OF THE ANCIENT AND UNIVERSAL METHODS OF DISFIGURING
THE PERSON.
Many Europeans spoil their beauty by eagerly imitating foreign customs,
and always seeking new methods of adorning their persons. The Abipones
disfigure and render themselves terrible to the sight from a too great
attachment to the old customs of their ancestors; by whose example they
mark their faces in various ways, some of which are common to both
sexes, others peculiar to the women. They prick their skin with a sharp
thorn, and scatter fresh ashes on the wound, which infuse an
ineffaceable black dye. They all wear the form of a cross impressed on
their foreheads, and two small lines at the corner of each eye extending
towards the ears, besides four transverse lines at the root of the nose
between the eye-brows, as national marks. These figures the old women
prick with thorns, not only in the skin, but in the live flesh, and
ashes sprinkled on them whilst streaming with blood render them of an
indelible black. What these figures signify, and what they portend I
cannot tell, and the Abipones themselves are no better informed on the
subject. They only know that this custom was handed down to them from
their ancestors, and that is sufficient.
I saw not only a cross marked on the foreheads of all the Abipones, but
likewise black crosses woven in the red woollen garments of many. It is
a very surprizing circumstance that they did this before they were
acquainted with the religion of Christ, when the signification and
merits of the cross were unknown to them. Perhaps they learnt some
veneration for the cross, or gained an idea of its possessing great
virtues from their Spanish captives, or from those Abipones who had
lived in captivity amongst the Spaniards.
The Abiponian women, not content with the marks common to both sexes,
have their face, breast, and arms covered with black figures of various
shapes, so that they present the appearance of a Turkish carpet. The
higher their rank, and the greater their beauty, the more figures they
have; but this savage ornament is purchased with much blood and many
groans. As soon as a young woman is of age to be married she is ordered
to be marked according to custom. She reclines her head upon the lap of
an old woman, and is pricked in order to be beautified. Thorns are used
for a pencil, and ashes mixed with blood for paint. The ingenious, but
cruel old woman, sticking the points of the thorns deep into the flesh,
describes various figures till the whole face streams with blood. If the
wretched girl does but groan, or draw her face away, she is loaded with
reproaches, taunts and abuse. "No more of such cowardice," exclaims the
old woman in a rage, "you are a disgrace to our nation, since a little
tickling with thorns is so intolerable to you! Do you not know that you
are descended from those who glory and delight in wounds? For shame of
yourself, you faint-hearted creature! You seem to be softer than cotton.
You will die single, be assured. Which of our heroes would think so
cowardly a girl worthy to be his wife? But if you will only be quiet and
tractable, I'll make you more beautiful than beauty itself." Terrified
by these vociferations, and fearful of becoming the jest and derision of
her companions, the girl does not utter a word, but conceals the sense
of pain in silence, and with a cheerful countenance, and lips unclosed
through dread of reproach, endures the torture of the thorns, which is
not finished in one day. The first day she is sent home with her face
half pricked with the thorns, and is recalled the next, the next after
that, and perhaps oftener, to have the rest of her face, her breast and
arms pricked in like manner. Meantime she is shut up for several days in
her father's tent, and wrapped in a hide that she may receive no injury
from the cold air. Carefully abstaining from meat, fishes, and some
other sorts of food, she feeds upon nothing but a little fruit which
grows upon brambles; and, though frequently known to produce ague,
conduces much towards cooling the blood.
The long fast, together with the daily effusion of blood, renders the
young girls extremely pale. The chin is not dotted like the other parts,
but pierced with one stroke of the thorn in straight lines, upon which
musical characters might be written. All thorns seem to have a poisonous
quality, and consequently, from being scratched with them, the eyes,
cheeks, and lips are horridly swelled, and imbibe a deep black from the
ashes placed on the wounded skin; so that a girl, upon leaving the house
of that barbarous old woman, looks like a Stygian fury, and forces you
involuntarily to exclaim, _Oh! quantum Niobe, Niobe distabat ab iliâ!_
The savage parents themselves are sometimes moved to pity at the sight
of her, but never dream of abolishing this cruel custom; for they think
their daughters are ornamented by being thus mangled, and at the same
time instructed and prepared to bear the pains of parturition in future.
Though I detested the hard-heartedness of the old women in thus
torturing the girls, yet the skill they display in the operation always
excited my wonder. For on both cheeks they form all sorts of figures
with wondrous proportion, variety, and equality of the lines, with the
aid of no other instrument than thorns of various sizes. Every Abiponian
woman you see has a different pattern on her face. Those that are most
painted and pricked you may know to be of high rank and noble birth, and
if you meet a woman with but three or four black lines on her face, you
may be quite certain she is either a captive, or of low birth. When
Christian discipline was firmly established in the Abiponian colonies,
this vile custom was by our efforts abolished, and the women now retain
their natural appearance.