HOW ARDUOUS A TASK IT IS TO PERSUADE THE ABIPONES
TO ENTER COLONIES, AND TO EMBRACE THE
RELIGION OF CHRIST.
Having given a plain and faithful description of the superstitious rites
of the Abipones, of their native vices, ferocious temper, and wars both
domestic and foreign, I appeal to the judgment of my reader whether it
be not a business of more time and labour to transform these savages
into Christians, than to carve a Mercury out of a solid block, and
whether it be due subject of wonder, that such astonishing efforts on
the part of the Jesuits should be attended with so little success; which
however was by no means despicable, if the difficulties of the
undertaking be properly appreciated. I shall now clearly state, for your
consideration, in what these difficulties consisted, and why it was so
arduous a task to instruct the equestrian savages in civilization and
Christian discipline.
Ever wandering, ever abroad, the Abipones from childhood were
unaccustomed to home, and to remaining in any one fixed place. Wherever
the hope of booty, the necessity of hunting, or danger of the enemy
called them, thither they went on swift horses, subject to no authority
which could either prohibit their departure, or enforce their speedy
return; for the obedience which they paid their Caciques was entirely
spontaneous. They thought it insufferable to depend on the will of
another within the narrow limits of a colony, and to be confined to
their houses, like a snail to its shell. Though free to range up and
down the nearer plains and woods at pleasure, they found them, from
being frequented by other hordes, despoiled of those fruits and wild
animals to the use of which they had so long been accustomed, that, if
deprived of them, even when plentifully supplied with better food, they
complained of being starved and miserable. While they lived
uncontrolled, like the birds which fly up and down, liberal nature
spontaneously offered them food without need of agriculture: but as all
things are not produced in all soils, they were constantly under the
necessity of migrating from place to place, and this change of abode,
and variety of hunting, seemed to contain a sort of charm for them.
In each of the colonies beef was distributed amongst the inhabitants at
stated hours of almost every day; but by reason of the poverty of the
pastures it was often lean, often insufficient, and sometimes (which
however happened but seldom) there was none at all: for where could the
Missionary get beef if he wanted oxen, and if the Spaniards were as slow
and niggardly in supplying the colonies of the savages, as they had been
forward in founding them? They were extremely solicitous that the
Abipones and Mocobios should be tamed like wild beasts, and guarded in
the towns from slaying the Spaniards, but took very little care to
prevent them from dying of hunger. In the towns of St. Jeronymo and St.
Ferdinand, the estates were sometimes reduced to such a wretched
condition that, having nothing left for their support, the Abipones with
their families were forced to go out into the neighbouring plains for
the sake of hunting. After they had been two or three months absent, the
fields which our entreaties had prevailed with them to plough, were
covered with tares or browsed on by beasts, and the loss of the expected
harvest induced a necessity either of roving or starving; a very
pernicious alternative: for in repeated wanderings, often of many weeks,
civilization and the knowledge of the rudiments of religion, so
laboriously instilled into them, were forgotten, and they gradually
relapsed into their former barbarism. The deficiency of sheep and oxen
was certainly the chief cause which retarded the progress of
Christianity in these colonies. If, according to St. Paul, amongst other
nations faith enters by the ear, with the savages of Paraguay it can
only be thrust in by the mouth. Hence our anxiety lest cattle should
fail us; hence our grief to find that they could so seldom be obtained
or preserved.
This scarcity of sheep and kine originated sometimes in the
niggardliness of the Spaniards, sometimes in the gluttony of the
Abipones, who, not content with the ordinary portion of meat awarded to
all, often slew oxen, and still oftener young cows and calves, without
our knowledge or consent, for their own private eating. If we detected
and reprehended them, saying that the estate would be drained by these
secret depredations, "That is no concern of your's, Father," they would
reply; "the Spaniards must send more; they promised to do so when, at
their request, and for their convenience, we entered this colony. If
they fail to perform their promises, we are also freed from our
engagements, and shall return to our old way of putting them to death."
Providently reserving the cows for breed, we ordered that none but the
superfluous bulls or steers should be taken to the shambles; but the
Indians, careless of the future, wanted to eat the young heifers because
they were fatter: "When bulls bring forth," said I, "the cows shall be
killed." This refusal affronted them very much, and they threatened to
desert the colony. If the Jesuit, either fearing the threats of the
Indians, or desirous of obtaining their good-will, leave the herd at
their discretion, he will see the estate suddenly destitute of cattle;
if he firmly refuse to comply with their wishes, the town will be as
suddenly stripped of inhabitants: in the one case, he will be accused of
prodigality, in the other of parsimony, so that whichever way the
Missionary acts, he is sure to incur blame—should he avoid Charybdis, he
will hardly be able to escape Scylla.
Nor is it sufficient to satisfy the Abipones in the article of food;
whatever they took it into their heads to wish for, though perhaps it
could not be found in any shop at Amsterdam, they used to require at our
hands, and that not in a supplicatory, but an imperative tone. Day and
night they trod our threshold in crowds, and wearied our ears with the
constant repetition of "Father, give me a hat, a knife, an axe, a ring,
glass-beads, salt, tobacco, &c." If to any of their requests you reply,
though with great mildness and the most perfect sincerity, that you are
not in possession of the thing in question, they will rudely accuse you
of stinginess and falsehood—nay, I have sometimes heard worse. One of
the older Abipones, not a bad man in other respects, desired me, in an
imperious manner, to furnish him with a knife; I gently replied, that I
had none just then, but would give him one as soon as the expected
supply arrived from the city. "If I were to meet you in the field with
this lance," rejoined he, smiling, and taking up a lance that was lying
near, "you would hardly dare to tell me that you had not a knife." These
perpetual and unreasonable requests of the Abipones are not however to
be wondered at. Poverty rendered them importunate, arrogance, bold. Now
learn from whence this arrogance proceeded. They knew that they were
feared by the Spaniards. The slaughters which they had perpetrated, the
terror which for many years they had spread throughout the whole
province, the victories which they had gained, were yet fresh in their
memory. They spoke of it as of a favour extorted from them by the
prayers and promises of the Governors, that they had laid aside arms for
a while, to settle in a wretched colony, and insisted upon it that the
advantages resulting from this measure were entirely on the side of the
Spaniards. At every refusal which our poverty compelled us to make them,
they complained that they were richer and happier whilst at enmity with
the Spaniards, than now that they were their friends. "Alas! how
senseless were our chiefs and old men," said the Abiponian youths, full
of discontent, and panting for plunder, "in granting peace to the
Spaniards! Here we are forced to pine miserable and inglorious in this
little town; whereas formerly, by plundering estates, or merchants'
waggons, we furnished ourselves with enough to last many months, more
than we can now obtain either by entreaty or artifice." Mindful of
former booties, they thought they were imposing great obligations on the
Spaniards when they remained quietly in a colony, and ceased to rob,
burn, and murder, and looked upon every instance of liberality in their
former adversaries as a small return for their own concession of peace.
It certainly ought to be reckoned amongst the noble victories of our
age, that the Abipones who, from the time of Charles the Fifth, had
continued to defy the arms of the Spaniards, when so many other nations
of Paraguay were put under the yoke, have at last been induced to enter
colonies. The fruitlessness of innumerable expeditions undertaken
against them at length convinced the Spanish soldiers that the Abipones
were an overmatch for all the force and cunning of the Europeans, by
their craft, their swiftness, and above all by the situation of the
places they occupied, the nature of which itself defended, and rendered
them invincible. Their stations served for strong-holds, thick woods for
walls, rivers and pools for fosses, lofty trees for watch-towers, and
the Abipones themselves for guards and spies. To prevent the possibility
of their ever being utterly exterminated, they were separated into
various hordes, and dwelt in different places, both that they might
mutually warn and assist one another, and that, if any danger were
apprehended, that they might with more certainty avoid the enemy. Indeed
the old complaint of the Spaniards was, that they had more difficulty in
finding the Abipones, than in conquering them when found. Though to-day
you learn from your spies that they are settled in a neighbouring plain,
you will hear to-morrow that they are removed to a great distance from
their yesterday's residence, and are buried amidst woods and marshes.
Whenever the savages have any suspicion of danger, they mount swift
horses, hasten to places of greater security, and, sending scouts in all
directions, generally disconcert the plans of the enemy by unremitting
vigilance. I do not think the Abipones are much to be censured for
having delayed to enter our colonies so long: for whilst they live in
towns, banished from their lurking-places, and exposed to attacks of
every kind, they think they have sold their liberty and security,
incapable of any firm reliance on the faith and friendship of the
Spaniards, which the cruelty and deceit formerly practised towards their
ancestors have taught them to suspect.
I can truly say, that my most earnest endeavour was to inspire the
Abipones with love and confidence towards the Spaniards. "Had they not
come to Paraguay," said I, "you would still be unacquainted with horses,
oxen, and dogs, all which you take such delight in. You would have been
obliged to creep along like tortoises. You could never have tasted the
flesh of oxen, but must have subsisted entirely on that of wild animals.
How laborious would you think it to hunt otters without hounds, which
likewise by their barking prevent you from being surprized by the enemy
in your sleep! Horses, your delight, your deities, if I may be allowed
to make use of the expression, your chief instruments of war, hunting,
travelling, and sportive contests, have been bestowed on you by the
Spaniards. But all this is nothing in comparison with the light of
divine religion kindled for you by that people, whose anxiety for your
happiness has led them to offer you teachers of Christianity brought
from Europe in their ships, and at their expense. From all this, it is
evident what love and fidelity you ought to show to the Spaniards, who
have conferred such benefits on you, and are so studious of your
welfare. I do not mean to deny that they once turned their arms against
yourselves and your ancestors, but you, not they, were the aggressors.
The Spaniards will henceforward return love for love, if, ceasing to
cherish hatred and suspicion towards them, you will cultivate their
friendship by all the means in your power." These ideas I constantly
strove to inculcate into the minds of my disciples, but though none of
them ventured openly to contradict me, they gave more credit to their
eyes than their ears, to the deeds of the Spaniards than to the words of
the Missionaries, and sometimes in familiar conversation during our
absence whispered their sentiments with regard to the Spaniards, who,
they said, attend solely to their own interests, and care little for the
convenience of the Indians; preserve peace only so long as they fear
war; and are most to be dreaded when they speak the fairest; whose deeds
correspond not with their words, and whose conduct is inconsistent with
the law they profess to observe. When reproved for stealing horses from
the estates of the Spaniards, they denied it to be a theft, affirming
that their country was usurped by the Spaniards, and that whatever was
produced there belonged of right to them. Your whole stock of rhetoric
was exhausted before you could eradicate these erroneous notions from
the minds of the Indians, which, however, by excessive toil was at
length effected; for all of them knew that, unless they promised peace
and sincere friendship to the Spaniards, they would never be received
into our colonies, and have the benefit of our instructions. All the
Indians in America intrusted to our care were soldiers and tributaries
of the Spanish Monarch, not slaves of private individuals. This is to be
understood not only of the Guaranies and Chiquitos, but also of the
Christian Mocobios, Abipones, and all the other nations which we
civilized in Paraguay.
But let us suppose the Abipones to have been prevailed upon to enter a
colony, and accept the friendship of the Spaniards; ye saints, what
numerous and almost insurmountable obstacles remain to be overcome in
effecting their civilization! From boyhood they had spent their whole
time in rapine and slaughter, and had acquired riches, honours, and
high-sounding names in the pursuit. How hard then must it have been for
them to refrain their hands from the Spaniards, to sit down in a colony
indigent and inglorious, to cut wood instead of enemies' heads, to
exchange the spear for the axe and the plough; with bended knees to
learn the rudiments of religion amongst children; and in some sort to
become children themselves! These were arduous trials to veteran
warriors, who remembered the time when they were formidable, not to one
little town only, but to the whole province; and though many of the more
advanced in age gradually laid aside their ferocity, and conformed to
the discipline of our colonies, we often had to experience the truth of
the apophthegm,
_Naturam expelles furcâ, tamen usque recurret._
The greatest difficulties were to be encountered in taming the old women
and the young men: the former, blindly attached to their ancient
superstitions, the source of their profits, and stay of their authority,
thought it a crime to yield up a tittle of the savage rites; the latter,
burning with the love of liberty, and disgusted with any sort of labour,
strove by plundering horses to acquire renown, that they might not seem
to have degenerated from the valour of their ancestors.
They had never even heard of a benevolent Deity, the creator of all
things, and were accustomed to fear and reverence the evil spirit, as I
have shown more fully in a former chapter. Instructed by us they learnt
to know and adore the one, and to despise the other. All those pitiful,
superstitious, absurd opinions which had been sucked in with their
mothers' milk, and, heard from the mouths of old women, as from a
Delphic tripod, had received the ready assent of their infancy, they
were commanded to look upon as ridiculous falsehoods, and at the same
time to yield their belief to mysteries of religion, which surpass the
comprehension of the wisest. It was somewhat hard immediately to forego
notions which had been sanctioned by the approbation of their
grandfathers, and great-grandfathers, and to embrace laws brought from a
strange land, and every way contrary to their habits of life. Formerly
they had been permitted to marry as many wives as they pleased, and to
repudiate them in like manner whenever it suited their fancy. To repress
such unbounded liberty by the perpetual marriage tie, this was the
difficulty, this was the great obstacle to their embracing religion, and
their frequent incitement to desert it.
The custom of drinking had taken such firm root amongst the Abipones,
that it required more time and labour to eradicate drunkenness than any
other vice. They would abstain from slaughter and rapine, and
superstitious rites; confine themselves to one wife; attend divine
worship frequently; evince considerable industry in tilling the fields
and building houses; yet after all this, it was scarcely possible to
prevent them from assembling together, and intoxicating themselves with
drink made of honey or the alfaroba.
The pernicious examples of the Christians, which often meet the eyes of
the Abipones, frequently prevent them from amending their conduct.
Paraguay is inhabited by Spaniards, Portugueze, native Indians and
Negroes, and those born from their promiscuous marriages, _Mulatos_,
_Mestizos_, _&c._ Amid such a various rabble of men, it cannot be
wondered at that many are to be found who _say that they know God, yet
deny him with their deeds,—who, though they believe like Catholics, live
like Gentiles, enemies of the cross of Christ, whose God is their
belly_. Such licence in plundering, such shameless profligacy of
manners, such impunity in slaughters and other atrocities, prevailed for
a long time in the cities and estates, that, compared with them, the
hordes of the most savage Indians might be called theatres of virtue,
humanity, and chastity. These reprobates, either strangers or natives,
infect the savages with the contagion of their manners, teach them
crimes of which they were formerly ignorant, and prevent them from
lending an ear to the instructions of the priests, when they daily hear
and see words and actions so discordant to them in the old Christians.
Indians returned from captivity amongst the Spaniards, Spaniards in
captivity amongst the Indians, stranger from the cities, soldiers sent
for the defence of the colonies, and Spanish guards appointed to take
care of the cattle, were all certain plagues of the Abiponian colonies.
I should never make an end were I to relate all I know on this subject.
That the bad examples of the Christians greatly retarded the progress of
religion amongst the Abipones, cannot be controverted. Let the old
Christians of America become Christians in their conduct, and the
Abipones, Mocobios, Tobas, Mataguayos, Chiriguanos, in a word, all the
Indians of Paraguay will cease to be savages, and will embrace the law
of Christ. This subject was treated of in the pulpit before the Royal
Governor, Joseph Andonaegui, and a noble congregation, by the Jesuit P.
Domingo Muriel, a Spaniard eminent for sanctity and learning, afterwards
master of theology in the academy at Cordoba, and author of a most
useful work intituled _Fasti Novi Orbis_, printed at Venice in the year
1776.