Whilst the Abipones, Guaranies, and other Indians with whom I was
acquainted, not only abstain from eating tortoises, but even detest the
very idea of such a thing; the Chiquitos, on the contrary, make them
their chief food during the greater portion of the year. They
laboriously hunt after these animals, which are marked with various
colours, in the woods and rocks, that provision may not fail them during
those months in which their territories are inundated by an annual
flood; for as there is more wood and mountain than plain country there,
the deficiency of pasture renders it impossible that as many oxen can be
raised and killed, for the support of the Indians, as in the colonies of
the Guaranies and Abipones. The tortoise, therefore, supplies the place
of beef among the Chiquitos.