OF A CERTAIN DISEASE PECULIAR TO THE ABIPONES.
During an eighteen years' acquaintance with Paraguay and its
inhabitants, I discovered a disease amongst the Abipones
Nakaiketergehes, entirely unknown elsewhere. This disease affects the
mind more than the body, though I should think it occasioned by the bad
temperature of the former. They sometimes begin to rave and storm like
madmen. The credulous and superstitious crowd think them reduced to this
state by the magic arts of jugglers, and call them _Loapařaika_. These
persons, agitated, as I think, by the intemperature of black bile, and
filled with gloomy ideas, betray their madness chiefly at sun-set. The
distracted persons suddenly leap out of their tents, run into the
country on foot, and direct their course straight to the burying-place
of their family. In speed they equal ostriches, and those who pursue
them on the swiftest horses can hardly overtake and bring them home.
Seized with fury in the night, they burn with the desire of committing
slaughter somewhere; and for this purpose snatch up any arms they can
lay hold of. Hence, as soon as a report is spread through a town of any
one's being seized with this kind of madness, every body takes up a
spear. The hordesmen, as they can neither calm the furious man, nor keep
him at home, suffer him to go out into the street, armed with a stick,
and accompanied with as many people as possible. A crowd of boys
assembling to behold the spectacle, they make a circuit about all the
streets. The insane person strikes the roof and mats of every tent again
and again with the stick, none of the inmates daring to utter a word. If
through the negligence of his guards, or his own cunning, he gets
possession of arms, Heavens! what a universal terror is excited! a
terror not confined to women and unwarlike boys, but felt by men who
account themselves heroes; for they say it is wrong and irrational to
use arms against those who are not in possession of their senses. The
women, therefore, with their children used to crowd to the court-yard of
our house which was fortified with stakes against the assaults of
savages, and through fear of the insane person, pass hours, nay whole
nights there.
Persons seized with this madness take scarcely any food or sleep, and
walk up and down pale with fasting and melancholy: you would imagine
that they were contemplating some new system of the figure of the earth,
or studying how to square the circle. By day, however, they betray no
signs of alienation of mind, nor are they to be feared before evening. A
person of this description, who was very turbulent at night, visited me
in the middle of the day. In familiar conversation I asked him who it
was that disturbed the rest by his furiousness every night. He replied
with a calm countenance, that he did not know. The Spaniard, my
companion, seeing him take his leave, said, "This is the man you have
long wished to know. This is he that raves at night." Yet I could
discover nothing indicative of derangement either in his countenance or
manners. Another insane person of the kind, whom I knew, met me as we
were both riding in the plain, and joined company with me. But,
pretending business, I put spur to my horse and hastened home. Twice
when I was shutting the door of my hut, and once when I was tying a
horse to a stake to feed, I should have been destroyed by a madman, had
not persons come to my succour and averted the danger. Sometimes many
persons of both sexes began to rave at once; sometimes one, and often no
one was in this deplorable state. This madness lasted eight, fourteen,
or more days, before tranquillity and intellect were restored. All the
Abipones subject to this malady, whom I have known, were uniformly of a
melancholy turn of mind, always in a state of perturbation from their
hypochondriac or choleric temper, and of a fierce, threatening
countenance. When this bile was excited by bad air, or immoderate
drinking, it is neither strange nor surprising, that derangement and
raving madness ensued. The stupid or ignorant alone attribute that to
magic art, which is solely to be ascribed to the fault or strength of
nature.
We have found the fear of death a powerful antidote to the licence of
raving amongst the Abipones. Within a few days the number of mad persons
increased unusually: one of them in the dead of the night got through
the fence, and was stealing into our house, but was carried away by
people who came to our assistance. Alaykin, the chief Cacique, being
informed of our danger, called all the people into the market-place next
day, and declared, that if any one henceforward took to raving, he
should immediately put to death all the female jugglers, as well as the
insane themselves. From that time I never heard of any more tumults
occasioned by these furious persons. Might not some of them have feigned
madness in the first instance, because they loved to be objects of
terror to their hordesmen, and to be pointed at with the finger? I never
can believe with the savages, that a magical charm was the cause of
their insanity.