwood of ants of the Upper Orinoco (the animal is found, we were assured, only south of Atures) will one day become an article of trade. This substance is very superior to the ants' nests of Cayenne, which are employed in the hospitals of Europe, but can rarely be procured.
On the 7th of June we took leave with regret of Father Ramon Bueno. Of the ten missionaries whom we had found in different parts of the vast extent of Guiana, he alone appeared to me to be earnestly attentive to all that regarded the natives. He hoped to return in a short time to Madrid, where he intended to publish the result of his researches on the figures and characters that cover the rocks of Uruana.
In the countries we had just passed through, between the Meta, the Arauca, and the Apure, there were found, at the time of the first expeditions to the Orinoco, in 1535, those mute dogs, called by the natives maios, and auries. This fact is curious in many points of view. We cannot doubt that the dog, whatever Father Gili may assert, is indigenous in South America. The different Indian languages furnish words to designate this animal, which are scarcely derived from any European tongue. To this day the word auri, mentioned three hundred years ago by Alonzo de Herrera, is found in the Maypure. The dogs we saw at the Orinoco may perhaps have descended from those that the Spaniards carried to the coast of Caracas; but it is not less certain that there existed a race of dogs before the conquest, in Peru, in New Granada, and in Guiana, resembling our shepherds' dogs. The allco of the natives of Peru, and in general all the dogs that we found in the wildest countries of South America, bark frequently. The first historians, however, all speak of mute dogs (perros mudos). They still exist in Canada; and, what appears to me worthy of attention, it was this dumb variety that was eaten in preference in Mexico,* and at the Orinoco. (* See on the Mexican techichi and on the numerous difficulties that occur in the history of mute dogs and dogs destitute of hair the Views of Nature Bohn's edition page 85.) A very well informed traveller, M. Giesecke, who resided six years in Greenland, assured me that the dogs of the Esquimaux, which pass their lives in the open air and bury themselves in winter beneath the snow, do not bark, but howl like wolves.* (* They sit down in a circle, one of them begins to howl alone and the others follow in the same tone. The groups of alouate monkeys howl in the same manner, and among them the Indians distinguish the leader of the band. It was the practice at Mexico to castrate the mute dogs in order to fatten them. This operation must have contributed to alter the organ of the voice.)
The practice of eating the flesh of dogs is now entirely unknown on the banks of the Orinoco; but as it is a Tartar custom spread through all the eastern part of Asia, it appears to me highly interesting for the history of nations to have ascertained that it existed heretofore in the hot regions of Guiana and on the table-lands of Mexico. I must observe, also, that on the confines of the province of Durango, at the northern extremity of New Spain, the Comanches have preserved the habit of loading the backs of the great dogs that accompany them in their migrations with their tents of buffalo-leather. It is well known that employing dogs as beasts of burthen and of draught is equally common near the Slave Lake and in Siberia. I dwell on these features of conformity in the manners of nations, which become of some weight when they are not solitary, and are connected with the analogies furnished by the structure of languages, the division of time, and religious creeds and institutions.
We passed the night at the island of Cucuruparu, called also Playa de la Tortuga, because the Indians of Uruana go thither to collect the turtles' eggs. It is one of the best determined points of latitude along the banks of the Orinoco. I was there fortunate enough to observe the passage of three stars over the meridian. To the east of the island is the mouth of the Cano de la Tortuga, which descends from the mountains of Cerbatana, continually wrapped in electric clouds. On the southern bank of the Cano, between the tributary streams Parapara and Oche, lies the almost ruined mission of San Miguel de la Tortuga. The Indians assured us that the environs of this little mission abound in otters with a very fine fur, called by the Portuguese water-dogs (perritos de agua); and what is still more remarkable, in lizards (lagartos) with only two feet. The whole of this country, which is very accessible between the Rio Cuchivero and the strait of Baraguan, is worthy of being visited by a well-informed zoologist. The lagarto destitute of hinder extremities is perhaps a species of Siren, different from the Siren lacertina of Carolina. If it were a saurian, a real Bimanis (Chirotes, Cuvier), the natives would not have compared it to a lizard. Besides the arrau turtles, of which I have in a former place given a detailed account, an innumerable quantity of land tortoises also, called morocoi, are found on the banks of the Orinoco, between Uruana and Encaramada. During the great heats of summer, in the time of drought, these animals remain without taking food, hidden beneath stones, or in the holes they have dug. They issue from their shelter and begin to eat, only when the humidity of the first rains penetrates into the earth. The terekay, or tajelu turtle which lives in fresh water, has the same habits. I have already spoken of the summer-sleep of some animals of the tropics. As the natives know the holes in which the tortoises sleep amidst the dried lands, they get out a great number at once, by digging fifteen or eighteen inches deep. Father Gili says that this operation, which he had seen, is not without danger, because serpents often bury themselves in summer with the terekays.