BCAISTRE
554
MAISTRE
withstanding the greater security and plenty of the
mission, the Venezuelan savage preferred the life of
the forest. His superstition also made him fear to
stay near the «pot where one of his friends had died.
Unsanitary habits, secret abortion, and frequent fever
epidemics from periodical river floods, made a high
death rate, especially among the children.
The expulsion of the Jesuits from Spanish America in 1767 meant the ruin of most of the missions on the Orinoco. The Jesuit establishments were placed un- der civil officers who appropriated all movable prop- erhr, leaving the rest to decay and destruction, in 1785 the missions were placed in charge of the Obser- vantines. It was too late, however, to repair the ruin. Of the Indians, only a small fraction remamed, the rest having returned to their forests or perished of disease and starvation. The missionaries tnemsel ves were no lonj^er free, but constantly subject to the annoying in- terterence of government officials. In 1800 hardly a hundred Indians were left in the two principal Maipure missions. By the shifting of tribes the Atures mission was then occupied, not by descendants of its ori^nal inhabitants, but by Guahibo and Maco, of entirely alien stocks. San Fernando de Atabapo had suffered less than the rest and was still a station of importance with its Indian fields and neat priest's house, although the former hcnis of cattle had disappeared. To-day the missions are extinct. Of the Maipure proper only a few half-breeds keep the name.
Except for a scant oreech-cloth, the Maipure went entirely naked, but painted their whole bodies usually with a bright red obtained from vegetable dyes. Their chief diet was cassava bread, bananas and nsh. They used very little meat, which they seasoned with a few drops of a mineral solution which took the place of salt. Their favourite exhilarant was the chicha, or chiza, fermented from com or bananas. Their huts were open structures roofed with palm or banana leaves, with simple furniture of reed mats, earthen pots, fishing nets, and sleeping hammocks. Their weapons were the bow and arrow, and the blowgun with arrows tipped with the deadly ciirari poison. The men were expert canoeists. AH the Maipure tribes were especially noted for tlie pottery manufac- tured by their women, which excelleu in execution and in colour, artistic design and glazing. They were all cannibals. Their government was rather patriarchal than tribal, eight or ten families usually living to- gether, and combining in larger numbers only for war purposes. Polygamy was the rule, and polyandry among brothers was common with the Maipure. They oelieved in nature gods, and ridiculed the i^a of churches, saying their gods would not be confined in houses. The missionaries met this by holding ser- vices in the open air. Their cult centred around a sacred earthenware trumpet, called hotuto, which was periodically sounded in elaborate ceremonial proces- sions under the palm trees to insure abundant fruit, was consulted as an oracle, and for a woman to ap- proach within sight of it, the penalty was death.
Qxux, Soffffio di Storia Americana (Rome, 1784); Gumii^la, Bl Orenoco lluatrado (Madrid, 1745); Hdmboldt, TraveU to th§ Equinoctial Regions of America (London, 1881); HeryXs, Caidlogo de laa Lenguaa, I (Madrid, 1800); Brinton, American Races (New York, 1891).
James Mooney.
Maistre, Joseph-Marie, Comte de, French philo- sophical writer, b. at Chamb^ry, in Savoy, in 1753, when Savoy did not belong to France; d. at Turin, 26 Feb., 1821. His family, which was of French origin, had settled in Savoy a century earlier, and had at- tained a high position, his father being president of the Senate. Joseph, the eldest of ten children, was a pupil of the Jesuits, who, like his parents, inspired him with an intense love of religion and detestation of the eigh- teenth-century philosophical rationalism, which the ji}wAy» resolutely opposed. In 1774 he entered the
magistracy; in 1780 he was assistant fiscal advocate
general; in 1788 he was appointed senator, being then
thirty-five years old. Four years later, he was forced
to fly before the invading French, and discharged
for four years at Lausanne a confidential mission for
his sovereign, the I^^ng of Sardinia. That monarch
having lost tJie capital of his kingdom, de Maistre
lived m poverty at Venice, but, on the restoration
of the king, went to Sardinia as keeper of the great
seal (1799) and, three years later, to St. Petersbui^,
aaplenipotentiary. This mission lasted fourteen years,
till 1817. Though weakly supported by his Govern-
ment, which was at times displeased with his frank-
ness, poor amidst a lavish aristocracy, he never-
theless successfully defended the interests of his coun-
try with the Czar Alexander, who, like most of the
leading personages at St. Petersburg, highly appre-
ciated his character and his ability. He afterwards
returned to Turin, to fill the post of minister of State
and keeper of the ereat seal until his death.
The writings of Joseph de Maistre (as well as those of his younger brother — q. v., below) were all in French, then the literary language of Piedmont. Jo- seph's first important work was written during his so- journ in Switzerland. He was then forty years of age. He had previously composed some speeches and a few comparatively unimportant essays. We may mention '*LV'loge de Victor AmM^e III", attacking the intolerance which had lighted the fires of the stake, and glorifying the war of the Americans against their oppressors. After the outbreak of the French Hevohition, he published some writings on current events, e. g. Discours k M. le Marquis Costa de Beauregard sur la vie et la mort de son fils'^ and "Cinq paradoxes k la Marquise de Nav ..." (1795). In the following year appeared his "Considerations sur la France" (London and Lausanne, in folio); although its dissemination was rigorously forbidden by the French authorities, several editions were ex- hausted within a year. The author maintains the thesis that France lias a mission from God: she is the principal instrument of good and of evil on earth. De Maistre looks on the Revolution as a providential occurrence: the monarchy, the aristocracy, the whole of the old French society, instead of turning the power- ful influence of French civilization to benefit man- kind, had used it to foster the doctrines of the eighteenth-century philosophers: the crimes of the Reign of Terror were the punishment thus merited. The author added that the foreign nations were dupes of a foolish dream, in undertaking the dismeml^r- ment of France, "the most beautiful kingdom after that of heaven ". Finally, he predicted a speedy resto- ration, and disappearance of the abuses of the past.
In connexion with this work must be mentioned a little book composed in 1809, under the title "Essai sur le principe g^n^rateur des constitutions politiijues et des autres institutions humaines". Its main idea is, that constitutions are not the artificial products of the study, but come in due time and under suitable circumstances from God, who slowly brings them to maturity. After the appearance in 1 81 6 of the treatise "Sur les deiais de la justice divine dans la punition des coupables", translated from Plutarch, with additions and notes, Joseph de Maistre published at Lyons in 1 81 9 his masterpiece " Du Pape . The work (2 vols, in 8vo.) is divided mto four parts. In the first the author proves that in the Church the pope is sovereign , and that it is an essential characteristic of all sovereign power that its decisions should be subject to no appeal. The doctrinal declarations of the pope are binding on .man without right of appeal. Consequently, the pope is infallible in his teaching, since it is by his teaching that he exercises his sovereignty. And in point of fact ' ' no sovereign pontiff, speaking freely to the Church, has ever made a mistake in the matter of faith". In the remaining divisions of his work the author examines
