In the Wilds of South America — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
In the Wilds of South America
John Stuart Mill · en
At the present time, at least, the Yuracarés are a people of the hot,
humid lowlands. Those who have not been captured and brought to the
missions, or who escaped the unenviable fate of having been taken
from their forest home by private “slaving expeditions,” live along
the smaller branches of the streams, which eventually find their way
into the Mamoré; this includes particularly the Chaparé, Chimoré, the
Ichilo, and the Isiboro.
There were about four hundred Indians residing at the mission. Although
attempts have been made intermittently to civilize these people for
more than a hundred years, there were long intervals when the work had
to be abandoned, and the families naturally returned to their homes in
the wilderness. Nearly all of the present aggregation had been brought
together during the last few years. Newcomers are added to their number
frequently. The priest, learning of other families far up some unmapped
_quebrada_ or streamlet, takes a few of the men who have learned to
place confidence in him and whom he trusts, and starts forth on long
canoe voyages in search of them. They approach the hidden dwelling
suddenly, surround it, and persuade the occupants to accompany them
immediately, giving them only an hour or two in which to collect
their few belongings. Occasionally the Indians whom they seek learn
of the approach of the emissaries and hide before their arrival; then
the priest returns to the mission, his long trip having been made to
no purpose. When, should the expedition prove to be successful, the
families have departed to the waiting canoes, their huts are burned and
the plantations destroyed. Knowing that neither home nor food have been
left behind, they are not so apt to run away from their new quarters
and go back to their old dwelling-places. I heard of no instance where
they resisted this deportation.
The Yuracarés are a tall, well-built people of a rather docile
disposition; however, the older generation never wholly becomes
reconciled to the new mode of life, and remains at the mission only for
reasons which I will explain later.
In their wild state they live in small family parties, obtaining their
subsistence from the forest, which abounds in game, and from their
fields of yuccas. Their native costume, a long, shirt-like garment
called _tipoy_, is made from the fibrous bark of a tree; at the mission
this has largely been replaced by cotton clothes. Each family has been
provided with a separate hut of adequate size, where the parents and
very small children live. The boys and girls over five or six years
of age are under the constant supervision of the priest, and attend
his classes; at night they sleep in separate locked dormitories, which
prevents their returning to their homes, and also keeps the parents
from running away, as they will not leave without their children.