Uruguay

by W. H. Koebel

Yet the hatred with which these fierce warriors of the Campo regarded the white intruders tended with time to increase rather than diminish. As a foe the Indian was far more formidable now than at the time of the first encounters. Behold him on horseback, careering like the wind across the pastures, armed with a deadly iron-tipped lance some fourteen feet in length! For he had obtained the means now to fight the conquistadores with their own weapons, and even his arrows were pointed with metal, although he still retained the homely stone in the case of his ever efficient bolas. Thus he remained, immutably fierce, alternately winning and losing the endless fights, but never conquered nor enslaved for three centuries. At the end of that period, in 1832, came the end of his race, and the small remnant was practically annihilated. The fate of the last four of the Charrúas is pathetically humorous, as illustrating what unsuspected ends a wild community may be made to serve. Two men and two women, the sole survivors of the unconquered warrior tribe, were sent across the ocean to Paris, where they were placed on exhibition, and doubtless proved a profitable investment.

Having concluded with the Charrúas, the remaining aboriginal tribes of Uruguay demand very little space by comparison. There were, nevertheless, half a dozen minor groups that inhabited the other portion of the land that is now Uruguay.

The Yaros Indians occupied a small district on the south-western coast of the country, and were a warlike race whose customs and manner of existence much resembled those of the Charrúas. With this latter race they were on terms of hostility, and only allied themselves with their aboriginal neighbours for the occasional purpose of a joint attack upon the Spaniards. At the beginning of the eighteenth century they were to all intents and purposes exterminated by the more powerful Charrúas, the few survivors joining the ranks of their conquerors.

Little is known of the Bohanes, who occupied the coastal territory to the north of the Yaros. They were likewise enemies of the Charrúas, and in the end suffered partial extermination at the hands of the latter tribe. It is said that a certain number escaped into Paraguay and became absorbed amongst the Guarani inhabitants of the north. It appears certain that, although this insignificant group could not number much more than a hundred families, their language differed entirely from the tongues of the neighbouring tribes.

NATIVE "BOLEADORAS."

To face p. 148.

The Chanas were island-dwellers whose character contrasted rather remarkably with that of the inhabitants of the mainland. When first met with they were occupying the islands in the River Uruguay to the north of the point where the Rio Negro joins the principal stream. A race of peaceable and rather timid folk, they suffered not a little at the hands of the more warlike tribes. Thus, when the Spaniards occupied their native islands, the Yaros endeavoured to obtain a footing on the western coast-line; but, driven from here by the Charrúas, they found shelter in a collection of islets to the south of those that had formed their first abode. They were more or less expert fishers and watermen, and possessed a language of their own. Many of their customs were akin to those of the Guarani Indians. Thus when the bodies of their dead had been buried for a sufficiently long time to lose all flesh, the skeletons would be dug up, painted with grease and ochre, and then entered once again in company with their ancestors. In the case of a dead child it was their custom to place the body in a large earthenware urn which they filled with earth and ochre, covering up the vessel with burnt clay.

The Chanas lent themselves readily to civilisation. Towards the middle of the seventeenth century they became converted to Christianity, and in the beginning the Jesuit mission station of Soriano was peopled almost entirely by members of this tribe. Of an intelligence and temperament infinitely superior to that of the remaining tribes, they mingled freely with the Spaniards after a while, and adopted European manners and customs. The race disappeared eventually merely from the force of absorption by marriage with their civilised neighbours.