The Chaco Indian,
However, Is Seldom Seen In Civilization.
His home is in the interior
of an unknown country, which he wanders over in wild freedom.
While
the Caingwas are homekeeping, these savages are nomadic, and could
not settle down. The land is either burnt up or inundated, so they do
not plant, but live only by the chase. So bold and daring are they
that a man, armed only with a lance, will attack a savage jaguar; or,
diving under an alligator, he will stab it with a sharpened bone. The
same man will run in abject terror if he thinks he hears spirits.
Though not religious, the savages are exceedingly superstitious,
afraid of ghosts and evil spirits, and the fear of these spectral
visitants pursues them through life. During a storm they vigorously
shake their blankets and mutter incantations to keep away
supernatural visitors.
All diseases are caused by evil spirits, or the moon; and a comet
brings the measles. The help of the witch doctor has to be sought on
all occasions, for his special work is to drive away the evil spirit
that has taken possession of a sick one. This he does by rattling a
hollow calabash containing stones. That important person will perform
his mystic hocus pocus over the sick or dying, and charm away the
spirits from a neighborhood. I have known an Indian, when in great
pain through having eaten too much, send for the old fakir, who,
after examination of the patient and great show of learning, declared
that the suffering one had two tigers in his stomach. A very common
remedy is the somewhat scientific operation of bleeding a patient,
but the manner is certainly uncommon - the witch doctor sucks out the
blood. One I was acquainted with, among the Lengua tribe, professed
to suck three cats out of a man's stomach. His professional name was
thereafter "Father of Kittens." The doctor's position is not one to
be envied, however, for if three consecutive patients die, he must
follow them down the dark trail!
These medicine-men are experts in poisons, and their enemies have a
way of dying suddenly. It cannot be denied that the Indians have a
very real knowledge of the healing virtues of many plants. The writer
has marvelled at the cures he has seen, and was not slow to add some
of their methods to his medical knowledge. Not a few who have been
healed, since the writer's return to civilization, owe their new life
to the knowledge there learned.
Infanticide is practised in every tribe, and in my extensive
wanderings among eight toldos, I never met a family with more than
two children. The rest are killed! A child is born, and the mother
immediately knocks it on the head with a club! After covering the
baby with a layer of earth, the woman goes about as if nothing had
occurred. One chief of the Lengua tribe, that I met, had himself
killed nineteen children. An ironwood club is kept in each toldo
for this gruesome work. Frequently a live child is buried with a dead
parent; but I had better leave much of their doings in the inkpot.
When a girl enters the matrimonial market, at about the age of twelve
or thirteen, her face is specially colored with a yellow paint, made
from the flower of the date palm, and the aspirant to her hand brings
a bundle of firewood, neatly tied up, which he places beside her
earthen bed at early morning. As the rising sun gilds the eastern
sky, the girl awakes out of her sleep, rubs her eyes, - and sees the
sticks. Well does she know the meaning of it, and a glad light
flashes in her dark eyes as she cries out, "Who brought the sticks?"
All men, women and children, take up the cry, and soon the whole
encampment resounds with, "Who brought the sticks?" The medicine-man,
who sleeps apart from the "common herd" under an incense-tree, hears
the din, and, quickly donning his head-dress, hurries down to the
scene. With an authoritative voice, which even the chief himself does
not use, he demands, "Who brought the sticks?" until a young brave
steps forward in front of him and replies, "Father of Kittens, I
brought the sticks." This young man is then commanded to stand apart,
the girl is hunted out, and together they wait while the witch-doctor
X-rays them through and through. After this close scrutiny, they are
asked: "Do you want this man?" "Do you want this girl?" To which they
reply, "Yes, Father of Kittens, I do." Then, with great show of
power, the medicine-man says, "Go!" and off the newly-married pair
start, to live together until death (in the form of burial) does them
part.
It may be a great surprise to the reader to learn that these savages
are exceedingly moral. Infidelity between man and wife is punished
with death, but in all my travels I only heard of one such case. A
man marries only one wife, and although any expression of love
between them is never seen, they yet seem to think of one another in
a tender way, and it is especially noticeable that the parents are
kind to their children.
One evening I rode into an encampment of savages who were celebrating
a feast. About fifty specially-decked-out Indians were standing in a
circle, and one of the number had a large and very noisy rattle, with
which he kept time to the chant of Ha ha ha ha ha! u u u u u! o o o
oo! au au au au au! The lurid lights of the fires burning all around
lit up this truly savage scene. The witch-doctor, the old fakir named
"Father of Kittens," came to me and looked me through and through
with his piercing eyes. I was given the rattle, and, although very
tired, had to keep up a constant din, while my wild companions bent
their bodies in strange contortions.
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