Like the other American savages, some of the Abipones practise polygamy and divorce. Yet they are by no means numerous; the whole nation consisting of no more than five thousand people. Intestine skirmishes, excursions against the enemy, the deadly contagion of the measles and small-pox, and the cruelty of the mothers towards their offspring, have combined to render their number so small. Now learn the cause of this inhumanity in the women. The mothers suckle their children for three years, during which time they have no conjugal intercourse with their husbands, who, tired of this long delay, often marry another wife. The women, therefore, kill their unborn babes through fear of repudiation, sometimes getting rid of them by violent arts, without waiting for their birth. Afraid of being widows in the life-time of their husbands, they blush not to become more savage than tigresses. Mothers spare their female offspring more frequently than the males, because the sons, when grown up, are obliged to purchase a wife, whereas daughters, at an age to be married, may be sold to the bridegroom at almost any price.
From all this you may easily guess that the Abiponian nations abound more in women than in men, both because female infants are seldomer killed by their mothers, because the women never fall in battle as is the case with the men, and because women are naturally longer lived than men. Many writers make the mistake of attributing the present scanty population of America to the cruelty of the Spaniards, when they should rather accuse that of the infanticide mothers. We, who have grown old amongst the Abipones, should pronounce her a singularly good woman who brings up two or three sons. But the whole Abiponian nation contains so few such mothers, that their names might all be inscribed on a ring. I have known some who killed all the children they bore, no one either preventing or avenging these murders. Such is the impunity with which crimes are committed when they become common, as if custom could excuse their impiety. The mothers bewail their children, who die of a disease, with sincere tears; yet they dash their new-born babes against the ground, or destroy them in some other way, with calm countenances. Europeans will scarce believe that such affection for their dead children can co-exist with such cruelty towards them while they are alive, but to us it is certain and indubitable. After our instructions, however, had engrafted a reverence for the divine law in the minds of the Abipones, the barbarity of the mothers gradually disappeared, and husbands, with joyful eyes, beheld their hands no longer stained with the blood of their offspring, but their arms laden with those dear pledges. These are the fruits and the triumphs of religion, which fills not only Heaven but earth with inhabitants. When polygamy and divorce, the iniquitous murdering of infants, and the liberty of spontaneous abortion were at length, by means of Christian discipline, abolished, the nation of the Abipones, within a few years, rejoiced to see itself enriched with incredible accessions of both sexes.
CHAPTER XII.
OF THE MAGISTRATES, CAPTAINS, CACIQUES, &c. OF THE ABIPONES, AND OF THEIR FORMS OF GOVERNMENT
The Abipones do not acknowledge any prince who reigns with supreme power over the whole nation. They are divided into hordes, each of which is headed by a man, whom the Spaniards call capitan, or cacique, the Peruvians curáca, the Guaranies aba rubicha, and the Abipones nelar̂eyràt, or capitâ. This word capitan sounds very grand in the ears of the Americans. They think they are using a very honourable title when they call the God, or King of the Spaniards, capitan latènc, or capitan guazù, the great captain. By this word, indeed, they mean to designate not only supreme power, and eminent dignity, but also every kind of nobility. Sometimes miserable looking old women, wretchedly clothed, and rich only in wrinkles, to prevent us from thinking them of low birth, will say aym capitâ, I am a captain, I am noble. I was astonished at hearing the savages buried in the woods of Mbaeverà, and cut off from all intercourse with the Spaniards, address their caciques by the names of Capitâ Roỹ, Capitâ Tupânchichu, Capitâ Veraripotschiritù, neglecting their own word, aba rubicha; so universal and honourable is the title of captain amongst the savage nations. Should an Abipon meet a Spaniard dressed very handsomely, he would not hesitate to call him captain, though he might be of low rank, and distinguished by no dignity or nobility whatever. Moreover, in Paraguay, Spaniards of the lowest rank, who live in the country, are extremely ambitious of the title of captain, and if you do not call them so every now and then, will look angry, and refuse to do you any kind of service, even to give you a drop of water if you are ever so thirsty. The Christian Guaranies have the same foolish mania for titles. After having laboured hard for two or three years in the royal camps, they think themselves amply repaid for their toils and wounds, if, at the end of the expedition, they return to their colony honoured by the royal governour with the title and staff of a captain. At all times even when employed, barefoot, in building or agriculture, they ostentatiously hold the captain's staff in their hands. When they are carried to the grave, this wooden ensign is suspended from the bier. When a man is at the point of death, and just going to receive extreme unction, he puts on his military boots and spurs, takes his staff in his hand, and in this trim awaits the priest, and even approaching death, as if in the intent of frightening the grim spectre away. On the domestics' expressing their surprize at the unusual attire of the dying man, he sternly and gravely observes, that this is the manner in which it becomes a captain to die. Such is the signification and the honour attached to the word captain in America.
Amongst the Guaranies, who have embraced the Christian religion, in various colonies, the name and office of cacique is hereditary. When a cacique dies, his eldest son succeeds without dispute, whatever his talents or disposition may be. Amongst the Abipones, too, the eldest son succeeds, but only provided that he be of a good character, of a noble and warlike disposition, in short, fit for the office; for if he be indolent, ill-natured, and foolish in his conduct, he is set aside, and another substituted, who is not related to the former by any tie of blood. But to say the truth, the cacique elected by the Abipones has no cause for pride, nor he that is rejected for grief and envy. The name of cacique is certainly a high title amongst the Abipones, but it is more a burden than an honour, and often brings with it greater danger than profit. For they neither revere their cacique as a master, nor pay him tribute or attendance as is usual with other nations. They invest him neither with the authority of a judge, an arbitrator, or an avenger. Drunken men frequently kill one another; women quarrel, and often imbrue their hands in one another's blood; young men, fond of glory or booty, rob the Spaniards, to whom they had promised peace, of whole droves of horses, and sometimes secretly slay them: and the cacique, though aware of all these things, dares not say a word. If he were but to rebuke them for these transgressions, which are reckoned amongst the merits, virtues, and victories of the savages, with a single harsh word, he would be punished in the next drinking-party with the fists of the intoxicated savages, and publicly loaded with insults, as a friend to the Spaniards, and a greater lover of ease than of his people. How often have Ychamenraikin, chief cacique of the Riikahes, and Narè, of the Yaaucanigas, experienced this! How often have they returned from a drinking-party with swelled eyes, bruised hands, pale cheeks, and faces exhibiting all the colours of the rainbow!
But although the Abipones neither fear their cacique as a judge, nor honour him as a master, yet his fellow-soldiers follow him as a leader and governour of the war, whenever the enemy is to be attacked or repelled. Some, however, refuse to follow him, for what Cæsar said of the German chiefs is applicable to the Abiponian cacique: Authoritate suadendi magis, quam jubendi potestate audiatur. As soon as a report is spread of the danger of an hostile attack, the business of the cacique is to provide for the security of his people; to increase the store of weapons; to order the horses to be fetched from