A Vanished Arcadia: Being Some Account of the Jesuits in Paraguay 1607-1767Cunninghame Graham, R. B. (Robert Bontine)
History
A Vanished Arcadia: Being Some Account of the Jesuits in Paraguay 1607-1767
Cunninghame Graham, R. B. (Robert Bontine)
Jesuits -- Paraguay; Paraguay -- History -- To 1811
To-day all the Guaranís 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 Igatimí, an affluent of the Paraná, and
in the chain of mountains known either as San Jose or Mbaracayú. The
Paraguayans generally refer to them as Monteses (dwellers in the
woods), and sometimes as Caaguás. 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 Guaranís is
less noticeable than amongst Europeans. Their language is poorer than
the Guaraní 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.[31]
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 Guaranís 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
Guaranís, and the Jesuits often refer to them under that name.[32] This
point would be easily set at rest by examining if any Guaraní 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.
D’Orbigny in his ‘L’Homme Américain’, estimates the Guaranís of Brazil
at one hundred and fifty thousand.
Humboldt cites two hundred and sixty-nine thousand as the probable
number of Indians of every kind in the Brazilian Empire.
The Viscount de Itabayana (a Brazilian writer) fixes the number at two
hundred and fifty thousand to three hundred thousand.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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