Truly ridiculous are those persons who, without ever having beheld America even from a distance, have written with more boldness than truth that all the Americans, without distinction, are possessed of little strength, weakly bodies, and bad constitutions, which cannot be said of the generality of them. Their habit of body varies according to climate, country, food, and occupation; as we find those Europeans who breathe the healthy mountain air of Styria more robust than those who grow sallow with ague in the marshy plains of the Bannat. Negro slaves brought in ships were often exposed to sale, like cattle, in the streets of Lisbon, whilst I was in that city. Those from Angola, Congo, Cape de Verd, and above all the island of Madagascar are eagerly chosen, being generally of strong health and superior activity. Africans, natives of that country which the Portugueze call Costa de la Mina, can scarcely find a purchaser, being generally weak, slothful, and impatient of labour, because they inhabit nearest to the equator, where there is little or no wind, tepid air, and frequent rain. In sailing to Paraguay we were detained in that neighbourhood by a continuous calm, and remained stationary there for full three weeks, roasted by the heat of the sun, and daily washed with warm showers. Who can wonder that this languishing climate produces languid and weakly bodies, though strong robust people are found in other parts of Africa? From this you may know what to think of so extensive a region as America, and of its inhabitants. Its various provinces and even different parts of the provinces differ essentially in the properties of the air, food, and habitations, which produces a variety in the constitutions of the inhabitants, some being weak, some very strong.
Let others write of the other Americans to whom and what they choose: I shall not contradict them. Of the Paraguayrians I confidently affirm that the equestrian nations greatly excel the pedestrians in beauty of form, loftiness of stature, strength, health, and longevity. The bodies of the Abipones are muscular, robust, agile, and extremely tolerant of the inclemencies of the sky. You scarcely ever see a fat or pot-bellied person amongst them. Daily exercise in riding, hunting, and in sportive and serious contests prevents them almost always from growing fat, for like apes they are always in motion. They consequently enjoy such an excellent habit of body, and such sound health as most Europeans might envy. Many diseases which afflict and exhaust Europeans are not even known by name amongst them. Gout, dropsy, epilepsy, jaundice, stone, &c. are words foreign and monstrous to their ears. They expose their bare heads for whole days to the heat of the sun, and yet you never hear one of them complain of head-ache. You would swear they were devoid of feeling, or made of brass or marble; yet even these grow hot when acted on by the rays of the sun. After having been long parched with thirst in dry deserts, they drink large draughts of marshy, salt, muddy, stinking, bitter water, without injury. They greedily swallow quantities of hard, half-roasted beef, venison, tiger's and emu's flesh, and the eggs of the latter, without experiencing any consequent languor of the stomach, or difficulty of digestion. They often swim across vast rivers in cold rainy weather without contracting any ill affection of the bowels or bladder, which was often troublesome to the Europeans in swimming, and, if succeeded by strangury, dangerous. They ride seated on saddles made of hard leather during journeys of many weeks, and yet such long sitting does not injure the external skin even. They are unprovided with stirrups, and often use trotting horses, yet after many hours of uninterrupted riding you can perceive no signs of fatigue or exhaustion in any of them. Stretched on a cold turf, should a sudden shower descend, they pass the night swimming in water, yet never know what the colic or the gout is. The Spaniards run the risk of both after being long drenched with rain water, which, when it touches the skin, affects the body most terribly in America, often producing syncope, and sometimes pustules and ulcers. I have frequently seen Spanish soldiers faint in the church from having been wetted with rain on their way thither. The Abipones pass many days and nights amid constant rain uninjured, because their feet are bare; for the moisture contracted from rain hurts the feet when they are wrapt up more than when they are uncovered; as, finding no vent when it exhales, it creeps inwards, penetrates the bones and nerves, and affects the rest of the body in a terrible manner. But I can give you further proof of the strength of the Abipones.
If a thorn of any plant happens to stick in their foot, and to break there, so that it cannot be pulled out by the finger, they will coolly cut the little piece of flesh, to which the thorn adheres, with a knife. When they go out to act the part of spies, or to reconnoitre distant places, they sit with both feet upon the horse's back. They climb high trees, and sit quietly on their boughs, in order to plunder the hives concealed there, without any sense of danger or giddiness. After their removal to our colonies, being fatigued with handling the axe and the plough, instruments to which they were unaccustomed, and feeling their strength fail them, their bodies bathed in sweat, and burning with heat, they exclaimed, La yivichigui yauigra, now my blood is angry. For this they have a ready remedy: they plunge a knife deep into their leg, watch the blood spouting from it for some time with pleased eyes, and at length stop it by applying a clod to the wound, saying with a cheerful voice that they are recovered, and feel perfectly well. They are as lavish, and almost prodigal in shedding their blood, for the purpose of obtaining glory, as of procuring health; for in public drinking parties they cruelly prick their breast, arms and tongue with a bundle of thorns, or with the sharp bones of a crocodile's back, with much effusion of blood. They emulate one another in doing this, in order to obtain a reputation for bravery, and that these spontaneous wounds may render them less fearful of shedding their blood in engagements with the enemy, and may make their skin impenetrable by covering it with scars. Boys of seven years old pierce their little arms in imitation of their parents, and display plenty of wounds, indications of courage superior to their years, and preludes of war, for which they are educated from earliest infancy.
Persons wasted to a skeleton, and with every symptom of fever and consumption, we have seen restored to health by daily eating and drinking the alfaroba. When seized with a violent disorder, or dangerously wounded, they recover by the use of this easily obtained remedy, or, like dogs, without any at all. I have often with horror beheld many of them wounded with various kinds of weapons, their side pierced, their bones and ribs broken, their breath drawn with difficulty, the blood streaming from their numerous wounds; themselves, in short, the breathing images of death. When I saw these very Abipones a few weeks afterwards, riding or drinking, in full health, I could attribute it to nothing but the strength of their constitutions; for it certainly could not be owing to their unskilful physicians and inefficacious medicines. Every one knows that small-pox and measles are almost the only, and by far the most calamitous pest by which America is exhausted. The Abipones take the infection like the other Indians, but seldom fall victims to the disease, though, whilst under its influence, they are less careful of themselves than the other natives. Owing to the more healthy temperature of their blood and humours, it does not cause either so much, or such noxious matter in them as it does in others. Of the small-pox I shall discourse more fully hereafter. They live and enjoy their health many years after they have been wounded with leaden bullets without ever suffering them to be extracted: as a proof of their strength they often showed us a bullet sticking, without injury, in their arm or foot, and offered it us to handle. It is still more remarkable that a musket ball seldom proves fatal to the Abipones, unless it strike the heart or the head: their Cacique, the renowned Kaapetraikin, received a ball of this kind into his forehead without any dangerous consequences. Considering these things I often wondered why the savages dreaded firearms so much, since they very rarely proved fatal to them. But as children are afraid of ignes fatui, though harmless; in like manner the Indians fear the report more than the ball, which they so often find to miss of its aim, and prove formidable to the air alone. These instances will, if I mistake not, do something towards convincing Europeans of the strength of the Abipones. Neither shall I ever be a convert to the opinion that the Americans are possessed of a duller and less acute sense of corporal inconvenience. The Abipones are highly sensible of the impressions of the elements, the injuries of weapons, and the pain arising from these causes, but are not so much overcome and exhausted by them as most others, either because they are blessed with a better temperature of blood and humours, and greater strength of limbs and muscles, or because the hardships they have been accustomed to from childhood, render them callous, or because their eager thirst after military fame impels them to deny that anything gives them pain, though they be ever so much affected by it.
I have already observed that they seldom grow bald, and not grey till at an advanced period of life. Even when arrived at extreme age they can hardly be said to have grown old, like certain plants which are always green and vigorous. Cicero, in his treatise on Old Age, bestows great praise on Massinissa, king of Mauritania, who, at ninety years of age, cùm ingressus iter pedibus sit, in equum omninò non ascendit: cùm equo, ex equo non descendit. Nullo imbre, nullo frigore adducitur, ut capite operto sit. Exequitur omnia regis officia et munera, etc. The Roman orator would find all the old Abipones so many Massinissas, or even more vigorous than Massinissa. He would scarce believe his own eyes were he to see men, almost a hundred years old, leap on to a fiery horse, without the aid of a stirrup, like a boy of twelve years old, sit it for hours, and even whole days, beneath a burning sun, climb trees for honey, travel or lie upon the ground in cold or rainy weather, contend with the enemy in battle, shrink from no toils of the army or the chase, evince wonderful acuteness both of sight and hearing, preserve all their teeth quite sound, and seem only to be distinguished by the number of their years from men in the prime of life. All these things will hardly be credited in Europe where they are so rare. In the colonies of the Abipones I daily beheld old men, like youths in every other respect but that of age, without surprize. If a man dies at eighty he is lamented as if cut off in the flower of his age. Women generally live longer than men, because they are not killed in war, and because the moistness of their nature renders them more long lived. You find so many old women a hundred years of age, amongst the Abipones, that you may wonder at, but will scarce be able to count them. I cannot say that the pedestrian nations of Paraguay enjoy equal strength and longevity. The Guaranies, Lules, Isistines, Vilelas, and other pedestrian Indians, are subject to diseases like the Europeans, and both feel old age, and discover it by their habit of body. Their lives, like those of Europeans, are sometimes short, sometimes long. You find very few men a hundred years old, or even approaching to that age amongst them. It is worth while to investigate the causes of this exceeding vigour of the Abipones.
CHAPTER VII.
WHY THE ABIPONES ARE SO VIGOROUS AND LONG-LIVED.
The Abipones are indebted for their strength and longevity partly to their parents, partly to themselves. The vigour of youth, preserved by temperance, accompanies them during the whole of their lives, and is even transmitted to their children. The Abipones never indulge in licentious gratifications during youth, and though of a fiery temperament, debilitate their constitutions by no irregularities. They amuse themselves with conversation, mirth, and jesting, but always within the limits of modesty. By a sort of natural instinct peculiar to themselves, both boys and girls, hold in abhorrence all means and opportunities of infringing the laws of decorum: you never see them talking together either publicly or privately; never idling in the street. The girls love to assist their mothers in domestic employments; the continual exercise of arms and horses engrosses the chief attention of the young men.
The Indians of other nations are often shorter, slenderer, and less robust. Many of them consume away before they arrive at manhood; others grow prematurely old, and die an untimely death. Do you enquire the cause? I will tell you my opinion on the subject. Many are unhealthy because their parents are so; others from being oppressed with Labour, and very poorly provided with food, clothes, and lodging; the majority because they have exhausted their natural vigour by indulging from their earliest youth in shameful pleasures. Libidinosa etenim, et intemperans adolescentia effœtum corpus tradit senectuti, as Cicero observes, in his treatise on Old Age. How many of those who die a premature death would deserve to have this epitaph engraven on their tomb, Nequitia est quæ te non sinit esse senem. Too early marriages are often a cause why we find the other Indians weaker and less vigorous and long-lived than the Abipones, who never think of entering the matrimonial state till they are near thirty years old, and never marry a woman under twenty; which, as philosophers and physicians say, conduces much to the preservation of strength, lengthening of life, and producing robust children. It cannot be doubted, that tender parents never produce very strong children; and since the affections of the mind are consequences of the habit of the body, as Galen teaches with much prolixity, it cannot be wondered that such children should be as imbecile in mind as in body.
Their education also conduces greatly to form the manners and strengthen the bodies of the Abipones. For, as Quintilian observes, in his first book of Institutes, that soft kind of breeding, which we call indulgence, relaxes all the nerves both of the mind and body. No one can object to the education of the Abipones on account of its delicacy. The children are plunged into a cold stream, if there be one at a convenient distance, as soon as they see the light. They know of no such things as cradles, feathers, cushions, swathing-clothes, blandishments, and toys. Covered with a light garment of otters' skins, they sleep wherever chance directs, and crawl upon the ground like little pigs. Whenever a mother has to take a journey on horseback, she places the child in a bag made of boars' skins, and suspended from the saddle along with the puppies, pots, gourds, &c. The husband will often come and snatch his little son, as he is sucking, from its mother's arms, set him on his own horse, and behold him riding with eyes sparkling with pleasure. When a mother is swimming in a river for the sake of a bath, she presses her infant to her breast with one hand, while she uses the other as an oar. If the child be pretty big, it is thrown into the water, that it may learn to swim while it is but just beginning to walk. You seldom see little boys but just weaned walking in the street without a bow and arrow. They shoot birds, flies, and all kinds of small animals. Their usual amusement is shooting at a mark. They go out every day on horseback, and ride races with one another. All these things undoubtedly conduce much towards strengthening and enlarging the body. Would that European mothers could be brought to discard the unnatural artifices and indulgences used in the bringing up of their children! Oh that they would moderate the bandages and cloths with which they bind, and as it were imprison and enchain the tender little bodies of their infants! then should we see fewer bandy-legged, hump-backed, dwarfish, weak, and diseased persons in Europe.
The Abipones wear a garment not tight to their bodies, but loose and flowing down to their heels; calculated to cover, not load and oppress the body, and to defend it from the injuries of the weather, without preventing the perspiration, or impeding the circulation of the blood. All the wise people of the east, and most of the ancient Germans, made choice of a large wide garment. What if we say that their bodies were consequently larger, and filled a wider space? Those who wish to enjoy their health, should attend to the maxim ne quid nimis, in dress as well as in other things. On the other hand too scanty clothing is assuredly prejudicial to health. Prudent persons vary their dress according to the state of the air, as seamen shift their sails. Even the Abipones of both sexes, and of every age, though satisfied at other times with a woollen garment, put on a kind of cloak, skilfully sewed, of otters' skins, when the cold south wind is blowing. This skin garment bears some sort of resemblance to the cloak which we priests wear to sing vespers in the church.