When one of these smoking parties is organized, the guests assemble together, sometimes in a hut, and sometimes in the open air. They gravely seat themselves in a circle, round a vessel of water,—sometimes an ox-horn stuck in the ground, and sometimes a sort of basin made of raw hide. All being assembled, one of them takes a stone pipe, and fills it with a mixture of tobacco and the shavings of some yellow wood.
The pipe being prepared, all the company lie flat on their faces, with their mantles drawn up to the top of their heads. The pipe is then lighted and passed round, each drawing into his lungs as much smoke as he can swallow, and retains it as long as he can exist without breathing. As soon as the smoke is expelled, the men begin a series of groanings and gruntings, which become louder and louder, until they are absolutely deafening. By degrees they die away; and when quiet has been restored, each takes a draught of water, sits silently for a space, and then slowly rises and moves away.
Captain Bourne is of opinion that this ceremony has in it something of a religious element. The groaning and grunting might be due to the tobacco, or the substance which is mixed with it, but the sounds seemed to him to be louder and more emphatic than they would have been if entirely involuntary; and the breathings, writhings, and other accompaniments, the profound gravity, and the abstinence from speech, all appeared to have some religious signification.
The same traveller gives a very amusing account of a visit paid by a Patagonian physician to the hut of a chief. The party were just preparing to shift their quarters, after the Patagonian fashion, when one of the daughters came in, carrying a child who was crying loudly, and who was supposed in consequence to be very ill. The journey was stopped, and a messenger despatched for the wise man, who soon came, and brought with him his magic medicines, rolled up in two pieces of skin.
These were laid on the ground, and the doctor squatted by the side of them, fixing a steady gaze on the child, who presently ceased crying. Encouraged by this success, the wise man ordered a clay plaster to be applied. This was done. Some yellow clay was brought, moistened until it was like paint, and with this substance the child was anointed from head to foot. The clay seemed to have but little good effect, for the child began to cry as badly as ever.
The two mysterious packages were now untied, and out of one the doctor took a bunch of rhea sinews, and from the other a rattle. The doctor then fingered all the sinews successively, muttering something in a very low tone of voice, and after he had muttered for some five minutes or so, he seized his rattle and shook it violently. He next sat in front of the patient, and stared at him as he had done before. After an interval of silent staring, he turned to the chief and asked whether he did not think that the child was better. A nod and a grunt expressed assent, and the mother on being asked the same question gave a similar response.
The same process was then repeated—the silent stare, the painting with clay, the lingering of the sinews, the muttering of inaudible words, the shaking of the rattle, and the concluding stare. The treatment of the patient was then considered to be complete. The chief gave the doctor two pipefuls of tobacco by way of fee. This was received gratefully by the man of skill, who gave his rattle a final shake by way of expressing his appreciation of the chief’s liberality, and went his way. As soon as he had gone, the child resumed its crying, but the parents were satisfied that it was better, and, as Captain Bourne testifies, it soon became quite composed, and throve well afterward.
The general mode of life among the Patagonians is not particularly alluring to persons of civilized habits, if we may judge from the graphic picture drawn by Captain Bourne:—
“A few dry sticks and a bunch of dry grass were brought; mine host drew from a convenient repository a brass tinder-box with a stone and a piece of steel, and soon produced a blaze that brilliantly illuminated the scene. By its light I was enabled to survey the first specimen of Patagonian architecture that had blessed my vision. It was constructed in a ‘pointed’ style, though not very aspiring, consisting of a row of stakes about eight feet high, each terminating in a crutch or fork, with a pole laid across them; two parallel rows of stakes on either side about two feet high, with similar terminations and a similar horizontal fixture; and a covering composed of skins of the guanaco sewed together with the sinews of the ostrich, the only thread used by the people. This covering is thrown over the framework and fastened by stakes driven through it into the ground. For purposes of ventilation, some interstices are left; but these again are half closed by skins attached to the outside, so that the air from without and the smoke from within (in default of a chimney) must insinuate themselves through these apertures in great quantities.
“In truth, my first survey was rather hurried; the first cheerful gleam had scarcely set my eyes on the look-out, when I was fain to shut them against an intolerable smoke. In no long time I felt as bacon, if conscious, might be supposed to feel in the process of curing. No lapse of time was sufficient to reconcile the eyes, nostrils, and lungs to the nuisance. Often have I been more than half strangled by it, and compelled to lie with my face to the ground as the only endurable position. ‘Talk that is worse than a smoky house’ must be something out of date, or Shakespeare’s imagination never comprehended anything so detestable as a Patagonian hut. The chief and his numerous household, however, seemed to enjoy immense satisfaction, and jabbered and grunted and played their antics and exchanged grimaces as complacently as if they breathed a highly exhilarating atmosphere.