Patagonia, or the southern part of “The Neglected Continent,” as South America has been justly named, is a cold, bleak, and barren country very little known, yet it forms part of that “so loved” world for which God gave His only begotten Son, and for whose dwellers He has provided a full and free salvation, of which only a very few have yet heard.
The Patagonians are a very tall, warlike race of Indians, who ride swift horses and are very skilled hunters. When Magellan, the Portuguese navigator, first set foot on their country nearly four hundred years ago, and saw the gigantic race of savages who inhabited it, he declared them to be “larger and taller than the stoutest men of Castile,” The Spaniards gave them the name of “Patagones,” which means “great feet,” owing to the immense size of boots made of rough hides which they wore, and it was probably from this that the country derived its name.
It is not our intention to follow here the history of the country, or to give an account of its various fortunes in peace and in war, but rather to tell the true and stirring story of the introduction of the Gospel by brave and godly men, who left country, friends and kindred, with all that earth holds dear, and constrained by the love of Christ, went forth with the glad tidings of a Saviour’s love, to the dark and cruel Patagonians, and their still more barbarous neighbors in Tierra del Fuego, who have been well described as “the most savage race on the face of the earth.” Yet there, as elsewhere, the Cross has wrought its conquests, and from among the debased and bloodthirsty cannibals of Patagonia and Fuego, gems hive been won for the Saviour’s crown, and sinners brought from the darkest depths to grace the heavenly host who shall sing His praise in glory.
Before we tell the story of how the heralds of the Cross went forth, and of what hardships they endured, we will have a peep at the people, their customs and their religion, so that we may be better able to understand the difficulties these brake men had to contend with, and the hardships they had to endure.
Sir Francis Drake was the first Englishman to set foot on Patagonian soil in 1578, and describes the inhabitants as “tall Indians, with bows and arrows, who never cut their hair, but make it a storehouse for all the articles they require: a quiver for arrows, a sheath for knives, a case for toothpicks, and a box for firesticks.” There are different tribes inhabiting the country. The Araucanos, or Pampas, chiefly dwell in the north, and the Teheulches in the south, speaking the same language with the difference of dialect, such as we have in the north and south of our own country. The great Cordillera mountains, with their snow-white peaks, are seen from almost every part of the country. In appearance and dress, a recent traveler describes the Patagonians, particularly those who are of Araucanian descent, as “tall and well built, most of them being over six feet, and many of the women quite as tall.” They have flat noses, oblique eyes, long coarse hair, which is parted in the middle, and kept from falling over their faces by a handkerchief or fillet of some sort tied round the forehead.
The male dress consists of a piece of cloth worn as a girdle, and a guanaco capa which is hung loosely over the shoulders, and falls like a mantle covering the entire body. The females dress in a loose gown covered with a capa similar to that of the men. Partly for ornament, and partly as a protection against the biting winds which sweep their country, they paint their faces, usually red, which gives them a very wild appearance.
The Patagonians live in huts named toldos, which are mostly made of the skins of the guanaco, which abounds in these wild regions. They are bold riders, and very skillful in the use of the bolas and lasso, both of which they use in hunting the llama and the ostrich. All the children are taught at a very early age to use these weapons, and so well do they generally learn their use, that almost all the boys and girls can catch wild birds and even animals before they are ten or twelve years of age.
The bolas is a long strip of hide with a ball of iron about the size of a cricket ball attached to one end. This is slung with such a force, and generally with such true aim, that it hardly ever fails to bring to the ground its victim.
The lasso is a long rope with a noose or slip knot at its end. It is thrown in such a manner as to ensure this noose falling on the head or horns of the animal it is meant to catch, and thus entangled, it is easy to bring it to their hand. As the Patagonian live almost wholly by hunting, they are nomadic, and can scarcely be found twice in the same place. They are very suspicious of strangers going amongst them, and will seize upon anything they can get hold of without consulting its owner.
They are not idolaters in the sense that most uncivilized nations are, for they have no gods of wood or stone as objects of worship. Their religion is a form of sun worship. They believe there is a good spirit which dwells in the sun, and an evil spirit who dwells in the moon, and that when a wicked man dies his soul goes to the moon, while the soul of a good and intelligent man goes to the sun after death. Yet strange to say, their great aim is to forget the dead, good and bad alike, and to destroy every memorial which might bring them to mind. Everything belonging to a dead person, including his clothes, his tent, his spears, his knives, and even his valuables, are burned immediately or buried with his body. The relatives blow with their mouths over the grave, and cut themselves with lances until the blood gushes out as a sign of mourning for the dead. The blood flowing from these self-inflicted wounds they sprinkle upward toward the sun, and let it fall upon the grave, calling upon the good spirit which is supposed to dwell in the sun to receive the soul of their departed kinsman.
It was to this neglected race, who had not even heard the Saviour’s name, that the heart of a young naval officer was turned as he cruised along the western coast of South America in the year 1837, on board H.M.S. Dauntless, from the deck of which his eye often scanned the rocky coast, on which at times he could see crowds of tall Indians, dressed in their ponchos or blankets, their faces painted in curious patterns with red and black paint, as they sat by their huts amid clumps of thistles and dwarf oak trees, or roved the plains in pursuit of the ostrich and the llama. This young officer had only been a short time before this converted to God, and now his heart yearned over that neglected race, to whom he longed to tell the old, old story of Jesus and His love which had brought himself to God, and given him the knowledge of a present and eternal salvation, with a home in heaven above. Was it any wonder that he longed to tell the same good news to others? Indeed it was not, for one of the very first evidences of Divine life in a soul, is that there is a yearning desire to tell of the Saviour, and to bring others to a knowledge of His love.
The country at that time had only been visited by explorers, whose business was to trace its rivers, fix its boundaries, and describe its products; but no attempt was made to tell its dark and cruel dwellers the good news of salvation or to carry to them the Word of God, which alone can enlighten the darkness in which the heathen sit. But blessed be God, He had other thoughts concerning the Patagonians as we shall presently see, and it was at His call that ALLEN GARDINER went forth with the Gospel message among them.
On the 15th of May, 1838, he sailed from Table Bay with his wife and children, for Rio Janeiro, and from thence they traveled across the Pampas to Mendoza, a journey of more than nine hundred miles, in a rough wagon. Then across the great Corderillas which, in some parts, were covered with snow, in others, almost impassable, owing to great crevasses in the mountain paths, which had to be crossed on slabs and logs of wood. Leaving his family at Concepcion, Gardiner, like a true pioneer, pressed on to the great interior, where the Araucanian Indians were said to be found in large numbers. Having procured an interpreter, he threaded his way through forests of bamboo, across rivers of great breadth, over mountains riven by earthquakes, until at last, an Indian village came into view. When Gardiner saw it with its patches of cultivated land, embosomed in groves of apple trees, his heart rose in praise to God, for here at last he was within what seemed to be the realization of his heart’s desire, which was to tell the benighted dwellers in that land, the precious Name of Jesus which had not yet been heard there.
We find him entering in his diary at this time— “Every object which met the eye, seemed to speak its great Creator’s praise, but he for whose enjoyment all these beauties were arranged, has not yet learned to raise one song of thanksgiving to Him.” The chief of the village gave him permission to settle there, but, after receiving his present, changed his mind, and told him he could only stay one moon. The chief of the next village, Wykepeiry, was more of an autocrat, and told the missionary that he neither wanted the Book of God, nor anyone to teach him of the true God. He, however, allowed him to pass the night, and, after a supper of hot potatoes and cold peas, the man of God laid himself down on the floor of his hut, and, with his saddle for a pillow, slept in peace while guardian angels watched around till morning light.
The noble missionary found out as he passed from village to village, that the opposition of many of the chiefs arose from the fact that Romish priests had been there before him, and, by their ungodly and unscrupulous dealings with the natives, had given them an evil opinion of the “foreigner.” After using every means at his disposal to gain their confidence, Gardiner had to return without success. But he was not altogether cast down. One way yet seemed open to him, by which the Patagonians might be reached with the Gospel. This was to make the Falkland Islands, which were a British possession, his headquarters, and from thence, cross to the country of the Araucanians, get some of their young people to accompany him, to whom he might teach English, and from them learn their rude language, at the same time telling them the story of Jesus and His love. It was thus that a small beginning was made, and a light kindled which has been kept burning amid the surrounding darkness, until the present time.
Our picture shows a family of Araucanians of the present time, who have heard and believed the Gospel. Truly the change even in outward appearance is remarkable. And when we remember what value God places on one precious soul, we may surely say that the conversion of that father and mother is a rich return for all the labor and suffering of God’s beloved servants, who loved not their lives unto death.
Verily, it is no easy task to enter the dark places of the earth with God’s Gospel. Nothing but the love of Christ burning in the heart, could ever constrain a man to leave his home and kindred, with all that earth holds dear, to go with his life in his hand, into the very citadel of Satan’s kingdom, in which, by the chains of ignorance and dark idolatry, he holds millions of his slaves in captivity. And nothing but the almighty power of God can preserve the life of His servant in such scenes, where every moment the enemy is panting for his blood. Yet in such scenes, some of the grandest triumphs of the Cross have been won, and from such fields, some of the richest gems have been gathered by the power of the Gospel.