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AN
ACCOUNT
OF
THE ABIPONES,
AN EQUESTRIAN PEOPLE
OF
PARAGUAY.
PREFACE.
Martin Dobrizhoffer was born atGratz in Styria, on the 7th of September,1717. In the year 1736, he entered theorder of the Jesuits; and in 1749 went asa Missionary to South America, where foreighteen years he discharged the duties ofhis office, first in the Guarany Reductions,latterly in a more painful and arduousmission among the Abipones, a tribe notyet reclaimed from the superstitions andmanners of savage life. Upon the expulsionof the Jesuits from Spanish America,he returned to his native country,and, after the unjust and impolitic extinctionof his order, continued to reside atVienna till his death, which took placeJuly 17, 1791. The Empress MariaTheresa used frequently to send for Dobrizhoffer,that she might hear his adventuresIVfrom his own lips; and she is said tohave taken great pleasure in his cheerfuland animated conversation.
These notices concerning him have beenobtained from one of the last survivors ofhis celebrated order.
In 1784, he published the work, atranslation of which is now laid beforethe public. The original title is Historiade Abiponibus, Equestri, Bellicosaque ParaquariæNatione, locupletata copiosis BarbararumGentium, Urbium, Fluminum, Ferarum,Amphibiorum, Insectorum, Serpentiumpræcipuorum, Piscium, Avium, Arborum,Plantarun, aliarumque ejusdem ProvinciæProprietatum Observationibus; Authore MartinoDobrizhoffer, Presbytero, et per Annosduodeviginti Paraquariæ Missionario. AGerman translation, by Professor Kreil ofthe University of Pest, was published atVienna in the same year. There is noother work which contains so full, so faithful,and so lively an account of the SouthAmerican tribes.
His motives for undertaking the work,and his apology for the manner in which itVis executed, may best be given in his ownwords:—
"In America, I was often interrogatedrespecting Europe; in Austria, on myreturn to it, after an absence of eighteenyears, I have been frequently questionedconcerning America. To relieve othersfrom the trouble of inquiring, myself fromthat of answering inquiries, at the adviceof some persons of distinction, I haveapplied my mind to writing this li