OF THE MARRIAGE OF THE ABIPONES.
We know that a plurality of wives, or the repudiation of them, was
familiar to the Hebrews and other nations, and that it is tolerated even
now amongst the Mahometans and Chinese. The Greeks and Romans did not
universally, nor at all times object to it. What wonder then that the
custom of polygamy and divorce should be common to many savages of
America, since it is upheld by the practice of the ancients? You should
not however imagine that the whole nation of the Abipones follow after
the steps of the other nations in that respect. The major part are
contented with one and the same wife, though I cannot deny that divorce
is as frequent amongst them as the changing of the dress in Europe; yet
I have known many who kept the same wife all their lives. But if any
Abipon marries several women, he settles them in separate hordes, many
leagues distant from one another, and visits first one, then the other,
at intervals of a year. If he keeps many in the same house, which is
very seldom the case, endless quarrels, blows, and battles, are sure to
ensue, about the prerogative of governing the family, and the favour of
their husband. _Nejetenta_, as I said before, is a word appropriated to
express a contest between two wives about their husband; any other sort
of fight is called _Roélakitápegeta_.
Let us now speak of the reason that occasions divorce. It is very common
amongst them to reject wives to whom they have formerly united
themselves, at their own pleasure, and with impunity, so that divines
have very properly doubted the reality of the marriage of savages, as it
seems to want the perpetuity of the nuptial tie. If their wives
displease them, it is sufficient; they are ordered to decamp. No farther
cause or objection is sought for; the will of the husband, who dislikes
his wife, stands in the place of reason. Should the husband cast his
eyes upon any handsomer woman, the old wife must remove merely on this
account, her fading form or advanced age being her only accusers, though
she maybe universally commended for conjugal fidelity, regularity of
conduct, diligent obedience, and the children she has born. None of the
men of most authority have either the right or the inclination to defend
the divorced, or control the divorcer. But, appointing a drinking-party,
wherein the memory of injuries is refreshed in the minds of the
intoxicated guests, the relations fiercely avenge the dishonour done to
the repudiated wife. Often, too, women just cast off by one man are
immediately married by another. I have observed elsewhere that the
younger women highly approve the law of Christ, and are anxious that
themselves and their husbands should be baptized, because the perpetuity
of their marriage is thereby secured, and their husbands prevented from
changing or increasing the number of their wives. This licence of
divorce produces, as I have already related, bloody murders of children,
and the incredible diminution of the whole nation.
You will find many things worthy of reprehension, but at the same time
not a few deserving of praise, in the married state of the Abipones. I
will inform you of those most worthy of mention. Though the paternal
indulgence of the Roman pontiffs makes the first and second degrees of
relationship alone a bar to the marriage of the Indians, yet the
Abipones, instructed by nature and the example of their ancestors, abhor
the very thought of marrying any one related to them by the most distant
tie of relationship. Long experience has convinced me, that the respect
to consanguinity, by which they are deterred from marrying into their
own families, is implanted by nature in the minds of most of the people
of Paraguay. In this opinion I was greatly confirmed by the Cacique Roỹ,
leader of the savages in the woods of Mbaeverà, who, when I was
explaining the heads of religion to the surrounding multitude, and
happened to make mention of incestuous nuptials, broke out into these
words—"You say right, Father! Marriage with relations is a most shameful
thing. This we have learnt from our ancestors." Such are the feelings of
these wood savages, though they think it neither irrational nor improper
to marry many wives, and reject them whenever they like.
Another admirable trait in the character of the savage Abipones is their
conjugal fidelity. You never hear of this being shaken, or even
attempted. Husbands are many months absent from their homes, whilst
their wives remain in the midst of a horde of men without danger or even
suspicion. What the Greeks have fabled of Penelope, who continued
faithful to her husband Ulysses during an absence of twenty years, is
the true history of the Abiponian women. But if an Abipon entertains the
slightest suspicion of his wife's virtue, he does not digest it in
silence, but takes ample vengeance on the person suspected though not
convicted of the injury.
Amongst the other good qualities of the married people amongst the
Abipones, may be reckoned the tender affection which they display
towards their offspring, in feeding, clothing, and taking care of them.
To tutor the boys from their earliest age in the arts of riding,
swimming, hunting, and fighting, is the chief care of the fathers. The
girls are diligently instructed by their mothers in the domestic duties
of females, and early inured to labour and in accommodation. But this is
worthy of censure in them, that however disobedient or refractory their
children may be, they never have the courage to correct them with a
word, much less with a blow. Alaykin, chief Cacique of the town of
Concepçion, whenever he visited me, held a little boy five years of age
upon his lap. This child, who was as restless as a young ape, would
sometimes pull his father's nose or his hair, and sometimes struck his
face. The old man, pleased at this, would cry—"Look, Father! can you
ever doubt that this fearless boy will sometime come to be a famous
soldier or captain, since he is not afraid of me, a leader so victorious
and so formidable to the Spaniards?" The same boy would throw bones,
horns, or any thing else he could lay hold on, at his mother, when she
came to call him home. The warlike father interpreted the child's
insolence, which he ought to have punished, as the mark of an intrepid
mind, and rewarded it with laughter, and even with praise. The too
unbounded love which they bear their children incapacitates the savages
from doing any thing to cause them pain. But every one knows that the
immoderate fondness of parents is a frequent injury to children in
Europe.