Through Five Republics on Horseback, Being an Account of Many Wanderings in South AmericaRay, George Whitfield
Religion
Through Five Republics on Horseback, Being an Account of Many Wanderings in South America
Ray, George Whitfield
Ray, George Whitfield, 1868- -- Travel -- South America; South America -- Description and travel
Infanticide is practised in every tribe, and in my extensive wanderings
among eight _toldos_, I never met a family with more than two children.
The rest are killed! A child is born, and the mother immediately knocks
it on the head with a club! After covering the baby with a layer of
earth, the woman goes about as if nothing had occurred. One chief of
the Lengua tribe, that I met, had himself killed nineteen children. An
ironwood club is kept in each _toldo_ for this gruesome work.
Frequently a live child is buried with a dead parent; but I had better
leave much of their doings in the inkpot.
When a girl enters the matrimonial market, at about the age of twelve
or thirteen, her face is specially colored with a yellow paint, made
from the flower of the date palm, and the aspirant to her hand brings a
bundle of firewood, neatly tied up, which he places beside her earthen
bed at early morning. As the rising sun gilds the eastern sky, the girl
awakes out of her sleep, rubs her eyes,--and sees the sticks. Well does
she know the meaning of it, and a glad light flashes in her dark eyes
as she cries out, "Who brought the sticks?" All men, women and
children, take up the cry, and soon the whole encampment resounds with,
"Who brought the sticks?" The medicine-man, who sleeps apart from the
"common herd" under an incense-tree, hears the din, and, quickly
donning his head-dress, hurries down to the scene. With an
authoritative voice, which even the chief himself does not use, he
demands, "Who brought the sticks?" until a young brave steps forward in
front of him and replies, "Father of Kittens, I brought the sticks."
This young man is then commanded to stand apart, the girl is hunted
out, and together they wait while the witch-doctor X-rays them through
and through. After this close scrutiny, they are asked: "Do you want
this man?" "Do you want this girl?" To which they reply, "Yes, Father
of Kittens, I do." Then, with great show of power, the medicine-man
says, "Go!" and off the newly-married pair start, to live together
until death (in the form of burial) does them part.
It may be a great surprise to the reader to learn that these savages
are exceedingly moral. Infidelity between man and wife is punished with
death, but in all my travels I only heard of one such case. A man
marries only one wife, and although any expression of love between them
is never seen, they yet seem to think of one another in a tender way,
and it is especially noticeable that the parents are kind to their
children.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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