It is remarkable that the Guarani language, among the peasantry, has
almost superseded that of their Spanish invaders.
The natives, with their Indian blood, have inherited small hands and
feet, and coarse black hair. The women when young, with their long
tresses of jetty blackness, are often pretty; and some, probably
descended from Biscayans, are noted for their remarkable fairness.
Rubias, they are termed, with blue eyes and auburn hair. The men wear
dresses similar to that of the Gauchos. That of the women is
picturesque: a long cotton chemise cut low at the neck, with a deep
border of embroidery; loose lace sleeves; and a skirt of muslin, or
silk, fastened round the waist by a broad sash. Very few wear shoes.
Their hair is sometimes arranged in two long plaits, or formed in a
wreath round the head, or rolled up at the back and fastened by a large
comb. They also wear massive gold chains round the neck, large
ear-rings, and numerous rings. Their great amusement, next to smoking,
is sipping the yerba or native tea.
"Yerba," says Masterman, "is the dried and powdered leaf Ilex
Paraguayensis,--a tree in size and foliage resembling the orange, with
small white, clustered flowers. It belongs to the holly family, but
contains a bitter principle similar to, if not identical with, theine,
or the alkaloid found in tea and coffee."
It is taken in a somewhat singular way. The _mate_, a gourd stained
black, holding three or four ounces of water, is nearly filled with the
coarsely-powdered yerba. The bombilla, a silver tube with a bulbous end
pierced full of fine holes, is then inserted. The gourd is filled with
boiling water, and the infusion is immediately sucked through the tube,
scalding hot.
The bombilla is for the purpose of straining the infusion--which is of a
greenish-brown--as the powder would otherwise get into the mouth. Like
tea, it is slightly stimulating and astringent.
The natives spin the indigenous cotton of the country, and weave it in a
curious way, producing the most intricate lace and needlework. The
thread they manufacture is remarkably fine and strong. Weavers travel
about the country carrying their simple looms on their shoulders, and
may be seen under an orange-tree by the roadside, the warp-roller
suspended from a bough and balanced beneath by stones, the workman
seated on a horse's skull, and producing a fabric as beautiful as it is
durable.
They also manufacture woollen ponchos and saddle-cloths, in patterns of
black and white, or of a fine blue obtained from the native indigo.
They manufacture cigars; and cultivate the sugar-cane in a rude manner,
producing from its root a vile beverage called _cana_, most injurious to
the health.