If their own arrows fail them they will send back those shot by the enemy. However, when their quivers are exhausted, as sometimes happens, and their souls fired by the combat, after having fought for some time, at a distance with a bow, they will come to close fighting with a spear. Neither then, however, will the plain be inundated with human blood. The savages have, indeed, great power in dealing blows, but they have still greater swiftness in eluding them. The whole combat is often confined to threats and vociferations. Sometimes many are wounded, but very few die in proportion to the number of wounds; for unless the head or breast be pierced they never despair of the man's life. They are used to consider broken ribs and immense gashes in the other members, as attended with little danger; they calmly look upon them without any expression of pain, and, half alive, reluctantly suffer themselves to be borne from the fight on other persons' arms. This I learnt, that these savages, unless flight be denied them, seldom dare the worst. Terrified at the slaughter of a very few of their fellow-soldiers, they desert their leader, and escape how they can. There is no need to sound a retreat. Should ten or twenty take to flight, the rest, freed from all restraint of shame, trust their lives to their horses, and rush along with the impetuosity of a river that has burst its banks. On urgent occasions you will see two or three seated on one horse. At the beginning of an engagement on foot, they take care that the means of flight may not fail them: behind the backs of the combatants, and out of reach of the weapons, they station horses, upon which young men sit, and safely watch the vicissitudes of the fight.
But if the enemy, finding the fortune of war against them, betake themselves to flight, they scarce have to fear a very obstinate pursuit from their adversaries, as the conquerors are very cautious not to forfeit their glory; they are unwilling, by a doubtful contest, to experience a change of fortune, and to undergo a new danger. A spear, or garment, taken from them in battle by their enemies, the Abipones consider a terrible disgrace to their nation, regarding the loss of it with as much grief as Europeans do that of their drums or standards. The Abipones never attribute victories, and the fortunate events of battles, to their own skill, but to the arts of their jugglers. Although they hold the other Paraguayrian nations in contempt, yet they allow the Guaycurùs to be formidable; they say that they are cut down like funguses by the spears of these savages, not because they excel them in goodness of arms, strength of body, or courage of mind, but because they enter the fight attended by far more skilful jugglers. The Cacique Alaykin affirmed to me, that persons blown upon by their breath fell to the ground, as if struck with thunder.
But now let us contemplate the Abipones triumphing after a successful fight. If the event has answered to their wishes they fill the country with joyful rumours of victory, and generally exaggerated accounts of the slaughter of the enemy. They who have behaved with distinguished valour have the ears and eyes of all directed towards them. They who have received wounds in the battle deliver themselves to be sucked to a crowd of juggler physicians, a multitude of spectators admiring and extolling their constancy and fortitude. Great numbers flock to behold the spoils and trophies taken from the enemy. The women, giving way to an excess of gladness, seem mad with joy; they would make no end of singing, leaping, and applauding, were they not obliged to turn their attention towards making preparations for the public drinking-party of their husbands; who, at the same time that they wash the horrible colours from their faces, endeavour to clear from their minds, with wine, their past anxiety respecting the conflict. In the assembly of drinkers, where the victory is celebrated amidst confused clamours, and songs accompanied with the sound of gourds and drums; when all are heated with liberal draughts of mead, each begins to relate his own brave actions, and to laugh at the errors, cowardice, and flight of others; which not being endured by any of the Abipones, the warriors contend furiously amongst themselves, first with fists, and then, growing more enraged, with spears and arrows. Did not the women interpose to effect a reconciliation, and employ themselves in snatching away their weapons, and leading their husbands home, it is beyond a doubt that more would be killed after the battle than in the battle.
If a battle be fought at a distance from the town, a horseman is sent forward to announce the success of it to the hordesmen. As soon as this messenger is espied from a distance, a crowd come out to meet him, striking their lips with their right hands, and accompany him to his house. Having preserved the profoundest silence he leaps down from his horse on to a bed; whence, as from a rostrum, he announces the event of the battle, with a grave voice, to the surrounding multitude. If a few of the enemy are killed and wounded, he begins his story with Nalamichiriñi; they are all slaughtered, which he utters with a severe countenance and declamatory tone, and receives the applauses of the by-standers. He then enumerates those that he himself has slain in battle, and to enhance the merit of the victory, affirms of many, Eknam Capitan; he was a captain. At every name that is mentioned of an enemy slain in battle the air resounds with Kem ékemat? Ta Yeegàm! an exclamation of surprize. The number of captives, waggons, and horses, that have been taken, are then detailed with infinite exaggeration, for of each he asserts that they are innumerable; Chik Leyé kalipì; at which the auditors burst forth into an exclamation of Ndře, by which they express a strange and unheard-of thing. Having minutely recounted every circumstance tending to set forth this arduous fight and splendid victory, he proceeds to discover those of his fellow-soldiers that have been wounded in the battle. At every name the by-standers groan, and utter the word Tayretà! Poor little thing! As the Abipones think it a crime to utter the name of a dead person, the narrator makes use of a paraphrase, thus, Yoalè eknam oanerma Hamelèn laneuek là chit kaekà: The man, the husband of the woman Hamelèn, is now no more. The mention of the death of one of their countrymen entirely destroys all the pleasure which the news of the victory had excited; so that the announcer immediately finds himself deserted by his late attentive listeners, as soon as ever he begins to touch upon this melancholy subject. All the women unloose their hair, snatch up gourds and drums, and lament in the manner that I have described in the twenty-fourth chapter.
The Abipones, when returned from an expedition, enter their horde, not in one company, but separately, without ostentation, if victorious, and without signification of sorrow, if conquered, or even if desperately wounded, unless they have lost their leader. Then indeed they return with their hair partially shaven, to attest their grief, and convey the bones of their deceased Cacique home, not without funeral apparatus. The anxiously expected return of the warriors engages the eyes, ears, tongues, and hands of all; some surveying the droves of cattle, the captives, and spoils; others enquiring for the safety of their relations; others examining the wounds of the soldiers; and all the women lamenting. Each retains the captives, horses, mules, and other things that he has taken, unless, as usual amongst them, he chooses to share them with his friends. From one journey they often bring home many thousand horses, which they divide amongst themselves, with what regulations I know not, but without any disputes. On the succeeding days every one is eager to make trial of the horses which have fallen to his share in the partition of the spoils; they value swiftness alone, disregarding every beauty which adorns a horse. You may daily see a crowd of young men riding races with one another, and at the same time contending with words, each extolling his own above his neighbour's horse. The remembrance of the victory obtained over the enemy, disturbs as much as it delights their minds; for they live in continual fear that the enemy will speedily come to avenge the death of their people and loss of their property. Hence, in order to tranquillize their minds, and devise some method to keep off the foe, their chief care is to prepare a public drinking-party, that sure quickener, as they think, of the wit and exciter of valour.
CHAPTER XLIV.
OF THE ANNIVERSARY MEMORIAL OF VICTORIES, AND
THE RITES OF A PUBLIC DRINKING-PARTY.
The Abipones, not satisfied with celebrating their victory, as soon as they return, and whilst their hands are yet bloody, renew the memory of it by public festivities every year. The whole of these festivities consists in singing, dancing, and extravagancies. When they have all collected plenty of honey in the woods, a day is appointed for this anniversary ceremony, and a large house equal to the number of guests fixed upon. The last three days before that appointed for the drinking-party, one of the public criers, covered with an elegant cloak, goes up and down all the tents; at the entrance of each he is saluted by the women with a festive percussion of the lips; his spear, to which a little brass bell is affixed, the mother of the family receives, by way of honour, from the hands of the comer, and restores to him again on his departure. The crier, on entering the house, sits down upon a cushion prepared for him, of saddles, or some wild animal's skin. He then, in a set speech, invites the father of the family to the public celebration of victories. On his departure, he is dismissed by the women with the usual percussion of the lips. In the same manner he enters the dwellings of the other hordesmen, always accompanied by a crowd of boys. The office of crier, which the noble Abipones despise, is generally performed by some juggler of advanced age and low birth. Meantime they furnish the house, appointed for the meeting, with a hasty apparatus. The floor is covered with the skins of tigers and of kine, upon which the guests sit. A temporary erection is made of reeds, upon which they place the hairy scalps of their slain enemies, as trophies. When they prefer celebrating the victory without the tent in the open air, they hang these trophies upon spears fixed upright in the circle in which they sit. At sun-set, the persons invited all flock to the appointed place, where they sit down on the ground, having leathern vessels of mead set in the midst of them, though the drinking does not commence till about morning, the whole night being spent in chaunting their victories.
They never sing all at once, but only two at a time, always greatly varying their voices from high to low, one either taking up, or following, or interrupting the other, and sometimes accompanying him. Now one, now the other is silent for a short interval. The tones vary according to the subject of the song, with many inflexions of the sound, and, if I may so express myself, a good deal of shaking. He who, by a quicker motion of the throat, can now suspend the song for a while, now protract, and now interrupt it with groans, or laughter, or can imitate the bellowing of a bull, or the tremulous voice of a kid,—he will gain universal applause. No European would deny that these savage singers inspired him with a kind of melancholy and horror, so much are the ears, and even the mind affected by that deadly chaunting, the darkness adding greatly to the mournful effect. One of the singers rattles a gourd filled with maize seeds, to the time of the music. Sometimes the gourd alone preludes the singing, as in a band of musicians; at others, it follows the voice of the singer, and very seldom rests for ever so little a while. When two are singing at a time, it is wonderful to hear so much concord in such discordant voices. You never observe them hesitate or pause: for they do not sing extemporaneously, but what has been long studied beforehand. The songs are restricted by no metrical laws, but sometimes have a rhythmical sound. The number of verses is regulated, not according to the pleasure of the singer, but according to the variety of the subject. Nothing but warlike expeditions, slaughters, and spoils of the enemy, taking of towns, plundering of waggons and estates, burning and depopulating colonies of the Spaniards, and other tragedies of that kind furnish the savages with subjects for singing and rejoicing. These events, together with the place, and time, where, and when they happened, they describe; not rudely, but with considerable elegance. Struck, as it were, with poetic rage, by appropriate words, and modulations of the voice, they contrive to express indignation, fear, threatening, or joy. Though, in order not to damp the hilarity, they scarce make any mention of the deaths, and wounds of the Abipones, and employ themselves exclusively in exaggerating the slaughter of the enemy. During the time that these songs are chaunted, a period of many hours, not one of the auditors dares utter a word, and though night itself persuades sleep, you will not see one of them even yawn.
As all singers have the fault which Horace complains of in them, namely, that when they once begin, they will never leave off; the two chaunters are admonished to conclude their song, by women who stand around, separated from the men, and who signify to the vocal pair, after they have sung about a quarter of an hour, that it is time to desist, by repeated percussion of their lips, and by pronouncing the little words Kla leyà, it is enough. With this admonition, they immediately comply, and conclude the magnificent commemoration of their mighty deeds with Gramackka aka`m: Such then we are. Another pair then succeeds to the former, and in this manner the singing is protracted till the morning. Then, indeed, the scene is changed, the drinking commences, and their dry and weary throats are refreshed with that American nectar made either of honey, or the alfaroba. The women, and the unmarried men are excluded from these drinking-parties, though the latter are allowed to drink mead in private, as the women to drink pure honey, and eat the raw alfaroba.
To seek honey in the woods for making this drink, is the business of the men, but the whole labour of preparing it falls upon the women, who have to knock down the alfarobas from the trees, to carry them home on horseback, to pound them in mortars, to pour water on them, and to dress the hides which serve to hold the liquor. The method of their construction is this: the feet are cut off, the hide is made square; its four sides are then raised to the height of two spans, so that it receives at the bottom any liquor that you may pour in, and holds it without spilling a drop. Honey, or the alfaroba steeped in water, obtains the desirable degree of acidity quicker, or slower, according to the state of the atmosphere, and ferments, in a certain way, without the addition of any thing else. The Abipones approach those vessels every now and then, and ascertain, by the smell, whether that honeyed beverage has attained its proper state. Layam ycham; It will soon ferment, they cry as they go away. Till at length some one comes, who, judging by his nose, declares that it has gained the necessary acidity. This being given out, they all flock to the appointed place. Those leathern vessels, full of foaming mead, are each brought by the hands of six or eight girls, who lay down their burden, and return home without speaking a word to the drinkers. Before the first vessel is quite exhausted, another is brought, to that is added a third, then a fourth, and so on. I did not in the least wonder to see the women so alert and industrious in performing these useful offices, because the more diligent they are, the higher character they obtain amongst their countrymen, and the greater favour do they gain from their husbands. It must be confessed, however, that the Abipones, when they sup and dine in private, drink nothing but water. I have known Abipones who abstained from fermented liquors altogether; but these persons were contemned by the rest as cowardly, degenerate, and stupid; and indeed, I observed that they who excelled the rest in birth, military glory, and authority, were generally the most given to drinking. You can scarce see a circle of drinkers, at which the chiefs of the Abipones do not attend and preside.