At length, on a signal from the master of the house, the dancing ceased, and all the men, arranging themselves in procession, went round the building with slow and measured steps, the plank and the wooden images being carried before them.
After this they arranged themselves near the grave, and one of them chanted something in a low voice, to which the others answered at intervals with four moans by way of chorus. The articles carried in procession were then taken to a hole previously dug in the earth, and buried there. Two or three men appointed for the purpose then drew forth their long knives, and rushing in among the dancers, snatched the whips from them, cut off the lash from each, and buried them with the other articles.
The Guaranis.
The tribes of the Guaranis, or Waraus, who once inhabited the eastern side of the continent, from the La Plata to the Orinoco, still exist, sunk still lower in barbarism even than formerly. So little do they care for clothing, that even the females wear only a small piece of the bark of a tree, or the net-like covering of the young leaf of the cocoa-nut or cabbage-palm; while their appearance is squalid in the extreme. They still, however, exhibit the characteristics which distinguished them in days of yore,—readiness to yield to circumstances, to labour for wages, and to receive instruction from the white man. Thus they have continued to exist whilst more warlike tribes have been exterminated. They cultivate cassava and other vegetables. From the former they make the intoxicating paiwari—the cause of many savage murders among them. They depend greatly on the pith of the mauritia, or ita, as it serves them for bread; while of other parts of the tree they construct their dwellings.
The younger people possess good features—some of them wearing thin pieces of silver suspended from the cartilage of the nostrils. They are generally short, stoutly built, and capable of great exertion. They are much sought after for labourers. They are also noted for making the best and largest canoes in the country, and with the rudest implements. The Spaniards are said to have employed some of their canoes which could carry one hundred men. Those in use even at the present day are capable of carrying fifty people.
Though scattered throughout the country, the proper territory of their nation is on the low swampy country which borders the banks of the Orinoco; but their lands being completely inundated by the overflowing of the rivers for some months in each year, they construct their dwellings above the water, among the mauritia palms, whose crowns of fan-like leaves wave above their heads and shield them from the rays of the burning sun. Not only does this palm afford them shelter and the materials for constructing their habitations, but it gives them an abundance of food for the support of life. To the upright trunks of the trees, which they use as posts, they fix the lower beams of their habitations, a few feet above the highest level of the water. On this framework they lay the split trunks of smaller palms for flooring. Above it a roof is formed, thatched with the leaves of the same tree,—from which they also procure their chief means of subsistence. From the upper beams the hammocks are suspended; while on the flooring a hearth of clay is formed, on which fires are lit for cooking their food. Then their canoes, or woibakas, as they are called, enable them to procure food from the water, and give them the means of moving from place to place.
No tree is more useful to the natives than the mauritia. Before unfolding its leaves its blossoms contain a sago-like meal, which is dried in thin, bread-like slices. The sap is converted into palm-wine. The narrow scaled fruit, which resembles reddish pine-cones, yields different articles of food—according to the period at which it is gathered—whether the saccharine properties are fully matured, or whether it is still in a farinaceous condition.
The Guaranis have of late years come under the influence of Christian Protestant missions.