Kitabı oku: «An Account of the Abipones, an Equestrian People of Paraguay, (2 of 3)», sayfa 20
You will sooner eradicate from the minds of the Americans any vice belonging to them, than this wicked and pernicious intemperance in drinking. You will sooner persuade them to live content with one wife, to abstain from slaughter and rapine, to scorn their ancient superstitions, or to employ themselves in agriculture and building houses, notwithstanding their aversion to labour. To abolish the custom of drinking-parties is indeed a most arduous work, a labour of many years, and a business to perfect which no eloquence or industry of those whose care and wish it was to convert the savage nations to Christianity, and conform them to the divine laws, was ever equal. At length, however, we have had the satisfaction of beholding this wicked custom of drinking yield to our unwearied toils, and almost all the savages submit to the law of God.
CHAPTER XLIII.
OF THE ABIPONIAN RITES ON OCCASION OF ANY ONE'S BEING DECLARED CAPTAIN
Even amongst savage nations, virtue has its reward. Though almost ignorant that they are men, they delight in honourable titles. The Abipones do not account that the best nobility which is inherited as a patrimony, but that which is obtained by their own merits. Amongst them, as no one is distinguished by his father's name, in like manner no one is ennobled by the famous deeds of his father, grandfather, or great grandfather. The nobility of valour and probity, not that of birth, is what they prize and honour. By a kind of natural propensity they respect the sons and grandsons of their Caciques and Captains; yet if they be stupid, cowardly, of unpleasant manners, or a foolish understanding, they make them of no account, and never prefer them to the government of the horde, or of military expeditions. They choose for rulers and leaders others of the common people, whom they know to be active, sagacious, brave, and modest. Whoever has given proofs of warlike valour is initiated into warlike honours with ceremonies which I shall presently describe.
The names of the Abipones who are not distinguished by military rank, end in various letters; but when, on account of their services in war, they are admitted into the rank of the nobles, they drop the name which they bore in youth, and receive another which always terminates in the syllable In. They who are solemnly inaugurated, according to the custom of their ancestors, are called Höcheri, and have a dialect of their own; for though they use the common words, yet, by insertion and addition of various syllables, they transform and obscure them in such a manner that they can hardly be understood. I shall now briefly describe the rites by which they are promoted to this dignity. When, by the arbitration of the rest, such an honour has been decreed to any one, they make a previous trial of his fortitude, by an experiment common to all. A black bead being placed upon his tongue, he is ordered to sit down at home for three days, and during that time to abstain from speaking, eating, and drinking. This is indeed a harsh law, but it appears mild in comparison with the torments endured by certain Indians at the river Orinoco, when candidates for military honours. They are laid on a hurdle, beneath which are placed burning coals, and, that the heat and smoke may be the more intolerable, the poor wretches are completely overwhelmed with palm leaves. They anoint the whole of the body of others with honey, tie them to a tree, and expose them to the stings of bees, wasps, drones, and hornets. But let me now return to the Abipon who is fasting and keeping silence at home. On the evening preceding this military function all the women flock to the threshold of his tent. Pulling off their clothes from the shoulder to the middle, and dishevelling their hair, they stand in a long row, and with confused shouts, accompanied with the sound of gourds, and with the continual agitation of their arms and legs, lament for the ancestors of him, who is, next day, to be adorned with a military dignity. These lamentations continue till it is dark. As soon as morning dawns, our candidate, elegantly dressed in the fashion of his nation, and holding a spear in his hand, leaps upon a horse laden with feathers, small bells, and trappings, and gallops northward, followed by a great troop of Abipones. Presently, returning with equal speed, he approaches the tent, where sits an old female juggler, the priestess of the ceremonies, who is afterwards to inaugurate the candidate with solemn rites. Some woman of noble birth officiously holds his spear and the bridles of his horse, while he dismounts, the rest of the matrons continuing to strike their lips, and applaud; when the candidate listens to a short address from the old woman seated on a hide, with as much veneration as if it was an oracle from a Delphic tripod. Then mounting fresh horses, he rides out in the same manner as before, first to the South, then to the East, and then to the West, and after each journey alights at the same tent, where that Pythian, like a female Apollo, pours forth her eloquence. The four excursions being performed, and the horses dismissed, they all betake themselves to that sacred tent, to witness the usual ceremony of the inauguration. This ceremony consists of three things: first the hair of the candidate is shaven by an old woman, so that from the forehead to the back part of the head she leaves a baldness or streak, three inches wide, which they call Nalemřa. The business of the hair being finished, the old woman pronounces a panegyric, setting forth the noble actions of the candidate, his warlike disposition, knowledge of arms and horses, intrepidity in difficulties, the enemies that he has slaughtered, the spoils that he has taken, the military fame of his ancestors, and so on; in order that he may appear, on many accounts, worthy to be declared a captain and a noble warrior, and to enjoy the rights and privileges of the Höcheri. His new name is immediately promulgated, and festively pronounced by a band of women striking their lips with their hands. The male spectators do not like dry ceremonies to be protracted to a great length, but joyfully fly to skins full of honeyed liquor, and conclude the business with a famous drinking-match.
It is remarkable that many of the women arrive at this degree of honour, and nobility, enjoy the privileges of the Höcheri, and use their dialect. The names of these females end in En, as those of the men in In. What circumstances entitle women of low birth to this degree of honour, I do not know, but it appears to me most probable that the merits of their parents, husbands, or brothers, not age, or beauty, bestow this prerogative upon females. I have often heard very young women conversing in the language of the nobles, and matrons remarkable for years and wrinkles speaking the vulgar tongue.
The Abipones think it a sin to utter their own name. When either of them knocked by night at my door, though I asked him a hundred times, "Who are you?" he would answer nothing but, "It is I." Unknown persons, when I enquired their name, would jog their neighbour with their elbow that he might answer for them. It is also reckoned a crime to utter the name of a person lately dead. If any one in his cups forgets the law, and utters the name of the deceased, he will give occasion to a bloody quarrel. Many women have no name at all. When I was making out a list of the inhabitants of a town, I used to call upon all the men who were best acquainted with their hordesmen to give me information on the subject, and when interrogated respecting women, they used often to say: "This woman has no name."
Moreover, the Abipones change their names as Europeans do their clothes. The reasons of this alteration are either some famous action, or the death of a father, son, wife, &c. when all the relations, to signify their grief, change their old name for a new one. I have known persons, who, in process of time, changed their names six or more times. Others are named from some quality of mind or body; as Kauirin, lascivious, Oaherkaikin, mendacious. Children have names quite different from their parents. Amongst the Christian Guaranies, sons generally took the names of their fathers, and daughters of their mothers. In the third part of this history, which is yet to come, we shall relate the slaughters committed, and undergone by the Abipones, the progress and vicissitudes of the colonies which we founded for them, and the advantages which the Spaniards derived from those colonies.
