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Poor pigmy! What place will he occupy in the life that is to be? After some days' journey we heard shouts, and knew that, like entombed miners, we were being dug out on the other side! The Caingwas soon met us, and I looked into their faces and gravely saluted. They stared at me in speechless astonishment, and I as curiously regarded them.
Their knowledge of value is so crude that on one occasion they refused a two-dollar axe for an article, but gladly accepted a ten-cent knife. The Chaco Indian, however, is seldom seen in civilization. His home is in the interior of an unknown country, which he wanders over in wild freedom. While the Caingwas are homekeeping, these savages are nomadic, and could not settle down.
Another tribe will not permit one member to go into the spirit world alone, so they hang another one, in order that there may be two to enter together. Whereas the Caingwas are a religious people, even attributing their custom of piercing the lip to divine commandment, the Chaco aborigines have no god and no religion.
In the chapter on Mariolatry, I have traced the natural tendency of man to sink from spiritual to image worship, and I found that the Caingwas, like all pagans, had reverted to a something they could see and feel. Remembering that they had never heard the second commandment, written by God because of this failing in man, we can excuse them, but what shall be said of the enlightened Romanists?
As the Caingwas are sun-worshippers, I was surprised to see this, but Rocanandivia, with grave demeanor, told me that when Nandeyara departed from them he left behind him his representative.
After spreading our saddle-cloths on the dust and filth, Old Stabbed Arm and I were chatting about the Caingwas and their dirty habits, when Timoteo, heaving a sigh of relief, said: "Thank God, we are clean at last!" He was satisfied with the pigpen as he recalled the hoga of the Sun- Worshippers.
Reptiles of all kinds, and even caterpillars, are devoured by them when hungry. The Caingwas are under the average height, but use the longest bows and arrows I have ever seen. Some I brought away measure nearly seven feet in length. The points are made of sharpened iron-wood, notched like the back of a fish-hook, and they are poisoned with serpent venom.
At other seasons, as I know by painful experience, the hard-baked ground is cracked up into fissures, and not a drop of water is to be found in a three days' journey. Whereas the Caingwas may be described as inoffensive Indians, the inhabitants of the Chaco are savages, hostile to the white man, who only here and there, with their permission, has settled on the river bank.
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