June i, 191 i] 



■ NATURE 



451 



WILD TARAGVkY.^ 



77L GRk^ CHACO is the name of that great, low- 

 ■^-^ lying alluvial plain, which is situated where 

 the Republics of Paraguay, Argentina, and Bolivia 

 meet. Extending over 200,000 square miles, it is 

 populated, but for a mere fringe of white settlements, 

 entirely by Indians, the total population of whom is 

 estimated at not more than 135,000. Many futile 

 attempts have been made by the Spaniards to explore 

 this vast district, or to "reduce" the fierce native 



was not until the year 1889 that the same society 

 succeeded in establishing a mission among the Chaco 

 Indians. 



W. Barbrooke Grubb, then quite a young man, 

 was sent out and entrusted with the seemingly hope- 

 less task. For twenty years this pioneer and marvel 

 of devotion has lived amongst the savages, at first 

 quite alone, later on joined by helpmates. The pre- 

 sent book deals mainly with the events and experi- 

 ences of the early five lonely years amongst the 

 Lengua tribe, a little to the west "of the Paraguayan 

 town of Concepcion. Now there is 

 a flourishing mission, called Waik- 

 thlatingmangj-alwa, the place where 

 Prof. J. G. Kerr and the late J. 

 Budgett got their material for the 

 mudfish Lepidosiren. It is safe for 

 the white man to traverse some 200 

 miles west of the river Paraguay, 

 over roads cut by the missionaries ; 

 thousands of cattle are now tended 

 by Indians, where but a few years 

 ago men, who had acquired lands, 

 scarcely dared to inspect them for 

 fear of these same Indians. In 

 these parts Grubb's is a name to 

 conjure with, and the Paraguayan 

 Government fully acknowledge 

 what they owe to this man by 

 having made him Commissary- 

 General of the Chaco, with the 

 additional title of " Pacificador de 

 los Indios." 



How has he achieved it? By 

 living alone with these savages and 

 almost like one of them, learning 

 their language and customs, with- 

 out worrying them, but all the time 

 trying to understand what is really 

 at the back of the Indian's mind. 

 Gradually they in turn came to 

 look upon him not as a harmless 

 lunatic, but to respect him. It was 

 uphill work, and not without 

 danger; as for that matter, one of 

 his trusted and most intelligent 

 friends shot an arrow into him, and 

 left him for dead, several days' 

 journey from the nearest native vil- 

 lage. This foul deed enraged the 

 native community so much that 

 they ultimately caught the would- 

 be murderer, killed liini, and burnt 

 his body to asln"-. There is no 

 other record of a Chaco-Indian 

 being slain by his own tribesmen 

 for the murder of a white man. 



The greatest difficulty in gaining 

 the confidence of the natives was 

 the opposition of the medicine-men, 

 or witch-doctors, utterly ignorant 

 but shrewd humbugs, who, of 

 course, saw at once that their power 

 would wane as much as the white man's reasoning 

 influence ascended. 



The many long years spent with these hitherto 

 almost unknown people have enabled the author to 

 give us a narrative from the point of view of seasoned 

 experience, instead of first impressions, and thus it 

 has come to pass that chapter after chapter, as they 

 deal with the mode of life, rites, and beliefs, are so 

 many essays of ripened authority. It may, however, 

 bo regretted that many of the revolting features, and 



^ ^ ^ most of their rites are inclined that way, are scarcely 



Jones. Pp.330. (Lonuon': Seeicy anii Co., Ltd., 1911.) Pricei6x.net/ i hinted at, and that the qucstion of sex is but lightly 



I''r;. I. — Prociiriini Kirc !>)■ rrittioii. From " An Unkiicwn People in au Unknown I.iind.' 



tribes to the white man's ways; they ended mostly 

 in massacres of the exploring parties, and the Chaco 

 was therefore left severely alone until within quite 

 recent times. Even the Jesuit missions in the middle 

 of the eighteenth century had fared badly ; futile also 

 was the attempt made by Captain Allen Gardiner, 

 founder of the South American Missionary Society, 

 to settle among the Tobas in the year 1870, and it 



' "An Unknown I'eople in an Unknown Land" : an Account of the Life 

 and Customs of the Lengua Indians of the Paraguayan Chaco, with Adven- 

 tures and Kxpciences met with during Twenty Years' PioDeering and Kx- 

 ploration amongst them. By W. Harbrcx>ke Grubb. Eflited by H. T. Morrey 



NO. 2170, VOL. 86] 



