ABIPONIANS, or ABIPONS, a migratory race in habiting the district or province of Chaco, in Paraguay, who believe themselves sprung from the devil, and consider him as represented by the Pleiades in the heavens. They are a strong and robust people, patient of fatigue, and of exposure to the inclemency of the seasons. Most or them have small black eyes, and all of them thick black hair. Their restlessness is such, that they seldom continue long in one fixed place of habitation ; which is changed with the greater facility, as both the males and females are equestrians. Hunting, swimming, and running their horses, engage their constant attention, when unoccupied by the fre quent wars carried on with their neighbours. These are so numerous, that the boundaries of this tribe are only to be ascertained by those of the adjoining nations. When travelling, their whole property is carried along with them ; the women riding on horseback in the sane manner as the men. No nation in America abounds more with horses ; some individuals possessing above forty. There arc immense herds of these animals run ning wild, from which many arc caught :end tamed Besides, they will sometimes, in one incursion against the Spaniards, take three or four thousand. The wo men, contrary to what generally happens among sal, age nations, suffer severely in parturition ; Inch is thought to be the consequence of their equestrian ex ercises compressing the bones during adolescence. The men seldom marry tin after twenty.lire, and the lvomen rarely before twenty years of age. The children are nursed until the third year ; and polygamy being common among the Abiponians, mothers not only fre quently murder their ow n children, lest during that time the affections of their husbands may be estranged from them, but even procure abortions by violent means. This they do with absolute impunity : anti there are in stances of sonic mothers having, without opposition, destroyed all their children as soon as they were born. Yet, notwithstanding this unnatural custom, those chil dren that die by disease arc bitterly regretted.
These people consult soothsayers, who possess an unlimited influence over them ; and, by this means, pre scribe the manner, time, and place, of invading an ene my, hunting wild beasts, Scc. If one of their sooth sayers persuades them to battle, he rides round the troops, imprecating evil on the enemy, and striking the air with a palm-branch, accompanied by many gesticu lations : and this ceremony is esteemed sufficient to in sure victory. These impostors pretend that they are
inn»ortal ; and that they have frequent intercourse with the devil. They extort what they please from the cre dulous people, who dare refuse them nothing.
The Abiponians are governed by a cacique, or chief; and even admit of female government. When a per son dies in his own country, he is immediately wrapped up in a hide, and buried with such precipitation, that it is supposed the living have sometimes perished by it. The survivors then proceed to destroy every thing that may revive the remembrance of the deceased. The temporary hut which he had erected is overthrown ; his utensils are burned ; and, besides the horses burned along with him, some of the smaller animals are killed. Ills widow and children migrate to some other coun try. It is a crime to mention the name of a person de ceased ; and the very terms of the language that may recal his memory are abolished. Should an Abiponian die in a foreign country, the flesh is stripped from his bones, and he is carried to his own territory. Seven skeletons have been thus brought, and, after having been kept in a hut nine days, were committed to the earth.
Whenever an enemy is wounded, the Abiponians cut off his head with surprising dexterity ; and having stripped off the skin, it is stuffed and kept as a trophy. The language of the Abiponians presents several in teresting, peculiarities ; and the acquisition of it is at tended with extreme difficulty. It wants certain parts of speech, which are deemed indispensable by civilized nations in communicating their sentiments, while there is an incredible number of synonymes. The perpetual change which arises from abolishing whatever relates to one deceased, is a great source of the difficulty in acquiring the language.
The history of this nation, which, from frequent wars, and other causes, has now been reduced to little more than 5000 people, is written by Martin Dobi izheffer, a missionary, who acted in this capacity in Paraguay for twenty-two years, seven of which he passed with the Abiponians. He laments the hostility of the Americans in Paraguay towards the missioharies, appea: have made but little progress in converting them to Christianity ; and enumerates above thirty individuals have suffered a violent death by the hands of these savages. See Dobrizholler, Ili:doria de 41npond, equeNtri bellicosuvue Paraquarix natlone. t iennx, 1784, 3 vol. in 8vo. See also Pinkerton's Grog. von.
p. 760. (c)