CHAPTER XXVII.

OF THE CUSTOMARY REMOVAL OF THE BONES.

A few things remain to be said of the ceremonies with which the bones of the dead are honoured by the Abipones when they are removed to their native land, and thence to the family burying-places. Many translations of this kind have I witnessed: I will briefly relate that of the Cacique Ychamenraikin, who was killed in battle by the savages at a place full forty leagues distant from the town of St. Jeronymo. A drummer came announcing that the bones of the deceased leader would be carried into the town next day about evening. After the flesh had been stripped off and buried by his companions, they were put into a hide and conveyed on a horse. To receive these bones with due honour, preparations were made by Hanetrain, the chief of the jugglers, and his companion Lamamin, and a house to place the sad remains in appointed and properly furnished. The whole company of the women hastened to meet the funeral at three leagues distance. At the entrance of the town the order of the funeral profession was this: the mournful train was led by two jugglers, mounted on horses ornamented with bells, horse-cloths and ostrich feathers. They brandished in their hands a spear, to which was affixed a brazen bell. They did not keep with the rest, but galloping forwards, rode up and down as if they were skirmishing, then returned into the path like persons making an assault, and rejoined the rest of the company. These were followed by a train of women lamenting in the manner I have described. Six Abipones in place of an umbrella held up at the end of their spears an elegant square cloth woven like a carpet, under which they carried the sack of bones. The company was closed by the troop of the other Abipones, all mounted on horses, furnished with a spear, a bow, and a quiver, and with their heads shaven. The victors were followed by a band of women and children lately taken in war, so that this otherwise mournful spectacle bore more the appearance of a triumph than of a funeral. On each side was seen a multitude of horses hastening to their pastures after the military expedition. All the ways were crowded with boys and girls careless of the lamentations, but struck with the novelty of the spectacle. The bones being placed in a house prepared for their reception, the regular mourning was carried on for nine days. Nocturnal wailings were as usual added to those of the day. That the lamentations might be carried on without intermission, the jugglers, carrying a spear with a bell at the end of it, visited all the houses to admonish the women at what hours to mourn. The funeral compotation, meantime, and the conducting of it as magnificently as was due to the memory of so great a leader, was the sole care of the men—a care admirably calculated to abate the poignancy of their grief; and indeed it would be difficult to decide whether the men drank, or the women mourned most pertinaciously. Whilst this was going on at home, persons of both sexes were chosen to accompany the bones of Ychamenraikin to his family burying-place, and there inter them agreeably to the rites of their country. These ceremonies were observed by the savages before they were instructed in the Christian religion only. Other removals of bones were conducted in exactly the same manner, with the exception of the canopy, which was reserved exclusively for their leaders. The bones of seven Abipones, who had been slain by the Spaniards, were brought home on one day, and skilfully constructed into as many images; hats being placed on their skulls, and clothes on their bodies. These seven skeletons were placed in a savage hut, honoured for nine successive days with mourning and drinking, and thence transported to their graves.

Should there be any European who makes little account of sepulture, saying with Virgil,

_Cælo tegitur qui non habet urnam_,

that man is of a very different way of thinking from the Abipones, who esteem it the greatest misfortune to be left to rot in the open air. Hence amongst them, persons inflamed with the desire of revenge contemptuously cast away the carcasses of their enemies, making fifes and trumpets of their bones, and using their skulls for cups. On the other hand, they honourably inter the smallest bone of one of their friends, paying it every possible mark of respect. We have known savage Guaranies, who, in all their migrations, carried with them little boxes containing the relics of their jugglers, and in them, as in holy preservatives, placed all their hopes. These monuments of savage superstition were at length taken away by the missionaries, and burnt by them in the presence of all. The Guaranies newly brought from the woods to our colonies had no stronger inducement to embrace the Catholic religion than the seeing their countrymen buried by us with honourable ceremonies and a solemn chaunt. But now, after I have discoursed with prolixity on the diseases, physicians, medicines, death, and sepulture of the Abipones, it cannot be thought foreign to the course of my history to treat of the serpents and noxious insects which inflict death on many, and threaten it to all: it will also be agreeable to Europeans to know by what means the Americans defend themselves against serpents, or expel the poison of their wounds.