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.