and their equality is so perfect that they do not even acknowledge the authority
of a chief.
Yet such is the courage, the ferocity, the indomitable spirit of this warlike
nation, that De Azara asserts that they have spilt more Spanish blood than ever
flowed in all the contests with Montezuma and the Incas.* In fact the Charruas,
with their confederate tribes, have been called the “ doorkeepers of Paraguay,”
on account of their pertinacious and successful resistance to the encroachments of
the Spaniards. To the last degree cruel, revengeful and exterminating in their
wars with the native tribes, and with the Europeans, they present, in strong relief,
all the prominent characteristics of the race.
PLATE XIY.
CHARRUA OF BRAZIL.
This skull possesses the characteristics of the American Indian in very strong
relief. The points which we have noticed in the Puelché, are exaggerated here,
together with a more retreating forehead and more flattened occipital region.
This head is preserved, with the two preceding ones, in the Royal Museum in
Paris; and the drawing was taken under the same circumstances as those of the
Puelché and Aturian, so that I am unable to give any particulars which cannot he
derived from the drawing itself.
T H E BOTOCUDOS .
These people call themselves JEngerecmoung; hut they are more familiarly
known by the names Aymores and Botocudos, the latter being given them by the
Portuguese. They inhabit the dense forests of Brazil between the Rio Doce and
the Rio Prado, or in other words within the 13th and 19th degrees of south
latitude.
Nature, says the Prince de Wied, has given the Botocudos an admirable
exterior conformation, for they are handsomer and better proportioned than the
De Azara, Voy. dans l’Amer. Merid. T. 2, p. 6—28.
Morton’s C ran ia Americana FL.14
OP B R A Z I L
Lrth. of John Collins -Nó. 79 •'Wh''Iïhird ftt-Phila..