OF THE PHYSICIANS AND MEDICINES OF THE ABIPONES.
Restrain your laughter, friendly reader, when you hear that the Abipones
honour their physicians with the title of _Keebèt_, which same word has
the several significations of the devil, a physician, a prophet, and a
malevolent sorcerer. From which it appears how widely the office of
physician extends with them, and what various kinds of knowledge it
embraces. They revere physicians as the representatives of their
grandfather, the evil spirit, and, believing them gifted by him with the
art of healing diseases, dignify them with his honourable title of
_Keebèt_. But I openly pronounce these Abiponian physicians worthy of
contempt and ridicule, for they never learnt even the rudiments of
medical science, never entered a school of the kind, nor ever acquired
the least smattering of pharmacy, botany, anatomy, or nosology. These
knaves deserve to be flogged every day of their lives by the angry
Galen, and spit upon by Æsculapius, Hippocrates, and the whole tribe of
physicians. For they thrust frauds instead of medicines, words instead
of deeds upon the credulous Abipones, and are as well able to create as
cure diseases, as ignorant in preparing a medicine as in composing a
charm, and better skilled in weaving deceits than in relieving pains.
It is remarkable in the Abiponian physicians that they cure every kind
of disease with one and the same medicine. Let us examine their method
of healing. They apply their lips to the part affected, and suck it,
spitting after every suction. At intervals they draw up their breath
from the very bottom of their breast, and blow upon that part of the
body which is in pain. That blowing and sucking are alternately
repeated. If the whole body languishes, if it burns with malignant heat,
if it is seized with measles or small-pox, four or five of these harpies
fly to suck and blow it, one fastening his lips on the arm, another on
the side, a third and fourth on the feet. If a child cries, or refuses
the breast, the mother gives him to a juggler to be sucked. This method
of healing is in use amongst all the savages of Paraguay and Brazil,
that I am acquainted with, and, according to Father Jean Grillet,
amongst the Galibe Indians. I have known matter sucked from an ulcer and
blood from a wound with utility, the materials of the corruption that
would have ensued being by this means exhausted. Spaniards or Indians,
when stung by a serpent, get some friend to suck the part affected, that
the poison may be extracted before it spreads over the limbs. I do not
therefore blame the Abipones for having their wounds, ulcers, and
serpent-bites sucked: their superstition lies in suffering that office
to be performed by none but the jugglers, and in believing the faculty
of healing imparted to them by their grandfather. Though they at the
same time believe that one excels another in the salubrity of his lips
and breath, and in his healing powers. Another point in which this
sucking is to be condemned is, that they use it as an universal remedy
against every disease. I knew an European in Paraguay eminently versed
in the medical art, who, from having made successful use of the herb
fumitory, obtained the name of Doctor Fumitory. In the town of St.
Thomas there was an Indian healer of the sick, who, when asked what
medicine he gave to such or such a patient of his, uniformly replied, "I
gave him vervain, Father." Having found this herb do good to one
individual, he indiscriminately prescribed it to all sick persons under
whatever disease they laboured. The Abipones, still more irrational,
expect sucking and blowing to rid the body of whatever causes pain or
inconvenience. This belief is constantly fostered by the jugglers with
fresh artifices. For when they prepare to suck the sick man, they
secretly put thorns, beetles, worms, &c. into their mouths, and spitting
them out, after having sucked for some time, say to him, pointing to the
worm or thorn, "See here the cause of your disorder." At this sight the
sick man revives, when he thinks the enemy that has tormented him is at
length expelled: for as imagination is often the origin of sickness, it
may also be that of health. Moreover, it is not surprizing that after
many days sucking the pain should be relieved, which would have ceased
of its own accord, by the benefit of time alone. I do not deny that the
Abipones generally recover; but for that they are indebted to their
natural strength, not to the juggler who sucked them. To him, however,
they religiously ascribe the praise and the glory of their recovered
health; to him they give horses, arms, garments, or any thing belonging
to the convalescent person. Neither is it from gratitude that they do
this, but from fear; being firmly persuaded that the disease will return
again unless they reward the physician to the utmost of their ability.
Alas! how many infants have we seen fainting, pale, languid, dying, and
soon dead from having their little bodies exhausted by constant sucking!
The savage mothers must be certainly mad, since they still persist in
this insane practice, after seeing so many children die in consequence
of it.
Amongst the Payaguas there exists a law that if any of them dies of a
disease, the physician who undertook his cure shall be put to death by
the arrows of the assembled people; and being desperately addicted to
revenge, they are steadfast in the execution of this cruel law. During
my residence in the city of Asumpcion, an unhappy physician atoned for
the death of his patient by his own. Were this law in force amongst the
Abipones, fewer of them would profess themselves followers of Galen;
they would shun the dangerous profession of medicine, and physicians
would cease to grow like funguses in a night. Of this I am quite sure,
that in every Abiponian horde there are more physicians than sick
persons: deterred by no danger of loss of fame or life, and certain of
reward, they besiege the beds of the sick, and suck away their strength
in every disease. When questioned on the patient's danger, they make the
happiest forebodings. If the event turn out contrary to their
prognostics, they have always a ready excuse: the disease was a fatal
one, or their skill was baffled by the magical arts of some other
juggler; the matter rests here, for it would be a crime to doubt the
excuse of a juggler.
Though sucking is the chief and almost only cure in use amongst the
Abipones, yet they have some dream-like ideas of our remedies. At times,
when oppressed by the heat of the sun, or inflamed with a feverish
burning, they will draw blood by piercing their arm or leg with a knife.
Medicinal herbs, of which their country produces so great a variety,
they scarce know by name, yet are desirous of being thought well skilled
in the mysteries of nature. Hence, not so much in the desire of
restoring the sick person, as of increasing their own reputation, they
would sometimes prescribe the leaves of a tree, or the roots of some
little known plant, on which the druggist might safely write _quid pro
quo_, these remedies being generally of such a nature, that they are
more likely to miss than be of any service. At the end of a fatiguing
journey, I fell ill in the town of Concepcion. A woman, of high repute
for skill in the healing art, comes and gives me a large dark root,
promising me the complete restoration of my health, if I would drink it
well boiled in water. I shuddered at the medicine, but still more at the
old hag that prescribed it.
The Guarany tongue is as rich as the Abiponian is poor in the names of
wholesome plants, and not a few of the Guaranies are well acquainted
with the use of them. In the town of St. Joachim I knew an Indian named
Ignacio Yaricà, eight years an attendant upon the sick, whose dexterity
and success I could not but admire. He would set a broken limb, and
entirely heal it in a very short time by means of swathes of reeds and
four little herbs. The woods of America also produce a kind of dark
green ivy, which twines itself round the branches of trees, and is
called by the Spaniards _suelda con suelda_. This plant cut small,
boiled in water, and bound with linen on to the limb, soon and happily
consolidates it. In the city of Corrientes, a Spanish matron was cured
of a sprained foot, by merely wrapping it in the fresh skin of a puppy.
The Abipones are totally ignorant of medicines for purging the bowels,
causing perspiration, removing bile, and dispelling noxious humours.
They will not even bear the mention of an enema. In the town of St.
Jeronymo, a Spanish soldier who professed the art of medicine, being
requested by Father Brigniel to attend upon a sick Abipon, declared the
necessity of an injection. No sooner did the sick man feel the syringe
applied to him, than he started furiously out of bed, snatched up a
lance, and would have slain the soldier physician, had he not saved
himself by hasty flight. Sudden terror giving way to rage, the old
Spaniard, whilst we were laughing, poured forth a volley of curses on
his ungrateful patient. "You had better call up a devil from hell,
Fathers," said he, "to cure this beast. When I offered him medicine, the
savage tried to kill me: he opposes a lance to a syringe. Who could
contend with such unequal arms?" The Guaranies have the same repugnance
to the use of the syringe. The Indians use snuff as a medicine, stuffing
it into their ears, when they find them badly affected by the rain or
wind. The jugglers vauntingly affirm, that they have it in their power
to perform cures by words alone. Sitting on the sick man's bed they sing
extemporary verses, as magical charms, either to reconcile the evil
spirit, or to call up the shades of the dead by whose assistance they
hope to remove all diseases. But away with this superstitious nonsense.
The Abiponian physicians show how little they confide in their own arts,
when, on being seized with a disorder, they neglect to consult their
colleagues, and prefer the aid of any European who will prescribe for
them. At the time that I dwelt amongst the Abipones, the most famous in
the art of medicine was Pariekaikin, the chief of the jugglers, who, on
being seized with pleurisy, called on me to heal him in preference to
any of his colleagues. Calcined hartshorn, boiled in barley-water,
restored him to health, and gained me the reputation of a physician
amongst the Abipones. Nothing will procure you the good-will of the
savages so soon as skill in the healing art. They think that he who
understands the natures and remedies of diseases can be ignorant of
nothing. They will believe him in matters of religion, and be tractable
and obedient to him. Our Saviour himself inspired mortals with wonder,
by healing bodies as well as souls. In imitation of him, when we were
employed in the instruction of the savages, we endeavoured to supply the
want of physicians, surgeons, and druggists, by easily obtained
remedies, by reading medical books, and by other means, in order to wean
that miserable people from their jugglers, whom we accounted the chief
obstacles to the propagation of the holy religion.
It is incredible how well the sick are taken care of in the Guarany
towns. Indians are appointed to attend upon them, more or fewer,
according to the number of inhabitants. These men have some knowledge of
herbs and common remedies, though they are not allowed to use any
medicine without consulting the missionary. They carry in their hands a
staff marked with a cross, and are hence called crossbearers. It is
their business to go about dawn to visit the sick in the district
appointed to each, and to enquire whether any one has fallen ill lately.
In the evening they make their report to the missionary in the presence
of all, before he performs divine service, and are informed by him what
remedies are to be used and what sacraments administered to each. At
mid-day boiled meat with the best wheat bread is sent from his kitchen
to the houses of all the sick, which are sometimes thirty, more or less,
in number. All the sick are visited once every day, and sometimes
oftener, by the missionary, accompanied by two boys. In short we never
suffered any thing of use to the minds or bodies of the sick to be
wanting. Moreover there resided amongst the Guaranies two or three
lay-brothers of our order, European surgeons, tolerably skilled in the
art of medicine; but on account of the great distance of the towns from
one another, they were not always at hand to offer their assistance when
it was needed.
Upon us, therefore, whose proper business it was to attend upon the
minds of the sick, devolved the care of healing their bodies. We always
ascribed it to the mercy of God when trifling remedies banished great
diseases, for we had but a very scanty store of drugs. How useful to the
sick in various ways were sulphur, alum, salt, tobacco, sugar, pepper,
the fat of hens, tigers, oxen, sheep, &c. and gun-powder! scarce a day
passed that the sick did not ask for one of these things. Three gourds
were always in readiness filled with as many ointments: one green, made
of suet, and thirty different herbs; the second black; the third yellow.
Each of these was destined to a separate purpose. We also had at hand
plenty of sanative herbs, and the barks of trees famed for medicinal
virtues. Numerous animals, moreover, supply the Americans with medicine.
I will mention a few. A cataplasm of crocodiles' fat heals bruises. The
stomach of the same when dried, ground to powder, and drank with water,
is said to relieve the pain of the stone. The Spaniards and Indians wear
a crocodile's tooth suspended from their neck or arm, and believe that
it will defend them from the bites of serpents. Persons bitten by
serpents scrape some dust from a crocodile's tooth, and drink it mixed
with water. The little stones found in the stomach of the crocodile when
ground to powder, and drank, alleviate the pains of stone in the
kidneys. Calcined tigers' claws, mixed with alum calcined also and
reduced to powder, are a potent remedy for the tooth-ache. Tiger's fat
instantly expels worms from the head or any other part of the body, if
laid on the place where they attempt egress. Common house-flies often
creep through the mouth or nose into the heads of sleeping persons, and
there breed worms thick in the middle, terminating in a red point at
each end, but white every where else, about as long as the nail of the
little finger, and surrounded with circles like rings. Within a few
hours they multiply to an incredible degree, and gnaw that part of the
head where they lie. The inconvenience occasioned by their numbers, or
want of food, obliges them to attempt an exit wherever it can be
effected. A reddish spot on the surface of the skin is a mark of the
intended eruption. The circumference of this spot must be anointed with
tiger's fat, the detestable stench of which induces the worms to
redouble their efforts, pierce through the bones and flesh, and break
entirely out. I was astonished to see more worms than could be contained
in my cap, proceed from the head of an Indian in the town of St.
Joachim. Nor can I understand how one man's head is capable of receiving
or supporting such a number of maggots. But from this we may conclude
the incredible compression of the worms in so small a space. They make a
passage between the eyebrows, but so narrow, that only one at a time can
go out, and they succeed one another without interruption; the slender
wound soon heals, a little gap in the flesh remaining like a scar. The
Indian doubted not to attribute his recovery to tiger's fat, which I
prescribed for other persons with equal success. You shall now hear a
still more singular fact. That rattle which a certain poisonous serpent
has annexed to its tail, is a noble medicine: for when reduced to
powder, and placed on hollow teeth, it softens them so that they fall
out of themselves without any sense of pain. It is also useful in other
complaints.
In order to obtain a knowledge of the nature of diseases, and of
medicinal herbs, we diligently studied the books of physicians and
herbalists; by which means, as we often were of service to the sick, we
wrought so far with the Abipones, that whenever they were seized with
any disorder they placed all their hopes on our assistance, to the
neglect of their jugglers. When I distrusted myself and felt anxious for
the life of my patient, I never rashly prescribed any medicine. To
defend him from the injuries of the air, and to prevent him from eating
or drinking any thing improper in his situation, was my chief care. I
afforded him as much wholesome food as I could, from my own provisions.
If these regulations were of no avail, I gave him a medicine that had
been tried by long use, and which, if it did no good, could at any rate
do no harm. The savages, won by our courtesy and kindness, suffered
themselves to be baptized; for at first, whenever they fell sick, the
dread of baptism induced them to fly to the lurking-holes of the woods,
or cause others to carry them there. During the latter years, almost all
of them reposed the greatest confidence in us, and entertained the
utmost good-will towards us, and if they remembered our having ever
cured them with any medicine, desired to have it given to their
hordesmen when they fell ill. From one instance you may judge of others.
In the northern parts of Paraguay there grows a nut, called _Piñon del
Paraguay_ by the Spaniards, and by physicians _nux cathartica_, because
it causes both vomiting and purging. It ridiculously deceived the first
Spaniards who visited Paraguay. Delighted with its sweetness they
eagerly ate this fruit, and to the great amusement of all, found what
they had taken for food to be a medicine, which attacks the human body
with double arms, and expels noxious or superfluous humours by two ways.
We gave three or four of these nuts to the Abipones, for whom we thought
purging necessary, and they all received great benefit from the use of
them. Hence, whenever they felt any weight on their stomachs, they asked
us for this medicine of their own accord. The same was the case with
regard to other remedies. The old women, who obstinately adhered to
former customs, raved when they found their medicines laughed at, and
the fountain of their gains dried up. The jugglers, who had sucked the
bodies, and drained the property of the sick, were despised by their
countrymen as a set of worthless drones.
The Patagonians, and other southern savages, think the body of a sick
person to be possessed of an evil demon. Their physicians carry about
drums, with horrible forms depicted on them, which they strike by the
sick man's bed, either to consult the demon concerning the nature of the
disease, or to drive it from the body of their patient. If any one dies
of a disease, the relations persecute the physician most terribly, as
the author of his death. If a Cacique dies, they put all the physicians
to death, that they may not fly elsewhere. Actuated by an irrational
kind of pity, they bury the dying before they expire. Father Strobl
pulled one man alive from the grave. The Guaycurùs call their physicians
Nigienigis. A gourd filled with hard seeds, and a fan of dusky emu
feathers are their chief insignia, and medical instruments, which they
always carry in their hands that they may be known. I must not omit to
speak of the physicians of the Chiquitos. A juggler physician, when he
goes to visit the sick, fills his belly with the most exquisite
dainties, chickens, hens, and partridges, that he may render his breath
wholesomer and stronger to suck and blow the body of his patient. Whilst
the physician feasts sumptuously, the sick man has insipid half-boiled
maize given him to eat. If he dislikes this, no one will exhort the poor
wretch to take food, so that more persons die of hunger than of the
disease. At his first coming, the physician overwhelms the sick man with
an hundred questions: "Where were you yesterday?" says he. "What roads
did you tread? Did you overturn the jug, and spill the drink prepared
from maize? What? Have you imprudently given the flesh of a tortoise,
stag, or boar, to be devoured by dogs?" Should the sick man confess to
having done any of these things, "It is well," replies the physician,
"we have discovered the cause of your disorder. The soul of that beast
having entered your body torments you even now, and is, alas! the origin
of the pains you feel." The savage takes this for an oracle. The cure is
immediately set about. The juggler sucks the afflicted part once, twice,
and three times. Then muttering a doleful charm, he knocks the floor on
which the sick man is lying, with a club, to frighten away the soul of
that animal from his patient's body. A crueller method of curing was
once customary amongst the Chiquitos.
When a husband fell ill, they used to kill the wife, thinking her the
cause of his sickness, and foolishly imagining that, when she was
removed, he would be sure to recover. At other times they consulted
their physicians, which of the female jugglers occasioned the disease.
These men, actuated either by desire of vengeance or interested motives,
named whomsoever they chose, and were not required to bring any proofs
of the guilt of the accused. The sentence of a juggler was an oracle,
and people assembled from all parts to put it in execution. Such were
the Chiquitos before they were civilized by the Jesuits.