No disputing about Tastes.—The hedgehog will eat Spanish flies, which will kill a dog, and a common hog feasts upon rattlesnakes.
Indians of America.
CHAPTER XIV.
South America continued.—Recapitulations.—Indians of the Pampas.—Manner of living.—Employment, war.—Weapons.—Manner of fighting.—What effect the use of fire-arms would produce.—Reflections.—Abipones.—Manners.—Occupation, and exercises.—Employments of the females.—Polygamy, and its effects.—Missionaries.—Intemperance of the Indians.—Number of Indians in South America.—Reflections.
I have, in the preceding chapters, given a sketch of the history, manners, &c., of the chief Indian nations in South America, which have been subjected to European power. The influence of the invaders has operated on all the tribes, even on those who still retain their wild liberty and savage customs; but in the interior of that vast country, and amid its rocky fastnesses the red man is yet uncontrolled, and seems uncontrollable.
The most marked and extraordinary difference of character and customs among these wild tribes is exhibited by the Indians of the Pampas, or great plain east of the Cordillera, and the tribe of Abipones, residing in Paraguay. These Indians always appear on horseback, and their habits being influenced by this Cossack mode of life, are worth a separate description.
The Pampas[5] Indians are a handsome race, but wild and fierce as mountain eagles. They may be said to pass their lives on horseback. They wear no clothing, not even a covering on the head, either in the freezing winter or hot summer.
They live together in tribes, each of which is governed by a cacique, but they have no fixed place of residence. Where the pasture is good, there they are to be found, until it is consumed by their horses, and then they instantly remove to a verdant spot. They have neither bread, fruit, nor vegetables, but they subsist entirely on the flesh of their mares, which they never ride; and the only luxury in which they indulge, is that of washing their hair in mare’s blood.
Their whole occupation is war; this they consider the natural and most noble employment of men; and they declare that the proudest attitude of the human figure is when, bending over his horse, a man is riding at his enemy.