[CHAPTER IV.]
THE TREE OF GUALICHU.
As a general rule, the Southern natives have a divinity, or to speak more correctly, a genius, sometimes benevolent, but more frequently maleficent, and their worship is less veneration than fear. This genius is called Achellenat Kanet by the Patagonians, Quecuba by the Aucas, and Gualichu by the Puelches. And, as the latter have more especially traversed the country in which the sacred, tree stands, they have perpetuated the name of their evil genius by giving it to the tree, to which they attribute the same power.
The belief in Gualichu dates back to the most remote antiquity on the Pampas.
This wicked god is simply a stunted tree, which, if mingled with other trees, would not have attracted attention; but which alone, and as it were lost in the immensity of the plains, serves as a beacon to the traveller wearied by a long journey across these oceans of sand. It rises to a height of thirty-five or forty feet, all twisted and prickly, and its withered trunk is rounded into a large cavity, in which men and women lay their presents in tobacco, beads, and corn. It is several centuries old, and belongs to that species of the acacia family which the Hispano-Americans designate by the name of Algarobo.
The wandering hordes of Indians, doubtless struck by the solitude of this tree in the midst of the deserts, constituted it the object of their worship. In fact, its branches are covered with various offerings, many of some value: here a poncho, there a manta; farther on woollen or cotton ribbons; while on all sides garments, more or less injured and torn by the wind, are affixed to the thorns, which gives this sacred tree the appearance of an old clothes' shop. No Indian, whether Aucas, Patagonian, Puelche, or Tehuetche, would venture to pass it without leaving something; and the man who has nothing else cuts off his horse's mane and fastens it to the tree. The most precious offering in the sight of the Indians is that of their horse; and hence the great number of slaughtered horses round the tree attests the vitality of their faith.
The religion of the Southern natives, thoroughly primitive and spared by the conquest, does not take the moral being into account, and is only arrested by accidents of Nature, of which it makes gods. These people strive to make the deserts, where fatigue and thirst produce death, and the rivers that may swallow them up, favourable to them.
At the foot of the tree of Gualichu, a few hours after the events already narrated, a strange scene was taking place, rendered still more striking by the density of the darkness, and by the storm which was approaching. Heavy black clouds rolled athwart the sky; the wind blew in gusts with a shrill whistle, and large drops of rain fell on the sand.
Around the sacred tree the Indians had improvised a village composed of some forty toldos raised hastily and without regularity. Before each toldo crackled a bright fire, round which two or three Indian squaws were crouching to warm themselves, without taking their eye off the hobbled horses which were devouring their stock of alfalfa.