Evening star., 1915-06-27

may enter in and take possession. In
this case the mans own soul cannot get
back. If they have a dream of being
killed by certain man. they think they
are justified in killing that man in re-
turn. 1t is said that they bury people
alive from a religious motive and that
they practice infanticide.
Some of the customs of the Lenguas
are not unlike those of the Burmese.
One is the piercing of the ears This
is done with great ceremony and feast
ing and dancing. A small hole is made
at first. This is gradually enlarged by
putting sticks plugs of increasing
size in it until it reaches a diameter of
two or more inches
One of the advancing tribes of the
Chaco is the Toba. These people live
il the southern part of the country.
Some of them have been driven out by
the white settlers. and not few are
beginning to hire themselves to the
sugar planters and the timber proprie-
tors They work during the cane-cut
ting season. receiving wages of about
a dollar a day. After the harvesting
season they go back to their hunting
and fishing. They are good hunters and
trappers and can take anything from
an antbear to an alligator. They are
skillful snake hunters and have certain
herbs which they chew to cure them
selves when bitten by poisonous
snakes They are great gamblers and
will gamble on anything from the bark
of a tree to the bark of a dog. Very
few of them speak Spanish and they
are fond of their own language. These
Indians wear anklets of horse hair.
which they strap around their legs SO
that the hair stands out like the bris-
ties upon the back of wild hog.
hear tales here of other Indians. out
side the TOBIAS. who wear hair twisted
around the legs below the knees and
;. fIa haj p
of horses, however, but that of women.
These Indians live in the swamps and
they feed largely upon wild fruits.
roots, reptiles and caterpllars. Besides
this hair ornamentation their only
clothing is strip of cloth about the
loins They paint the skin with black
pigment and some of them make holes
in the lower lip, in which they hang
sort of a tongue made OF gum that eA-
tends down in front of the chm. Ihey
are warlike. They use powerful bows
and long barbed arrows of pointed
hard wood. Some of the arrows meas
ure over six feet in length and 1t must
take great strength to shoot them
These people believe in witches and
have drums to drive off the evil spirits
They make water pots of basket work
covered with beeswax and also rude
pottery. The pottery is made without
wheel. The clay is rolled between the
hands into long ropes and the pot is
built up coil by coil. being smoothed
as the desired shape is produced 1t is
then burned. They make twine and
they weave their loin cloths on a crude
frame made of the branches of trees,
fixed in the ground.
One of the most interesting of the
Pareguayan tribes is the Mbayan. This
was strong a the time the Spaniards
came. The nation had its own tradi-
tons and its own faith. One tenet of
its belief was that God created the
Mhayas to prey upon other nations and
that it was its duty to fight and con-
quer all others. According to the
Mbayan theory of the crea ton, God did
not start the world with one man and
one woman. He created great popu-
lation all at once and divided the lands
up among them. He then married. and
from his offspring came the Mbayas.
They were his chosen people. but all
the land had already been given away
and he had no more to supply them. He
thereupon sent a little bird which told
them that in order to equalize matters
God had given them the right to wan
der over the lands of other nations.
making war upon all. killing the men
and adopting the women and children
to increase their force. 1t was in that
way that the Mbayas began their ex-
istence. They were band of robbers