Whenever they feel themselves unwell, although the complaint be in the foot or the elbow, they always say that their heart pains them. The same is the case with the Guaranies. If you say to the sick man, what ails you, what is the matter with you? he immediately replies with a groan, it is in my heart: so that it is very difficult to understand from the Indians what their complaint is, and where it is situated, unless it be betrayed by other signs. Loathing of food for ever so short a time is, in their opinion, a certain indication of sickness. If an Abipon, from having overloaded his stomach, abstains from food for a little while, the women immediately augur the worst respecting him, and make no end of their lamentations, saying every now and then with a groan, Chik rkeñe, he does not eat. As soon as the sick person takes ever so little food, though the disorder be not yet subdued, they think him out of danger, so that Là rkeñe, he eats now; and Là yamini, or Là natatéuge, now he is recovered, now he revives, are with them synonymous. Moreover, as the Abipones are but very seldom sick, so very few of them die when they are sick. I do not doubt but that in the frequent conflicts they have with enemies and tigers, numbers fall yearly by the nails of the one, and the claws of the other. In most of the remainder, extreme old age is generally the fatal disease. In a word, greatest part of the Abipones die when they are satiated with life, when, weary of the burden of years, they long for death as the rest and solace of their miserable existence. This circumstance occasions the common error that they should never die at all were the Spaniards and the jugglers banished from America; for, to the arms of the former, and to the arts of the latter, they attribute the deaths of all their countrymen. A wound inflicted with a spear often gapes so wide that it affords ample room for life to go out and death to come in; yet if the man dies of the wound, they madly believe him killed, not by a weapon, but by the deadly arts of the jugglers. The relations leave no stone unturned, not only diligently to investigate, but severely to punish the authors of the death, and of the sorcery. They are persuaded that the juggler will be banished from amongst the living, and made to atone for their relation's death, if the heart and tongue be pulled out of the dead man's body immediately after his decease, roasted at the fire, and given to dogs to devour. Though so many hearts and tongues are devoured, and they never observe any of the jugglers die, yet they still religiously adhere to the custom of their ancestors, by cutting out the hearts and tongues of infants and adults of both sexes, as soon as they have expired. How firmly this mad notion, that men are killed by magical arts alone, is rooted in the minds of the Abipones, you may learn from the following facts, of which I myself was a spectator. In the colony of St. Ferdinand, a Yaaucaniga, famed amongst his countrymen both for high birth and military prowess, and on that very account ready for any audacious action, was much afflicted at the untimely death of his little daughter. He knew that she had been weak and diseased from her birth, yet was fully bent upon finding out the magical author of her death. A foreign Indian woman married to an Abipon appeared to him, from the representations of certain old women, who bore her a grudge, to be the perpetrator of the crime. Infuriated by the supposed injury, and the desire of vengeance, he fell upon the innocent unsuspecting woman at the approach of night, as she was spinning at the fire; he pierced her shoulder-blade with a spear with such force, that the point came out in the middle of her bosom, and stained the child she was suckling with its mother's blood. The woman was middle-aged, very fat, and full-breasted. She swam in her own blood, which spouted from every vein. The horrid nature of the wound threatening certain death, the heads of our holy religion, which she had formerly learnt, were briefly recalled to her memory; she received baptism, and was admonished to forgive her murderer. Having thus attended to the salvation of the poor woman's soul, we applied all our thoughts towards retarding her death, though we thought no medicine capable of saving her life. The blood which flowed, mixed with milk, being wiped up, the wound was washed with hot wine, and anointed with hen's fat. Numbers of people assembled to witness this mournful spectacle. Mixed with the crowd came a juggler physician, who gave the husband of the wounded woman a horn, desiring him to discharge his urine into it, and was immediately and plentifully obeyed. He gave the warm urine to the woman to drink, who made no hesitation, but swallowed it to the last drop. The juggling Hippocrates then turned to my companion and said: "Do you know why I prescribed fresh urine? In order that the wounded woman may vomit up the blood trickling from the wound to the inmost parts of the body, which would otherwise putrefy, and cause the lungs and other parts to putrefy also." The event verified his prediction. The woman was cleared by vomiting. The deep wound, being daily anointed with hen's fat, and having the leaves of the cabbage, which we call süsse kraut, applied to it to prevent inflammation, healed in a few days, and, excepting the scar, no inconvenience, trouble, or pain resulted from it. The surgeons of our country will doubtless laugh at the application of hen's fat, and perhaps question its efficacy in curing wounds; let them laugh, deride, doubt and despise, with my hearty good-will. I confidently oppose the experience of my own eyes, to their doubts and laughter. My arm, which was pierced with an arrow armed with five barbs, by the Natakebit savages, the nerve which directs the middle finger being injured at the same time, was happily cured in fourteen days by this remedy alone. With this fat I have cured men wounded both with arrows and spears; and with the same remedy I entirely healed an Abiponian woman whose leg had been wounded by an axe, in consequence of which, as all medicine had for some days been neglected, the foot was swelled in a dreadful manner. It would be endless to relate all the cures that have been worked with hen's fat.
The jugglers are commonly thought to be the authors of diseases, as well as of death, and the sick Abipones imagine that they shall recover as soon as ever those persons are removed. A tragic event will render this foolish persuasion more undoubted. An Abipon of the town of St. Jeronymo, called Ychohàke, elevated by the memory of his own great deeds, and those of his brother, the Cacique Ychoalay, wasted away with a slow disease. It never entered his head to seek the cause in the noxious humours in which he abounded. To discover which of the jugglers it was that had afflicted him with this sickness, was his daily and nightly endeavour. On this affair he consulted some old women, who pronounced a Toba, of the name of Napakainchin, to be the cause of the disease. The sick man immediately devotes the accused to death, for the preservation, as he thought, of his own life. In the dead of the night, he came upon him unawares, as he was sleeping in his tent; he plunged the iron point of his spear into his body, pierced his left side with a powerful blow, broke two of his ribs, and clove his shoulder with a weapon. At the cries of the wounded man, people assembled, whilst the assassin escaped by flight. We were called to the assistance of the poor wretch. Seeing him bathed in blood, and pierced with three wounds, we imagined that he would expire immediately. The bystanders told us that unless we removed him into our house, the person who put him in this condition would return to dispatch him with fresh wounds. According to their advice, he was conveyed into our house. Slipping by the way out of the hands of the carriers, he fell to the ground with fresh, and imminent danger of his life; for he was very large, and of weight proportionable to such great bulk. The place where he was laid in our house, as it had neither door nor fastening, was fortified by the Abipones with hides on every side, that Ychohàke might not gain access, if he came to complete the murder. And, in fact, as the Indians foretold, in half an hour, he came furnished with a dagger to hasten the death of the dying man; but being bravely repulsed by Father Joseph Brigniel, whose companion I then was, returned without accomplishing his purpose. The wounded man was baptized, and by means of our cares and medicines, amongst which hen's fat was the principal, happily recovered in the course of a few weeks. Napakainchin's wife and children gladly imitated his example, and embraced the Christian religion. A little after, the whole family, apprehending fresh danger from the same Ychohàke, removed to the neighbouring town of St. Xavier.
Do not imagine the history of the sick and crazy Ychohàke finished. After struggling with the disease for some months, with increased suspicions of some witchcraft being practised upon him, he took it into his head to accuse a woman, supposed to be acquainted with the black art, of his ill state of health. About mid-day, he attacked the unsuspecting female, and as he endeavoured to strike off her head, the weapon glanced aside, and cut her left cheek, which, falling to her breast with the ear hanging to it by a piece of skin, bathed the child at her breast with blood. The smiter was kept off by the people who crowded to the assistance of the woman. I could scarce refrain from tears at the cruel spectacle; but not having it in my power to punish the wretch who had committed the outrage, turned all my attention towards succouring the soul of the outraged. We had a negro somewhat skilled in the art of surgery; him I ordered to sew the cheek in three places to the head, the woman enduring the pricks of the needle without a groan, whilst the rest were filled with horror at the sight. The whole wound was washed with warm urine, anointed with hen's fat, and gently bound with a piece of linen dipped in a decoction of herbs. As no bandages to fasten the linen could be found, I used the girdle which I wore. The whole evening during which this passed, and the next night, the faithful Abipones watched diligently for the security of the woman that she might not sustain any further injury. For that Indian eagerly longed for her death, as the means of procuring the recovery of his own health. But the wound healing sooner than we had expected, the danger that the poor creature could not always remain concealed was removed, by her privately retreating to the town of St. Ferdinand. Divine Providence seems to have dictated her flight; for the Cacique Ychoalay, who was absent from the town at the time of the event, when informed by me of Ychohàke's cruelty, and requested to restrain his brother, replied that he should come immediately, not to restrain his brother, but to kill that woman, whom he had long thought infamous for her magic arts, and to be feared by all. And indeed, being very firm in his resolves, he would have put his threats into execution without a doubt, had he found the woman in the town. For, in former years, when they wandered up and down the plains, he turned out of his horde all women suspected of sorcery, and pierced many of them, though perhaps perfectly innocent, with a spear, that they might never deceive any one again; being often condemned both on the score of credulity and cruelty.
But this bloody tragedy, at length, had a happy termination. The Indian Ychohàke ceased at length to live and to be feared, and you will be surprised to hear that one, who, in his lifetime, had been so mad in his suspicions of sorcery, grew sane in his last moments. Having received baptism, at his own desire, conscious of approaching dissolution he delighted much in the presence of the priest, whom, as he came in the early part of the night, he persuaded to repose for a while at his own house, promising to let him know when he felt his death approach. He kept his word: he calmly expired the night before Trinity Sunday, whilst the priest was suggesting every thing consolatory to the dying man, and his relations were all weeping around him. He caused us to entertain great hopes of his obtaining a happy immortality on many accounts. For, indignant at the lamentations of his weeping domestics, he said they should remember he was going to visit the great house of the Creator of all things, the high father, the greatest captain. Ever intent on appeasing the Almighty, he testified sorrow and remorse for the many murders he had committed, of Christians and others. He repeatedly desired his wife not to follow the custom of their ancestors in slaying his horses and sheep at his grave; leaving them, and all his other property, to his little daughter. All this manifests that he held his ancient superstitions in abhorrence, and had embraced Christianity with his whole soul. I have related this to show you that all the misery resulting from deaths and disorders is attributed by the Abipones to the magical arts of the jugglers; whom, nevertheless, at other times they revere as physicians and saviours, of which more hereafter. Much remains to be said of diseases which ought not to be unknown to Europe.
CHAPTER XXII.
OF A CERTAIN DISEASE PECULIAR TO THE ABIPONES.
During an eighteen years' acquaintance with Paraguay and its inhabitants, I discovered a disease amongst the Abipones Nakaiketergehes, entirely unknown elsewhere. This disease affects the mind more than the body, though I should think it occasioned by the bad temperature of the former. They sometimes begin to rave and storm like madmen. The credulous and superstitious crowd think them reduced to this state by the magic arts of jugglers, and call them Loapařaika. These persons, agitated, as I think, by the intemperature of black bile, and filled with gloomy ideas, betray their madness chiefly at sun-set. The distracted persons suddenly leap out of their tents, run into the country on foot, and direct their course straight to the burying-place of their family. In speed they equal ostriches, and those who pursue them on the swiftest horses can hardly overtake and bring them home. Seized with fury in the night, they burn with the desire of committing slaughter somewhere; and for this purpose snatch up any arms they can lay hold of. Hence, as soon as a report is spread through a town of any one's being seized with this kind of madness, every body takes up a spear. The hordesmen, as they can neither calm the furious man, nor keep him at home, suffer him to go out into the street, armed with a stick, and accompanied with as many people as possible. A crowd of boys assembling to behold the spectacle, they make a circuit about all the streets. The insane person strikes the roof and mats of every tent again and again with the stick, none of the inmates daring to utter a word. If through the negligence of his guards, or his own cunning, he gets possession of arms, Heavens! what a universal terror is excited! a terror not confined to women and unwarlike boys, but felt by men who account themselves heroes; for they say it is wrong and irrational to use arms against those who are not in possession of their senses. The women, therefore, with their children used to crowd to the court-yard of our house which was fortified with stakes against the assaults of savages, and through fear of the insane person, pass hours, nay whole nights there.
Persons seized with this madness take scarcely any food or sleep, and walk up and down pale with fasting and melancholy: you would imagine that they were contemplating some new system of the figure of the earth, or studying how to square the circle. By day, however, they betray no signs of alienation of mind, nor are they to be feared before evening. A person of this description, who was very turbulent at night, visited me in the middle of the day. In familiar conversation I asked him who it was that disturbed the rest by his furiousness every night. He replied with a calm countenance, that he did not know. The Spaniard, my companion, seeing him take his leave, said, "This is the man you have long wished to know. This is he that raves at night." Yet I could discover nothing indicative of derangement either in his countenance or manners. Another insane person of the kind, whom I knew, met me as we were both riding in the plain, and joined company with me. But, pretending business, I put spur to my horse and hastened home. Twice when I was shutting the door of my hut, and once when I was tying a horse to a stake to feed, I should have been destroyed by a madman, had not persons come to my succour and averted the danger. Sometimes many persons of both sexes began to rave at once; sometimes one, and often no one was in this deplorable state. This madness lasted eight, fourteen, or more days, before tranquillity and intellect were restored. All the Abipones subject to this malady, whom I have known, were uniformly of a melancholy turn of mind, always in a state of perturbation from their hypochondriac or choleric temper, and of a fierce, threatening countenance. When this bile was excited by bad air, or immoderate drinking, it is neither strange nor surprising, that derangement and raving madness ensued. The stupid or ignorant alone attribute that to magic art, which is solely to be ascribed to the fault or strength of nature.
We have found the fear of death a powerful antidote to the licence of raving amongst the Abipones. Within a few days the number of mad persons increased unusually: one of them in the dead of the night got through the fence, and was stealing into our house, but was carried away by people who came to our assistance. Alaykin, the chief Cacique, being informed of our danger, called all the people into the market-place next day, and declared, that if any one henceforward took to raving, he should immediately put to death all the female jugglers, as well as the insane themselves. From that time I never heard of any more tumults occasioned by these furious persons. Might not some of them have feigned madness in the first instance, because they loved to be objects of terror to their hordesmen, and to be pointed at with the finger? I never can believe with the savages, that a magical charm was the cause of their insanity.
CHAPTER XXIII.
OF MEASLES, SMALL-POX, AND THE MURRAIN IN CATTLE.
The physician Roderigo Fonseca observes, "The plague was never seen either in the East or West Indies, but we know that in America a million Indians were destroyed by the small-pox not many years back, when no Spaniard took the infection. This disease was introduced amongst them by a Negro." I say nothing of the East Indies, being an utter stranger to them, but every one agrees that no plague ever raged in America: if you have read the contrary in any historian, remember that catarrh, ague, and diarrhea, if long and widely prevalent, are called the plague by the lower orders of Spaniards. The small-pox and measles too are not improperly denominated the plague by the Indians. We have also frequently experienced a murrain in cattle fatal to horses, oxen, and above all to mules; a disease induced not by the pestilence of the air, but by the badness of the pastures, or the scarcity of water. This sort of disorder may be truly called contagious, the mere contact with sick or dead bodies being infectious. Swelling of the head, and blood trickling from the nostrils were symptoms of the reigning disorder; the same signs too indicated the bites of serpents in animals. Mutilating the ear, and cutting the vein of the fore foot, were admirable remedies against the poison of that disease in mules, especially if salt were given them to lick. The paunches of the oxen slain to feed the Indians are daily thrown out, along with the bowels, into an open place, where all the horses and mules eagerly crowd to lick the garbage, because a sort of salt and nitre is created by the blood of which they are excessively fond. Therefore, whilst this dreadful murrain raged in our territories we daily sprinkled those entrails with salt, the salubrity of which is proved by the circumstance, that whilst numbers died in the neighbouring estates, very few sickened, and many recovered with us in the town of St. Joachim.