INHABITANTS OF ARGENTINA. 411 



their tribal organisation, although, greatly reduced in numbers, perhaps more by 

 small-pox than by war. But they have been recruited by refugees of all races, 

 horse-stealers, murderers, brigands, and others obliged to fly from the white 

 settlements. 



These Mocovi, usually called Iiidioa Monfaraccs, " Forest Indians," formerly- 

 committed terrible depredations, destroying villages, wasting the plantations in 

 Tucuman and the neighbouring provinces, and long preventing the whites from 

 access to Chaco. Their nasal and guttural language is a dialect of the Abipon, 

 which, according to Lafone y Quevedo, is "a branch of the great Carib family." 

 Thus the powerful Carib race, whom the first European navigators found spread 

 over many of the West Indian islands, but whose original home appears to be 

 Central Brazil, would seem to have ranged southwards as far as the foot of the 

 Argentine Cordilleras.* 



The Pampas Indians, 



South of the settled provinces, in which all the indigenous groups have 

 been obliterated as distinct elements, the southern regions of the pampas, 

 together with the whole oi Patagonia, belonged till recently to the free In- 

 dians, collectively classed as " Pampeans," Araucanians, and Patagonians. After 

 the first conflicts with the Spaniards, these aborigines were driven south, and 

 long remained at peace with the whites. They possessed neither gold nor 

 silver, nor much agricultural wealth ; they were left to their grassy and stony 

 solitudes. 



Meantime the Indians had received, in the horse introduced by the whites, a 

 valuable ally, useful in battle, in the chase, and even as food, failing the guanaco, 

 ostrich, armadillo* and other game. They became great riders, and during their 

 long warlike or migratory expeditions the Ranqueles and Pampeans of the Buenos 

 Ayres district never quitted the saddle. When worn out by fatigue they stretched 

 themselves on the animal as on a bed, and slept for hours in this position without 

 ever losing their balance. Such was the intelligence of the horse that he instinc- 

 tively adapted all his movements to those of his inert burden. We are even 

 assured that the Indian could die on his horse. During the frontier wars instances 

 were recorded of dead warriors being found and removed with difficulty from the 

 horse that carried him out of the tight, and about whose neck his rigid fingers 

 were clasped in death. t 



Then they learnt to trade in this live-stock with the Chilians over the moun- 

 tains, receiving in exchange arms and other implements. And if the herds fell 

 short, they could be renewed by raiding the whites, by taking the animals from 

 those who had taken their lands. Hence those incursions {malon, maloca) which 

 the squatters on the frontiers justly dreaded, and which were renewed from year 

 to year all along the borders between Buenos Ayres and Mendoza. Thus was 



* Revista del Museo de La Plata, 1890—1891, 

 t The Naturalist in La Tlala, p. 355. 



