Departing thence we came to another people called Aygais,[82] who also live on fish and meat. They are tall and erect. The women are nice-looking, painted, and have their privities covered in the same manner as explained before.
[82] Agazes.
When we came to them, they put themselves on their defence, and wished to make war against us by not allowing us to pass through. Finding this to be the case, and that there was no help for it, we put our trust in God, and then made our preparations to attack them by land and water; we fought them and killed a great number—fifteen of our men also being slain. God be merciful to them.
These Aygais are the best warriors that can be found on the water, but they are not so good at fighting on land. Before fighting, they caused their wives and children to flee to a place of safety, and concealed their provisions and other things. What happened to them at the last you will presently hear. Their place is near a river called Jepedij,[83] on the other side of the Parabor. It takes its source in the mountains of Peru, near a town named Duechkamin.[84] From the Kueremagbas to the Aygais there are thirty miles.
[83] Ipiti, the name of this river, signifies “red” in the Guaraní language; hence the Spaniards called it Rio Bermejo (Red River).
[84] Neither at the time of Schmidt, nor afterwards, was there at the head of the Bermejo a people called Duechkamin. This may, perhaps, refer to Tomina, because, though this town is not situated within the system of the river Bermejo, it is not far from it, and this circumstance may have led Schmidt into error. M. Ternaux says in his Collection that this town can be no other than Tucuman, but this proves his incompetency in this matter, as Tucuman was founded many years after Schmidt’s voyage to the River Plate.
Departing from these Aygais we came to a people named Carios, fifty miles distant from the Aygais. There, by God’s grace, we found plenty of Turkish corn and mandeochade, padades, mandeochparpij, mandepore, manduris, wacheku, etc. They have also fish and meat, deer, wild boar, ostriches, Indian sheep, rabbits, hens and geese, also plenty of honey, of which they make wine; and there is much cotton in the land.
These Carios have a large country, nearly three hundred miles in length and breadth; they are men of short stature, and more able to endure work and labour than the other natives.
The men have a little hole in their lips in which they put yellow crystals, called in their language Parabor,[85] two spans long and of the thickness of a quill or reed.