DON FELIX D'AZARA. 47 



exultation to a state of future existence. "We can 

 trace the opinion from one extremity of America 

 to another." * We will not enter into the contro- 

 versy farther than to remark, that even allowing 

 they had a religion, it was not better to them than 

 none. They might believe there was a Supreme 

 Being, but it was the sun which was the object of 

 the religious adoration of the roost advanced amongst 

 them. We admit, too, they believe in a future 

 state of existence ; but what of it ? " They ima- 

 gine they will be transferred to a future state, where 

 they anticipate they will be constantly drunk, and 

 always hunting : And as the Indians gallop over 

 their plains at night, they point with their long 

 spears to constellations in the heavens which they 

 say are the figures of their ancestors, who, resting 

 in the firmament, are mounted upon horses swifter 

 than the wind, and are hunting ostriches." t " Our 

 soldiers and missionaries," adds Azara, " have never 

 thought of giving a correct account of these people, 

 but only of vaunting their own prowess, and exag- 

 gerating their own doings. They have made them 

 cannibals, but most unwarrantably; for there are 

 none of them who now eat human flesh, or who 

 remember that their forefathers ever did so, although 

 they are now as free as upon the first arrival of 

 the Spaniards. They also assert that they employ 

 poisoned arrows, which is another positive false- 

 hood." J 



* Robertson, Vol. ii. 201. 



t Sir Francis Head, ubi supra. Vol. it 2, 3. 



