PATAGONIAN MARRIAGE — APPEAL OF A SUITOR — REJECTION OF THE OFFER, AND RESULT OF THE NEGOTIATION — CURIOUS MODE OF SMOKING — PRESCRIPTION FOR A SICK CHILD — PATAGONIANS AT HOME — NATIVE COOKERY — PATAGONIAN ARCHITECTURE — TREATMENT OF WOMEN, CHILDREN, AND SLAVES — MODE OF GOVERNMENT — POWER OF THE CACIQUE — NOTIONS OF RELIGION — OFFERINGS AND LIBATIONS — FUNERALS IN PATAGONIA — SECLUSION OF WIDOWS — VISITS OF CONDOLENCE.

We will now glance at the domestic life of the Patagonians, if the word “domestic” can be rightly applied to people who have no settled home or domus.

How marriage is conducted among them is described by Captain Bourne, who was kept a prisoner for a considerable time, and had every opportunity of studying their manners and customs. It appeared that in the house of the chief to whom he belonged there was a daughter—a widow, with a young child. One evening, the tramp of many feet was heard on the outside of the hut, together with the mutterings of voices. Presently, one voice was heard louder than the rest, evidently addressed to some one within the hut. It was the voice of a suitor come to ask the hand of the young widow. The chief scornfully refused the offer, saying that he was not worthy to be her husband, having no horses or other property. The man admitted that at the present time he did not happen to have any horses, but that he was a remarkably good thief, and that, if the lady would only accept him, he would steal horses, catch guanacos, and give her plenty of grease.

These overtures being rejected as contemptuously as the last, the suitor addressed himself to the lady, who was very willing to accept him, and entirely yielded when he repeatedly promised to bring home plenty of grease for her. She then besought her father to listen to the suitor’s application, but was angrily refused. Her mother then tried to pacify the angry father, saying that the young man might fulfil his promises, catch plenty of horses, and become a great chief.

This was too much for the old man. He jumped up in a towering passion, seized the cradle in which his little grandchild was lying, flung it out of the hut, snatched up every article which his daughter possessed, threw them after the cradle, and then ordered her to follow her goods. This was exactly what she wanted; so, accompanied by her mother, she left the hut, and was joined by her intended husband.

A curious mode of smoking is practised among the Patagonians, which somewhat resembles that which is used by the Damaras, as recorded on a preceding page.

When one of these smoking parties is organized, the guests assemble together, sometimes in a hut, and sometimes in the open air. They gravely seat themselves in a circle, round a vessel of water,—sometimes an ox-horn stuck in the ground, and sometimes a sort of basin made of raw hide. All being assembled, one of them takes a stone pipe, and fills it with a mixture of tobacco and the shavings of some yellow wood.

The pipe being prepared, all the company lie flat on their faces, with their mantles drawn up to the top of their heads. The pipe is then lighted and passed round, each drawing into his lungs as much smoke as he can swallow, and retains it as long as he can exist without breathing. As soon as the smoke is expelled, the men begin a series of groanings and gruntings, which become louder and louder, until they are absolutely deafening. By degrees they die away; and when quiet has been restored, each takes a draught of water, sits silently for a space, and then slowly rises and moves away.

Captain Bourne is of opinion that this ceremony has in it something of a religious element. The groaning and grunting might be due to the tobacco, or the substance which is mixed with it, but the sounds seemed to him to be louder and more emphatic than they would have been if entirely involuntary; and the breathings, writhings, and other accompaniments, the profound gravity, and the abstinence from speech, all appeared to have some religious signification.

The same traveller gives a very amusing account of a visit paid by a Patagonian physician to the hut of a chief. The party were just preparing to shift their quarters, after the Patagonian fashion, when one of the daughters came in, carrying a child who was crying loudly, and who was supposed in consequence to be very ill. The journey was stopped, and a messenger despatched for the wise man, who soon came, and brought with him his magic medicines, rolled up in two pieces of skin.

These were laid on the ground, and the doctor squatted by the side of them, fixing a steady gaze on the child, who presently ceased crying. Encouraged by this success, the wise man ordered a clay plaster to be applied. This was done. Some yellow clay was brought, moistened until it was like paint, and with this substance the child was anointed from head to foot. The clay seemed to have but little good effect, for the child began to cry as badly as ever.

The two mysterious packages were now untied, and out of one the doctor took a bunch of rhea sinews, and from the other a rattle. The doctor then fingered all the sinews successively, muttering something in a very low tone of voice, and after he had muttered for some five minutes or so, he seized his rattle and shook it violently. He next sat in front of the patient, and stared at him as he had done before. After an interval of silent staring, he turned to the chief and asked whether he did not think that the child was better. A nod and a grunt expressed assent, and the mother on being asked the same question gave a similar response.

The same process was then repeated—the silent stare, the painting with clay, the lingering of the sinews, the muttering of inaudible words, the shaking of the rattle, and the concluding stare. The treatment of the patient was then considered to be complete. The chief gave the doctor two pipefuls of tobacco by way of fee. This was received gratefully by the man of skill, who gave his rattle a final shake by way of expressing his appreciation of the chief’s liberality, and went his way. As soon as he had gone, the child resumed its crying, but the parents were satisfied that it was better, and, as Captain Bourne testifies, it soon became quite composed, and throve well afterward.

The general mode of life among the Patagonians is not particularly alluring to persons of civilized habits, if we may judge from the graphic picture drawn by Captain Bourne:—

“A few dry sticks and a bunch of dry grass were brought; mine host drew from a convenient repository a brass tinder-box with a stone and a piece of steel, and soon produced a blaze that brilliantly illuminated the scene. By its light I was enabled to survey the first specimen of Patagonian architecture that had blessed my vision. It was constructed in a ‘pointed’ style, though not very aspiring, consisting of a row of stakes about eight feet high, each terminating in a crutch or fork, with a pole laid across them; two parallel rows of stakes on either side about two feet high, with similar terminations and a similar horizontal fixture; and a covering composed of skins of the guanaco sewed together with the sinews of the ostrich, the only thread used by the people. This covering is thrown over the framework and fastened by stakes driven through it into the ground. For purposes of ventilation, some interstices are left; but these again are half closed by skins attached to the outside, so that the air from without and the smoke from within (in default of a chimney) must insinuate themselves through these apertures in great quantities.

“In truth, my first survey was rather hurried; the first cheerful gleam had scarcely set my eyes on the look-out, when I was fain to shut them against an intolerable smoke. In no long time I felt as bacon, if conscious, might be supposed to feel in the process of curing. No lapse of time was sufficient to reconcile the eyes, nostrils, and lungs to the nuisance. Often have I been more than half strangled by it, and compelled to lie with my face to the ground as the only endurable position. ‘Talk that is worse than a smoky house’ must be something out of date, or Shakespeare’s imagination never comprehended anything so detestable as a Patagonian hut. The chief and his numerous household, however, seemed to enjoy immense satisfaction, and jabbered and grunted and played their antics and exchanged grimaces as complacently as if they breathed a highly exhilarating atmosphere.

“My meditations and observations were shortly interrupted by preparations for a meal. The chiefs better-half—or rather fifth-part, for he had four wives—superintended the culinary operations, which were as rude and simple as the hut where they were carried on. And now my fancy began to conjure up visions of the beef, fowls, and eggs, the promise of which had lured my men from the boat, had proved stronger than suggestions of prudence, and had made me a prisoner. But these dainties, if they existed anywhere within the chief’s jurisdiction, were just at present reserved.

“The old hag threw down from the top of one of the stakes that supported the tent the quarter of some animal, whether dog or guanaco was past imagining. She slashed right and left with an old copper knife with might and main, till it was divided into several pieces. Then taking a number of crotched sticks about two feet long, and sharpened at the points, she inserted the forked ends into pieces of the meat, and drove the opposite points into the ground near the fire, which, though sufficient to smoke and comfortably warm the mess, was too feeble to roast it. At all events, time was too precious, or their unsophisticated appetites were too craving, to wait for such an operation, and the raw morsels were quickly snatched from the smoke, torn into bits by their dirty hands, and thrown upon the ground before us.

“The Indians seized them with avidity, and tossed a bit to me; but what could I do with it? I should have no appetite for the dinner of an alderman at such a time and place, but as for tasting meat that came in such a questionable shape, there was no bringing my teeth or resolution to it. While eyeing it with ill-suppressed disgust, I observed the savages, like a horde of half-starved dogs, devouring their portions with the greatest relish, seizing the fragment with their fine white teeth, giving every sign of enjoyment, except what one is accustomed to see in human beings.

“The old chief remarked the slight I was putting upon his hospitality. ‘Why don’t you eat, man? This meat very good to eat—very good to eat. Eat, man, eat.’

“Seeing him so much excited, and not knowing what deeds might follow his words if I refused, I thought it expedient to try to ‘eat what was set before me, asking no questions,’—thinking, moreover, that if there were any evil spirit in it that the fire had failed to expel, it could not possibly have resisted the smoke. So, being sorely divided between aversion to the strange flesh and fear of showing it, I forced a morsel into my mouth. Its taste was by no means as offensive as its appearance, and I swallowed it with less disgust than I had feared. This was my first meal with the savages, and a sample of many others, though better viands afterward varied their monotony now and then.”

It is most probable that the meat which was so rapidly cooked and eaten was that of the guanaco. The Patagonians are in no way fastidious as to their diet, and eat almost every animal which they kill, whether it be guanaco, rhea, or cavy. They have a repugnance to the flesh of dogs, though they cannot, like the Fuegians, be accused of eating the flesh of human beings rather than that of dogs.

Their chief dainty is the flesh of a young mare, and it is rather curious that these strange people will not, if they can help themselves, eat that of a horse, unless it be disabled by an accident. They are fond of the fat of mares and rheas, separating it from the flesh by boiling, and pouring it into bladders, much as lard is treated in this country. Yet the fat obtained from the guanaco is not stored like that of the mare and rhea, but is eaten raw. As is the case with the Fuegians, the Patagonians obtain a considerable amount of food from the seashore, great quantities of limpets, mussels, and similar creatures being gathered by the women and children.

Besides animal food, vegetables are consumed, though rather sparingly, by the Patagonians. Two roots form part of their ordinary diet. One is called “tus,” and looks something like a yam or potato. It is bulbous, and when cleaned and properly cooked bears a strong resemblance to a baked potato. The second root is called “chalas,” and is a long, slender root, scarcely so thick as an ordinary pencil.

It is rather remarkable that the Patagonians do not seem to have invented any intoxicating drink. They soon learn to appreciate rum and other spirits, and will intoxicate themselves whenever they can procure the means, but they obtain all fermented and distilled liquors from the white traders, and not from their own manufacture. They have a sort of cooling drink made of the juice of barberries mixed with water, but it is drunk in its natural state, and is not fermented.

The dwellings of the Patagonians are worthy of a brief description, inasmuch as they show the distinction between the Patagonian and Fuegian ideas of architecture. The reader will remember that the principal portion of the Fuegian hut consists of sticks and branches, whereas the Patagonian only uses the sticks and poles by way of a framework whereupon he can spread his tent of skins.

These huts, called by the Spanish “toldos,” and by the Patagonians “cows,” are of variable dimensions. Generally they are little more than sloping sheds, six or seven feet high in front, and only two feet high at the back. The length of each toldo is about twelve feet, and its width about nine feet. As east winds are hardly ever known in Patagonia, the opening of the hut is always to the east, the skin covering of this simple tent being impervious to wind and rain. A Patagonian village, showing the form of these huts, is represented on the 1187th page.

This is the ordinary kind of dwelling, but in some places a much larger description of hut is erected for the chief or the medicine man. These houses are gabled, being eight feet or so in height in the middle, and sloping on either side to the wall, which is five feet or so in height. Huts of this kind are nearly square, their depth rather exceeding their length.

The sleeping accommodation of these habitations is very simple, and consists of skins, which are spread on the floor. Other skins rolled up are laid along the side of the hut, and serve as pillows, the children lying in a corner by themselves, and the dogs sleeping at the feet of their owners. Those children who are unable to walk are laid in simple cradles made of square pieces of guanaco skin, hung hammockwise by four ends to the rafters of the hut.

During the daytime the infants are kept, or rather packed, in cradles made of flat pieces of board, over which some pliable sticks are bent in a semicircular form. The child is placed between two pieces of guanaco skin, fastened in the cradle, and can then be carried about without trouble. Even when the family is shifting quarters, the cradle can be hung on the saddle-bow of the mother’s horse, the little occupant being perfectly contented with its situation.

It might seem from this statement that children are treated with neglect. Such, however, is not the case, the Patagonians being remarkable for their parental affection, and being much more inclined to spoil their children by over-indulgence than to behave unkindly toward them. Indeed, when a Patagonian chief wishes to change his quarters, and the people do not wish to part with him, they take one of his children, indulge it in every way, and declare that he must leave it behind him. The affectionate parent cannot bring himself either to leave his child, or to deprive it of the society of those who are kind to it, and in consequence he remains with his people.

The condition of the women is a very tolerable one. They certainly have to work hard all their lives unless their husband be rich enough to purchase slaves, or be fortunate enough to procure them by a raid on some other tribe. Many such slaves are obtained from the Fuegians, who do not scruple even to sell their own relatives when they can procure a good price for them. Even the wives of the chief men are not exempt from labor unless their husbands happen to possess slaves.

Generally the wives are faithful to their husbands, but there are cases where the woman has thought herself ill-treated, and has betaken herself to another protector. Should he be an inferior, the aggrieved husband makes him pay for his offence; but if a superior, he is obliged to put up with his loss. Generally, however, the husband and wife live happily together, and the husband thinks it a point of honor to take his wife’s part if she should fall into a dispute, no matter whether she be right or wrong. He will scold her severely in private, and even inflict corporal punishment on her, for involving him in such a dispute, but he will make a point of upholding her in public.

The mode of punishment of the Patagonians is rather variable, but is generally a modification of the patriarchal system. The heads of families or tribes possess hereditary rank, and take the lead in all important events of peace or war. Their power is, however, not very great, and they are not able to raise taxes, nor enforce compulsory labor without payment. These chiefs, or caciques, as they are termed, can, if they choose, refuse the rank, and many do so, preferring to become subjects of some other cacique to the trouble and responsibility which accompany the post.

According to Falkner, “the cacique has the power of protecting as many as apply to him; of composing or silencing any difference; or delivering over the offending party to be punished with death, without being accountable for it. In these respects his will is the law. He is generally too apt to take bribes, delivering up his vassals, and even his relations, when well paid for it.

“According to his orders the Indians encamp, march, or travel from one place to another to hunt or to make war. He frequently summons them to his tent, and harangues them upon their behavior, the exigencies of the time, the injuries they have received, the measures to be taken, &c. In these harangues he always extols his own prowess and personal merit. When eloquent he is greatly esteemed; and when a cacique is not endowed with that accomplishment, he generally has an orator who supplies his place.”

The religion of the Patagonian is a polytheism, the natives believing that there are great numbers of deities, some good and some evil. Each family is under the guardianship of one of the good deities, and all the members of that family join him when they die. Beside these gods there are subordinate demons, good to their own friends, but bad toward all others, so that on the whole the bad predominates in them. They are called by the name of Valichu.

Yet among some of the Patagonian tribes there is even an approach to personal religion. It has been thought that the Patagonians are totally destitute of such religion. This, however, is certainly not the case, as even our limited knowledge of these people, their language, and their habits shows that, even though they may not possess any definite system of religion, they are still impressed with the idea of some Being infinitely greater than themselves, who knows everything that they do. Thus they believe in an omniscient Being; and such a belief as this, limited and imperfect though it may be, is yet a step toward true religion.

To this unknown Being they return thanks when they have obtained a supply of food after long famine, so that we find them acknowledging that the great Being, who knows all their deeds, watches over them, and is the Giver of all good things. When, for example, they have procured a seal after having been half-starved for months, they assemble round a fire, and the oldest man present cuts for each person a piece of the seal, uttering over each portion a sort of prayer, and looking upward in devotion to the unseen God, who had sent them meat in their need. Undisciplined as are the Patagonians, totally unaccustomed to self-denial, and mad with hunger, not one of them will touch the food until this invocation has been repeated.

The mode of burial among the Patagonians varies in detail according to the particular tribe, but there is a general resemblance in the ceremonies throughout the country. When a man dies, his body is wrapped in his best mantle, placed on his favorite horse, and conveyed to the place of burial, where a square pit has already been dug, some six feet in depth and two or three feet in width. In this pit the body of the deceased is placed in a sitting position, his bolas, spears, and other property laid beside him, and the pit is then covered with branches, on which a quantity of earth is thrown. The horse is next sacrificed. It is held at the grave by one man, while another kills it by a blow on the head from the bolas, and the skin is then removed, stuffed, and supported at the grave on four posts. At the grave of a cacique four horses are sacrificed. The clothing which is not buried with the deceased is burned, and a feast on the body of the horse closes the proceedings. On page 1187 the reader may find an engraving of a Patagonian burial ground.

The widows are obliged to remain in a state of the strictest privacy for an entire year, keeping themselves within their huts, never mixing in society, and not even showing themselves unless absolutely obliged to do so. They must blacken themselves with soot, and not eat the flesh of the guanaco, the mare, or the rhea. Should a woman break the rule of seclusion, and be detected in an intrigue, she would at once lose her life at the hands of her dead husband’s relations.

Among some of the tribes the tomb is periodically opened, and the skeleton of the deceased, which has been prepared with the greatest care, is washed and clothed in new robes. This office belongs to an old matron, who is specially selected for the task, which becomes in process of time a long and tedious one, as the warriors are placed side by side in the grave, each year gradually adding to the number of those who have to be washed and clothed annually.

Among some of the tribes the skeletons are prepared by laying the bodies on platforms woven from canes and twigs, and during the time that is occupied in cleaning and bleaching the skeleton the platform is guarded by the friends of the dead man, draped in long mantles, and bearing spears or staves with which they strike the ground, while they sing mournful strains in order to drive away the Valichus or spirits, who may possibly be well disposed toward the dead man, but are more likely to be unfriendly.

Should the deceased have been a wealthy man, many visits of condolence are paid to the relatives, the mourners weeping loudly, and pricking their arms and legs with thorns in order to prove their affection by the effusion of their blood. For these tokens of respect they are rewarded with beads, brass ornaments, and other presents; and it need scarcely be said that the sorrow felt for the deceased and the sympathy excited for his friends depend very much on the amount of property at the disposal of the relatives.