Like the big children they are, they burst into laughter at nothings, and laugh immoderately at whatever is new to them. Never shall I forget the hilarity and curiosity which possessed our friends of Puerto Venezia as they watched me one day changing my clothing. The braves, squatting on their toes or leaning against the wall, pointed at each article of dress, and were greatly amused at the specimens of the refinement of our civilization of which they evidently could not understand the bearing.
Their musical feeling is still in infancy, and their musical instruments are extremely primitive. They play the simplest kinds of airs on a bamboo flute or a guitar rudely imitated from the Paraguayans, and dance or rather jump to them with their feet held together or pushed one before the other, holding the lobes of their ears between the thumb and forefinger. Sometimes the dancers wear also a belt composed of a series of hoofs of animals, which, clattering against one another, make a noise like that of a little bell. They hold a rattle in their hands, shaking it rapidly, which consists of a kind of fiddle-case rudely cut with a knife, containing bits of glass.
Their feeling of jealousy goes to the extreme, and dominates all other feelings. It is the direct or indirect cause of all the crimes and all the personal and tribal quarrels. The stranger, whom they nevertheless fear, may even sometimes run the danger of his life if he betrays too tender sentiments toward one of the damsels of the woods. In the first village we visited, the mere fact of our stopping a moment to look at the girls in order to study the arrangement of the designs with which they were decorated aroused the susceptibilities of their lawful lovers, and prevented our getting several things we wanted. Further, a young man who had probably not yet succeeded in killing his tapir, turned the bare blade of his machete nervously in his hand at seeing my companion trying the weight of his intended's eardrops before offering to buy them.
Notwithstanding their entire want of religion, the Cainguá, have a vague idea of a future life; for after the interment of a deceased relative they deposit on the new grave the arms of the departed and provisions for the journey which they evidently suppose to be possible. Their innate indolence, which only the Jesuit fathers were able to contend with successfully, and their indifference are likely to keep them for a long time backward in civilization.—Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from the Bulletin de la Société Neuchâteloise de Géographie.
