In some tribes the aged ones are just _"left to die"_ sitting under a palm-leaf mat. All the members of the tribe move away and leave them thus. Many are the terrible things my eyes have witnessed, but surely the most pathetic was the sight of an old woman sitting under the mat. I was one day riding alone, but had with me two horses, when I caught sight of the palm-leaf erection and the solitary figure sitting under it. Getting down from my horse, I approached the woman and offered to take her to a place of safety, promising to feed her and permit her to live as long as she chose. Would she come with me? I begged and entreated, but the poor woman would not so much as lift her eyes to mine. The law of her tribe had said she must die, and the laws are to them unalterable. Most reluctantly, I left her to be eaten later on by the wild beasts. Terrible as this custom is, other tribes kill and eat their aged parents "as a mark of respect." Another tribe will not permit one member to go into the spirit world alone, so they hang another one, in order that there may be two to enter together. Whereas the Caingwas are a religious people, even attributing their custom of piercing the lip to divine commandment, the Chaco aborigines have no god and no religion. Missionaries in the solitary station I have referred to, after ten years' probing, have been unable to find any approach to worship in their darkened minda. "The miserable wretches who inhabit that vast wilderness are so low in the scale of reasoning beings that one might doubt whether or not they have human souls." [Footnote: Washburn's "History of Paraguay."] These "lost sheep" have no word to express God, and have no idols. "The poverty of the Indian dialects of the Chaco is scarcely surpassed by that of the dumb brutes." These wretched tribes have perfect community of goods; what is secured by one belongs equally to all. A piece of cloth is either torn up and distributed, or worn in turns by each one. The shirt which I gave my guide, Yantiwau, for much arduous toil, was worn by one and another alternately. Much as the savage at first desires to possess some garment, it does not take long for him to tire of it. All agree with Mark Twain, that "the human skin is the most comfortable of all costumes," and, clothed in the sunlight, the human form divine is not unlovely.