Volume 48 — CHAPTER II

The glorious triumphs among the Isinay and adjoining tribes are related

The tribes converted by the early missionaries were more civilized, dwelt on the plains, and had a more orderly mode of life, sowing grain and gathering enough for their support; but these of whom we speak, besides being rough in their behavior, hardly know any tillage of the soil, living generally by hunting. Their mode of cultivating what little they plant is as follows: They first clear some little piece of ground from the brush and weeds on it, with their knives (which resemble those which the butchers use); then with the point of the knife they make holes in the ground, in rows, and throw into each a few grains of seed; they know no other plow, or any other thing which might serve as one, for which reason the harvest that they gather is always very small. They do the same for any planting of sugarcane which they make—from which, when the cane is mature, they press out the juice and make wine for drinking at their feasts; after cutting out of the soil the grass to the roots, they make little holes in it, and then thrust into these the shoots from the mature canes which they had cut. For this reason, and because it is necessary to provide means by which those who are converted may obtain a suitable support, so that for lack of this they may not go wandering about, as soon as we begin to confer baptism we endeavor to find animals and other necessaries for the cultivation of the land—the religious being often the first one who begins to plow and sow, directing them in this way, so that they may learn how to do it. The same thing occurs with reaping. They do not use sickles, but go on picking the grain spike by spike; and, as there is so little of it, they soon end their task. But, now that they are taught to plow, it is also necessary to teach them to cut and winnow the grain; and this is done, the religious being the ones who commence it, in order that the people may imitate them—in which the work alone is for them, as they give up all the fruit of it for the benefit of the said barbarians. [The missionaries also had to contend with the attachment of the savages to their mountains, for they abhorred the life on the plains. One reason was, their dread of the smallpox, which never entered the mountains, because these savage dwellers there instituted a strict quarantine—closing up the roads and paths with logs and brushwood, and sending out the declaration that they would immediately kill any one who dared to enter their territory. Another reason was, that the hotter climate of the plains did not agree with them. Accordingly, in order not to exasperate them, no further effort was made to change their dwellings, and the religious continued to labor among them in the midst of a thousand trials and hardships.]