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The Llanos or steppes of the Lower Orinoco and of the Meta, like the deserts of Africa, bear different names in different parts. From the mouths of the Dragon the Llanos of Cumana, of Barcelona, and of Caracas or Venezuela,* follow, running from east to west. The Llanos of Cumana and New Andalusia include those of Maturin and Terecen, of Amana, Guanipa, Jonoro, and Cari.
Though in name there are thus but eight societies, these consist in fact of not less than seventy-two communes: the Shakers having fifty-eight of these; the Amana Society seven; and the Perfectionists two. The remaining societies consist of but a single commune for each.
"Perhaps they meet in the course of the walk," said a member to me, "but it is not allowed." At meals and in their labors they are also separated. With all this care to hide the charms of the young women, to make them, as far as dress can do so, look old and ugly, and to keep the young men away from them, love, courtship, and marriage go on at Amana as elsewhere in the world.
The extensive business affairs of the Rappists have always been carried on by two leading men, without supervision, and without loss or defalcation. At Amana it is the same, as well as at Zoar, Bethel, and Aurora.
At Amana each family has its own house; otherwise their customs were similar to those still retained in Iowa, which I shall describe in their proper place. In 1854 they were "commanded by inspiration" to remove to the West. They selected Iowa as their new home, because land was cheap there; and in 1855, having made a purchase, they sent out a detachment to prepare the way.
Another population of Germans has succeeded the Amana Society; their churches now have steeples, and there is an occasional dram-shop; but the present residents speak of their predecessors with esteem and even affection, and in one of the large stores I found the products of the Iowa society regularly sold. A few of the former members still live on the old purchase.
The Zoarites acknowledge that they could not have paid for their land had they not formed themselves into a commune; the Amana Inspirationists confess that they could not have maintained themselves near Buffalo had they not adopted the communal system.
The Shakers use what they call "Confession of sins to the elders;" the Amana people have an annual "untersuchung," or inquiry into the sins and the spiritual condition of the members; the Perfectionists use what they rightly call "Criticism" perhaps the most effective of all, as in it the subject is not left to tell his own tale, but sits at the oyer of his sins and disagreeable conduct, being judge rather than witness.
Finally, the communal life secures order and system certainly at the expense of variety and amusement; but a man or woman born with what the Shakers would call a gift of order, finds, I imagine, a singular charm in the precision, method, regularity, and perfect system of a communal village. An eternal Sabbath seems to reign in a Shaker settlement, or at Economy, or Amana. There is no hurly-burly.
Now, if the new-married couple should have belonged for years to this highest class, their wedding would put them down into the lowest, or the "children's order," for a year or two, until they had won their slow way back by deepening piety. The civil or temporal government of the Amana communists consists of thirteen trustees, chosen annually by the male members of the society.
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