Indian children singing.
Sketches of the Manners, Customs, &c., of the Indians of America.
CHAPTER XIII.
South America continued.—Discovery of Brazil.—Character of its inhabitants.—Their treachery and cannibalism.—Notice of the first emigrants.—Missionaries.—Teaching the children to sing.—Effect of music on the natives.—Present state of the country.—Personal appearance of the Indians.—Manner of living.—Botucudoes.—Description of this tribe.—General description.—Horses, weapons, ornaments.—Religion.—Remarks.
Brazil was discovered in 1500. The first Spaniard who ventured to cross the equinoctial was Vincent Pinzon. He landed at a point on the coast of Brazil, about twenty miles south of Pernambuco. A fleet was soon after sent out from Portugal, in which sailed that fortunate adventurer, Americus Vespucius, who has given his name to the New World.
The Indians of Brazil were real savages, perfidious, cruel, and cannibals, who scarcely appear to have had a noble or generous trait in their characters. The dreadful depravity of these tribes seems to have infused the spirit of the furies into the female heart; and when the women of a nation are rendered ferocious, there is little if any chance that the nation will ever, by their own efforts, become civilized. The following account of the first interview between the Portuguese and the Brazilian Indians is sufficient to show the spirit of the latter.
When the ships arrived on the coast, in latitude 5 deg. S., there was a party of natives discovered on a hill near the shore. Two sailors volunteered to go ashore, and several days passed without their return. At length the Portuguese landed, sent a young man to meet the savages, and returned to their boats. The women came forward to meet him, apparently as negociators. They surrounded him and seemed examining him with curiosity and wonder. Presently there came down another woman from the hill, having a stake in her hand, with which she got behind him, and dealt him a blow that brought him to the ground. Immediately the others seized him by the feet, and dragged him away, and then the Indian men, rushing to the shore, discharged their arrows at the boats.
The boats finally escaped, but the men had to witness the horrid sight of their poor comrade destroyed by the ruthless savages. The women cut the body in pieces, and held up the mutilated limbs in mockery; then, broiling them over a huge fire, which had been prepared, as it seemed, for that purpose, with loud rejoicings, they devoured them in presence of the Portuguese. The Indians also made signs that they had eaten the two sailors![1]
It will not be pleasant or useful to give any more minute accounts of the practice of cannibalism. Suffice it to say, that the tribes inhabiting the southern part of South America, appear to have been in the grossest ignorance and most deplorable state of vice and misery to which human beings can be reduced. They were more like tigers and serpents than men; for they used poisoned arrows, deadly as the “serpent’s tooth,” in battle; and they tore and devoured their enemies with the voracity of beasts of prey.