Buenos Ayres and the Provinces of the Rio de La Plata / Their Present State, Trade, and Debt

by Sir Woodbine Parish

In each toldo, or tent, which is made of hides stretched upon canes, and easily removeable from one place to another, five or six families, barely separated from each other, perhaps twenty or thirty persons in all, were closely huddled together in the most horrible state of filth imaginable; indeed, in many respects, they were but little removed in their habits from the brute creation. If fuel was scarce, as was often the case in the pampas, they cared not to cook their meat, but ate it raw, and always drank the warm blood of every animal they killed:—like beasts of prey, there was no part, even to the contents of the stomach and intestines, which they would not greedily devour.

They were superstitious in the extreme, and the credulous dupes and tools of a few artful men, who are to be found in every tribe, and in reality direct all its concerns by pretending to foretell the future, and to divine the cause of every evil. They are called machis, or wizards, and there is no tribe without them, and which does not implicitly submit to their decisions and advice. Their word is law, and the Cacique even, equally with the rest, submits to it. The commissioners themselves were nearly made the victims of the malice of some of these wretches, who probably anticipated a share of the plunder, if they could have induced their countrymen to destroy them. The old Cacique, named Pichiloncoy, already mentioned as living near the toldos of Lincon, and whose life was of great consequence to his tribe, fell seriously ill, and, according to custom, the machis were assembled to pronounce on the nature of his complaint, and to denounce those whose evil machinations or influence could have reduced him to such a state, for in all such cases some one must be responsible, and, once denounced, his life is seldom spared if the patient dies. In this case the machis unanimously ascribed the old Cacique's illness to the presence of the Christians, who, they declared, had brought the Gualichù, or evil spirit, with them, probably deriving the notion from the report spread by their guides respecting the supernatural powers of the instruments they were known occasionally to consult. If the old man had not fortunately recovered it might have gone hard with them, for their lives would certainly have been in great peril. As Garcia observes, it would have been a pretty ending of their embassy to have been sacrificed to the manes of old Pichiloncoy by the mad machis.

Notwithstanding the excessive nastiness and filth of their general habits, the women seldom failed to perform their daily ablutions, repairing the first thing in the morning to the neighbouring lake to bathe with their children, although the cold was so intense, that the snow nightly beat through their tents during the whole time the commissioners were there. Amongst these females were some Christian girls, captives, whose fair skin was but too strong evidence of their origin, and who seemed from habit to suffer as little from the severity of the cold as their dusky mistresses. Their unfortunate lot excited the strongest feelings on the part of the commissioners, whose interposition to obtain their liberation they pleaded for, as well they might, with tears and the most earnest entreaties. Nor were the officers backward in urging upon the Caciques every argument to induce them to give them up; but it was amongst the greatest of their disappointments to find all their efforts on this point unavailing. The Caciques declared they had no power in a case touching the spoils of war, which, according to their laws, were the sole property of the individual captors, to whom they referred them to make the best bargain they could. These brutes, on being applied to, demanded in general so extravagant a ransom as to destroy at once every hope on the part of the poor women themselves of its ever being raised, their relatives in general being of the labouring classes employed in the estancias on the frontier; in many cases they too were no longer in existence, having perished in the same inroads of the savages which had deprived them of their liberty.

In expectation that the treaties to be made with the Indians would have led to the immediate liberation of all prisoners, some poor people had obtained leave to follow in the train of the commissioners, in the hope of finding their wives and daughters, and carrying them back with them; and a most affecting sight it was, as may well be imagined, to witness their meeting again, and tender embraces after so cruel a separation; but it was piteous indeed to behold their subsequent despair on finding that the interference of the commissioners was unavailing, and that the purchase-money demanded for the prisoners was totally beyond what they could ever hope to raise. The parting again of these poor people was perhaps one of the hardest trials to which human nature could be subjected. Husbands and fathers forced to leave their wives and daughters to the defilement of brutal savages, with scarce a hope of ever being able to obtain their release; it need hardly be said that force was necessary to separate them, and to restrain the men from acts of violence which might have compromised the safety of the whole party.

If slavery as carried on by Christian nations appears so revolting to all our better feelings, and excites our strongest sympathies on behalf of the negro, whose condition, after all, is often perhaps in reality ameliorated by being brought under the protection of humane laws, and within the pale of Christianity, what must it be when the case is reversed, when the Christian woman, brought up in at least the decent and domestic habits of civilised society, falls into the power of a savage, whose home is the desert, and who, though little removed in his own habits from a beast of prey, looks down upon the weaker sex as an inferior race, only made to be subject to his brutal will and caprice?

Though the unhappy condition of these poor women excited the sensibility of the commissioners for an instant, it roused also their more manly feelings, and satisfied them that the government of Buenos Ayres owed it to its own honour, and to humanity, to act with energy, and make some effort of force to rescue these poor victims from the consequences of their own supine and too lenient policy. It was indeed evident that any attempt to secure a permanent and satisfactory state of peace would be futile without such a demonstration as would act upon the fears of the Indians, and oblige them to submit to such terms as the government might determine to impose upon them.

Under this conviction the officers would have returned at once to Buenos Ayres, had they not been earnestly solicited by the inhabitants of some other toldos about the Sierra Ventana to visit them before their departure; a request they acceded to in the hope of its enabling them to acquire some geographical information with regard to that range.

On the 2nd they set out with old Lincon, who insisted upon escorting them as far as the place of rendezvous. Their course lay west-south-west, through an undulating country, rich in pasturage, and studded with small lakes, about which were generally found small groups of Indians with their cattle. These lakes in the summer season are for the most part dry, and then the Indians remove within reach of the mountain-streams. Towards evening they pitched their tents on the banks of a stream called the Quetro-eique, the Ventana about two and a half leagues distant, where they found a large encampment of Indians, who received them with rejoicings. As far as the eye could reach the plains were covered with their cattle and sheep.

Whilst waiting for the assembling of the Caciques, the officers devoted two or three days to surveying: following up the Quetro-eique about three and a half leagues, they traced it to its sources on the side of the Ventana. The height of the principal mountain, so called, they determined by measurement to be 2500 feet above the level of the plain from which it rises.[41] To the north-west a chain of low hills extends as far as a break by which they are separated from the minor group called the Curumualá. Through this break run two small streams, the one called Ingles-malhuida, from the circumstance of an Englishman having been put to death by the Indians there, the other Malloleufú, or the White River; the course of both is from south-west to north-east, running nearly parallel with the Quetro-eique, and all, according to the Indian accounts, losing themselves in extensive marshes beyond. The rivers Sauce-grande and Sauce-chico, which fall into Bahia Blanca, rise from the southern declivities of this range, according to the same authority. Beyond the Curumualá is the group of the Guamini, the most westerly part of this range. An observation taken from their tents on the Quetro-eique gave the latitude 37° 50´; longitude from Cadiz 56° 20´; and thence a clear day gave them a general view of the whole range. The Ventana bore south 18° west, prolonging its ramifications to south 40° west. The Curumualá south 60° west, extending to 80°. The Guamini extended through 30° as far as west 10° north. The whole range may be described as running from south-south-east to north-north-west. The variation by repeated calculations was 18° 30´, at the other range it had been found as stated to be 17° 10´, and at the Lake of Polvaderas 16° 30´ east.[42]