Note 296 — Chapter IV · AGRICULTURAL TRIBES.

It is further remarkable that the tribes we have enumerated in this paragraph are all in the higher stages of agriculture, as may be seen from chapter I. We have not found a single instance of hunting agriculturists employing their slaves in warfare. There are even hunting agriculturists of the lowest type, of whom it is explicitly stated that they do not allow their slaves to fight. Martius tells us that several wild tribes of Brazil keep slaves. The slaves are differently treated by the different tribes; but it is a general characteristic of slavery, that slaves are not allowed to bear arms296. And Azara states that in his time the Mbayas subsisted on hunting and fishing, and on the produce of the soil that was tilled to a small extent by their slaves and by a neighbouring tribe, the Guanas. Here too, warfare was the business of the freemen to the exclusion of the slaves297.