408 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. 



Mr. Kuight in 1884, " since the Indians made a raid here [Canada de Gomez], 

 and carried away 10,000 head of cattle and many women, for the aboriginal 

 has the good taste to prefer the white to the dusky beauties of his own race. 

 But the camps of the white men have advanced many leagues farther into 

 the Indian territory since that time, and Canada de Gomez has little to fear 

 now. 



" A raid of Pampas Indians is no joke. As the peaceful stock-farmer is 

 scanning his herd some fine morning, he perceives a dust on the horizon, and out 

 of the dust soon comes on at a tremendous gallop the wild troop of naked men 

 on splendid horses, seeming one with their steeds — very centaurs, with long black 

 hair waving behind their shoulders, and brandishing their long lances, while 

 they raise their piercing and fearful war-cries. The estancia is pillaged in a 

 few moments, the wife and daughters of the estanciero carried off, and then, 

 swooping down on the herds, the savages drive them away to the distant pastures 

 bv fiir rivers that the white man knows not of. When Indians on expeditions 

 of this nature come across a solitary white man, they kill him if they find arms 

 upon him. If he be unarmed, they treat him more mercifully. They content 

 themselves with cutting off the soles of his feet, and let him go." * It may be 

 remembered that the Persian victims of the Turkoman alaniaiis often met with 

 similar treatment at the h;inds of the people of Khiva, before their marauding 

 expeditions were suppressed by the Russians. 



The Cai.chaqui ano Ciiirihuanas. 



The descendants of the Quichuas in the province of Jujuy bear the general 

 name of Coyos, or Coyas. Although all understand Spanish they have preserved 

 their mother tongue and national usages. Many migrate periodically to the 

 plains as itinerant pedlars, but, like the Bolivian CoUahuayas, nearly always 

 return to their mountain homes. 



In the extensive region between the North Chilian frontier and the Cordoba 

 uplands, formerly occupied by the Calchaquis, few traces now remain of that 

 powerful nation except their characteristic black and red pottery of diverse forms 

 with geometrical designs in straight lin-es, and on the sepvdchral urns symbolic 

 and animal figures. For over a century these Indians successfully resisted the 

 Spaniards, and even attempted to restore the Inca dynasty ; but they were finally 

 overthrown in 1664, when most of the combatants preferred death to bondage. 

 The Quilme group was removed in 1077 to the suburban quarter of Buenos Ayres, 

 which still bears their name, and where the last of the race died in 1869. But 

 the half-caste descendants of the Calchaquis constitute the substratum of the 

 industrious populations in the provinces of Jujuy, Salta, Catamarca, and La Rioja. 

 Most of the towns and villages, especially in the upland valleys, perpetuate the 



* Cruise of the Fa li on, i., p. 144. 



