THE PAMPAS TO THE LAND OF FIRE
I. THE FAR SOUTH[203]
The Rio de la Plata is the third of the great river systems which drain the South American continent. It combines the waters of the Uruguay, draining the hilly region of southern Brazil, with those of the Paraná, which through its numerous tributaries taps the heart of the south central portion of the continent. The Paraná and its continuation, the Paraguay, flowing almost due south from the centre of the continent, form a kind of axis, dividing the hilly lands on the east from the great woodland plains known as the Chaco, stretching westward to the Andes, from whose age-worn detritus they were doubtless formed. The northern boundary of the Chaco is in the neighbourhood of the Tropic of Capricorn; southward the plains extend far into Argentina, narrowing with the encroaching mountains, and finally giving way to the grassy pampas, in the latitude of Buenos Aires. These, in turn, extend southward to the Patagonian plains—geologically one of earth's youngest regions,—of which the terminus is the mountain region meeting the southern straits. Parallel with this stretch of open country, which diminishes in width as the southern latitudes are approached, is the Andean ridge, almost due north and south in sense, scarcely varying the width of the western coastal region which it marks off, but eastward extending in heavier lines of ridges and broader plateaus as the centre of the continent is approached. South of latitude 40º the western coastal region, with the sinking of the Andean range, merges in a long archipelago leading on to Tierra del Fuego and its satellite islands, beyond the Straits of Magellan,—an archipelago which is the far southern counterpart of that reaching along North America from Puget Sound to the Aleutian Isles.
The aboriginal peoples of the region thus described fall into a number of groups of exceptional interest to the ethnologist. In the Chaco, to the north, are to be found, to this day, tribes practically untouched by the influence of civilization—tribes in the state which for untold centuries must have been that of the peoples of central South America. Some of them show signs of having been under the influence of the cultured peoples of the Andean regions, preserving in their fabrics, for example, figured designs strikingly like those of Incaic Peru. It has even been suggested that the region is in no small part peopled by descendants of Indians who in former times fled from the west, first before the armies of the Incas, later before the advance of Spanish power.
This constant pressure, which can in a measure be followed in historic times, has had its effect in pushing southward peoples whose origin must be sought in the central region. Such a people are the Abipone—a group of tribes which owe their especial fame among South American Indians perhaps more to the fact that they were so faithfully pictured by Father Dobrizhoffer, during the period in which they were gathered in missions, than to their own qualities, striking as these are. In any case, the Abipone, who in the eighteenth century had become an equestrian people of the open country, had, according to their own tradition, moved southward out of the forests, bearing with them many of the traits still to be found among the tribes of the Chaco.
The Calchaqui civilization, of the Andean region just north of latitude 30º was one of the latest conquests of the Inca power, and represents its southerly extension. The actual dividing line, as recorded by Garcilasso, was the river Rapel, latitude 34º, where, according to the historian, the Inca Tupac Yupanqui was held in his southward advance by the Araucanian (or Aucanian) tribes who formed the population of Chile and west central Argentina. The Araucanians enjoy the proud distinction of being to this day an unconquered people; for they held their own in long and bloody wars with the Spaniards, as before they had held against the aggressive Incas. Further, in their general culture, and in intellectual vigor, they stand at the head of the peoples of southerly South America.
Scarcely less in romantic interest is the group of peoples—the Puelche and Tehuelche tribal stocks—forming the Patagonian race, whose tall stature, exaggerated in the imagination of early discoverers, made of them a race of giants. Like the Pampean tribes they early become horsemen, expert with the bolas; and with no permanent villages and no agriculture, they remain equestrian nomads of the southern plains. The Ona of Tierra del Fuego represent a non-equestrian as they are also a non-canoe-using branch of the Patagonian race. Altogether different are the canoe peoples of the southern archipelago, the Alakaluf and the Yahgan. These have shared with the Australian Blacks, with the Botocudo, and with one or two other groups of human beings, the reputation of representing the lowest grade of human intelligence and attainment. They were long thought to be hopelessly imbruted, though this judgement is being somewhat revised in the face of the achievements of missionary workers among them. Still there are few more striking contrasts in the field of ethnology than is that between the culture of the peoples of the Pacific archipelago of the northern America, with their elaborate society, art, and mythology, and the mentally deficient and culturally destitute savages of the island region of austral America.
II. EL CHACO AND THE PAMPEANS
In d'Orbigny's classification the Pampean race is divided into three groups. Of these the most northerly is the Moxean, comprising tribes about the headwaters of the Madeira. Next southward is the Chiquitean branch, with their centre on the divide between the headwaters of the Madeira and those of the southward flowing Paraguay and Pilcomayo rivers; hence marking the division of the Amazonian and La Plata systems. Still south of these is the main Pampean branch, its northerly reach being represented by the Toba, Lengua, and other Chaco stocks; its centre by the Mocobi, Abipone, and the Charrua of Uruguay (whom other authorities ally with the Brazilian stocks); its southerly division comprising the Puelche and the Tehuelche, or Patagonians proper. So far as the Pampean branch is concerned, this grouping corresponds with ideas still received.