Account of the Archipelago of Chiloé [114].
[Footnote 114: This is appended to the English translation of Molina,
and is said to be chiefly extracted from a work on that subject by Pedro
Gonzalis de Agueros, published at Madrid in 1791.--E.]
The Archipelago of Chiloé, extends from Cape Capitanes to Quillan, from
lat. 41° 50' to 44° S. long. 302° to 303° 25' E, from the meridian of
Teneriffe[115]. On the north it is bounded by the continent, where the
Juncos and Rancos [116], two independent and unconverted nations,
possess the country from thence to Valdivia: on the east by the Andes,
which separate it from Patagonia; on the south by the archipelago of
Guaitecas; and on the west by the Pacific Ocean. The islands of this
archipelago amount to about eighty, and appear to have been produced by
earthquakes, owing to the great number of volcanoes, with which that
country formerly abounded. Every part of them exhibits the most
unquestionable marks of the operation of volcanic fire. Several
mountains in the great island of Chiloé, which gives name to the
archipelago, are composed of basaltic columns, which have been certainly
produced by volcanic fire, whatever may be alleged to the contrary. The
inhabited part of this province, extends from Maullin to Huilad,
comprising forty leagues from north to south, and eighteen or twenty
from east to west, and comprises twenty-five islands. There are Isla
Grande, Ancud, or Chiloe Proper; Achao, Lemui, Quegui, Chelin, Tanqui,
Linlin, Llignua, Quenai, Meulin, Caguach, Alau, Apeau, Chaulinec,
Vuta-Chauquis, Anigue, Chegniau, Caucague, Calbuco, Llaicha, Quenu,
Tabon, Abtau, Chiduapi, and Kaur.--Chiloe Ancud, or _Isla Grande_, being
the largest island as its name imports, is the most populous, and the
seat of government. Its capital, Castro, which is the only city in the
province, was founded in 1566 by Don Martin Ruiz de Gamboa, during the
viceroyalty of Lope Garcia de Castro in Peru, and was honoured with the
name of his family.
[Footnote 115: Or from long. 75° to 74° 20'W. from Greenwich.--E.]
[Footnote 116: Called Cunches and Huilliches by Molina. Several
circumstances in this account are interwoven from the text of Molina,
Vol. II. Book iv. ch. ii. This circumstance will account for occasional
repetitions, and perhaps some apparent contradictions, which may
appear.--E.]
The inhabitants of these islands are descended from the continental
aborigines of Chili, as is evident from their manners, appearance, and
language; yet are they very different in character, being of a pacific
and rather timid disposition. They accordingly made no opposition
against the handful of Spaniards who were sent to subjugate them under
Gamboa, though their population is said to have then exceeded seventy
thousand. Neither have they ever attempted to shake off the yoke, except
once at the beginning of last century, when a very unimportant
insurrection was speedily quelled. The number of inhabitants at present
amounts to upwards of eleven thousand, which are distributed into
seventy-six districts, each of which is governed by a native _ulmen_.
The greatest part of this population is subject to the Spanish
commanders, and are obliged to give personal service fifty days in every
year, pursuant to the feudal laws, which are rigorously enforced in this
province, though they have been long abolished in the rest of the
kingdom of Chili.
These islanders in general possess great quickness of capacity, and
readily learn any thing that is taught them. They have an apt genius for
all mechanical arts, and excel in carpentry, cabinet-making, turnery,
and the like, and are very expert in the construction of wooden-houses,
as indeed all the habitations and even the churches are of timber. They
are likewise good manufacturers in linen and woollen, of which last
mixed with the feathers of sea-birds they make very beautiful
bed-coverings. They also manufacture _ponchos_ or cloaks of various
kinds, many of which are striped, or embroidered with coloured silk or
worsted.
These islands abound in wood, of which they supply large quantities
yearly. As it rains almost incessantly, the cultivated lands are
commonly wet the whole year. Though they have abundance of cattle, these
are not employed for ploughing the ground, which is tilled, or
cultivated in the following singular manner. About three months before
seed-time, their sheep are turned upon the lands intended for a crop,
changing their situation every three or four nights, in the manner
called folding in Europe, by which the land is sufficiently manured. The
field is then strewed over with the seed corn, and a strong man
scratches or slightly turns over the soil to cover the seed, by means of
a rude implement composed of two crooked sticks of hard wood fastened
together and made sharp, which he forces into the ground with his
breast. Notwithstanding this very imperfect tillage, the subsequent crop
of wheat generally yields ten or twelve for one. They likewise grow
large quantities of barley, beans, peas, _guinoa_, which is a species of
chenopodium used in making a pleasant species of drink, and the largest
and best potatoes that are to be found in all Chili. Owing to the
moisture of the climate, the grape never comes to sufficient maturity
for making wine; but its want is supplied by various kinds of cyder,
made from apples and other wild fruits which abound in the country.
Owing to their habitude of frequently going from one island to another,
where the sea is far from being pacific, the Chilotans are all excellent
sailors, and being active, docile, and industrious, they are very much
employed in navigating the shipping of the South Sea. Their native barks
or piraguas are formed of from three to five planks, sewed together, and
caulked with a species of moss which grows on a particular shrub. There
are vast numbers of these barks all through the archipelago, which they
manage very dexterously both with sails and oars, and the natives often
venture as far as Conception in these frail vessels. They are much
addicted to fishing, and procure vast quantities and many kinds of
excellent fish on the sea around their shores. Of these they dry large
quantities, which they export to Chili and Peru, and the other countries
on the Pacific Ocean. They likewise cure considerable quantities of
testaceous fishes, such as conchs, clams, and _piures_, in the following
manner. These shell fish are laid in a long trench, covered over with
the large leaves of the _panke tinctoria_, over which a layer of stones
is laid, on which a hot fire is kindled and kept up for several hours.
The roasted fish are then taken out of the shells, strung upon lines,
and hung up for some time in the smoke of wood fires. Cured in this
manner they keep well for a considerable time, and are carried for sale
to Cujo and other inland districts.
The Christian religion was very readily embraced by the Chilotans after
their subjugation, and they have ever since continued stedfast in its
observance. Their spiritual concerns are under the direction of the
bishop of Conception. Formerly the government was administered by a
lieutenant-governor appointed by the governor of Chili, but that officer
is now nominated by the viceroy of Peru. The whole external trade of
these islands is carried on by three or four ships which come there
annually from Peru and Chili, by which they receive wine, brandy,
tobacco, sugar, herb of Paraguay, salt, and European goods, for which
they give in exchange red cedar boards, timber of different kinds,
ponchos of various qualities, hams, pilchards, dried shell-fish,
white-cedar boxes, embroidered girdles, and a small quantity of
ambergris which is found on their shores.
The navigation in this archipelago is difficult and even dangerous owing
to the strength and number of the currents, and nothing can appear worse
adapted for so perilous a sea than the piraguas or boats which are used
by the islanders. They are without keel or deck, and the planks of which
they are composed are sewed or laced together by means of strong
withies, the seams being caulked or stuffed with a kind of moss, or with
pounded cane leaves, over which the withies are passed. The cross
timbers or thwarts are fixed by means of pegs or tree-nails. In these
frail barks, which are very easily overset, the Chilotans venture with a
fearlessness proceeding entirely from being accustomed to danger, not
from skill in avoiding it. Their main source of food is from the sea,
which is general most bountiful in those parts of the world where the
earth is least so. Their mode of fishing is singular and ingenious. At
low water, they inclose a large extent of the flat shore with stakes
interwoven with boughs of trees, forming a kind of basket-work; which
pens or _corrales_ are covered by every flood and left dry by the ebb
tide, at which time they generally find abundance of fish. They likewise
employ as food a species of sea-weed, called _luche_, which they form
into a kind of loaves or cakes which are greatly esteemed even by the
wealthy inhabitants of Lima. Seals are more numerous in the archipelagos
of Guaitecas and Guayneco, still farther to the south, where they are
eaten by the natives, who are said to acquire so rank an odour from the
use of this food that it is necessary to keep them to leeward. Whales
sometimes run aground among these islands but are greatly more numerous
farther to the south. They have probably retired from this part of the
coast in consequence of being persecuted, as ambergris was formerly
found in great abundance on these shores, but is now very rare.
All the islands are very mountainous and craggy, so that only a few
vallies among the hills and the flat grounds near the shore are
susceptible of cultivation. On this scanty cultivable ground, there are
forty-one settlements, called _pueblas_ or townships, in the _isla
grande_, or large island of Chiloé. There is one road indeed across the
mountains, but the whole interior of the island is uninhabited. The isle
of Quinchau has six pueblas; Lemui and Llaicha each four, Calbuco three,
all the other inhabited islands only one each, and there are three on
the continent, in all eighty-one. In these pueblas or townships, the
houses are much scattered, each being placed upon its attached property.
The church stands near the beach, having a few huts erected in the
neighbourhood, which serve to accommodate the parishioners when they
come to church on Sundays or any festival to attend mass. In the whole
archipelago there are but four places where the houses are placed so
near together as to assume the appearance of a town or village. These
are the city of Castro as it is called, Chacao, Calbuco, and the port of
San Carlos. This last is the largest and most flourishing. In 1774 it
contained sixty houses, with 462 inhabitants. In 1791, it had increased
to two hundred houses and eleven hundred inhabitants; but its prosperity
arose on the ruin of Chacao, which was the only port in the whole
archipelago till 1768. The harbour of Chacao is rendered very dangerous
by reason of many rocks and shoals, and is much exposed to winds from
the north and north-east; on which account Don Carlos de Berenger, when
governor, recommended that a town should be built at _Gacui del Ingles_,
or English harbour, which was accordingly ordered by the court of Spain
in 1767. The bay was then named Bahia del Rey; or Kings Bay, and the
town and harbour San Carlos. It is in lat. 41° 57' S. and long. 73° 58'
W. The port is good, but ships are often wrecked at the entrance, in
consequence of tremendous hurricanes which come on suddenly, at which
time the land cannot be seen. Since the erection of this town, the seat
of government has been removed to it from Castro.
It is difficult to understand what motives could have induced the
Spaniards to settle in this miserable country, when the whole extent of
this western side of South America was open to them. Where gold and
silver are to be found, or where wealth is to be acquired by commerce,
men will readily settle, however barren and unfavourable the country, or
however pestilential the climate. But Chiloé offers no incitements to
avarice, and only a bare and comfortless subsistence to perpetual
industry. Perhaps the principal part of the original settlers were
people who escaped from the fury of the Araucanians, unable to remove to
Peru, or to subsist if they got there, and who were therefore glad of
getting any place of rest and security. There is perhaps no other colony
in the world to which Europeans have carried so few of their arts and
comforts, or where they have attempted to colonize under so many natural
disadvantages. Two instances indeed may be excepted; the project of
Philip II. to fortify the Straits of Magellan, and the unaccountable
settlements of the Norwegians in Greenland. In Chiloé it often rains for
a whole month without intermission, and these rains are frequently
accompanied by such tremendous hurricanes that the largest trees are
torn up by the roots, and the inhabitants do not feel safe in their
houses. Even in January, their mid-summer, they have often
long-continued heavy rain. If during the height of a storm the smallest
opening be perceived in the clouds towards the south, fine weather soon
succeeds; but first the wind changes suddenly to the south, with even
greater violence than it blew before from the opposite quarter, and
comes on with a crash as loud and sudden as the discharge of a cannon.
The storm then passes away with a rapidity proportional to its violence,
and the weather clears up. But at this critical change of the wind,
vessels are exposed to the utmost danger. Thunder and lightning are
rare, but earthquakes are frequent. In 1737 these islands suffered
severely by an earthquake; a few days after which a cloud or exhalation
of fire, coming from the north, passed over the whole archipelago, and,
as is said, set fire to the woods in many of the islands in the group of
the Guaitecas. It is said also that these islands were then covered over
with ashes, and that vegetation did not again appear upon them till
1750, thirteen years afterwards.
Though excessively rainy, the climate is not unhealthy; but no people on
earth ever had more cause to believe that the ground was cursed to bring
forth thorns and thistles, and that man is condemned to eat bread with
the sweat of his brow, as there are none who labour so hard and procure
so little. They are so poor as to have no iron, or so very little that a
family which has an axe guards it like a treasure. Their substitute for
a plough has been already described as made of two crooked branches of a
tree, with a sharp point at one end and a round ball at the other, which
they force into the ground by means of their breast, protected by a
sheeps skin during this rude operation of tillage. Laborious as this
mode must be even in a free soil, it is rendered still more so in Chiloe
by the myrtle roots which everywhere infest their cultivated land. The
little corn they raise can never be left to ripen in the field, on
account of the heavy and frequent rains. It must be cut before it
ripens, and its sheaves hung up to dry in the sun-shine, if the sun
happens then to shine; and otherwise it has to be dried within
doors[117]. Bread is consequently a luxury which is reserved for great
occasions; and the want of which is supplied by means of excellent
potatoes, far better than any that are produced in Peru or Chili.
[Footnote 117: In many parts of Norway, the peasants have to win, or
dry, their corn sheaves spitted on wooden spars set upon stakes in the
open air; and a nobleman in the western Scots Highlands, has shades in
which to dry his corn and hay, where the sheaves are hung upon pegs like
herrings in a curing house. Yet bad as is the climate of Chiloe, Iceland
and Kamtshatka can grow no corn at all.--E.]
Apples and strawberries are their only fruit, both of which are good and
plentiful. The woods produce a plant called _quilineja_, much resembling
the _esparto_ or broom of Spain, from which they manufacture their
cables; and they make smaller ropes from several leafless parasitical
plants which twine round the larger trees like vines or bindwood. A
species of wild cane or reed serves to roof their houses, and its leaves
serve as hay or fodder for the few horses which are kept in this
inhospitable country. In that part of the continent which belongs to
this province, there is a tree, called _alerse_ by the Spaniards and
_lahual_ by the Indians, which supplies the principal part of their
exports, as from 50,000 to 60,000 planks of its wood are sent yearly to
Lima. It grows to a large size, and has so even and regular a grain as
to admit of being cleft by wedges into boards or planks of any desired
thickness, even smoother than could be done by a saw. Neither Agueros
nor Falkner had ever seen the tree; but the latter supposed it of the
fir tribe from description, and supposes it might thrive in England if
its seeds could be brought over, as the country in which it grows is as
cold as Britain, and it is reckoned the most valuable timber of that
country both for beauty and duration. The bark of this tree makes
excellent oakum for that part of ships which is under water, but does
not answer when exposed to the sun and air. They export also the wood of
a tree named _luma_, for axle-trees and the poles of carriages; of a
particular kind of hazle for ship-building, which answers excellently
for oars; they likewise make chests and boxes of a species of cypress,
and of a tree named _ciruelillo_.
Hams are a principle article among their exports, as hogs are the most
numerous animals in Chiloé, where they find their own food in the woods.
Few sheep are kept, yet there are sufficient to furnish wool to give
employment to the women. From this they manufacture _ponchos_, two of
which, give sufficient work to a woman for a whole year, as they work
without a loom. The warp is stretched between a set of pegs, and they
weave in the woof with their fingers, yet make the work remarkably fine,
strong, and beautiful. They make also a smaller kind, called
_bordillos_, which are the ordinary dress of the negroes at Lima.
Besides these, they manufacture blankets and rugs, or coverlets for
beds, and linen cloth; which last is woven in looms.
In summer, when the vessels arrive from Callao, San Carlos is like a
fair, as this is the only opportunity enjoyed by the Chilotans to get
supplied with any thing which is not the produce of their own country,
or to dispose of any portion of their surplus produce. As they have no
money or circulating medium of commerce, the whole trade is carried on
by means of barter, which would leave the islanders at the mercy of the
merchants from Lima, but for the interference of the government. On the
arrival of the first ship of the season, the cabildo or municipal
magistracy of San Carlos, fixes a money price at which every thing is to
be rated on both sides; which means of regulating the market seems
absolutely necessary, as otherwise the Chilotans in buying would be
obliged to give any price demanded by the seller, and in selling would
have to take any price offered. Still it would be much for their
advantage to export their own commodities; but the whole archipelago
does not contain a single vessel large enough to make a voyage to Peru
or even to Chili. Formerly the soldiers who were in garrison in this
province used to receive their pay in clothes and other articles of
which they might be in want; but they were ordered by a late regulation
to be paid in specie; and if this be continued it must occasion an
important change in the commercial situation of Chiloé, by introducing a
circulating medium. In San Carlos there is a garrison of regular troops,
consisting of 33 artillerymen, 58 dragoons, and 53 infantry. The militia
of the archipelago consists of 1569 men, including officers; which have
to do garrison duty, but receive no pay or rations, having to serve
entirely at their own expence.
The inhabitants of Chiloé consists only of two classes of people,
Spaniards and Indians, there being no negroes and no mixed breed or
mestees. The want of negroes is easily explained by the poverty of the
islanders; but we are not told how it happens that the other two races
have not intermixed[118]. This is the more remarkable, as a most
extraordinary change has taken place in the language of these islands
during the latter half of the eighteenth century; insomuch that the
language of the Indian inhabitants consists entirely of Spanish words,
but all the inflexions, the syntax, and the idiomatic manner of
expression are Chilese, that is to say exactly corresponding to the
Moluchese dialect of the Chilidugu.
[Footnote 118: Probably the gradations have not been attended to,
because the nice discrimination of ranks has not been deemed worth while
in so poor a country. Perhaps the mestees and their gradations are all
elevated to the rank of Spaniards, or all depressed to that of vassal
Chilotans.--E.]
Both men and women of the Spanish population in Chiloé go barefooted,
except a few of the principal families who sacrifice convenience to
pride; as in a country so continually wet it is safer to go about with
naked feet than to have them in wet coverings. The men universally wear
the _poncho_. The houses, or hovels rather, are all built of wood, and
the crevices are stopped with sheep-skin or rags. The roofs are all
thatched; and the climate is so rainy that this soon rots and must be
frequently renewed. These dwellings consist of a single room, in which
the family, the cattle, and the poultry, are all accommodated. A few of
the inhabitants who can afford superior accommodation, have houses
divided into several apartments, wainscoted within, and roofed with
deal. Being all of wood, fires are frequent occurrences; but as the
houses are scattered, the mischief does not extend. Owing to the
inclemency of the weather, and the miserable state of the roads, a
family in the scattered and solitary situation in which the houses are
placed, is often weeks, and sometimes months without any communication
with their neighbours. There is neither hospital, physician, nor surgeon
in the whole province. A sick person is laid in a bed or a heap of skins
near a large fire, and remains there till recovery or death supervene.
The missionaries who visited these islands could find no books from
which to teach the children to read, and when they wished them to write
there was no paper. Necessity produced a substitute, and they used
wooden boards or tablets, on which they wrote with a substance which
could be washed out. Such is the miserable situation of the Spanish
inhabitants of the archipelago of Chiloe: yet they dare not leave their
wretched birth-place in the hope of bettering their fortunes. The
small-pox is hitherto unknown among them, and those, who have attempted
to go elsewhere have been cut off by that loathsome disease. In 1783,
the entire population of this dreary province amounted to 23,477, of
whom 11,985 were of Spanish descent, and 11,492 Indians.