An unknown people in an unknown land : an account of the life and customs of the Lengua Indians of the Paraguayan Chaco, with adventures and experiences during twenty years' pioneering and exploration amongst them / by W. Barbrooke Grubb.

  • Grubb, W. Barbrooke (Wilfred Barbrooke), 1865-1930.
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: An unknown people in an unknown land : an account of the life and customs of the Lengua Indians of the Paraguayan Chaco, with adventures and experiences during twenty years' pioneering and exploration amongst them / by W. Barbrooke Grubb. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    1 APPENDIX IV Extract from Bishop Every's First Report. In conclusion, I may say that I have been greatly cheered and pleased by my visit to the Chaco Mission. Coming with a perfectly open mind and by no means predisposed to take a bright view of the work, after careful observation and questioning I have been convinced, alike by all that I have seen and heard, that a very real work for God has been done, that there are no serious defects, and that there are many signs, such as the changing of native customs and leavening of native opinion in the vicinity of the Mission, which point to a prosperous development in the future. “ E. F., Falkland Isles. ”November 10, 1902.’J Testimony from a Tourist. To the Secretary of the South American Missionary Society. “ The outside world cannot know what a herculean effort it must have been to establish this Mission, and what a colossal business it is to keep it up. The missionaries have gathered around them a village consisting of some two hundred Indians. This does not seem big, but you must realize that the Indians’ life is hunting, and therefore they cannot live in large communities, and, in fact, twenty to thirty is a large village. Before I arrived in South America I knew no one connected with the Mission, and, having nothing to do with missionary work, my criticism is abso- lutely that of an outsider. They really do seem to be building up and educating the Indian on such excellent lines that I firmly believe it will prove of a permanent character, and eventually become a self-governing body. When one thinks that but ten years ago it was dangerous to one’s life to venture into the Chaco, whilst now there are numerous estancias on the border, and one can now go for a hundred and more miles into the interior with comparative safety, it shows that the missionaries have got the ‘thin edge of the wedge’ well thrust in. I wish that this could be brought more before the public. These men and women are working amongst the greatest hard- ships ; I believe they all suffer from fever; the very water they drink is swamp-water ; the houses they live in are but log huts made of palm-trees. They are making savages into reasonable, 32G