OF THE DISEASES, PHYSICIANS, AND MEDICINES OF THE
ABIPONES.
I have long since described the Abipones to be stout, vigorous, and
robust; and unless I am much deceived, have already proved in chapter
the seventh, that the diseases, which in Europe fill houses with sick
persons, and graves with dead bodies, are unknown here. Epilepsy, gout,
lethargy, madness, jaundice, diseases in the joints, complaints in the
kidneys, elephantiasis, iliac disorders, &c. are names strange and
foreign to the Abipones. You scarce hear once in three years of any of
them dying of a fever, pleurisy, or consumption. Sickness is more rare
amongst them than an Aurora Borealis, or an eclipse with us. I never
heard any of them complain of tooth-ache except an old woman, who soon
stopped the pain with a few drops of vinegar. I do not wonder that the
savages should be exempt from so common a complaint, as they are
accustomed from childhood to chew tobacco leaves mixed with salt and the
saliva of old women, and reduced into the form of an unguent. It is not
improperly, therefore, that they call tobacco _noetà_, their medicine:
for they are constantly eating honey, both in a solid and liquid state,
which is the certain destruction of the teeth; so that the Indians must
suffer continual torment from them, or soon be deprived of them
altogether, were not the bad effects of the honey counteracted by the
acrimony of the salt and tobacco. Experience shows that persons who
smoke or chew tobacco every day will preserve their teeth sound. I have
seen Spaniards of the higher orders in Paraguay either chew or smoke
tobacco, and take delight in it as of certain utility to the health. But
the Paraguayrians have another remedy against the tooth-ache. The pods
of the cacào are steeped for some time in brandy. Cotton dipped in this
liquor is applied to the tooth, which, if not hollow, is well moistened
with that brandy, which should be held a long time in the mouth. If you
repeat this several times, both the swelling and the pain will entirely
cease. My own frequent experience, joined with that of others, has
taught me the efficacy of this noble medicine, which is celebrated even
in Europe. The freshest and most juicy pods must be chosen for the
purpose, for what virtue will the old decayed ones yield, which are
destitute of oil? The milder drinkable brandy should be used, not that
fiery liquor which chemists call spirits of wine. Some prick the gum of
the tooth with the spine of the fish raya, and by eliciting blood, allay
the pain. Others again reduce tigers' claws and alum first into a calx,
and then into a powder, by laying them on hot coals, and after they are
well mixed up together, apply them to the hollow of the tooth. By the
adoption of this method, many, beside myself, have found not only the
pain, but the cause of the pain so entirely removed, that it never
returned afterwards. Tooth-ache is a frequent and dreadful affliction to
Europeans in Paraguay, on account of the scarcity or unskilfulness of
surgeons. In extracting the diseased tooth, they pierce and lacerate the
whole gum near it, which causes extreme pain, together with much
effusion of blood. That the Abipones never need the aid of these
torturers, is a truly enviable part of their felicity. I never saw a
toothless person amongst them. The teeth, which they have made strenuous
use of all their lives, generally go with them to the grave.
Whenever they feel themselves unwell, although the complaint be in the
foot or the elbow, they always say that their heart pains them. The same
is the case with the Guaranies. If you say to the sick man, what ails
you, what is the matter with you? he immediately replies with a groan,
it is in my heart: so that it is very difficult to understand from the
Indians what their complaint is, and where it is situated, unless it be
betrayed by other signs. Loathing of food for ever so short a time is,
in their opinion, a certain indication of sickness. If an Abipon, from
having overloaded his stomach, abstains from food for a little while,
the women immediately augur the worst respecting him, and make no end of
their lamentations, saying every now and then with a groan, _Chik
rkeñe_, he does not eat. As soon as the sick person takes ever so little
food, though the disorder be not yet subdued, they think him out of
danger, so that _Là rkeñe_, he eats now; and _Là yamini_, or _Là
natatéuge_, now he is recovered, now he revives, are with them
synonymous. Moreover, as the Abipones are but very seldom sick, so very
few of them die when they are sick. I do not doubt but that in the
frequent conflicts they have with enemies and tigers, numbers fall
yearly by the nails of the one, and the claws of the other. In most of
the remainder, extreme old age is generally the fatal disease. In a
word, greatest part of the Abipones die when they are satiated with
life, when, weary of the burden of years, they long for death as the
rest and solace of their miserable existence. This circumstance
occasions the common error that they should never die at all were the
Spaniards and the jugglers banished from America; for, to the arms of
the former, and to the arts of the latter, they attribute the deaths of
all their countrymen. A wound inflicted with a spear often gapes so wide
that it affords ample room for life to go out and death to come in; yet
if the man dies of the wound, they madly believe him killed, not by a
weapon, but by the deadly arts of the jugglers. The relations leave no
stone unturned, not only diligently to investigate, but severely to
punish the authors of the death, and of the sorcery. They are persuaded
that the juggler will be banished from amongst the living, and made to
atone for their relation's death, if the heart and tongue be pulled out
of the dead man's body immediately after his decease, roasted at the
fire, and given to dogs to devour. Though so many hearts and tongues are
devoured, and they never observe any of the jugglers die, yet they still
religiously adhere to the custom of their ancestors, by cutting out the
hearts and tongues of infants and adults of both sexes, as soon as they
have expired. How firmly this mad notion, that men are killed by magical
arts alone, is rooted in the minds of the Abipones, you may learn from
the following facts, of which I myself was a spectator. In the colony of
St. Ferdinand, a Yaaucaniga, famed amongst his countrymen both for high
birth and military prowess, and on that very account ready for any
audacious action, was much afflicted at the untimely death of his little
daughter. He knew that she had been weak and diseased from her birth,
yet was fully bent upon finding out the magical author of her death. A
foreign Indian woman married to an Abipon appeared to him, from the
representations of certain old women, who bore her a grudge, to be the
perpetrator of the crime. Infuriated by the supposed injury, and the
desire of vengeance, he fell upon the innocent unsuspecting woman at the
approach of night, as she was spinning at the fire; he pierced her
shoulder-blade with a spear with such force, that the point came out in
the middle of her bosom, and stained the child she was suckling with its
mother's blood. The woman was middle-aged, very fat, and full-breasted.
She swam in her own blood, which spouted from every vein. The horrid
nature of the wound threatening certain death, the heads of our holy
religion, which she had formerly learnt, were briefly recalled to her
memory; she received baptism, and was admonished to forgive her
murderer. Having thus attended to the salvation of the poor woman's
soul, we applied all our thoughts towards retarding her death, though we
thought no medicine capable of saving her life. The blood which flowed,
mixed with milk, being wiped up, the wound was washed with hot wine, and
anointed with hen's fat. Numbers of people assembled to witness this
mournful spectacle. Mixed with the crowd came a juggler physician, who
gave the husband of the wounded woman a horn, desiring him to discharge
his urine into it, and was immediately and plentifully obeyed. He gave
the warm urine to the woman to drink, who made no hesitation, but
swallowed it to the last drop. The juggling Hippocrates then turned to
my companion and said: "Do you know why I prescribed fresh urine? In
order that the wounded woman may vomit up the blood trickling from the
wound to the inmost parts of the body, which would otherwise putrefy,
and cause the lungs and other parts to putrefy also." The event verified
his prediction. The woman was cleared by vomiting. The deep wound, being
daily anointed with hen's fat, and having the leaves of the cabbage,
which we call _süsse kraut_, applied to it to prevent inflammation,
healed in a few days, and, excepting the scar, no inconvenience,
trouble, or pain resulted from it. The surgeons of our country will
doubtless laugh at the application of hen's fat, and perhaps question
its efficacy in curing wounds; let them laugh, deride, doubt and
despise, with my hearty good-will. I confidently oppose the experience
of my own eyes, to their doubts and laughter. My arm, which was pierced
with an arrow armed with five barbs, by the Natakebit savages, the nerve
which directs the middle finger being injured at the same time, was
happily cured in fourteen days by this remedy alone. With this fat I
have cured men wounded both with arrows and spears; and with the same
remedy I entirely healed an Abiponian woman whose leg had been wounded
by an axe, in consequence of which, as all medicine had for some days
been neglected, the foot was swelled in a dreadful manner. It would be
endless to relate all the cures that have been worked with hen's fat.
The jugglers are commonly thought to be the authors of diseases, as well
as of death, and the sick Abipones imagine that they shall recover as
soon as ever those persons are removed. A tragic event will render this
foolish persuasion more undoubted. An Abipon of the town of St.
Jeronymo, called Ychohàke, elevated by the memory of his own great
deeds, and those of his brother, the Cacique Ychoalay, wasted away with
a slow disease. It never entered his head to seek the cause in the
noxious humours in which he abounded. To discover which of the jugglers
it was that had afflicted him with this sickness, was his daily and
nightly endeavour. On this affair he consulted some old women, who
pronounced a Toba, of the name of Napakainchin, to be the cause of the
disease. The sick man immediately devotes the accused to death, for the
preservation, as he thought, of his own life. In the dead of the night,
he came upon him unawares, as he was sleeping in his tent; he plunged
the iron point of his spear into his body, pierced his left side with a
powerful blow, broke two of his ribs, and clove his shoulder with a
weapon. At the cries of the wounded man, people assembled, whilst the
assassin escaped by flight. We were called to the assistance of the poor
wretch. Seeing him bathed in blood, and pierced with three wounds, we
imagined that he would expire immediately. The bystanders told us that
unless we removed him into our house, the person who put him in this
condition would return to dispatch him with fresh wounds. According to
their advice, he was conveyed into our house. Slipping by the way out of
the hands of the carriers, he fell to the ground with fresh, and
imminent danger of his life; for he was very large, and of weight
proportionable to such great bulk. The place where he was laid in our
house, as it had neither door nor fastening, was fortified by the
Abipones with hides on every side, that Ychohàke might not gain access,
if he came to complete the murder. And, in fact, as the Indians
foretold, in half an hour, he came furnished with a dagger to hasten the
death of the dying man; but being bravely repulsed by Father Joseph
Brigniel, whose companion I then was, returned without accomplishing his
purpose. The wounded man was baptized, and by means of our cares and
medicines, amongst which hen's fat was the principal, happily recovered
in the course of a few weeks. Napakainchin's wife and children gladly
imitated his example, and embraced the Christian religion. A little
after, the whole family, apprehending fresh danger from the same
Ychohàke, removed to the neighbouring town of St. Xavier.
Do not imagine the history of the sick and crazy Ychohàke finished.
After struggling with the disease for some months, with increased
suspicions of some witchcraft being practised upon him, he took it into
his head to accuse a woman, supposed to be acquainted with the black
art, of his ill state of health. About mid-day, he attacked the
unsuspecting female, and as he endeavoured to strike off her head, the
weapon glanced aside, and cut her left cheek, which, falling to her
breast with the ear hanging to it by a piece of skin, bathed the child
at her breast with blood. The smiter was kept off by the people who
crowded to the assistance of the woman. I could scarce refrain from
tears at the cruel spectacle; but not having it in my power to punish
the wretch who had committed the outrage, turned all my attention
towards succouring the soul of the outraged. We had a negro somewhat
skilled in the art of surgery; him I ordered to sew the cheek in three
places to the head, the woman enduring the pricks of the needle without
a groan, whilst the rest were filled with horror at the sight. The whole
wound was washed with warm urine, anointed with hen's fat, and gently
bound with a piece of linen dipped in a decoction of herbs. As no
bandages to fasten the linen could be found, I used the girdle which I
wore. The whole evening during which this passed, and the next night,
the faithful Abipones watched diligently for the security of the woman
that she might not sustain any further injury. For that Indian eagerly
longed for her death, as the means of procuring the recovery of his own
health. But the wound healing sooner than we had expected, the danger
that the poor creature could not always remain concealed was removed, by
her privately retreating to the town of St. Ferdinand. Divine Providence
seems to have dictated her flight; for the Cacique Ychoalay, who was
absent from the town at the time of the event, when informed by me of
Ychohàke's cruelty, and requested to restrain his brother, replied that
he should come immediately, not to restrain his brother, but to kill
that woman, whom he had long thought infamous for her magic arts, and to
be feared by all. And indeed, being very firm in his resolves, he would
have put his threats into execution without a doubt, had he found the
woman in the town. For, in former years, when they wandered up and down
the plains, he turned out of his horde all women suspected of sorcery,
and pierced many of them, though perhaps perfectly innocent, with a
spear, that they might never deceive any one again; being often
condemned both on the score of credulity and cruelty.
But this bloody tragedy, at length, had a happy termination. The Indian
Ychohàke ceased at length to live and to be feared, and you will be
surprised to hear that one, who, in his lifetime, had been so mad in his
suspicions of sorcery, grew sane in his last moments. Having received
baptism, at his own desire, conscious of approaching dissolution he
delighted much in the presence of the priest, whom, as he came in the
early part of the night, he persuaded to repose for a while at his own
house, promising to let him know when he felt his death approach. He
kept his word: he calmly expired the night before Trinity Sunday, whilst
the priest was suggesting every thing consolatory to the dying man, and
his relations were all weeping around him. He caused us to entertain
great hopes of his obtaining a happy immortality on many accounts. For,
indignant at the lamentations of his weeping domestics, he said they
should remember he was going to visit the great house of the Creator of
all things, the high father, the greatest captain. Ever intent on
appeasing the Almighty, he testified sorrow and remorse for the many
murders he had committed, of Christians and others. He repeatedly
desired his wife not to follow the custom of their ancestors in slaying
his horses and sheep at his grave; leaving them, and all his other
property, to his little daughter. All this manifests that he held his
ancient superstitions in abhorrence, and had embraced Christianity with
his whole soul. I have related this to show you that all the misery
resulting from deaths and disorders is attributed by the Abipones to the
magical arts of the jugglers; whom, nevertheless, at other times they
revere as physicians and saviours, of which more hereafter. Much remains
to be said of diseases which ought not to be unknown to Europe.