Even at the present hour, the Guaraon would not be secure, were he to stray too far from his sheltering marshes,—for, sad though it be to say so, the poor Indian, when beyond the protection of his tribe, is in many parts of South America still treated as a slave. In the delta he feels secure. No slave-hunter,—no enemy can follow him there. Even the foeman of his own race cannot compete with him in crossing the wide flats of spongy quagmire,—over which, from long habit, he is enabled to glide with the lightness and fleetness of a bird. During the season of overflow, or when the waters have fallen to their lowest, he is equally secure from aggression or pursuit; and, no doubt, in spite of missionary zeal,—in spite of the general progress of civilisation,—in this savage security he will long remain.
Chapter Fifteen.
The Laplanders.
One of the oldest “odd” people with which we are acquainted are the Laps or Laplanders. For many centuries the more civilised nations of Europe have listened to strange accounts, told by travellers of these strange people; many of these accounts being exaggerated, and others totally untrue. Some of the old travellers, being misled by the deer-skin dresses worn by the Laps, believed, or endeavoured to make others believe, that they were born with hairy skins like wild beasts; and one traveller represented that they had only a single eye, and that in the middle of the breast! This very absurd conception about a one-eyed people gained credit, even so late as the time of Sir Walter Raleigh,—with this difference, that the locality of these gentry with the odd “optic” was South America instead of Northern Europe.
In the case of the poor Laplander, not the slightest exaggeration is needed to render him an interesting study, either to the student of ethnology, or to the merely curious reader. He needs neither the odd eye nor the hairy pelt. In his personal appearance, dress, dwelling, mode of occupation, and subsistence, he is so different from almost every other tribe or nation of people, as to furnish ample matter for a monograph at once unique and amusing.
I shall not stay to inquire whence originated this odd specimen of humanity. Such speculations are more suited to those so-called learned ethnologists, who, resembling the anatomists in other branches of natural history, delight to deal in the mere pedantry of science,—who, from the mere coincidence of a few words, can prove that two peoples utterly unlike have sprung from a common source: precisely as Monsieur Cuvier, by the examination of a single tooth, has proved that a rabbit was a rhinoceros!
I shall not, therefore, waste time in this way, in hunting up the origin of the miserable Laplander; nor does it matter much where he sprang from. He either came from somewhere else, or was created in Lapland,—one of the two; and I defy all the philosophers in creation to say which: since there is no account extant of when he first arrived in that cold northern land,—not a word to contradict the idea of his having been there since the first creation of the human race. We find him there now; and that is all that we have to do with his origin at present. Were we to speculate, as to what races are kindred to him, and to which he bears the greatest resemblance, we should say that he was of either the same or similar origin with the Esquimaux of North America, the Greenlanders of Greenland, and the Samoeids, Tuski, and other tribes dwelling along the northern shores of Asia. Among all these nations of little men, there is a very great similarity, both in personal appearance and habits of life; but it would not be safe to say that they all came from one common stock. The resemblances may be the result of a similarity in the circumstances, by which they are surrounded. As for language,—so much relied upon by the scientific ethnologist,—there could scarce be a more unreliable guide. The black negro of Carolina, the fair blue-eyed Saxon, and the red-skinned, red-polled Hibernian, all speak one language; the descendants of all three, thousands of years hence, will speak the same,—perhaps when they are widely scattered apart,—and the superficial philosopher of those future times will, no doubt, ascribe to them all one common origin!
Language, of itself, is no proof of the natural affinities of two peoples. It is evidence of their once having been in juxtaposition,—not much more. Of course when other points correspond, similarity of speech becomes a valuable corroboration. It is not our purpose, then, to inquire whence the Laplander came,—only where he is now, and what he is now. Where is he now?