Book: A Vanished Arcadia,

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--
* `Historia y Descubrimiento de el Rio de la Plata y Paraguay',
Hulderico Schmidel, contained in the collection made
by Andres Gonzalez Barcia, and published in 1769 at Madrid
under the title of `Historiadores Primitivos de las Indias Occidentales'.
--

In 1535 the expedition entered the river Plate. Here Mendoza,
with his usual want of judgment, pitched upon what is now
the site of Buenos Ayres as the spot on which to found his colony.
It would be difficult to select a more inconvenient place
in which to found a town. The site of Buenos Ayres is almost level
with the waters of the river Plate, which there are shallow --
so shallow that large vessels could not approach nearer
than ten to fifteen miles. Without a harbour, the anchorage was exposed
to the full fury of the south-west gales, known as `pamperos'.
However, if the site was bad the air was good; at least, it seems so,
for a captain of the expedition exclaimed on landing, `Que buenos aires
son estos!' and hence the name. Here every sort of evil chance
came on the newborn colony. The Pampa Indians, whom the historian Schmidel
seems to have only known by their Guarani name of Querandis,
at first were friendly. After a little while they ceased to bring provisions,
and the General sent out an expedition to compel them under his brother,
Don Diego de Mendoza. It does not seem to have occurred
to Don Pedro de Mendoza that, had the `cacique' of the Querandis
landed in Spain, no one would have brought him provisions for a single day
without receiving payment. However, Don Pedro* had come to America
to introduce civilization and Christianity, and therefore,
knowing, like Bernal Diaz and the other conquerors, his own moral worth,
was justly indignant that after a day or two the Indians
refused him more supplies. In the encounter which took place
between the Spaniards and the Indians, Don Diego de Mendoza was slain,
and with him several others. Here for the first time we hear of the bolas,
or three stones united, like a Manxman's legs, with strips of hide,
with which, as Hulderico Schmidel tells us, the Indians caught the horses
by the legs and threw them down. After this foretaste of European justice,
the Indians besieged the newly-built town and brought it to great straits,
so much so that, after three men had been hung for stealing a horse,
in the morning it was discovered they had been cut down and eaten.
In this desperate state Don Pedro despatched Juan de Ayolas to get supplies.
He, having obtained some maize from the Timbu Indians, returned,
leaving a hundred of his men in a little fort, called Corpus Christi,
close to Espiritu Santo, the fort which Cabot had constructed.
The friendliness of the Timbus induced Don Pedro to abandon Buenos Ayres
and move to Corpus Christi. There he repaired with about five hundred men,
all who remained of the two thousand six hundred and thirty
with which he sailed from Cadiz. The horses he abandoned on the pampa;
there they became the ancestors of the innumerable herds which at one time
overspread the Argentine Republic from the Chaco to Patagonia,
and whose descendants to this day stock the `estancias' of that country.**

--
* The great Las Casas, who made seven voyages from America to Spain
-- the last at the age of seventy-two -- to protect the Indians,
had a strong opinion about `conquerors' and `conquests'.
In the dedication of his great treatise on the wrongs of the Indians,
he says: `Que no permita (Felipe II.) las atrocidades
que los tiranos inventaron, y que prosiguen haciendo
con titulo de "conquistas". Los que se jactan de ser "conquistadores"
a que descienden de ellos son muchomas orgullosos arrogantes y vanos
que los otros Espan~oles.' Strange that even to-day
the same `atrocidades' of `tiranos' are going on in Africa.
No doubt the descendants of these `conquerors' will be
as arrogant, proud, and vain as the descendants of the `conquistadores'
of whom Las Casas writes.
** Mendoza left (`Azara Apuntamientos para la Historia Natural
de los Quadrupedes del Paraguay', etc.) five mares and seven horses
in the year 1535. In 1580 Don Juan de Garay, at the second founding
of the city, already found troops of wild horses. The cattle increased
to a marvellous extent, and by the end of the century
were wild in Patagonia. Sarmiento (`Civilisation et Barbarisme')
says that early in this century they were often killed by travellers,
who tethered their horses to the carcasses to prevent them
from straying at night.
--

From Corpus Christi Juan de Ayolas was sent out to explore the river,
and try to find the long-sought-for waterway to the Peruvian mines.
He never reached Peru, and Corpus Christi never saw him return.
Mendoza waited a year, and then returned to Spain, leaving his garrison
with provisions for a year, the bread* `at the rate of (`a/ razon de')
a pound a day, and if they wanted more to get it for themselves.'
On the passage home he died insane. The pious were of opinion
that it was a judgment on him for the murder of Don Juan Osorio.
Before he embarked, Don Pedro had despatched a relative, Gonzalo de Mendoza,
to Spain to bring provisions and recruits. Gonzalo, having obtained
provisions in Brazil, returned to Corpus Christi; thence in company
with Salazar de Espinosa he headed an expedition up the river
in search of Juan de Ayolas, who had been appointed successor to Don Pedro.
With them went Domingo Martinez de Irala, a man destined to play a great part
in the conquest of Paraguay.

--
* Hulderico Schmidel, `Historia del Descubrimiento de el Rio de la Plata
y Paraguay'.
--

The expedition went up the Paraguay to a place near Fort Olimpo
(21 Degrees long., 58 Degrees lat.) about a hundred leagues above Asuncion.
Here they sent out exploring parties in all directions to seek Ayolas,
but without success. Irala remained with one hundred men at Fort Olimpo.
Gonzalo de Mendoza on his return, being attracted by the sight of a fine site
for a town, landed, and on the fifteenth day of August, 1537,
founded Asuncion. Here the Spaniards first met the Guaranis,
who were destined in after-years to be the converts of the Jesuits,
and be assembled by them in their famous missions.

`At the discovery of America,' says Felix de Azara in his
`Descripcion y Historia del Paraguay', `the Guaranis were spread
from the Guianas to the shores of the river Plate, and occupied
all the islands of the Parana extending up to latitude 20 Degrees
on the Paraguay, but without crossing either that river or the river Plate.'
They had also a few towns in the province of Chiquitos,
and the nation of the Chiriguanas was an offshoot from them.
In Brazil they were soon all either rendered slaves or so crossed
with the African negro that the pure race has been almost entirely lost,
though the language remains under the name of the Lingoa Geral,
and many words from it have been introduced into Portuguese
spoken by the Brazilians, as `capim', grass; `caipira', half-caste, etc.
In fact, so great is the number of these words, idioms, phrases,
and terms of speech derived from Guarani, that Dr. Baptista de Almeida,
in his preface to his grammar published at Rio Janeiro (1879), computes that
there are more words derived from Guarani than even from Arabic
in the Portuguese spoken in Brazil.* The Guaranis in Brazil
were known either as Tupis, from the word `tupy',** savage, or Tupinambas,
from `tupynamba', literally, the savage or indigenous men.

--
* Perhaps the two most important works upon the language
are the `Tesoro de la Lengua Guarani', by Ruiz de Montoya,
Madrid, 1639 (it is dedicated to the `Soberana Virgen');
and the `Catecismo de la Lengua Guarani', by Diego Diaz de la Guerra,
Madrid, An~o de 1630. He also wrote a `Bocabulario y Arte
de la Lengua Guarani'.
** P. Guevara, in his `Historia del Paraguay', relates a curious story
which he said was current amongst the Indians. Two brothers,
Tupi and Guarani, lived with their families upon the sea-coast of Brazil.
In those days the world was quite unpopulated but by themselves.
They quarrelled about a parrot, and Tupi with his family went north,
and populated all Brazil; whilst Guarani went west,
and was the ancestor of all the Indians of the race of Guaranis.
--

Jean de Lery, the well-known Huguenot pastor and friend of Calvin,
passed a year on the coast of Brazil about 1558, having accompanied
the expedition of the famous Villegagnau. In his book
(`Histoire d'un Voyage faict en la Terre du Brezil') he always
refers to the Indians as Toupinaubaoults, and has preserved
many curious details of them before they had had much contact with Europeans.
He appears to have had a considerable acquaintance with the language,
and has left some curious conversations `en langage sauvage et Franc,ais',
in which he gives some grammatical rules. The language of conversation
is almost identical with that of Paraguay, though some words are used
which are either peculiar to the Tupis or obsolete in Paraguay to-day.
His account of their customs tallies with that of the various
Spanish writers and explorers who have written on the subject.
Tobacco, which seems to have been known under the name of `nicotiane' to Lery,
he finds in Brazil under the name of `petun', the same name
by which it is called in Paraguay at present. He believed
that `petun' and `nicotiane' were two different plants,
but the only reason he adduces for his belief is that `nicotiane'
was brought in his time from Florida, which, as he observes,
is more than a thousand leagues from `Nostre Terre du Brezil'.
His experience of savages was the same as that of Azara,
and almost all early travellers, for he says: `Nos Toupinambaoults
rec,oivent fort humainement les estrangers amis qui les vont visiter.'*
Lery, however, seemed to think that, in spite of their pacific inclination,
it was not prudent to put too much power in their hands, for he remarks:
`Au reste parcequ'ils chargeyent, et remplisseyent leurs mousquets
jusques au bout . . . nous leurs baillions moitie/ (i.e., la poudre)
de charbon broye/.' This may have been a wise precaution,
but he omits to state if the `charbon broye' was `bailli' at the same price
as good powder. According to Azara, who takes his facts partly
from the contemporary writers -- Schmidel, Alvar Nunez,
Ruy Diaz de Guzman, and Barco de la Centenera -- the Guaranis were divided
into numerous tribes, as Imbeguas, Caracaras, Tembues, Colistines,
and many others. These tribes, though apparently of a common origin,
never united, but each lived separately under its own chief.
Their towns were generally either close to or in the middle of forests,
or at the edge of rivers where there is wood. They all cultivated pumpkins,
beans, maize, mani (ground nuts), sweet potatoes, and mandioca;
but they lived largely by the chase, and ate much wild honey.
Diaz in his `Argentina' (lib. i., chap. i.) makes them cannibals.
Azara believes this to have been untrue, as no traditions of cannibalism
were current amongst the Guaranis in his time, i.e., in 1789-1801.
Liberal as Azara was, and careful observer of what he saw himself,
I am disposed to believe the testimony of so many eye-witnesses
of the customs of the primitive Guaranis, though none of them
had the advantage enjoyed by Azara of living three hundred years
after the conquest. It may be, of course, that the powers of observation
were not so well developed in mankind in the beginning of the sixteenth
as at the end of the eighteenth century, but this point I leave to those
whose business it is to prove that the human mind is in a progressive state.
However, Father Montoya, in his `Conquista Espiritual del Paraguay',
affirms most positively that they used to eat their prisoners taken in war.'**

--
* Azara, in his `Descripcion y Historia del Paraguay', has a similar passage:
`Recibe bien todo Indio silvestre, al estrangero que viene de paz.'
** `Por lo comun reparten pedazos de este cuerpo, del qual pedazo cozido
en mucha agua hacen unas gachas (`fritters') y es fiesta muy celebre
para ellos que hacen con muchas cerimonias.'
--

Their general characteristics seem to have been much the same
as those of other Indians of America. For instance, they kept
their hair and teeth to an extreme old age, their sight was keen,
they seldom looked you in the face whilst speaking, and their disposition
was cold and reserved. The tone of their voices was low,
so low that, as Azara says: `La voz nunca es gruesa ni sonora,
y hablan siempre muy bajo, sin gritar aun para quejarse si los matan;
de manera que, si camina uno diez pasos delante, no le llama
el que le necesita, sino que va a/ alcanzarle.' This I have myself observed
when travelling with Indians, even on horseback.

There was one characteristic of the Guaranis in which
they differed greatly from most of the Indian tribes in their vicinity,
as the Indians of the Chaco and the Pampas, for all historians alike agree
that they were most unwarlike. It is from this characteristic
that the Jesuits were able to make such a complete conquest of them,
for, notwithstanding all their efforts, they never really succeeded
in permanently establishing themselves amongst any of the tribes
in the Chaco or upon the Pampas.

The name Guarani is variously derived. Pedro de Angelis,
in his `Coleccion de Obras y Documentos', derives it from `gua', paint,
and `ni', sign of the plural, making the signification of the word
`painted ones' or `painted men'. Demersay, in his `Histoire du Paraguay',*
thinks it probable that the word is an alteration of the word `guaranai',
i.e., numerous. Barco de la Centenera** (`Argentina', book i., canto i.)
says the word means `hornet', and was applied on account of their savageness.
Be that as it may, it is certain that the Guaranis did not
at the time of the conquest, and do not now, apply the word to themselves,
except when talking Spanish or to a foreigner. The word `aba',
Indian or man, is how they speak of their people, and to the language
they apply the word `Abanee'.

--
* `Histoire du Paraguay et des E/tablissements des Je/suites',
L. Alfred Demersay, Paris, 1864.
** `La Argentina', a long poem or rhyming chronicle contained
in the collection of `Historiadores Primitivos de Indias',
of Gonzales Barcia, Madrid, 1749.
--

In the same way the word `Paraguay' is variously derived
from a corruption of the word `Payagua' (the name of an Indian tribe),
and `y', the Guarani word for water, meaning river of the Payaguas.
Others, again, derive it from a Guarani word meaning `crown',
and `y', water, and make it the crowned river, either from the palm-trees
which crown its banks or the feather crowns which the Indians wore
at the first conquest. Others, again, derive it from a bird
called paraqua (`Ortolida paraqua'). Again, Angelis, in his work
`Serie de los Sen~ores Gobernadores del Paraguay' (lib. ii., p. 187),
derives it from Paragua, the name of a celebrated Indian chief
at the time of the conquest. What is certain is that `y'
is the Guarani for water, and this is something in a derivation.
`Y' is perhaps as hard to pronounce as the Gaelic `luogh', a calf,
the nasal `gh' in Arabic, or the Kaffir clicks, having both
a guttural and a nasal aspiration.* It is rarely attempted with success
by foreigners, even when long resident in the country. Though Paraguay
was so completely the country of the Jesuits in after-times,
they were not the first religious Order to go there. Almost in every instance
the ecclesiastics who accompanied the first conquerors of America
were Franciscans. The Jesuits are said to have sent two priests
to Bahia in Brazil ten years after their Order was founded,
but both in Brazil and Paraguay the Franciscans were before them
in point of time.

--
* Lozano, in his `Historia del Paraguay', compares it to Greek,
but in my opinion fails to establish his case; but, then,
so few people know both Greek and Guarani.
--

San Francisco Solano, the first ecclesiastic who rose to much note
as a missionary, and who made his celebrated journey through the Chaco
in 1588-89 from Peru to Paraguay, was a Franciscan.* Thus, the Franciscans
had the honour of having the first American saint in their ranks.
It is noteworthy, though, that he was recalled from Paraguay by his superiors,
who seem to have had no very exalted opinion of him.

--
* He passed through the whole Chaco, descending the Pilcomayo
to its junction with the Paraguay, through territories but little explored
even to-day. Perhaps the most complete description of the Chaco
is that of P. Lozano, with the following comprehensive title:

`Descripcion chorographica de Terreno Rios, Arboles, y Animales
de los dilatadisimas Provincias del Gran Chaco, Gualamba,
y de los Ritos y Costumbres de la inumerables naciones
barbaros e/ infideles que le habitan. Con un cabal Relacion Historica
de lo que en ellos han obrado para conquistarlas algunos
Gobernadores y Ministros Reales, y los Misioneros Jesuitas
para reduc irlos a\ la fe del Verdadero Dios.' Por el Padre Pedro Lozano,
de la Compan~ia de Jesus, An~o de 1733. En Cordoba
por Joseph Santos Balbas.

This book did not appear in a clandestine manner, for it had:
1. Censura, por C. de Palmas. 2. Licencia de la Religion,
por Geronymo de Huro/za, Provincial de los Jesuitas de Andalucia.
3. Licencia del Ordinario por el Dr. Don Francisco Miguel Moreno,
por mandado del Sr. Provisor Alonso Joseph Gomez de Lara.
4. Aprobacion del Rdo. P. Diego Vasquez. 5. Privelegio de su Majestad
por Don Miguel Fernandez Morillo. 6. Fe/ de Corrector por el Licenciado,
Don Manuel Garcia Alesson, Corrector General de su Majestad
(who adds in a note, `este libro corresponde a\ su original').
7. Sumo de Tassa, as follows: `Tassaron los sen~ores del Consejo
este libro a\ seis maravedis cada pliego.'

Palma, in the first `censura', says that he had read it several times
`con repetida complacencia', and that, though it was `breve en volumen'
(it has 484 quarto pages), that it was also short in its concise style,
kept closely to the rules of history, and was `muy copiosa en la doctrina'.
--

Charlevoix remarks (`History of Paraguay') `that it seems as if Providence,
in granting him miraculous powers, had forgotten the other necessary steps
to make them effective.' That he really had these powers seems strange,
but San Francisco Solano narrates of himself that, in passing through
the Chaco, he learned the languages of several of the tribes,
and `preached to them in their own tongues of the birth, death,
and transfiguration of Christ, the mysteries of the Trinity,
Transubstantiation, and Atonement; that he explained to them
the symbols of the Church, the Papal succession from St. Peter downwards,
and that he catechized the Indians by thousands, tens and hundreds
of thousands, and that they came in tears and penitence
to acknowledge their belief.'

Of course, to-day it is difficult to controvert these statements,
even if inclined to do so; but the languages spoken by the Chaco Indians
are amongst the most difficult to learn of any spoken by the human race,
so much so that Father Dobrizhoffer, in his `History of the Abipones',
says `that the sounds produced by the Indians of the Chaco
resembled nothing human, so do they sneeze, and stutter, and cough.'
In such a language the Athanasian Creed itself would be puzzling
to a neophyte.

He also says that several of the Jesuits who had laboured
for years amongst the Indians could never master their dialects,
and when they preached the Indians received their words
with shouts of laughter. This the good priest attributed to
the presence of a `mocking devil' who possessed them. It may be
that the mocking devil was but a sense of humour, the possession of which,
even amongst good Christians, has been known to give offence.

But be this as it may, San Francisco de Solano remained two years at Asuncion,
though whilst he lived there his powers of speech (according to the Jesuits)
seem to have been diminished, and he held no communication with the Indians
in their own languages. It may be that, like St. Paul, he preferred to speak,
when not with Indians, five words with his understanding
rather than ten thousand in an unknown tongue.

At the time of the first conquest Paraguay was almost entirely peopled
by the Guarani race.* It does not appear that their number
was ever very great, perhaps not exceeding a million
in the whole country. From the writings of Montoya, Guevara, Lozano,
and the other missionaries of the time, it is certain that they had attained
to no very high degree of civilization, though they were certainly
more advanced than their neighbours in the Gran Chaco.
It is most probable that they had not a single stone-built town,
or even a house, or that such a thing existed south of New Granada,
to the eastward of the Andes, for we may take the description in Schmidel's
`History of the Casa del Gran Moxo'** either as a mistake or as a story
which he had heard from some Peruvian Indian of the palaces of the Incas.
At any rate, no remains of stone-built houses, still less of palaces,
are known to have been found in Brazil or Paraguay.

--
* This race at one time spread from the Orinoco to the river Plate,
and even in the case of its offshoot, the Chiriguanas,
crossed to the west bank of the Paraguay. Padre Ruiz Montoya,
in his `Conquista Espiritual del Paraguay', cap. i.,
speaking of the Guarani race, says: `Domina ambos mares el del sur
por todo el Brasil y cin~iendo el Peru con los dos mas grandes rios
que conoce el orbe que son el de la Plata, cuya boca en Buenos-Ayres
es de ochenta leguas, y el gran Maran~on, a\ el inferior
en nada e que pasa bien vecino de la ciudad de Cuzco.'
** Barco de la Centenera, in `La Argentina', canto v., also refers
to `La Casa del Gran Moxo'. It was situated `en una laguna',
and was `toda de piedra labrada'.
--

To-day all the Guaranis who are still unconquered live in the impenetrable
forests of the North of Paraguay or in the Brazilian province of Matto Grosso.
Their limits to the south extend to near the ruined missions
of Jesus and Trinidad. By preference, they seem to dwell
about the sources of the Igatimi, an affluent of the Parana,
and in the chain of mountains known either as San Jose or Mbaracayu.
The Paraguayans generally refer to them as Monteses (dwellers in the woods),
and sometimes as Caaguas. They present almost the same characteristics
as they did at the discovery of the country, and wander in the woods
as the Jesuits describe them as doing three hundred years ago.
Olive in colour, rather thickly set, of medium height, thin beards,
and generally little hair upon the body, their type has remained unchanged.
The difference in stature amongst the Guaranis is less noticeable
than amongst Europeans. Their language is poorer than the Guarani spoken
by the Paraguayans, and the pronunciation both more nasal and guttural.
Their numerals only extend to four, as was the case
at the time of the discovery.*

--
* Their numerals are four in number (`petei^, mocoi^, mbohapi=, ira^ndi=');
after this they are said to count in Spanish in the same way
as do the Guarani-speaking Paraguayans. Much has been written
on the Guarani tongue by many authors, but perhaps the `Gramatica',
`Tesoro', and the `Vocabulario' of Padre Antonio Ruiz Montoya,
published at Madrid in 1639 and 1640, remain the most important works
on the language. Padre Sigismundi has left a curious work in Guarani
on the medicinal plants of Paraguay. Before the war of 1866-70
several MS. copies were said to exist in that country.
See Du Gratz's `Re/publique du Paraguay', cap. iv., p. 214.
--

Like their forefathers, they seldom unite in large numbers,
and pay little honour or obedience to their chiefs, who differ in no respect,
either in arms, dress, or position, from the ordinary tribesmen.

In Brazil they are confined to the southern portion of the province
of San Paulo, and are called by the Brazilians Bugres -- that is, slaves.
A more unfitting name it would have been impossible to hit upon,
as all efforts to civilize them have proved abortive, and to-day
they still range the forests, attacking small parties of travellers,
and burning isolated farm-houses. The Brazilians assert
that they are cannibals, but little is known positively as to this.
What has altered them so entirely from the original Guaranis
of the time of the conquest, who were so easily subdued,
it is hard to conjecture. One thing is certain: that the example given them
by the Christian settlers has evidently not been such as to induce them
to leave their wild life and enter into the bonds of civilization.

Diaz, in the `Argentina', thinks the Caribs of the West Indies
were Guaranis, and the Jesuits often refer to them under that name.*
This point would be easily set at rest by examining if any Guarani words
remain in the dialect of the Caribs of the Mosquito coast.
As to their relative numbers at the time of the foundation of the missions,
it is most difficult to judge. At no one time does the population
of the thirty towns seem to have exceeded one hundred and thirty thousand.

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