INDIANS OF SOUTH AMERICA.
Our acquaintance with the ethnology of South America is still very imperfect, for the reason that vast areas are yet unexplored. while in some legions brought under Spanish or Portuguese do minion so much confusion has been wrought by the migration, disintegration. or complete exter mination of tribes that the writings of early mis sionaries or travelers help little to clear up the difficulties. Here, as wherever else the uncivil ized man confronts the European. we find the same steady march toward extinction. brought about originally by wholesale massacres and cruelties at the hands of the white conqueror, and later by the new di-eases which followed in his wake.
As in North America. we find also on the southern continent the phenomenon of vast areas occupied by tribes of some half-dozen linguistic stocks, differing little in habit and all upon near ly the same culture plane. with other areas of monntainous or otherwise difficult country held by a multitude of small stocks with habits al most as widely variant as their languages. In general we may group the tribes by three great tegions, viz. the Andean. the Amazonian. and the Pampean. the first being the mountainous terri tory extending along the Pacific coast from the isthmus to about 35' smith. in Central Chile: the second, the whole interior stretching east ward from the summit of the Cordillera to the Atlantic, with the exception of the Chaco: and the third. comprising the Chaco forest and the grassy plains of the Pampas. between the Andes and the Paranil River. together with Southern Chile. and stretching southward to Cape In the Andean region we find the highest cul ture. represented by the Chibcha. Yunca. Aymara, and above all the Quielma, whose empire ex tended nearly two thousand miles along the coast and made its influence felt even among the wild tribe-4 of the I. pper Amazon and the Chaco border. In nearly all these we find a firmly established system of government. with such' I dist Mei ions clearly defined ; ea ref ul and successful agriculture, including irrigation and the of superior pottery, with cu rious designs found nowhere else; weal of cot ton and the hair of domesticated animals; beau tiful in gold, silver, and bronze; and an architecture with such enduring monuments as the stupendous ruins of Gran Chinni. Paucar tambo, and Tialmanneo. So far as can he learned the various governments were based 111)P11 the clan system, even in Peru, where the Inca him self was but the executive otlieer of a council of the genies. (if the various religious systems the
liest known it that of the Quichua, great god was the Sun. after whom came their culture hero, the white and bearded Viracocha. The dead were buried in the ground, deposited in stone sepulchres, or mummified and preserved thus in temples and caves. Anything in the nature of a hieroglyphic system appears to have been unknown, the nearest approach having been the quip!' records of the Quiehua. The descendants of these cultured Andean nations still number many in fact eonstituting the bulk of the population over large areas, and although in theory necorded Ivhd civil rights, they are yet, like aboriginal races elsewhere, in a slate of prac tical vassalage to the dominant race of the con queror.
The tribes of the Amazonian region. the Ori noco, and the Parallel, were all in various degrees of savagery, although nearly all sedentary and more or less agrieultural in habit. Cannibalism prevailed the word itself being de rived from the name of the fierce Carib tribe. The custom still exists on some of the southern headstreams of the Amazon. Living mainly under the tropies, many tribes were entirely naked, and tattooing and body-painting, although occasionally found, were rare. Labrets were worn by a number of tribes. Scalping was un known. but several tribes, notably the Thindu ruen, preserved the heads of their slain enemies. The blowgun and poisoned arrow' were general throughout the ripper Amazon and orinoco re. gions, curari poison eonstituting a chief article of intertribal trade. Government was of the loosest, and confederations were almost. unknown. The prevailing religious form was a crude animism, apparently several degrees lower than that of the North American savages. Throughout this vast area the tribes which have disappeared are still nearly in their primitive condition. ex eepting where devoted missionaries have gathered them into villages, chiefly in Peru, Bolivia, and Paraguay. The Jesuit missions among the Gua rani %ire recognized as the most successful ever established in America. At one time they con tained over 300,0110 Christianized Indians, the basis of modern civilized States of Paraguay and l'rugmay.