A voyage round the world

by comte Louis-Antoine de Bougainville

Interview with and description of the Pecherais.

On the 6th, in the afternoon, we had some fair moments; and the wind too seemed to blow from S. E. we had already unmoored; but the moment we were setting sail, the wind came back to W. N. W. in squalls, which obliged us to moor again immediately. That day some savages came to visit us. Four periaguas appeared in the morning, at the point of Cape Galant; and, after stopping there for some time, three advanced into the bottom of the bay, whilst one made towards our frigate. After hesitating for about half an hour, they at last brought her along-side of us, with repeated shouts of Pecherais. In this boat were a man, a woman, and two children. The woman remained to take care of the periagua; and the man alone came on board, with much confidence, and with an air of gaiety. Two other periaguas[periaguas] followed the example of the first; and the men came on board the frigate with their children. Here they were soon very happy and content. We made them sing, and dance, let them hear music; and, above all, gave them to eat, which they did with much appetite. They found every thing good; whether bread, salt meat, or fat, they devoured what was offered to them. We found it rather difficult to get rid of these troublesome and disgusting guests; and we could not determine them to return to their periaguas, till we sent pieces of salt flesh down into them, before their faces. They shewed no surprise, neither at the sight of the ships, nor at the appearance of various objects, that offered themselves to their eyes; this certainly shews, that in order to be capable of being surprised at the work of art, one must have some fundamental ideas of it. These unpolished men, considered the master-pieces of human industry, in the same light as the laws of nature and its phenomena. We saw them often on board, and on shore, during several days which they stayed in Port Galant.

These savages are short, ugly, meagre, and have an insupportable stench about them. They are almost naked; having no other dress than wretched seal-skins, too little for them to wrap themselves in; these skins serve them equally as roofs to their huts, and as sails to their periaguas. They have likewise some guanaco-skins; but they are in small number. Their women are hideous, and seemed little regarded by the men. They are obliged to steer their periaguas, and to keep them in repair; often swimming to them, notwithstanding the cold, through the sea-weeds, which serve as a harbour to these periaguas, at a pretty distance from the shore, and scooping out the water that may have got into them. On the shore they gather wood and shells, without the men partaking in any thing of their labour; nor are those women, who have children at their breast, exempted from their task. They carry their children on their backs, folded in the skins, which serve them as dresses.

Their periaguas are made of bark, ill connected with rushes, and caulked with moss in the seams. In the middle of each is a little hearth of sand, where they always keep up some fire. Their arms are bows and arrows, made of the wood of a holly-leaved berberry-bush, which is common in the straits; the bow-string is made of a gut, and the arrows are armed with points of stone, cut with sufficient skill; but these weapons are made use of, rather against game, than against enemies; for they are as weak as the arms, which are destined to manage them. We likewise saw amongst them, some bones of fish, about a foot long, sharp at the end, and toothed along one side. This is, perhaps, a dagger; or rather, as I think, an instrument for fishing: they fix it to a long pole, and use it as a harpoon. These Indians, men, women, and children, live promiscuously in their huts, in the middle of which they light a fire. They live chiefly on shell-fish; however, they have likewise dogs, and nooses, or springes, made of whalebone. I have observed, that they had all of them bad teeth; and, I believe, we must attribute that to their custom of eating the shell-fish boiling hot, though half raw.

Upon the whole, they seem to be good people; but they are so weak, that one is almost tempted to think the worse of them on that account. We thought we observed that they were superstitious and believed in evil genii; and, among them, the same persons, who conciliate the influence of those spirits, are their physicians and priests. Of all the savages I ever saw, the Pecherais are those who are most deprived of every convenience; they are exactly, in what may be called, a state of nature; and, indeed, if any pity is due to the fate of a man, who is his own master, has no duties or business to attend, is content with what he has, because he knows no better, I should pity these men; who, besides being deprived of what renders life convenient, must suffer the extreme roughness of the most dreadful climate in the world. These Pecherais, likewise, are the least numerous society of men I have met with in any part of the world; however, as will appear in the sequel, there are quacks among them: but as soon as more than one family is together, (by family, I understand father, mother, and children) their interests become complicated, and the individuals want to govern, either by force or by imposture. The name of family then changes into that of society; and though it were established amidst the woods, and composed only of cousins-german, a skilful observer would there discover the origin of all the vices, to which men, collected into whole nations, have, by growing more civilized, given names; vices that caused the origin, progress, and ruin of the greatest empires. Hence it follows, by the same principle, that in civilized societies, some virtues spring up, of which those who border on a state of nature are not susceptible.

The 7th and 8th the weather was so bad, that we could not by any means go from on board; in the night we drove, and were obliged to let go our sheet-anchor. At some intervals the snow lay four inches deep on the deck; and, at day-break, we saw that all the ground was covered with it, except the flat lands, the wetness of which melted the snow. The thermometer was about 5° and 4°; but fell to two degrees below the freezing-point. The weather was bad on the ninth in the afternoon. The Pecherais set out in order to come on board us. They had even spent much time at their toilet; I mean, they had painted their bodies all over, with red and white spots: but seeing our boats go from the ships, towards their huts, they followed them; but one periagua came on board the Etoile. She stayed but a short time there, and joined the others; who were very much the friends of our people. The women were, however, all retired into one hut; and the savages seemed uneasy, whenever one of our men attempted to go in. They invited them rather to come into the other huts, where they presented our gentlemen with muscles, which they sucked before they gave them away. They got some little presents, which they gladly accepted. They sung, danced, and appeared more gay, than one might expect from savages, whose outward behaviour is commonly serious.

Unlucky accident,
which befalls one of them.

Their joy was but of very short duration. One of their children, about twelve years old, the only one in the whole troop whose figure engaged our attention, was all at once seized with spitting of blood, and violent convulsions. The poor creature had been on board the Etoile, where the people had given him bits of glass not foreseeing the unhappy effect, which this present might have. These savages have a custom of putting pieces of talc into their throat and nostrils. Perhaps their superstition combines some powers with this kind of talisman; or, perhaps, they look on it as a preservative against some sickness they are subject to. The child, probably, had made the same use of this glass. His lips, gums, and palate, were cut in several places, and he bled continually.

This accident spread consternation and mistrust amongst them.[them.] They certainly suspected us of some bad action; for the first thing their juggler did, was to strip the child immediately of a linen jacket, which had been given him. He wanted to return it to the French; and upon their refusing it, he threw it at their feet. However, another savage, who, doubtless, loved clothes more than he feared enchantments, took it up immediately.

The juggler first laid the child down upon his back, in one of the huts; and, kneeling down between his legs, he bent himself upon him, and with his head and hands pressed the child’s belly as much as he could, crying out continually, without our being able to distinguish any articulate sounds in his cries. From time to time he got up, and seeming to hold the disease in his joined hands, he opened them all at once into the air, blowing as if he wanted to drive away some evil spirit. During this ceremony, an old woman in tears, howled in the sick child’s ears, enough to make him deaf. This poor wretch seemed to suffer as much from the remedy, as from the hurt he had received. The juggler gave him some respite, and went to fetch his habit of ceremony; after which, having his hair powdered, and his head adorned with two white wings, like those on Mercury’s cap, he began his rites again, with more confidence, but with no better success. The child then appearing to be worse, our chaplain administered[administered] baptism to him by stealth.