A history of the Brazil

by James Henderson

The Igatimy, to which is given one hundred and fifty miles of extent, is navigable very near to its source in the serra Amambahy. Eighty miles in a direct line from its embouchure is the passage of the Guaycurus, where the river is shallow. Twenty miles lower it receives on the left the small river Bogas; and thirty-five miles further, on the same side, the Escopil, which is little inferior, and flows from the same serra.

The name of this fine confluence is Forquilha. It is an advantageous point for the establishment of a colony. From hence to the Paranna, the distance is about thirty-five miles, with only two falls. Ten miles above this point, the first of twenty-one falls is encountered, all of them compressed within the space of ten miles; from these cataracts upwards, the river has no interruption to a little above the Guaycuru ford, already mentioned. The course is winding, the lateral lands low, and covered with impervious woods.

The Correntes, which appears to be the same that the Spaniards called Rio Branco, (White River,) is considerable, and enters the Paraguay fifty miles below the Fecho dos Morros, (closing of Rocks.)

The Ipanne Guaçu, after having watered an uninhabited territory, falls into the Paraguay one hundred miles below the Correntes.

At no great distance from the Igatimy are the heads of two small rivers called (the northern) Iguaray Assu, and (the southern) Iguaray Mirim, which after uniting, join the Chichuhi, a river that discharges itself into the Paraguay, in the latitude of 24° 12′. Neither the treaty of limits agreed upon in 1751 or 1777, mention this river, or any other as the divisionary line; but from the principal origin of the Igurey, the ninth article of the latter treaty, says, that the boundary is to continue in “a direct line, by the highest land, to the principal head of the nearest river which enters the Paraguay;” and the Chichuhi appears to answer best this adjustment. This river is also called Jejuhy, formed, it is said, by the Grande and Pequena Jejuhy, which after their junction receives on the left the Coruguaty.

Nearly fifteen miles to the south of the Igatimy, the river Igurey falls into the Paranna, which has formed the limits on that side, between the crowns of Spain and Portugal, since the year 1777.

Zoology.—There are antas of all colours, wolves, white deer, with all other species of quadrupeds known in the other provinces. The middle of the northern part of this province is called, in the journals or diaries of the certanistas, Vaccaria, (or Cattle Plains,) in consequence of the cattle that were here dispersed when the Paulistas expelled the inhabitants of the city Xerez, and of five neighbouring small aldeias, which formed a small province, of which the said city was the head. The remainder of these animals, almost extinct from the devastations of the wild beast and the hunter, were augmented in 1797, by those which the Guaycurus carried off, when they plundered the Spanish plains of the town of Coruguaty; and also by such as escaped from the Coruguatynos, who pursued (to the number of upwards of fifteen hundred) the barbarian pillagers.

Various savage nations have dominion in this country; the Guaycuru is the most distinguished. At the present day they are divided into three bodies; one of which, without any alliance with other nations, live along the western margin of the Paraguay, subdivided into various hordes: the most southern are called Linguas by the neighbouring Spaniards; and when they infest the aldeias of the province of St. Cruz de la Sierra, are there known by the name Xiriquanos; others have the appellation of Cambaz. Those who possess the eastern vicinity of the same river, constitute the other two bodies; the southern are allied with the Spaniards, the northern with the Portuguese. The Fecho dos Morros, or an approximating situation, is the separating line. No difference is remarked of origin, idiom, and usages, amongst these three portions of Indians, otherwise declared enemies to each other. The allies of the Portuguese, extending from the Mondego southward, are divided into seven hordes, or large aldeias, generally friends to each other, and without the least difference in any respect. Chagoteo, Pacachodeo, Adioeo, Atiadeo, Oleo, Laudeo, and Cadioeo, are the names by which they are distinguished. In none of these aldeias, which would be better designated as large towns, are there any acknowledged superior to the rest. Each horde is composed of three classes of persons; the first, are a species of noblesse, entitled captains, and whose wives and daughters have the distinction of donas; the second, are denominated soldiers, or men whose military obedience descends from father to son; and the third, captives or slaves, comprising the prisoners of war and their descendants. There are but a few of the first in each aldeia, the second are very numerous, and the third exceed many times the number of the others taken conjointly. The captains and soldiers have an intermixed origin, and their title of gentility is joage. The slaves are of various nations, acquired in war, never undertaken with any other object, than for the augmentation of prisoners, in the number of which consists the degree of nobility, or distinction of the captains. These irruptions are exterminatory, taking away the lives of the elder people and the liberty of the younger. Such youthful captives soon forget their idiom and customs, and adopt those of the Guaycurus, and never abscond, as their masters do not occupy them in any thing. It is reputed highly degrading for a senhor, or lord, to contract marriage with his slave; the son treats with contempt the mother who bore him by a slave.

The Guaycurus are of medium stature, well made, healthy, robust, and appear formed to the most painful and laborious undertakings. They eat many times in the day, very slowly, and their provisions are generally over-dressed, and cooked without any attention to cleanliness. They never suffer from indigestion. They are most particular in the diet which they use on occasions of their unfrequent indispositions. The scurvy never makes its appearance, and sudden deaths are never known. Bodily defects are exceedingly rare; blind persons sometimes are seen, but none are ever bald. Their teeth are almost universally irregular, in consequence of not extracting the first teeth of the youth when they change them, an omission arising from the tenderness with which they are treated; but they commonly retain them till death, although black enough, from the prodigious quantity of tobacco which they use. The women always carry a piece between the under lip and gums. They paint the body with the dye of the urucu and jenipapo, in which operation much symmetry is preserved. The youth have no certain usage in the disposal of their lank hair; the aged shave their heads similar to the lay Franciscans.

The women likewise shave their heads around, and clip the hair, leaving it three inches in length at the top. Their physiognomy is broad, and presents nothing agreeable in consequence of the dye which they introduce into the skin with thorns, forming lines, that commence at the roots of the hair, and terminate at the eyelids or the cheeks, and in some instances at the chin, where they give it the appearance of a chess board, an ash colour being so indelibly fixed, that it continues through life. They are usually wrapped up in a large cotton cloth, from the neck to the feet, striped with various colours; the more ostentatious ornament themselves with shells, the mother-pearl appearing outwards; some have upon them the figure of their horses, well drawn in black and white. Below this dress they wear a very wide girdle, called an ayulate; without which a girl from her birth is never seen. Ornamental strings of silver, in necklaces and bracelets for the arms and legs, and a plate of the same metal at the breast, are generally displayed, for the manufacture of which, a stone anvil and hammer are used. In former times, these ornaments consisted of wood, such as are yet seen amongst some of the poor.